Chapter 168: Braised Mutton

She was used to gaining everyone’s sympathy in the village and thought that she could handle anyone. Unexpectedly, Ye Lulu and the three children held more weight than her. Even Guan Chibei, who was originally a laborer in the city, might not be fooled by her tricks.

She had even acted repeatedly here.

Guan Chibei’s patience with her existence had reached its limit.

Liu Ya’s lips were trembling.

After Guan Chibei scolded her with extremely harsh words, he even asked her to look for Sixth Uncle Li…

He was insulting her!

In the end, Liu Ya trembled and fled from the Guan family’s backyard.

Guan Chibei entered the house and met Ye Lulu’s eyes. He even said, “It looks like we really need to build a wall at home.”

Otherwise, anyone could enter.

It was annoying.

Ye Lulu’s lips trembled slightly and she wanted to smile so badly. She really wanted to burst out laughing!

After Liu Ya left, Guan Chibei acted as if nothing had happened. He went to the chicken pen in the backyard to do some things before leaving for the city.

At the meat market, he bought five catties of mutton. When he brought the meat into the village, the villagers were shocked again!

They all surrounded him and asked him where he had gotten the mutton and if he had bought it with money from hunting.

Guan Chibei replied calmly, “I exchanged money for mutton. My wife wants to eat it.”

Following that, he added, “It’s going to be winter soon. I’ll be stocking up on goods to prepare for winter. Not only will there be this mutton, but I’ll also continue to hunt.”

Then, under the envious discussions of everyone, he walked back to the Guan family.

He wasn’t saying this casually. He was preempting that he would go hunting in the mountains next and prepare for winter. He didn’t want the villagers to be shocked when they saw him return with a lot of prey.

He was letting the villagers discuss this first so that they would not have such a huge reaction later on.

If he hunted a lot of prey back, the village would definitely pay attention to the Guan family.

Guan Chibei brought the mutton back to the Guan family. As expected, the villagers were boiling with envy and jealousy.

They had chicken porridge for lunch today. This was stewed using the chicken bones from Mother Rong’s stall at the docks. Chicken soup was made for the family to drink. Apart from drinking the chicken soup, Ye Lulu also added porridge to it and stewed chicken porridge.

The chicken porridge was fragrant and sticky. It was very delicious and warm to the stomach.

At night, because Ye Lulu wanted to eat mutton, the Guan family cooked it.

A total of five catties of mutton were cooked. Half of the thigh meat was chopped into small pieces. Ginger was sliced and two slices were thrown in to blanch the meat.

The carrots plucked from the vegetable field at home were fresh. After washing them clean, without skinning them, they were chopped into pieces as a backup.

She added a suitable amount of water into the casserole and placed the fresh mutton inside. Then, she added ginger and peppercorns. She didn’t add anything else and just stewed it. After the fire boiled, she changed it into a small fire and slowly cooked it.

After stewing for two hours, she added carrots and the original mutton until they were cooked. Finally, she added salt and pepper to season the soup.

The mutton soup was fragrant and warm. The color of the soup was rich, and there were soft carrots mixed in the slightly yellowish soup. Before she could drink it, the strong fragrance had already rushed to her nose.

The other half of the mutton was braised. After preparing seasonings such as onions, ginger, and garlic, she washed the mutton clean and cut them into large pieces. She specially cut the mutton into the size of a baby’s fist. When the time comes, they would eat a piece at a time, which would feel refreshing.

Braised mutton was pure meat. Originally, vegetables could be added, but because they wanted to eat it better, there was only a large piece of meat!

The mutton pieces were put into the pot. Onions, ginger, and white wine were added. After blanching them, they were scooped up and cleaned. Then, bean oil was added. After the oil heated, onions and ginger were tossed in to stir-fry.

The villagers of Yunwu Village didn’t know how to stir-fry sugar. This stewed mutton needed to be stir-fried. After stir-frying the meat for a while, bean paste and other sauces were added. After stir-frying it, she added a suitable amount of water.

She threw all the seasonings in, seasoned them into a small fire, and covered the pot with the lid before slowly stewing them together.

After there was a fragrance and the mutton was stewed, she scooped up the ingredients and started to season the flavor. She added soy sauce, sugar, salt, and so on and closed the lid to stew for a while.

After adding the fresh green onions, when the gravy was mostly collected, it was time to open the lid.

Fortunately, the sauce was strong and the color was deep. Even if it wasn’t stir-fried with sugar, the color would still look good.

The taste was suitable and rich. The rice was fragrant as well, so it was quite good. Not only did the newly added green onions increase the fragrance, but the green onions planted in the vegetable fields were also very fresh. They were just stewed but could also be eaten as vegetables.

The salivating gravy was mixed into the rice and eaten.

After dinner, Guan Chixi held his stomach and leaned back in his chair. It was known that he had eaten a total: a bowl of mutton soup with meat and carrots, a bowl of rice mixed with soup, a bowl of rice with braised mutton gravy, a bowl of rice with shredded potato and mutton.

That was a total of three bowls of rice.

Mother Rong looked at him and shook her head. “What sin have I committed? I gave birth to a son who knows how to eat so much. I can’t even provide for him.”

Guan Chixi was speechless. “…”

He felt bitter. He was already an adult but was still despised.

However, it had to be said that it was true. The domineering and enticing fragrance of braised mutton rushed out and filled the entire Yunwu Village, lingering for a long time.

The villagers had seen Guan Chibei buying mutton back during the day and were waiting to smell the fragrance emitted by the Guan family at night. They were not surprised at all and craned their necks to smell it.

They were both envious and emotional.

The sky was already completely dark. When Mother Rong and the rest returned from their stall, it was already very late. The Guan family naturally had their meal only now.

Some of the villagers had nothing to do at night and slept early. When they smelled this fragrance, they couldn’t sleep anymore. They drooled and sighed.

At the end of the village, the fragrance of braised mutton filled the air.

At the Tian family’s house, Tie Wa was just about to get on the bed and sleep when he smelled the fragrance. He craved for food so much that his face was covered in saliva and he cried non-stop.

He rolled around on the bed and kept crying ‘How fragrant.’ and “I want to eat meat. I’m hungry…”

Saliva and tears were mixed together. The mattress on the bed was not washed either. There was also the unpleasant smell of dead rats that Auntie Tian had been splashed with. When mixed together, it was extremely dirty.

Auntie Tian’s face darkened. She hit Tie Wa neither lightly nor forcefully and scolded him, “What are you crying for?! Shut up!”

Then, she gritted her teeth and cursed the Guan family with a dark face and an unpleasant voice. “Damn it, it’s that Guan family again. It’s already so late at night. They’re stewing meat every day. Why don’t they die?!”

“Other families have already eaten long ago. Only their family eats so late, deliberately causing our Tie Wa to be like this. The entire family is sinful!”

“Eat meat? What are they so proud of? I curse their entire family to receive retribution! Every one of them will be poisoned to death!”

Auntie Tian was gloomy and glanced at the crying Tie Wa. She did not feel that it was wrong for her Tie Wa to cry and only blamed the Guan family. She muttered with a gloomy gaze, “Hah. Sooner or later, the Guan family will be unlucky and cry to their deaths.”

On the other hand, Liu Ya returned home today and received some strange looks from the Liu family.

The Liu family was not bad. Most of them were simple and honest. They only thought about how to eat their fill and did not think about other things.

Therefore, only the youngest daughter, Liu Ya, looked weak but had a smart brain.

However, there was an interesting thing: Because the Liu family was too honest, they did not feel anything towards Liu Ya’s show of weakness.

Liu Ya’s act of revealing her weak and innocent self to gain sympathy was applicable in the village. On the other hand, no one in the Liu family could feel her act and pity her. They would just let her do any work.

This was also why Liu Ya was good at pretending but could not avoid doing a lot of work at home.

Liu Ya went to the Guan family’s backyard. After confessing to Guan Chibei, she finally stumbled back to the Liu family. She was not as lively as usual. Her eyes were soft and she was a little dazed.

In the end, when she entered the house, the Liu family looked at her with surprise.

The simple-minded men of the Liu family, Liu Ya’s brothers, looked at Liu Ya with hesitant expressions. Finally, they said hesitantly, “Liu Ya, the villagers are now saying that you’re interested in Sixth Uncle Li, who lives at the corner of the village. This… what are you thinking? Do you want to marry Sixth Uncle Li now?”

Liu Ya’s dazed expression froze, and she suddenly raised her eyes to look at her brothers in disbelief, her eyes filled with anger.

Liu Ya’s mother, Mother Liu, was as weak and laborious as her and wasn’t very healthy. She sat at the dining table and frowned at her.

“Today, the village even spread the news about you and Guan Chibei… So, Liu Ya, are you secretly related to Guan Chibei? Is that true?”

Liu Ya’s eyes lit up.

Liu Ya’s father also didn’t know the situation. He looked at her strangely and said, “That Sixth Uncle Li is almost the same age as me. You… why are the villagers still saying that you like that Sixth Uncle Li?! Do you really like that Sixth Uncle Li?”

Liu Ya’s sisters-in-law were all from other families, so they were quite scheming. They looked at Liu Ya with a hint of disdain and mocked,

“Younger sister is really capable. She’s not married yet and is still a pure and innocent daughter. Yet, she is already involved with this man and that man.”

“That’s right. Younger sister, you’re capable. An unmarried woman has rumors with another man spreading all over the village. I’ve never seen this before. Haha.”

“One of them is a man with a family. He just gave birth to three sons and younger sister still got involved with him. I’ve never seen younger sister talk to a man before, but rumors can already spread. Younger sister is really amazing.”

“There’s also a down-and-out man from the village who’s in his thirties. He could be younger sister’s grandfather in a few years’ time… I can’t believe that younger sister would be related to him. Haha, I can’t believe it.”

The sisters-in-law kept talking about her. In fact, they were laughing at Liu Ya for not knowing her place and not upholding her reputation as an unmarried woman.