Chapter 43 | Ink East

When a Virtuous Lady Advances (2)

This issue regarding the name could be discussed in time to come. I decided that I definitely would not fight with him over this issue now and prioritized first to getting along with him for now. At least it showed that Fang Yuke was planning ahead for the future. As such, I straightforwardly replied, “We don’t need to think about things that are too far ahead in the future. We won’t know what the future holds for us, why go looking for trouble?”

With one shake of his hand, Fang Yuke sprinkled more salt.

Tan Yi was extremely resentful towards the plate of crab meat tofu on the table - that would thirst a person to death.

In the future, when I was together with Fang Yuke, I would be able to gorge happily on food and indulge myself in fine dining without caring about my image at all. However, my status was increasing right now in order to show the strength of my adaptability. I could be crazy and I could also be demure; I started to eat gracefully. It was written on those healthcare books that you had to chew your food 36 times before swallowing. Generally speaking, I wouldn’t allow the food to spend too much time inside my mouth. The mouth was merely a fleeting corridor. After the food had passed this corridor, it would quickly enter my tummy. The sudden desire to eat slowly was definitely not comfortable for my mouth and the food accidentally entered my tummy, causing my mouth to chew emptily and thus it was extremely uncomfortable.

Fang Yuke gave me another piece of pork rib, “Does it not taste good?”

I shook my head, “No, it’s really very good.” You shouldn’t talk while you’re eating, don’t you even know that?

Fang Yuke ladled out another bowl of egg soup, “If it’s salty, you should drink more soup. The soup I made today is relatively lighter.”

I smiled, and slowly lifted the bowl to drink a mouthful.

Tan Yi turned his head to look at me, “Xiao Ke’s sister-in-law, you’re not eating with the style as you usually do.”

I glared at him and hinted at him not to look for trouble.

“In the past, when we ate together, wouldn’t you eat every single thing? Right now, the way you’re eating makes you look as if you’ve committed some crime. Don’t tell me that the food isn’t delicious. If you have any ability, you should cook the next meal.”

I decided to cut it all down in one strike. This Lady Boss has only managed to act as a demure lady with much difficulty, why would you tear away my mask to reveal my true colors?

“Don’t tell me you’re trying to pretend to be demure? There’s no need, no need. Even if you farted right now, Brother Xiao Ke would say that it smells good.” Tan Yi ignored my glances and continued to say.

“You’re the one who’s going to fart!” I could stand it no longer and finally exploded. When the word ‘fart’ came out, the rice grains exploded out of my mouth with great precision, landing nicely on Tan Yi’s nose.

Tan Yi yelled, “Ah- Brother Xiao Ke, how could you find someone like this! Even someone who’s acting demure would act until this state.”

After this happened, I felt a little bit embarrassed. At first, I still could be called a female but it was because I could not stand that this second character had actually said that I would fart at this moment, even holding on to my nose, I still could not help but laugh. As such, I was incomparably embarrassed, and like a shrewd wife, I pretended to be anxious, “Who did you say is acting demure? I, your older sister, was born a demure and beautiful Jeanne d’Arc!”

Tan Yi used the napkin to wipe his nose and mumbled, “Yeah, everyone yelling in the hawker centre is a demure and beautiful Jeanne d’Arc. All the males in China are really lucky.”

I was completely exasperated and placed my hands on my hips and roared, “Tan Yi, I curse you so that your future son will be born without an asshole.” After saying this, I was immediately flooded with remorse. I had initially wanted to pose as a demure lady, but now I had turned into a vixen. Was that necessary?

Despite how I was surrounded by women who had poisonous tongues, my standard was actually not at their level. It was because I was feeling especially moody and I was at the point where it was impossible for me to hold back that I had let the chips fall and could only let out a single word “Damn” without a single ounce of vigor. I was completely out of options and looked extremely desolate. When I was young, I had been punished to copy out 30 pages of the textbook because the class monitor had ratted on me. The only thing I could do in retaliation was to go to the corner of the classroom wall to write on it with chalk: The class monitor is a bastard turtle. And beside it, I drew a picture of a turtle. As such, I could resonate with one of the iron-willed characters from the Stephen Chow movie ‘Hail the Judge’, who would fiercely curse and swear at the people while still being highly esteemed. I fantasized all day long about how I would also one day rule over the mountains and the seas, spectacularly cursing at people until the heavens and earth turned. It was a pity that my dream was quite beautiful while reality was bitter. And so my curses had no power.

Tan Yi threw away his napkin, and in the face of the threat of having a child born without an asshole, roared in anger, “Your son is the one who will be born without an asshole!”

Fang Yuke stood up angrily and slapped his head, “Who are you talking about?!”

Tan Yi pouted in grievance, “The two of you only know how to bully me. It’s so clear that she was the one who started it.”

Fang Yuke sat down replied steadily, “If your sister-in-law wants to act like a demure lady, you should just let her. Would you rather her be like now, cursing and swearing at you? Was it easy for her to just eat quietly for half an hour? For what reasons did you decide to provoke her?”

I used my chopsticks to rap on the side of my bowl in irritation: “When was I acting? I am clearly the perfect and beautiful lady from those traditional families.”

Tan Yi groaned, “You have already discarded more than half of our celery yet you still claim to be the perfect wife from a traditional family. If you have the ability, you should cook my next meal.”

“No problem. I’ll make you an entire full course meal. After you’ve eaten the food that I’ve made, you are no longer allowed to mock me.”

Tan Yi and I sealed the deal with a high-five, “As long as the both of us can eat an entire bowl of the food you made, I won’t say a single word in the future and I will look upon you as a goddess. However, if you can’t do it, I’ll tell the whole world about how you spit out rice just now.”

My mother had taught me from young, although one could afford to offend a prince, one could not afford to offend a scoundrel. Especially those who were petty. When Tan Yi had been on the the receiving end of me spitting out my rice, and had also had his son cursed to be born without some necessary organs, he had already set himself up as an enemy.

In the afternoon, I took advantage of the time they spent revising to secretly go on the web to steal some simple recipes and give myself a crash course in cooking. I took the initiative to filter all all those sophisticated dishes that required 3 or more ingredients. Eventually, I decided to cook the following dishes: Tofu with Spring Onions, boiled Green Soybeans, Scrambled Eggs with fresh Tomatoes and clear Persimmon soup. All only required 3 ingredients. If he complained that the dishes were enough, I would buy him 500g of peanuts.

After calculations, I continued to lie on the sofa with a clear conscience while pondering about the pet names that Fang Yuke and I would give each other. I didn’t think that after lunch had passed, my brain would lack oxygen. Before 3 minutes had even passed, I had fallen into a deep sleep. My dream contained lush forests and flowers, while I was dressed comfortably in a light and gentle cotton long-sleeved shirt, accompanied by the Chinese Moon Rabbit. I sat comfortably beside a guzheng, as my slender jade fingers glided along the guzheng. It completed the image of bliss. Suddenly, Fang Yuke ran over and said, “Are you tired from carrying this? Actually, all you need to do is to be alive, it’s not necessary for you to turn yourself into a demure lady.” I immediately replied, “You should have said so earlier, so that I wouldn’t have had to suffer so much.” After saying this, I released a set of flames and burnt away the guzheng. I also slaughtered the Moon Rabbit. I roasted it and doused it with alcohol before eating it. Fang Yuke said in terror, “You were actually this kind of merciless person. You really cannot judge a book by its cover. If I marry you, I wouldn’t know whether or not you would one day assassinate me. I think we should break up.”

I awoke with a start and appeared completely depressed.

When I arrived home, I immediately headed towards the kitchen to cultivate a relationship between the oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar in order to avoid the situation of being unable to differentiate them all tomorrow. Of course I had some semblance of general knowledge and knew that tomorrow would not turn out like some kind of drama where the unknown and obscure Ccinderella would be able to present a full course meal with but a wave of her hand. Where every person who had partook of her dishes would prostrate themselves under her feetshirt in worship, clapping in disbelief and admiration. This was my ultimate goal: I could embarrass myself, but not too much.

When my mother saw me in the kitchen, it was like she had seen an alien: “What food are you thinking of stealing?”

My mother was a person of experience, in her words, she had drunk more water than I had ever used to bathe. I asked my mother, “Mum, when you were young, if you happened to encounter a situation where you really didn’t feel like cooking but you had no choice but to cook something, what food would you generally cook for us?”

My mother immediately started to reflect upon a time, 20 over years ago, where she did not have enough income to spend. At the end of the month, she had to relyreply on her own parents to tide her through the season., “At that time, (500 words omitted) in order to save money for food, I had made Soy Sauce Bibimbap for you before.”

“How do you make said Bibimbap?”

“That’s super simple, you just have to pour some soy sauce into the rice.”

“You don’t need any other flavoring?”

“If you really have to add more flavouring, you could add in some chicken salt or the like.”

Woah, I decided that the meal for tomorrow would definitely be this. I canould guarantee 100% that tomorrow’s food would definitely end up burnt or mashedmushed into a paste. If I just had to add some seasoning, I could, at the very least, pass.

On the next day, I brought along a bag of green soybeans, 3 tomatoes, an egg, a block of tofu and 2 small shallots and entered Tan Yi’s door.

Tan Yi took a look at my ingredients and let out a loud sigh, “I think that you might as well just crush me to death with that tofu and forget about it.”

Fang Yuke smoothed out my hair, “I specially brought along 3 bags of microwavable food. You can cook your food without fear or restraint.”

WHY?! Why did no one have faith in me? When I heard about the microwavable food, even I felt a wave of happiness.

Fang Yuke and Tan Yi studied chemistry on the table in the living room while I continued to study the recipes that I had printed out yesterday.

In the recipes, I used a red highlighter to highlight the key steps of “removing the tomato skin”, “green soybeans with star anise” and “cut slices of tofu”.

I washed the tomato before I started to peel it. I actually had a lot of patience when I first started but as the time continued to tick past and the tomato slowly release a sweet smell, I could not help but to salivate. After peeling only half of the tomato, furthermore the side of the tomato that had been peeled was quite bumpy, it started to look like the spitting image of something like a skin disease or a face infested with acne.

Fang Yuke shook his head and said, “You should first soak the tomato in some hot water then it’ll be easiery to peel.”

It was as if I had gleaned some super precious information and eagerly ran into the kitchen to grab some hot water. Looking at how easily the tomato’s outer clothes were removed, I broke out into a lecherous smile.

After entering the kitchen, I began to cook the dishes one by one.

I started with the green soybeans: 3 litres of water, add in the star anise, add in the salt, add in the green soybeans and boil until it’s done.

Shallot Tofu: Slice the tofu, add shallots, add salt, add sesame oil then fry it together.

After that, the Scrambled Eggs with fresh Tomato: Add oil, add the egg, add tomatoes, add salt and fry it together.

Finally, the clear persimmon soup: you just had to add a litre of water to the persimmons and eggs and finally add in another egg.

The rice depended on the accuracy of the measurements of the rice cooker and it was actually neither mushy nor burnt. I hesitantly picked up the soy sauce bottle, and was unsure of whether or not I should stick to the original plan. I eventually thought about how I had studied German and the focus of Germans research had always been that a plan would result in success. So I decided to add in a bit of soy sauce into the rice bowl and mixed it around with the rice paddle.

I would rather die than to be the first one to try this, this kind of thing required one to sacrifice their taste buds. This kind of thing which required one to sacrifice their taste buds in the name of food should be left to Tan Yi.

The three of us sat around the table and neither of us moved to pick up the chopsticks. I believed that everyone was thinking over the same question as me: who would be the first unlucky person?

I realised that it would not do to continue this deadlock and said to Tan Yi, “Didn’t you say that you wanted to try eating my food? Why have you not started yet?”

Tan Yi sucked in a breath, “Actually, I really feel like eating meat. It’s a pity that you didn’t make any. Why don’t we leave these dishes for later…”

I felt that this suggested was raised very well. “How could I not have thought of this. If I had known earlier, I would have made some items like braised pork, sweet and sour pork, Xi Hu vinegar fish. If we go outside to eat, you can’t say that I’ve lost. You haven’t even eaten a bite before you say that you want to abstain from voting. I will also take it as if I have not won. In the future, you just have to treat me better towards an suitable level and it will be fine.”

Tan Yi said passionately, “Sister-in-law, it’s lucky that I met you, in the future, my standards for finding a lover have been drastically reduced. Basically, as long as she is a female, I will accept her.”

Fang Yuke saw the two us singing to the tune of the other and rapped his knuckles on the table, “I’ll heat up the microwavable food in the oven. There’s Kung Pao Chicken, Steamed Pork with Plum and things like that. It can be counted as meat. Linlin has made these dishes with much difficulty, we should eat a few bites. We have to give a novice a bit of encouragement.”

In the end, I looked at Fang Yuke, this warrior, who placed a bite of the Scrambled eggs with fresh Tomato into his mouth with much composure, and watched as he chewed it over mechanically. He swallowed it calmly and I also hesitantly placed a piece into my mouth and calmly swallowed it after chewing. Tan Yi looked at us skeptically and decided to try a piece. When he placed it into his mouth, Fang Yuke and I simultaneously rushed desperately to the side of the drink dispenser to pour out two cups of water. As if he was in a martial arts film, Tan Yi clutched his stomach as if he had eaten poison and extended a single finger. With his last breath, he gasped, “I never thought that the two of you would be so childish -” After which, he twisted his neck and collapsed on the table.

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