Transmigrated as an Unwanted Ugly Girl

Seeing that Zhang Yang hadn’t noticed the unwrapped lotus leaves on the cutting board at all, Huai Zi laughed. "Even just by taste, you should’ve noticed a hint of lotus leaf, right? So where are the leaves?"

Zhang Yang finally noticed the lotus leaves on the cutting board and had a flash of insight. "I thought it was steamed, but I wasn’t entirely sure—if you steamed it directly, it wouldn’t be this dry. So it was wrapped in lotus leaves and then steamed. That explains it!"

He looked incredibly pleased with himself, as if he’d just solved a puzzle.

Huai Zi and Juhua looked at each other, stunned, and suddenly burst out laughing!

They both shouted at Zhang Yang at the same time, "You’re really something else!"

When Zhang Dashuan and He saw their younger son go into the kitchen, the laughter from inside grew even louder. Suspicious, the couple finished tidying the courtyard and securing the chickens and ducks for the night before heading into the kitchen themselves. He asked with a smile, "Why isn’t the food on the table yet? All we can hear is you laughing. What’s so funny?"

Juhua stifled her laughter and explained what had happened. And so, a new round of the guessing game began.

Zhang Dashuan’s guess was even more outrageous. He claimed it had been roasted while wrapped in lotus leaves.

He couldn’t resist rolling her eyes at him. "Wouldn’t that just burn the leaves to a crisp? Look, these lotus leaves are perfectly fine. I bet it’s just like Yangzi said—wrapped in lotus leaves and steamed."

Zhang Dashuan stubbornly retorted, "If you wrap something around the outside of the leaves, they won’t burn!" Then, his eyes fell on some mud still clinging to the leaves. He immediately pointed it out, shouting, "See? What did I say? Isn’t this yellow mud? Juhua must have coated the lotus leaves with the same yellow mud used for curing duck eggs, wrapped the chicken inside, and roasted it! No, wait, roasting it isn’t simple. It was baked. It must have been buried in the embers of a fire to bake!"

Zhang Yang glanced at the lotus leaves after hearing this and saw it was true. He immediately grinned and shouted to Huai Zi and Juhua, "Dad, you’re a genius!"

The family roared with laughter, doubling over until they could barely breathe. Once they finally calmed down, they set the table in the courtyard and began to eat.

When the meal was over, Zhang Dashuan gloated, "None of you could figure it out, but your old dad did! See? The older the ginger, the spicier the flavor!"

Juhua and Huai Zi snickered to themselves. He rolled her eyes at her husband before saying to Juhua, "We should cook this way more often from now on. It saves firewood and effort, and you don’t have to bother with stir-frying. It’s so much simpler! And it tastes great."

Zhang Yang nodded eagerly. "It’s delicious this way! There just wasn’t enough. I’m still hungry. Big Sis Juhua, you should stuff some mushrooms and Huangdou soybeans in the chicken next time. That would add a lot more to eat."

Juhua nodded. "There’s still one more. My mother sent over two chickens. I was planning to red-braise the other one tomorrow. I was afraid it might spoil, so I rubbed it with salt and have it chilling in the well. Why don’t we cook it the same way? We can bury it in the embers overnight and eat it tomorrow."

He quickly said, "Now that you’ve explained it, I know what to do! I’ll get the chicken ready, you go rest. Dashuan," she said to her husband, "go pick two more big lotus leaves. We just finished boiling water for baths, so the embers under the stove are perfect."

Zhang Dashuan got up and went to the lotus pond to pick the leaves, while He went to prepare the chicken. Meanwhile, as Juhua was clearing the dishes, she suddenly remembered there was a bucket of fresh peaches chilling in the well. She quickly asked Huai Zi to pull it up; they would be perfect for a post-dinner refreshment.

Zhang Huai pulled up the bucket. Looking at the bright red peaches, He remarked admiringly, "Planting them a year earlier really makes a difference. Look how wonderful these peaches are! We probably won’t get any from our own trees until next year."

Chilled by the well water, the peaches were refreshingly sweet and juicy. Huai Zi took a bite and smiled. "The ones out front are almost ready, too. It’s just hard to look after them when they aren’t in your own yard. The neighborhood kids pick them before they’re ripe, otherwise the trees would be just as full as yours."

Juhua frowned. "Kids can be thoughtless. I’ll have to go have a word with them. Picking the peaches when they’re still so green is such a waste. It’s not like we wouldn’t let them have some once they’re ripe."

This was exactly why no one planted fruit trees outside their own property. No one would take them seriously, much less care for them. You were lucky if they weren’t destroyed.

After they finished the peaches, Juhua gathered up the pits. She tugged on Huai Zi’s sleeve. "Let’s go over to my parents’ place and check on the cow. I feel like she’s going to give birth soon." The cow Zheng Changhe had bought got pregnant late last year and was due in a few months.

He laughed. "It won’t be that soon. She won’t calve until around October. A cow’s pregnancy lasts eleven months to be full-term."

Juhua chuckled. "Seeing that big belly of hers just makes me anxious. Why won’t she just give birth already? It would be wonderful if she had twins." Laughing, the two of them headed out toward the Zheng Family’s home.

Zheng Changhe took meticulous care of the pregnant cow. He didn’t let her work at all, renting another ox to plow the rice paddies and using his horses for the dry fields. He was also diligent about taking her out to graze every morning and evening. The Zheng Family had quite the menagerie now: two horses, a cow, a flock of chickens and ducks, cats and dogs that fought all day, and a pig that was much more refined—all it did was eat and sleep, and sleep and eat.

Inside the cowshed, Juhua lit a small torch. She watched the large-bellied cow munching peacefully on fresh grass and asked Zheng Changhe eagerly, "Dad, will she really not give birth until around October? When she does, it’ll be okay if I take a little milk to boil and drink, won’t it?"

Zheng Changhe held a large cattail-leaf fan, waving it to shoo mosquitoes and flies away from Juhua. "It’s no problem," he said with a smile. "I’m taking such good care of her, she’ll definitely produce more milk than the calf can drink. It might be a tight squeeze if she has twins, though. But that doesn’t matter. If my daughter wants milk, her calves can just drink a little less."

Juhua let out a snort of laughter. SLAP! She smacked a mosquito on her wrist. "These mosquitoes are the worst," she complained. "Even burning mugwort doesn’t help. Why are there so many? Look, there’s a thick layer of them floating in that water jar. Ugh! It makes my skin crawl just looking at it. The cow covers herself in mud so they can’t bite her, which just sends them flying everywhere else." (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to support it with recommendation votes and monthly passes on qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation.)