She Lives without Regret in This Life

So the father and son duo went for a run around the village, their reputation in the ten miles and eight villages was so fearsome that even the children could be cried into silence. Whenever a child cried at night, just saying "Little Yama is coming" was a surefire way to make them stop crying.

Today, the two of them running together around the village surely gave the villagers quite a fright. Previously, whenever Zhao Lanzhi was bullied, it was Xu Xianxiong who stepped forward, and he had a habit of first stepping on whoever's turf he was targeting.

So everyone was afraid of getting stepped on by Xu Xianxiong, as being targeted by him was no joking matter.

Just yesterday, Lanzhi had been beaten up by Li Erhua, and today, even Little Yama himself had shown up.

Just look at Little Yama's build, his gaze, his aura... many times more formidable than his father's. Forget it! From now on, better take a detour whenever encountering the Xu family. Each one looked like a fierce deity or evil spirit. Yesterday, Little Yama's wife had also shown she was no simple woman, almost scaring Li Erhua witless with a kitchen knife. No one had seen a woman so fierce before, appearing so gentle and frail, yet unexpectedly ruthless and ferocious.

Indeed, birds of a feather flock together.

Sheng Ning didn't dare to laze in bed either. After getting up and washing herself, she promptly entered the kitchen to start cooking. She boiled some millet porridge with firewood, letting it slowly simmer until the fragrance of the millet wafted through the pot cover.

With ready-made flour, she mixed it with green onions and eggs to create a batter and made a few egg pancakes, which looked particularly appetising coupled with the vibrant green onions. Every rural household had their pickled vegetables, but Sheng Ning turned her place upside down and couldn't find any.

When everything was ready, she was stunned. This... there were no side dishes to accompany the meal, was this how her mother-in-law lived?

Never mind, fortunately there was still some leftover cabbage from the feast. She made a simple hot and sour pickled cabbage. By the time she was done, Xu Xianxiong and his son had just come back from their run.

"Dad, go wash your hands and we can eat shortly." Sheng Ning, wearing an apron, carried all the food to the dining table.

Xu Xianxiong was so excited he was on the verge of tears of joy. Wonderful! Truly worthy of the daughter-in-law he personally chose. His insight was exceptional, truly one in a thousand! Most importantly, he would never have to cook again.

"What have you made?"

"Scallion egg pancakes and millet porridge, and I also made a separate batch of Yangzhou fried rice in case you guys were still hungry."

"What fried rice?"

"Yangzhou fried rice." Sheng Ning went back to the kitchen and brought another tray, perfectly prepared Yangzhou fried rice. Today, it was because there were some leftover edges and corners of ingredients from hosting the feast at home. Otherwise, it would not have been possible to make Yangzhou fried rice in a Northern village during winter.

Sheng Ning's Yangzhou fried rice was authentically made, requiring very firm cooked rice mixed with carrots, eggs, luncheon meat, peas, and even shrimp, all fried together. The rice had to be fried until each grain was glistening and translucent, the shrimp bright and shiny, the carrots tender... without peas, she used other green vegetables to complement.

A Yangzhou fried rice dish that seemed all too common somehow looked tantalising and full of flavour.

Xu Xianxiong suddenly found himself unable to move, his eyes glued to the fried rice.

"Ningning, this fried rice of yours must be delicious when did you make it, and when will we eat?"

"As soon as Mom wakes up, we can eat."

"I'll go call her." Xu Xianxiong ran back to his east room like a whirlwind.

The more time Sheng Ning spent in this home, the more she liked it. To have met such a good mother-in-law was truly fortunate; just thinking about how every time it was the father-in-law who got up to cook and the mother-in-law who slept until mealtime gave her a sense of returning to the future.

This must be true love!