Transmigrated as an Unwanted Ugly Girl

Chapter 598: Chapter 311: What Did You Eat When You Were Pregnant?

Juhua’s heart gave a little jolt. She gently stroked his chest and nodded. ”Alright. You can rest assured. I know what to do, and I won’t do anything reckless.” She sensed a peaceful warmth from him, but also a faint undercurrent of anxiety. She chuckled softly. ”What do you think our first baby will be? A little chili pepper, or a Shanyu? Maybe even a little Huangdou.”

Huai Zi smiled, lowered his head, and kissed her eyes. ”Any of them would be good. A Huang Gua would be nice, a Nangua even better. A tender little Cong or a green garlic shoot would be delightful too.”

Juhua chuckled again, her mind filling with visions of a future full of these little fruits and vegetables. ’I wonder what sort of mischief these little ones will get into?’

The next day, after breakfast, He heard from Huai Zi that Juhua was pregnant. Once she had asked a few more questions and confirmed the news, she was absolutely ecstatic. She grabbed Juhua’s hands, unsure what to do with herself. After a long moment, she turned to Huai Zi and said urgently, ”Quick, go share the good news with Qingmu’s mother. I must first go light three incense sticks and pray for the ancestors to protect our Juhua.”

She hurriedly started to turn away, but then stopped in her tracks and asked Juhua with great concern, ”Is there anything you’re craving?”

This was exactly the situation Juhua had been dreading. ’Now that she knows I’m pregnant, He is going to insist on feeding me nourishing foods all day long.’

She chided He gently, ”Mother, I just finished breakfast. How could I possibly be hungry again? Don’t be so anxious. Let’s just carry on as usual. If there’s something I want to eat, I’ll let you know, okay? I read a lot, so I know a thing or two about this. Doctors say that when you’re pregnant, eating more isn’t always better. Too much nourishment can actually be bad. Back when everyone was poor, there was never enough to eat, so we never had to worry about that. The only concern was a pregnant woman not getting enough food. But now that the family’s doing better, stuffing myself isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

The moment He heard this came from a book, she began to listen intently. ”Ah, so Mother understands now,” she said. ”No wonder when your sister-in-law was pregnant, your mother didn’t go out of her way to make nourishing foods for her. She just ate her usual meals, though the dishes were a bit nicer. So that’s where you learned it from! Well, from now on, you just tell me what you want to eat, and I’ll do as you say.”

Juhua smiled. ”Listen to you, Mother. Does this mean I shouldn’t move at all? Being idle isn’t good for me. And it’s not that complicated. The best foods are the grains and vegetables we farmers grow. Look how strong Huai Zi and Yangzi turned out, and you didn’t eat anything special when you were pregnant, did you?”

This subject animated He. She was about to launch into a long story but suppressed a smile. ”Hold on. Let me go light that incense first.”

With that, she went to the long altar table in the main hall, pulled out a drawer, and found three ochre-colored incense sticks. She lit them and placed them in the censer in the middle of the table. She bowed several times, muttering a prayer under her breath, then beckoned to Juhua. ”Juhua, come and pay your respects, too. Ask your grandparents and the ancestors to watch over you!”

Juhua didn’t scoff. She obediently walked over and bowed three times, adding her own silent prayer to the heavens for a safe delivery. ’After all,’ she thought, ’I’ve already transmigrated. What’s so strange about this? Besides, I know this sort of prayer is more about steeling one’s own resolve and finding a spiritual anchor than actually asking for protection from formless ancestors.’ For these two reasons, she performed her bows with sincere reverence.

Seeing how obedient Juhua was, He was delighted. After they finished, she had Juhua sit back down by the foot warmer and tucked a small cotton blanket over her legs. He sat down as well, picked up a shoe sole she was stitching, and said with a smile, ”When I was pregnant with Huai Zi, it was right at the start of spring and I had the most peculiar cravings. While other women were sick enough to die, all I wanted to do was eat. But we had nothing. Can you guess what I ate the most of?”

Juhua couldn’t help but ask, her interest piqued, ”What was it?”

He beamed. ”Shanyu. My parents’ family grew a lot of them, and we had a large store in the cellar for the winter. After sitting all winter, the shanyu became exceptionally sweet. Huai Zi’s father brought home a whole shoulder-pole’s worth, and I’d spend my days gnawing on them raw. My mouth would be coated in white pulp.”

Juhua’s eyes widened in amusement. ”Mother, why didn’t you cook them first?”

He shook her head vigorously. ”Those shanyu are only sweet raw. Chewing them, CRUNCH CRUNCH, was so satisfying. Cooked, they were fragrant, but they just didn’t appeal to me. You were right when you said our farm food is the most nourishing. All I ate in those days were shanyu. Later, when wild vegetables and fruits appeared in the fields and on the mountain, and there were more mushrooms, I would gather and eat everything. I’ll tell you, there’s a patch of wild berries up on the back of the mountain, and Huai Zi’s father would often go pick them for me.”

Juhua suppressed a smile. ’Everything you ate was actually very healthy,’ she thought.

As mother and daughter-in-law were chatting, Yang Family and Zhang Huai came in. Huai Zi carried two old hens, while Yang Family held a basket filled with chicken and duck eggs in one hand and two cured pig stomachs strung on a grass rope in the other.

Juhua laughed and sighed at the sight. ”Oh, Mother! What is all this for? There’s no need for such formalities. You brought these chickens... if we butcher one, we won’t be able to finish it right away, but if we raise them, they’ll just get accustomed to our home. Isn’t that just a hassle? And all these eggs... Mother, you really shouldn’t have...”

Huai Zi smiled at Juhua. ”Mother insisted on grabbing the chickens; I couldn’t stop her. Father and Older Brother have gone to catch fish. They said they’re planning to have lunch here.”

He got up from the foot warmer and grumbled at Yang Family, ”Juhua being pregnant is a happy occasion, so I won’t say a thing about you bringing chickens and eggs. But why did you go all the way out to catch fish? If you wanted fish, you should have just gotten some from our pond.”

Yang Family, grinning from ear to ear, didn’t argue with He. She just waved her hand dismissively and said, ”Let’s not bicker. We’re both just happy about this, aren’t we? Huai Zi, go boil some water and butcher one of these chickens. Your mother and I will come clean it in a bit.” Huai Zi agreed and headed to the kitchen.

She turned back to Juhua with a smile. ”Your father was so happy when he heard the news. Bringing these things is just a formality; we really just wanted an excuse to come celebrate with everyone.” Saying this, she sat down next to Juhua and took her hand. ”How are you feeling? Any discomfort?”

Juhua shook her head, smiling. ”I’m fine for now. Nothing’s wrong.”

Yang Family and He exchanged a glance and smiled. ”That’s wonderful. It’ll be even better if you don’t get any nausea or dizziness in the next few weeks.”

Then she asked what the two had been talking about earlier, so He filled her in.

Juhua then asked, ”Mother, my brother is about the same age as Huai Zi. What did you crave when you were pregnant? Don’t tell me you also ate raw shanyu?”

Yang Family laughed and shook her head. ”We didn’t have shanyu, and I don’t care for them raw anyway. Your grandmother was a wonderful cook and always made me all sorts of little dishes, and I ate every one of them with gusto.” She thought for a moment, then added, ”Your father did, however, pick a lot of wild peaches from the mountain for me. They were so sweet and sour; I could eat more than ten in one sitting. My teeth tingle just thinking about it.”

He suppressed a laugh and said to Juhua, ”See? Everyone has their own preferences. Your grandmother is a skilled cook. Your father would bring home little fish and shrimp, and she could prepare them in all sorts of ways—making soup, drying and stir-frying them, or braising them. She made delicious wild vegetables and mushrooms, too, and served them with cornmeal porridge or flatbreads. So that’s what your mother ate. Me, on the other hand... my mother-in-law was a terrible cook, and I wasn’t much better myself. I dreaded eating her cooking—I would have rather gnawed on a raw shanyu.”

When she saw Juhua trying to hide a snicker, she raised an eyebrow. ”It’s true! My mother-in-law was a good woman, but I hated her cooking. I couldn’t refuse to eat it for fear of hurting her feelings. Oh, the suffering was real.”

A sudden thought struck her, and she quickly asked Juhua, ”I know I’m not the best cook, but I’ve been working hard to improve over the last two years. Can you stomach my food now?”

Juhua answered with utmost sincerity, ”Mother, your cooking is wonderful now. I enjoy it very much.”

As they were chatting and laughing, Liu Yunlan arrived, holding a tightly swaddled little Hulu. Tucked in the crook of her arm was a small basket piled high with diapers, bibs, and other baby necessities.

Yang Family hurried forward to take the baby. ”Oh, look! Our Hulu is here!” she cooed. ”Hulu has come to visit his auntie. I wonder if Auntie has a first-meeting gift for him?”

Juhua laughed. ”Oh, but I forgot! This really is Hulu’s first visit to his auntie’s home. What am I to do?” she said, leaning closer to play with the baby.

Liu Yunlan smiled. ”What to do? Aren’t you about to give him a little cousin? That’s the best first-meeting gift there is.”

Hulu stared fixedly at Juhua. Though he didn’t smile, he seemed utterly captivated. When Juhua gently traced his little mouth with her pinky, he pursed his lips, looking for all the world as if he had smiled.

”Hulu smiled!” Juhua exclaimed in amazement. ”Oh, he’s really doing it to please his auntie.” Her words prompted a ripple of laughter.

While the women were laughing inside, Zhang Huai walked in, flicking water from his hands. ”The chicken’s prepared,” he announced to He. ”Should I put it in the earthenware jar to slow-cook in the stove’s embers, or should I use the big clay pot and stew it over the charcoal brazier?”

Before He could reply, Yang Family asked in astonishment, ”It’s all done already? You’ve scalded it and plucked it clean?”

Huai Zi nodded. ”Plucked clean. I’ve also cut it open, cleaned the gizzard, and washed the intestines with salt. The chicken is already chopped up. I figured it was for a soup, so I cut it into large pieces to keep them from falling apart after stewing for a long time.”

Yang Family laughed and said to He, ”My goodness! We were just sitting here chatting, and he’s already finished everything. This boy gets more capable by the day. He can handle his share of work in the kitchen. If Changxing and Sanshun heard about this, they’d laugh at you for sure.”

Huai Zi replied nonchalantly, ”What’s there to laugh at? Does staying out of the kitchen make a man superior? I haven’t seen any of them come home as the Champion Scholar. We’re simple farming folk; getting hung up on those things is just asking for trouble. There’s no shame in knowing how to cook. What happens if my wife goes to visit her family, or is busy with something else? Am I supposed to starve?”

Juhua gave him a thumbs-up. ”Huai Zi is right,” she praised. ”An extra skill is never a burden. You knowing how to cook is one thing; whether I let you do it is another. Don’t worry, I’ll be the one cooking for you normally. I can’t have people making fun of you.”

Huai Zi walked over, gently touched her ear, and said with a warm smile, ”It wouldn’t matter if I cooked for you, either.”

Everyone burst out laughing. He got up and headed for the kitchen. ”Juhua has a point, though,” she said as she went. ”Even if you can cook, we can’t have a man doing the cooking while all of us women are sitting right here.”(To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian.com to vote with recommendation tickets and monthly passes. Your support is my greatest motivation.)