NOVPUB59: Chapter 59 Cooking Together
59 -59 Cooking Together
Forget it, some things aren’t suitable for the ears of people in this little mountain village.
Jin Zijin said, “That’s right, there’s a chef at home!”
Gu Youyou wore a look of regret, saying, “…then you must be the one running errands.
Your knife skills may be good, but your cooking skills aren’t impressive, not as delicious as mine.
Sigh!
What’s the use of being a Knife Master?
Being a head chef has a future.”
Jin Zijin finally couldn’t help but chuckle as he chopped up the rabbit.
“And you, how old are you this year?”
Jin Zijin’s deep voice rang out, causing Gu Youyou to freeze for a moment.
She thought about it and chuckled, saying, “Isn’t this lady in her ‘flourishing twenty-eighth year’?”
“Sixteen?”
“Hehe, add two years.”
Jin Zijin looked at her thoughtfully and narrowed his eyes slightly.
Gu Youyou casually grabbed some firewood to block her face from his view.
After all, I haven’t lied to you; this body is indeed sixteen plus two years old.
The soul, too, is twenty-eight plus two.
If it weren’t for the transmigration, I would have been thirty this year.
This was Gu Youyou’s first year after crossing over, and it was spent with Jin Zijin.
His recipe for braised rabbit really wasn’t much to speak of, especially compared with the Gu Family’s chef, but it had a unique flavor.
The meal was delicious, not because it was New Year’s Day, not because it had been a long time since they had last eaten meat, but because they had cooked it together—Gu Youyou tending the fire, Jin Zijin stirring the pot. 𝓷ℴ𝓿𝓅𝓊𝒷.𝓬𝓸𝓂
Maybe many years later, when there’s no beneficial ties left between them, when they no longer need each other for warmth, and when they no longer need to cook meals themselves.
When everything around them has changed, this brief, tranquil, and humble life in the mountain village may become the most beautiful memory of their lives…
Although Gu Youyou was a modern person, the eldest daughter of the Gu Family, she really could cook.
It was just that she was not accustomed to using such a primitive stove, and her present body couldn’t handle the strain.
This kind of earthen stove was something Gu Youyou had seen before.
Gu Family’s children, upon reaching adulthood, would go into the mountains to serve as barefoot doctors for three years, just like their ancestors did, treating people from the foothills and gathering herbs in the mountains themselves.
Most importantly, it allowed them to become familiar with the various growth environments of herbs, to have firsthand contact with the medicinal materials, and to understand their properties.
The place Gu Youyou chose for those three years was the same place her elder female cousin had chosen before her.
Originally, her father was not supposed to be the Gu Family heir; it was her elder female cousin who voluntarily gave up the position, which then passed on to her father.
When her elder female cousin turned eighteen, as per tradition, she went into the mountains and, during a medicinal gathering accident, nearly fell off a cliff.
It was her future husband, a local from the medicinal mountain whose family gathered and cultivated medicinal herbs, who saved her.
After he saved her, Gu Youyou’s aunt fell in love with him and was willing to give up the status of the Gu Family’s eldest daughter to stay in the mountain.
Gu Youyou stayed with their family in the mountain for three years.
Although they were mountain dwellers, they were not poor; on the contrary, they were quite well-off by local standards.
Their house was no less luxurious than the Gu Family’s mountain villa, and their lifestyle was quite modernized.
But being in the mountains, they sometimes still cooked on an earthen stove.
Gu Youyou had seen her aunt use it a few times.
She thought it was smoky and dirty and never dared to go near it.
Back then, her aunt had laughed at her, saying she did not understand the joy of rural life and that the meals prepared with such a stove and pot had a unique taste.
Gu Youyou was unconvinced.
No matter what, she was not interested in trying it; the smoke alone was enough to choke someone.
Now that she thought about it, it wasn’t that the meals cooked in a big pot had a unique taste, but that her aunt was able to cook a meal together with her husband.
One to tend the fire, the other to mind the pot!
This was the true essence of that unique flavor!
…
