It wasn’t that Song Jin didn’t like the four children—it was just that she had transmigrated into the role of a vicious supporting female character.
When you become a side character, you must have a high level of awareness. You cannot let the protagonists develop feelings for you.
If she tried to steal the heroine’s spotlight and messed up the plot, only to be erased by the story itself, wouldn’t that be more unjust than Dou E’s grievance?
She hadn’t lived enough yet—she didn’t want to die.
All she wanted was to protect the disabled man and the four children through the famine, heal Xiao Yanzhi’s legs to secure herself a backer, and then part ways peacefully. As for getting emotionally close to the children—it was better not to.
Otherwise, if she developed feelings and later divorced Xiao Yanzhi, the children would cry and make a fuss, and she would feel bad too.
“Are you planning to use wood ash for something?”
Xiao Yanzhi had been watching her the whole time. Seeing her deliberately avoiding the children while taking six wooden bowls to scoop up ash from the fire pit, he couldn’t help but ask.
He could tell—she didn’t want to be a mother to the children.
For the past two years, her kindness toward them had not been genuine; he understood that clearly.
But now, seeing her refuse to get close to them, he felt an inexplicable tightness in his chest.
“What?” Song Jin was startled that he suddenly spoke.
However, she didn’t think much of it and only assumed he was curious about what she was doing. After a pause, she explained:
“Oh, I’m planning to extract potassium salt from wood ash.”
“Potassium salt?” Xiao Yanzhi actually just wanted to know why she was avoiding the children.
Song Jin blinked. “You don’t know what potassium salt is? I thought someone who became a scholar would know everything.”
She secretly snickered, then continued before he could respond:
“Actually, I don’t really know what potassium is either. My maternal grandfather told me that when there’s no salt, you can extract potassium salt from wood ash and use it as a substitute. He also taught me the method.”
Her maternal grandfather had already passed away, and her maternal family’s situation was unknown. By attributing it to him, there was no way for anyone to verify it.
“….”
Xiao Yanzhi, having not gotten an answer and even been lightly mocked, felt even worse.
He said gloomily, “It seems I am indeed ignorant and lacking in knowledge.”
Song Jin nodded earnestly. “You should read more. Even miscellaneous knowledge is important.”
After all, he was going to become a future prime minister—how could he govern effectively without broad learning?
“….”
That felt like another stab. Xiao Yanzhi fell silent, too depressed to speak further.
Seeing that he had stopped asking, Song Jin returned to her work.
Wood ash contains potassium carbonate. She wanted to extract potassium salt partly because plain boiled pork would be unpalatable, and partly because the villagers needed salt for their health.
For people on the road of famine, a weakened body could mean stepping halfway into the gates of death.
Although her spiritual spring water could save lives, she couldn’t expose it casually.
So she hoped that the potassium salt extracted with the spiritual spring water might still retain some of its effects.
She arranged six wooden bowls in a row, each filled halfway with clean wood ash.
Then she poured spiritual spring water into each bowl until the ash was fully submerged, stirring with a clean stick to speed up dissolution.
Once everything dissolved, she filtered the liquid.
She found the cloth bag she had brought from her original arrival and used it as a filter cloth, covering the only iron pot they had. She slowly poured the liquid from the six bowls into the pot through the cloth.
To remove impurities, she filtered it three times.
Only when the liquid became clear and transparent did she place the iron pot on a stone-built stove and heat it over a strong fire.
Not wanting to waste spiritual spring water—and remembering she had promised the children wild eggs—she also added all ten wild eggs into the pot to boil together.
During boiling, she carefully stirred the liquid continuously with a stick to prevent sediment from forming.
When the eggs were fully cooked and the liquid had reduced to less than one-tenth of its original amount, the process was complete.
“Mother! Are the wild eggs done?”
Seeing her stop the fire, Shui Shui immediately hopped over like a cheerful little rabbit.
“Mother, can we eat now?”
Huo Huo also ran over, eyes shining with hunger as he stared at the eggs and wiped his drool.
“Mother…”
“Mother…”
Mu Mu and Jin Jin had many things they wanted to say, but forgot everything the moment they got close.
Ruyi and Jixiang were not shy at all.
“Aunt! I’ve been waiting for the eggs so long my mouth is watering!”
“So have I, Aunt!”
Song Jin looked at the six children surrounding her like starving little birds—both amused and startled—and quickly began handing out the eggs while reminding them:
“It’s hot, eat slowly. Don’t rush. Later we’ll have wild boar meat too—you won’t go hungry…”
The four adopted children had never seen their adoptive mother so concerned about them before and were overjoyed.
It seemed their adoptive mother wasn’t just changed for the better—she might truly be a different person now.
But whether she had changed or been possessed, as long as she treated them well, that was enough.
Ruyi and Jixiang also smiled happily while eating.
Such a warm scene made Xiao Yanzhi’s gaze toward Song Jin grow more and more frequent.
It also made Xu Shi and Xiao Dali feel their noses turn sour.
They had originally worried that Ruyi and Jixiang might be traumatized by Yang Shi’s abuse and would refuse to interact with others in the future.
But now seeing their bright smiles, they finally felt relieved.
Xu Shi even secretly cursed that the entire old Xiao family should die on the road of famine and never appear in front of her again.
But evil tends to survive stubbornly—and the Xiao family was no exception.
After Yang Shi came up with the idea of profiting from the dead, the entire family had gone mad for wealth.
When Madam Qian and Xiao Jinlian woke up, they initially couldn’t accept being expelled.
But after hearing Xiao Yongtai say that their family might actually stumble upon buried gold and silver at the site of the rat swarm, they immediately rushed off faster than anyone else.
After all—who wouldn’t want gold?
However…
“Mother-in-law? We’ve already waited a night and half a day. When will those dead rats finally leave?”
Madam Qian looked at the rats in the distance gnawing on the remains of dead refugees, her legs trembling uncontrollably.
She was truly panicking. She had thought they would arrive and immediately pick up gold and silver treasures—but instead, hundreds or even thousands of rats were still lingering there, refusing to leave with the swarm.