Before the steamed buns gained a reputation, their daily sales wouldn’t be very high. Lu Yang figured they could use other goods to draw in foot traffic and pad their daily income. Maybe after a month, they’d actually manage to save up enough money.
Xie Yan asked, “Like a general store?”
Lu Yang thought for a moment and replied, “Kind of, but not really. We’re more like traveling vendors with a fixed stall—we don’t own our inventory.”
He was trying to save up money quickly, so he couldn’t afford to buy too much upfront. In the beginning, he’d have to do a lot of sweet-talking to suppliers, and that wasn’t something Xie Yan was good at handling.
Judging by the sky, he might not even manage it today himself.
Xie Yan offered, “I’ll go to the East Gate to buy flour and meat. You go talk to suppliers. Let Sha Zhu watch the store and sell vegetables.”
Sha Zhu, who was driving the cart, panicked: “???”
He turned his head with wide eyes. “I—I don’t know how to sell vegetables!”
Lu Yang ignored him and asked Xie Yan, “You’re going to the East Gate—do you know who to look for?”
Xie Yan didn’t. But ever since they got married, he’d gained a lot of contacts. He just needed Lu Yang to point him in the right direction.
Lu Yang looked down in thought. Xie Yan was taking the initiative, and he wanted to give him a chance to prove himself—to build confidence, to know he was capable and useful to their little household.
But then Lu Yang considered that with just these vegetables, even if he went to the East Gate to sell, it wouldn’t bring in much. He still owed people favors. If the veggies didn’t sell well there, the trip would be a bust and they’d lose money. It made more sense to sell near the shop.
So he told Xie Yan, “Go find Brother Luo over there. His family’s around. If he’s not in, be nice to Sister-in-law Luo and see if she’ll take you around.”
Xie Yan committed it to memory.
The wind howled as they traveled, and after giving directions, Lu Yang stopped talking. Too much chatter meant swallowing icy wind, which made his stomach churn.
Once they were inside the city, past a few streets and around a residential block, they arrived at the Xie family’s storefront.
They used the back door to open the shop while Xie Yan watched the time and prepared to leave. The donkey refused to go inside.
Lu Yang worried. Xie Yan didn’t have much real-world experience and looked too delicate and naive. Sending him alone into an unfamiliar part of town made him uneasy.
“You know how to drive the cart?” Lu Yang asked. “Want me to have Sha Zhu go with you?”
Sha Zhu immediately stopped unloading vegetables, his eyes lighting up as he stared at Xie Yan.
Being with Xie Yan was so much more relaxing than being stuck with Lu Yang.
Xie Yan declined. “I’ve got it.”
He could ride a horse—guiding a donkey cart was child’s play.
Lu Yang asked again, “You’re not scared going alone?”
Xie Yan smiled. His eyes lit up, but it wasn’t a look Lu Yang was familiar with. There wasn’t that sparkly-eyed joy or sun-bright enthusiasm. It was a quieter kind of warmth, subdued but steady.
And that little warmth made Lu Yang’s heart burn.
Xie Yan leaned in and gently kissed Lu Yang on the forehead. “I’m not a kid.”
Lu Yang got the message immediately.
He wasn’t a child. He was a man—Lu Yang’s man.
Lu Yang touched his own face, but his gloved hand couldn’t feel a thing. He pulled off the glove and tried again—his cheeks were burning hot.
Xie Yan caught a glimpse of his bare hand, seemed to remember something, and grabbed it—then kissed the back of it.
It was the same spot where Lu Yang had once forced a kiss on him.
Same place, same gesture.
Lu Yang felt like he was about to catch fire, body and soul.
Unbelievable. His refined scholar of a husband actually knew how to flirt.
This kind of progress was outrageous—no one should be this smart.
Lu Yang wasn’t going to let him win. He chomped on Xie Yan’s cheek in return, as if to taste what a “delicate-skinned, flavor-packed” top scholar was like, then shoved him away.
“Hurry up! If you’re late, I’m heading home with Sha Zhu!”
That sounded like a real threat. Xie Yan got the message.
His husband was only allowed to go home with him.
He grabbed the reins and drove the donkey cart like the wind.
…………………………………
After stocking up for the New Year, the house was full of fish and meat, and there were still eggs, flour, cured meats, and other goods Li Feng had brought back earlier. When Lu Liu walked into the kitchen, he felt wrapped in a thick blanket of happiness.
He circled around once, not knowing what to cook first—it was all good food. He was so happy, he didn’t know what to do with himself!
He was determined to take good care of Da Feng and make sure he ate well every single day.
That morning, after sending Li Feng off, Lu Liu had promised to clean out the pig stomach and start making stew for Mother every few days. Once he finished tidying the kitchen, he soaked the dirty laundry in hot water and began planning their meals.
In a household, aside from major expenses like building a house, weddings, buying land, or medical bills, the rest mostly came down to food.
When Lu Liu cooked, he leaned into his strengths—precise control over seasonings—which helped save even the tiniest bit of money.
He kept thinking about how hard Li Feng worked to support the family, and since he had no way to earn money himself, he wanted to contribute in his own way—by saving on food.
Li Feng was strong and had started making rice cakes again—physically demanding work. He couldn’t go without salt or meat.
Back when Lu Liu cooked at home, he could stretch one piece of meat across several meals. First, he’d render it in a pan to get the oil, then scoop some of the fat out. After the vegetables were stir-fried, he’d take the meat out, too. That same meat and oil could go into the next dish. If the meat was thoroughly fried and crisp, he’d chop it up and fry it with pickled vegetables.
But now, with someone like Li Feng in the house—someone capable and proud—he had to be careful not to go overboard. If Li Feng realized how stingy he was being, he might get offended, thinking Lu Liu was looking down on him.
So, Lu Liu decided—one piece of meat should be used twice, at most.
Li Feng wasn’t a meat glutton. If the vegetables were cooked well, he could polish off the whole plate and still eat two bowls of rice. But good veggie dishes needed a decent amount of oil.
So Lu Liu figured he could stir-fry the greens first, then take out the meat afterward for soup or to fry with pickled vegetables.
Last time he rescued a batch of pickled veggies, and Li Feng really liked them.
Pickled vegetables shouldn’t be eaten every day, but they also shouldn’t be entirely absent. Every few days, Lu Liu would make a batch, using the pre-fried meat chopped finely to replace fresh or cured meat. That way, over the course of a year, they could save a decent amount of money.
Add some diced tofu in there too, and it’d stretch even more.
Meat slices in soup were also great. Li Feng didn’t like drinking plain water, and his mouth often felt dry in the winter. Soup with a little meat flavor tricked him into staying hydrated.
Also, after eating vegetable and egg noodles for several meals in a row, Li Feng got bored and complained they were too bland. This morning, he even added half a bowl of pickled vegetables into his noodles. That made Lu Liu feel anxious.
Li Feng liked fish soup. But even that had a light flavor. Lu Liu guessed that Li Feng preferred stronger, richer soup bases—adding a fried egg to the broth still wasn’t cutting it.
Once they had pork bones, chicken, or duck, he was going to make bone broth noodles for Li Feng to try.
One pot of bone broth, based on Li Feng’s appetite, would be gone in two meals at most. But noodle soup was different—he could add water to stretch it. As long as he controlled how much water he added, he could make that same pot of broth stretch to three meals without losing too much flavor.
If he could get one more meal out of a pot of soup, that meant saving on one meal’s worth of ingredients.
Of course, while soup was nourishing, it couldn’t always be stretched to the max. He’d still have to set aside some of the pork bones as food for Erhuang. They’d deal with that when the time came.
With all that clear in his mind, and the laundry now sufficiently soaked, Lu Liu got to work for the day.
Li Feng had a lot of internal heat and sweat easily, so his clothes needed soaking before they could be properly washed.
Luckily, they had plenty of firewood and water at home. Li Feng had told him to just use hot water at home to wash everything.
Several rooms were piled full of firewood, and their water jars were filled to the brim. Lu Liu didn’t need to skimp.
Washing clothes with hot water made the cold breeze in the yard feel less biting. His face was glowing with a quiet, contented smile.
Once the clothes were hung out to dry, he wiped his hands and went to clean the pig stomach.
Lu Liu had never eaten pig stomach before—it was too expensive. He could never afford it back then.
But he roughly knew how to clean it. His family used to eat pork offal all the time. Cleaning it thoroughly followed more or less the same process.
First, you had to scrub it several times with stove ash. Snow was also good for cleaning—after scrubbing with ash, you grabbed a handful of snow and scrubbed again. Then, rinse thoroughly with clean water.
Lu Liu looked at the pig stomach, now coated with stove ash. It would take more than one or two rinses to get it clean. Using water from the jars would be wasteful, so he grabbed a bamboo basket and carried it to the river.
There weren’t many people doing laundry by the river in winter. He found a spot and, just like washing clothes, laid the pig stomach on a flat stone and scrubbed it clean—rinse, scrub, rinse, scrub—repeating the process five or six times until his hands were frozen red.
It was so cold.
He carried the cleaned pig stomach home, and by the time he got back, it was nearly noon.
