Zhu Dali and his wife were terrified out of their wits. They sprinted all the way to the shed in the back hills, and upon not hearing the baby cry, they assumed he had truly frozen to death. They unbuttoned their jackets and pressed the child tightly against their bare skin.
It turned out that Tang Tianbao was simply exhausted from crying. His luck held, and once he warmed up, he was perfectly fine.
Zhu Dali and his wife never dared to plot against Tang Ning again. They obediently took the child home and cared for him even more meticulously than before, terrified that if anything happened to him, they would be branded as murderers.
With Tang Tianbao successfully dealt with, Tang Ning’s reputation in the village became even more uncanny. She was the older sister, after all. With the parents gone, it was only natural for a sister to care for her brother, yet she could simply wash her hands of him and refuse to get involved at all. Perhaps the villagers had become desensitized by the constant string of events surrounding Tang Ning; in any case, it didn't spark much discussion. It was as if, when it came to Tang Ning, this sort of behavior was considered reasonable.
Tang Ning’s life grew more peaceful. She made a trip to the county seat to buy some necessities. Without ration coupons or connections, she turned to Lin Shengwen. After all, he was the most influential person she knew. Sure enough, Lin Shengwen was willing to help, and she soon had everything she needed.
Tang Ning’s money was limited. She bought cotton and fabric with plans to make a new padded coat; the one she was wearing had long lost its ability to keep out the cold, feeling as stiff and heavy as iron armor. She intended to make the new coat and trousers large enough to wrap herself in while sleeping, then cover them with old cotton batting to save the cost of a quilt. She also bought seeds, beans, salt, and seasonings.
Seeing that she was resourceful, resilient, and knew to come to him when she faced difficulties—rather than being the type to constantly need looking after—Lin Shengwen felt relieved.
When the first snow fell, Li Guilan, Zhang Miao, and the fool were released.
Everyone in the village came out to watch when the news arrived, and Tang Ning was no exception. The fool, Zhu Goudan, had lost a lot of weight. In just over a month, the layer of fat that Li Guilan had spent over twenty years pampering him with had been scrubbed away. He clutched Li Guilan tightly, his back hunched, cowering behind her, looking left and right from time to time, his body trembling whenever he thought of something.
Li Guilan’s expression was grim; she kept her face blank, though her mind was clearly racing. Zhang Miao, meanwhile, looked anxious, constantly lifting her head to scan the crowd as if searching for someone.
"Wife..." the fool suddenly shouted when he caught sight of Tang Ning standing behind the crowd.
It earned him a fierce beating from Li Guilan. "You still dare to call her that! You still dare! She’s clearly a shameless, wanton woman who almost got us all killed!"
After she finished hitting and scolding him, she yanked her simple-minded son’s ear. "Is your ear not hurting anymore? The last time you called her that, she bit a chunk of meat off you. If you call out to her again, who knows? She might just kill you!"
Upon hearing this, the fool cowered in terror, shielding his head. "I won't call her! I won't! I don't want a wife! Mother! Mother!"
Li Guilan was terrified as well. She had no choice; though she felt pained and hateful, she had to extinguish her son’s fixation on Tang Daniu. Otherwise...
"Considering your son is mentally deficient, I'll let it slide this time. If there is a next time, for harassment and assault against women and children, I will definitely have him locked up in prison!"
That was the one thing she remembered most clearly from her time in the detention center. Her son was her life; she didn't dare—she absolutely did not dare—to try again. Still, she would hold a grudge against that wretched girl, Tang Daniu, for as long as she lived. She refused to believe that after this scandal, anyone in the surrounding villages would ever dare marry this little wench. Once she became an old maid, hmph, she would see the day when the little brat came begging for her mercy!
The people of Zhu Family Village watched it all unfold. Seeing Li Guilan, who was usually such a bully, acting so timid was enough to make them sigh with disbelief.
Zhang Miao, however, ran straight to Zhu Dali’s house to demand her child back. Little did she know, Zhu Dali’s wife had grown fond of Tang Tianbao and wanted to adopt him as her own son. Zhu Dali’s wife had only given birth to daughters and had always wanted a son. She and Zhang Miao were close precisely because they both faced the same struggle, but she hadn't expected Zhang Miao, who had shown no signs of progress, to be the one to give birth to a boy.
After a scene, Zhang Miao finally managed to take Tang Tianbao back home.
Li Guilan retreated behind closed doors with her foolish son, ignoring everyone. The villagers had all been waiting for the two women to clash with Tang Ning, but to their surprise, they acted as if they were trying to avoid her entirely, looking at Tang Ning as if she were a monster.
With the New Year approaching, everyone was tightening their belts, trying to figure out how to scrape together a decent New Year’s Eve dinner. Consequently, no one paid much attention to Tang Ning anymore.
Dressed in her new padded coat and trousers—which she had paid fifty cents in labor to have made—Tang Ning headed up the mountain with even more vigor. After all, with no food in the pantry, she felt anxious. Whatever she could catch, she would eat.
That day, she checked her snare without much hope, but to her surprise, there was a pheasant inside! She put the pheasant into her basket, covered it with some dead grass, and trudged through the snow back to her little shed.
How should she cook it?
A hundred and eight different methods flashed through Tang Ning’s mind. Her mouth began to water uncontrollably, and her stomach let out a thunderous growl. She had been in this world for two months and had yet to eat a single bite of meat, or even catch a whiff of it.
Although in her own time synthetic nutrients had long since replaced traditional cuisine, expensive fine-dining restaurants and master chefs still existed to serve the social elite. A culinary program in the twenty-first century had been the highest-rated show, deeply loved by the people of the Xia Country. She had studied all kinds of knowledge, so she naturally understood cooking.
By the time she finished cleaning the chicken, put it in the pot with half a pot of water and the meager amount of seasoning she had, and sliced up all the remaining potatoes, she couldn't help but think: *If only I had some flour to stick some flatbreads around the edge of the pot. Dipped in the chicken broth, that would be delicious.*
"Host, I have flour."
The Long Live Love System finally found its chance. It suppressed its inner excitement and tried to speak as steadily as possible. It had been lurking for a long time, trying to find Tang Ning’s weakness, and it hadn't expected to actually find one!
"Hmm?" Tang Ning raised an eyebrow. "You're still alive?"
*Can this system spy on my inner thoughts when I relax my guard?*
"How can you say—hehe, Host, let’s focus on the point. Flour, I have. Not just flour, I even have noodles."
"What about sugar, salt, meat, milk, and eggs? Do you have those?"
"I do." Since the Long Live Love System had been tethered to Tang Ning, this was the first time it felt a sense of triumph.
"Potato stewed chicken?" Tang Ning asked again.
"Uh—"
"Got it. You can only provide raw ingredients or basic processing, but nothing more complex than that."
Tang Ning stated her deduction, making the Long Live Love System so angry it wanted to scream. It had clearly planned to catch her weakness and strike a decisive blow, so how did she end up seizing the initiative again?
The system gave up on trading barbs with Tang Ning. "Anyway, I can provide things you don't have. Take it or leave it."