Chapter 44.1

Translated by Aviana

After Lin Qingwan came back this time, she found that the quality of the food at home has yet again decreased, even worse than before. The rice in the meals has also changed to mixed coarse cereals, and the portion per individual also seemed to has dwindled a lot.

Here the Chinese term used for mixed cereals was 杂粮 (záliáng). Which usually refers to various minor coarse cereals other than five major crops (soybeans ( 豆 ), wheat ( 麦 ), broomcorn ( 黍 ), foxtail millet ( 稷 ), and rice). The mixed cereals include sorghum, millet, buckwheat, naked oats, naked barley, mung beans, kidney beans, fava beans, cowpea, lentils job’s tears, amaranth, and the likes.

What she didn’t know was as Yang Tiezhu sustained injuries this time and didn’t get any silver, as such in order to pool 50 silver taels for Yang Tiezhu, He-shi, and Yang laoyezi had to sell a good amount of the food cereals at home. He-shi’s private savings were also nearly hallowed out. As such, the quality of the food at home has diminished had lot.

老 爷子 (lǎoyézi): polite appellation for an elderly male

Yang Tiezhu gave out a bitter laugh in his heart. For He-shi to give him preferential treatment? That’s even harder than reaching the sky.

比登天 还难 (bǐdēngtiānháinán): lit. even harder than reaching the sky (idiom) / fig. extremely difficult / far from an easy task

As Lin Qingwan was having the meal, various thoughts were mulling over in her heart. Finally, she made up her heart….

“Let’s get a small kitchen for ourselves, alright?” Yang Tiezhu looked at his wife, not knowing what to say.

Lin Qingwan also didn’t wait for Yang Tiezhu’s opinion. Usually, when she resolves to do something, she had to do it by any means.

“We happen to have a stove in the small cubicle. Remodeling it to build a small kitchen for you shouldn’t be much of an issue.”

After thinking for a while, Yang Tiezhu also felt it was a pretty good idea. Although he didn’t feel eating that food wasn’t much of a matter, he can’t simply oppose her idea when his wife was worried over his health. Furthermore, he also felt that the food at home was not as good as before when eating lunch today. But then, after pondering for a while, he could also understand how this all came about to be.

“Once take a look at what all need to be done. I will then speak with the third younger brother and have him help you out.”

The matter of having a small kitchen was set in such a manner.

Lin Qingwan, after thinking it over, went to the main house to speak with Yang laoyezi and He-shi.

Lin Qingwan retold the Old Doctor’s words to Yang laoyezi, saying that this time around Yang Tiezhu had barely survived by the skin of his teeth and had sustained heavy injuries and suffered severe blood loss. He has to recuperate properly. As such, they were planning to build a small kitchen for Yang Tiezhu.

Once Yang loayezi heard her words, he agreed. However, he didn’t ask Lin Qingwan if she had sufficient silver and such to build a small kitchen. While He-shi had a long face, she didn’t oppose either, merely mentioning that there is nothing at home to give them for setting up a small kitchen.

Lin Qingwan didn’t pay heed to her, and after receiving Yang laoyezi’s consent, she turned around and to go and look for Yang Tiegen. All along, Lin Qingwan’s entire face remained stiff. She neither intended to be cordial with them like before nor did she want to force herself to do so.

The only thoughts running in her brain were how she could remodel the cubicle to the small kitchen to make it much easier. She wanted to add modifications to the stove in the small cubicle, because at that time when Yang Tiezhu had the small stove built for simply boiling the water. Thus if she wanted to cook on it, it certainly would not be enough. Anyway, there was still quite a bit of left-out space in the cubicle. Thus she wanted to utilize that space to make the kitchen much more convenient.

After listening to her plan, Yao-shi discussed it with Yang Tiegen and decided to also renovate the third branch’s room just like the second branch’s room. Previously she had already intended to have a small cubicle like a second branch’s room. As such, as they are anyhow hiring a mason, they can just hire one together.

They hired the same mason that Yang Tiezhu had called previously. Although Yang Tiegen can’t build the stove platform by himself, he can nevertheless help from the side. Thus building a stove platform was soon done in the second branch’s room.

After long consideration, Lin Qingwan had tweaked the cubicle’s layout. She didn’t tweak it much, she simply had a wall built between the stove and the chamber pot to partition the two spaces into individual rooms and hung a curtain at the entrance. In the same way, she also had a small wall built by the bathtub and hung a curtain as a partition. In this manner, a separate area for bathing was also built.

Then she found a carpenter in the village and had him make a simple row of shelves near the wall, to store the commodities in the kitchen.

Once the mason was done remodeling the second branch’s room, he went to remodel the third branch’s room.

When He-shi saw some work going on in the third branch’s room, the complexion of her face changed. She immediately called Yang Tiegen to inquire. Only then did she come to know that the third branch was also building a separate cubicle for the bath. She couldn’t help but scold them for recklessly wasting the silver. But the mason had already started working; He-shi can’t just have the person go back. Knowing that it was all because of Loaer’s wife, she couldn’t but treat Lin Qingwan even more harshly.

Lin Qingwan didn’t care if He-shi was giving her a good face or not. Anyway, He-shi didn’t like her before too. If she had to wrong herself and her man in order for He-shi to give her a good face, she rather not. Besides, she had no need to get in He-shi’s and Yang laoyezi’s good graces. Currently, they were living their own lives. The only reason they were still wronging themselves to live in this manner was only that the situation forced them as such.

The kitchen was set up; however, they didn’t have much stuff. Thus, Lin Qingwan decided to go to the town.

Yao-shi also went along with Lin Qingwan. One, to accompany Lin Qingwan, and second, she was done with needlework and wanted to hand over the work. Lin Qingwan was also done embroidering the pouches, so she also took them along with her.

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