You've Got Mail: Cautionary Tale (YGMCT)

Chapter 26 - The Adviser's Daily Life

Edited by DancingDolphinsYo

With a garden, Wu Xingzi’s days in Bastion City went quite well.

Not long after Hua Shu left that day, Hei’er led two maids into the house. They were a pair of twins. The elder was called Mint1, and the younger was called Osmanthus2. They were around the age of thirteen, and were locals born and bred in Bastion City. They were quick with their work, and very familiar with handling the garden. Everyday they would collect water to water the plants, remove the weeds, and catch the bugs, and they were even better at the job than Wu Xingzi.

Guan Shanjin seemed to have left some instructions and according to them, the two maids were supposed to go to the main kitchen every two days to collect some vegetables, meat, eggs, rice and noodles. The three of them would then start a fire in the kitchen of Shuanghe Yard, and they never ate anything from the main kitchen.

Wu Xingzi was very satisfied with this. The first day when he ate the noodles that Mint cooked, the noodles were like slippery little white fish. After they were cooked, the water was drained and the noodles were mixed with chili, vinegar, soy sauce, coriander, beansprouts, etc. It was very delicious, but so spicy that it made Wu Xingzi’s lips swell. He did not get a good sleep, and even woke up in the middle of the night with diarrhoea. The next morning, it was as though he had wilted.

Only then did he learn that the food of Bastion City was so heavily seasoned.

This was especially evident with the chili peppers that had been imported from overseas over the past few years. They were red and pointy, and looked adorable. However, who would have thought that they were spicy enough to revive a person from death?! The tongue-piercing pain, however, added a finishing touch to the seasoning, and the spiciness was so addictive that people could not stop eating.

Qingcheng County was located rather far away, it tended to be rather enclosed. On top of that, the people in the past were not too interested in spicy food, and at most, they would only use a little bit of chinese cornel dogwood for flavouring. They barely had any dishes that would use chili peppers, and Wu Xingzi actually never took spicy food.

It was no wonder that Guan Shanjin would specially prepare this small kitchen for Wu Xingzi to cook. If not, if Adviser Wu did not die from the spice, he might have died from diarrhoea.

After that, the food prepared by the two maids was a lot lighter in flavour. They would always meticulously prepare the stock, which enhanced the original flavour of the ingredients further. Wu Xingzi was, at first, worried that the two girls had to accommodate him in the taste of the food, but after seeing how they would pull out a little jar each time during the meal, and added the pickled chili to their own food, he felt more at ease.

Farming, eating, and occasionally strolling about Bastion City with Hei’er, a month passed for Wu Xingzi. In about ten days, the Chinese New Year would soon arrive.

In the past, Wu Xingzi had always spent the New Year alone. His reunion dinner was always very simple, settling it with just a fried fish.

As for the Chinese New Year goods, he never paid special attention to them. After pasting some paper-cuttings on the windows, writing a spring couplet for his door, and buying some dried fruits, his preparations would be done. The dishes that he prepared for the offerings to his ancestors had always been simple, mostly because if he could not finish them himself, they would also be wasted.