She Only Cares About Cultivation

Dried vegetables sun-dried in summer, when mixed with meat and pickled cabbage glass noodles in winter, and a few pancakes are added, taste delicious.

An Yi’s life is even better, with braised chicken and mushrooms, and the big goose cooked in an iron pot, oh my, taking turns to the table, eating whatever she feels like eating.

She also has seafood she harvests from the sea, such as crabs, octopus, shellfish, kelp, seaweed, abalone, sea cucumbers, Longli fish, Sea Bream, and so on, all stored in her space. When at home, she adds some chili sauce, soybean paste, and various seasonings to stew them, making the flavor irresistible.

It’s a good thing she exercises in the space every day, growing vegetables and practicing yoga, and occasionally keeping busy with the children, so her winter "hibernation" does not lead to weight gain. But her good eating is evident, and you can’t find anyone in the whole Dingyuan County who lives like her every day.

By the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, her family’s An Xiaomei is almost three months old. Caihua and Qiuxia, seeing the way other children in the village are fed, can’t help but say,

"Sis, why don’t we let the baby drink some rice water and noodle soup? I’ve seen breastfed babies having some!"

An Yi refused: "Let’s wait until she’s four months old before adding anything. No rush, we have baby formula at home; let her drink pure milk for another month, and after four months, we’ll add a meal of rice porridge or boiled egg each day. No rush, let’s take it slow, otherwise, her stomach might get overburdened."

Actually, Caihua and Qiuxia both think An Yi raises her child too meticulously. Kids these days, where are they that delicate?

But since it’s not them feeding, and the expenses for raising this child are mostly covered by An Yi, they seem to have no right to question.

"The kid in our family is really well-fed, look, fair and chubby, yet clean, and even though she’s so fat, she doesn’t have neck rashes, nor a red diaper rash, it’s really strange,"

They wouldn’t know; An Ran bathes her every day. Because the child is young, Liang Tian made an exception, allowing her to bathe the child in the space, after all, the space maintains a constant temperature of 24 degrees. Even though the room has a kang, the temperature is hard to keep up. If the child catches a cold, it wouldn’t be worth it, so she had to entreat both grandpa and grandma and beg that heartless Liang Tian for a long time.

Because Liang Tian made this exception, she went a step further, tossing the child into the space while busy, letting her lie on the grass, absorbing the essence of space’s sun and moon, fresh Spiritual Energy, to enhance resistance.

"Sis, I asked Da Niu, she said now they can have enough to eat,"

The Da Niu mentioned by Caihua is Zhang Ying’s eldest daughter.

"Able to eat enough, but not necessarily eating well, right? I see the three kids are dressed in rags and are dirty, that old lady must have never cared for them!"

"Indeed, they just manage to eat, as for clothing, the eight-year-old Da Niu washes them herself. How clean can a child wash? Not only washing herself, but she also has to wash for that drunken father of hers, really pitiful. Yet, compared to how they started, it’s already much improved."

Caihua sighed, "Even when her mom was around, she never had enough to eat like now."

This shows how pitiful this girl is without any pampering. The more they think about it, the more they believe leaving home was the wisest decision.

Out of sympathy, Caihua often invites her over for some tofu pudding and a piece of hot tofu, and those kids are endlessly grateful, even licking the bowl clean. The sisters who make tofu every day might find it commonplace, but in others’ eyes, it is considered quite a delicacy.

To keep them from disturbing her, An Yi lets them make tofu skin at home. It requires constant attention over the fire, so except for a visit around Noon, they mostly have to mind their own tofu skin. After being skimmed out, it needs drying. Even though it’s winter, and cold outside, to keep themselves occupied, they’ve strung many ropes in the yard for drying. Once nearly dry, the tofu skin is moved to a room with a heated kang for final drying. Overall, the results are pretty good.

Because dried tofu skin can be preserved for a long time, even if not sold, it can be consumed by themselves.

With her ample space, An Yi plans to purchase these tofu skins. They are made from pure natural beans, good stuff indeed.

So she trades cereals, chicken, duck, goose meat, or various eggs with them.

"My friend has channels to sell them; what do you want? Pork is hard to arrange, but chicken, duck, goose, and eggs are plentiful, coarse grains included. I don’t recommend taking money; the denominations look large, but to buy a chicken, you have to carry a stack of cash. Isn’t that tiring? Fifty thousand yuan would only buy two chickens or twenty kilograms of rice. With such severe inflation, money is the least useful."