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Mrs. Wang Xiulian had already gone to the gym with the great-aunt, planning to burn off the sinful calories they had just consumed through healthy exercise. How much they managed to burn was not for outsiders to know.

As soon as Jiang Feng and his companions stepped into the living room, they were greeted by the aroma of stir-fried rice that filled the entire house.

The central air conditioning was on, and the kitchen door was not fully closed, leaving a gap of about 10 centimeters. The mingling scents of the newly cooked and the already devoured “sea-land-air” stir-fried rice danced around the living room, dining area, and even the bedrooms, intoxicating everyone with its fragrance.

Shrimp, beef, minced pork, tuna, eggs, cabbage, and the familiar and beloved pickles—this was the recipe, this was the “sea-land-air” stir-fried rice everyone loved!

Jiang Feng’s spirits were instantly lifted. The fatigue from constantly riding the subway vanished without a trace, as if he had been roused from a deathbed, he rushed into the kitchen and shouted loudly,

“Dad, I want a double portion of shrimp in mine!”

“Got it, just wait outside,” Mr. Jiang Jiankang cheerfully responded while tossing the food in the wok, occasionally rewarding himself with a spoonful of beef sauce.

The beef sauce was Ji Yue’s mom’s latest creation, made with a brand-new recipe; even Ji Yue hadn’t tasted it beforehand. It was sent along with the last batch of pickles. Since Mrs. Wang Xiulian was not particularly fond of this flavor of beef sauce, Mr. Jiang Jiankang boldly embezzled both jars of it, keeping to himself the fact that Ji Yue’s mom had sent beef sauce as well.

Ever since the pickle stir-fried rice became popular in the Jiang Family, Ji Yue’s mom’s status in everyone’s heart was second only to the two elders, earning her the label of being omnipotent. Even the universally acknowledged unpalatable dried pumpkin, which was advised against eating, ended up being completely consumed by the great-aunt, who leisurely nibbled on it like it was dried sweet potatoes during her free time.

When Jiang Feng came out of the kitchen, Wu Minqi, Ji Yue, and Zhang Guanghang were already sitting in a row by the dining table.

“Fengfeng, has Mr. Jiang eaten yet?” Wu Minqi asked.

“He definitely has; my dad wouldn’t starve himself. Just now when I went in, I saw him eating some sauce. Hey, what kind of sauce was that? I don’t seem to have seen it before. Wait, let me go back in and ask,” Jiang Feng said as he turned and re-entered the kitchen.

In the brief minute it took for him to go in and out, Mr. Jiang Jiankang had already started eating the freshly made stir-fried rice.

Among Sir’s five sons, Mr. Jiang Jiankang was not the tallest, nor the most robust, and not even the one with the best natural talent for cooking, but he was unanimously recognized as the best at sneaking food.

Starting from his culinary studies, Mr. Jiang Jiankang had instinctively mastered the skill of sneaking bites and continued to refine it through constant self-learning and practice.

If Sir hadn’t exaggerated when scolding his sons, Mr. Jiang Jiankang’s level of sneaking bites was already quite high when his cooking skills were still lacking. He also maintained a good self-assessment ability; before he took over the state-owned chef position from Sir, if he felt particularly good about his cooking, he couldn’t help but sneak in a few bites. Often, he would be full and greasy-mouthed even before noon came around.

But how could a chef’s actions be called sneaking food? Taking one bite was to taste the flavor; two bites were still to taste the flavor, and so were the third and fourth bites. However, Mr. Jiang Jiankang differed from other chefs; while other chefs took small bites to taste, he took big bites. And with the capacity of his mouth, usually two bites could make half a dish disappear.

No one knows how many beatings Mr. Jiang Jiankang endured before he overcame his habit of taking big bites while cooking. It’s not accurate to say he completely stopped, but rather, he restrained himself while working in the state-owned restaurant. However, after Mr. Jiang Jiankang opened the Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant, he continued to love tasting the dishes. After all, with a plate of stir-fried meat with peppers, as long as you put enough peppers on top and made the meat pieces visible enough, customers wouldn’t notice how much meat there actually was.

“Dad, what kind of sauce were you eating just now? I don’t recall seeing it before,” Jiang Feng inquired.

“Sauce? What sauce? Oh, the one I just had, yeah, I bought some beef sauce from the supermarket at the door when I came back at noon. It smelled really nice, so I just wanted to taste it to try making beef sauce fried rice tomorrow.” Jiang Jiankang started playing dumb and swiftly served out the fried rice from the wok into a large plate, handing it to Jiang Feng.

“Son, take this out and have some to fill your stomach first, I’m going to fry you a double portion of shrimp now.”

Jiang Feng left without suspicion, carrying the fried rice away.

As he was closing the kitchen door, Jiang Feng thought to himself that he didn’t expect the beef sauce sold at the supermarket downstairs to smell so good; he decided to buy a jar to try it himself tomorrow.

Jiang Feng expertly placed the extra-large portion of fried rice on the table with one hand, his movements skilled and his posture professional, just like when he used to work as a waiter at the Healthy Snack Bar and the Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant.

He was clearly an experienced hand.

“I saw my dad eating it when I just went in, and he must have had more than one spoonful, so this plate of fried rice should taste pretty good. Let’s eat it while it’s hot,” Jiang Feng said.

The other three people eagerly started eating.

“Ah, delicious!” Ji Yue expressed her satisfaction, even switching to English.

“Mm, おいしい (delicious),” Zhang Guanghang said in Japanese, for some reason.

Wu Minqi’s chewing motion suddenly stopped as her brain quickly searched for ways to say delicious in various languages. Eventually, she chewed a couple more times and swallowed the mouthful of fried rice.

“The taste is quite good.”

Jiang Feng: ???

Jiang Feng was momentarily at a loss, not expecting that in this day and age, one couldn’t even enjoy fried rice without knowing a few foreign languages or dialects. He held his spoon but didn’t dare to reach out; for a moment, he almost regretted not learning a few local phrases from Mrs. Jiang when he was young.

Suddenly, Jiang Feng had a brainwave, stretched out his spoon, and took a hearty bite of the fried rice, which included a shiny shrimp. Into his mouth it went, he chewed, then swallowed.

“Taste good!”

Quickly, the large plate of fried rice was divided up and polished off by the four people.

Any experienced eater knows that with staple foods like noodles, rice, and the like—if they are particularly tasty and you eat to your heart’s content, you’ll feel very satisfied, and you might even feel like it wasn’t all that special due to the fullness. But if there isn’t enough, just enough to fill your belly, making you feel like you’ve only just tasted it and it’s gone, it can leave you wanting more, even becoming an unforgettable memory.

Right now, the four people, including Jiang Feng, were probably in such an irresistible state.

So it goes to show, you shouldn’t eat too much.

The next serving of fried rice was still in the wok, so Jiang Feng and the other three could only sit and wait at the dining table, like four chicks eagerly chirping for food.

“Do we really not need to call Ji Xue down? I think today’s fried rice tastes especially good!” Jiang Feng said.

“That’s because you’re hungry,” Ji Yue hit the nail on the head. “Xue’s stomach isn’t great, and she shouldn’t eat too much rice to begin with. Fried rice is too greasy for her definitely.”

“You can’t eat rice when you have a bad stomach?” Jiang Feng asked, looking bewildered.

“I don’t know either, that’s what Xue says. She mentioned something about rice being ‘cold’ or ‘cooling’ in nature, anyway, it means eat less rice when your stomach’s upset. That’s about what she meant.” Ji Yue checked the time on her phone, “Oh my, it’s almost 7 o’clock. She should be in the middle of a video call with her mom right now.”

“She has a fixed time for video calls with her mom?” Wu Minqi asked curiously.

“Yes, her parents moved to the countryside, and there are only two or three families in their village that live there year-round, all of them elderly and without internet at home. Xue’s family doesn’t have broadband either. Her mom can only access the internet at the supermarket when she takes her dad for dialysis at the county hospital, where she has her weekly video call with Xue.” Ji Yue explained. “It’s usually once a week, but I’m not exactly sure.”

“What about her younger sister?” Jiang Feng asked, his impression of Ji Xue’s sister, who got the real and fake college scripts, was very strong.

“She’s at the middle school in town and boards there. Seems like she didn’t even go home during the summer break but worked at the supermarket in the town instead,” Ji Yue said and was about to add something when Mr. Jiang Jiankang came out with the fried rice.

“Double shrimp, son, eat up!” Mr. Jiang Jiankang wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“Dad, why don’t you take a break?” Jiang Feng suggested. “You’ve been in the kitchen for over an hour now, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, Mr. Jiang, take a rest,” Ji Yue chimed in.

“Right, Mr. Jiang, why don’t you come and eat with us? You haven’t had your meal yet, have you?” Wu Minqi asked.

“No need to rest, how many servings have I fried today? Back when I was in Z City, I could sell a hundred and eighty servings of fried rice in a day. I’ll just fry two more servings for you, and then I have to work on that beef sauce fried rice recipe. You go ahead and start eating.” Mr. Jiang Jiankang was enthusiastic about frying rice; he would fry it even if no one was there to eat it.

Everyone began eating their fried rice and Ji Yue forgot what she was about to say. Her mind and heart were filled only with thoughts of fried rice, especially the serving in front of her, which was a double portion of the shrimp that was specially made for Jiang Feng, the deluxe combo fried rice with seafood, meat, and pickled vegetables.

“Has Mr. Jiang ever made beef sauce fried rice before?” Ji Yue asked mid-meal, already concerned about the dish that was not yet made.

“Never. My dad only made fried rice with Lao Gan Ma chili sauce before, but the beef sauce smells pretty good; I caught a whiff of it in the kitchen earlier,” Jiang Feng replied, aiming his spoon at the shrimp in his plate.

“Well, then we’ll have you, Mr. Jiang, taste it first and tell us if it’s good,” Ji Yue decided to entrust Jiang Feng with this honorable yet arduous task.

Half an hour later, the four people concluded their shady fried rice exchange and went their separate ways.

When Ji Yue got home and opened the door, she saw Ji Xue sitting on the sofa playing with her phone.

This was a rare sight; Ji Xue might be the young person least interested in playing with phones that Ji Yue knew. Even Jiang Feng, Wu Minqi, and Zhang Guanghang, who spent most of their time cooking, would be clinging to their phones the moment they got free.

Upon seeing Ji Yue, Ji Xue looked as if she’d seen a savior, and hurriedly said, “Yue, come quickly and help me decide which study guides to buy for my sister.”

Ji Yue: ???

“Your sister should be starting the ninth grade, right?” Ji Yue asked.

“I think so. I just had a video call with my mom, and I feel like she’s worried about my sister’s education. We can’t afford a tutor for her and can’t teach her ourselves, so I thought I’d buy her some study guides to work through on her own,” Ji Xue said.

Ji Yue: …

Your sister will likely cry tears of joy when she receives this gift of love.

“Do you know which ninth-grade practice books are good?” Ji Xue asked.

“Five Years of Entrance Exams, Three Years of Simulation!” Ji Yue blurted out instantly.

Ji Xue took note, “What else?”

“What else?” Ji Yue thought the “Five Three” sets for all nine subjects would be enough for her sister to work on, but it turned out Ji Xue was preparing to get even more for her.

“Let me think… It’s been years since I graduated, and my younger brother never used these books either. I remember I used to do ‘Tianli 38 Sets,’ ‘Win Lightly,’ and Wang Houxiong’s, I don’t remember the exact names, but just buy whatever you think is appropriate, I don’t know what’s popular now,” Ji Yue confessed she was a senior school graduate out of touch with current trends.

“Okay, I’ll take a look.” Ji Xue said she’d made a note of it all and handed her phone to Ji Yue, “Did I get the names wrong here?”

Ji Yue took the phone and nodded affirmatively.

Ji Xue went back to picking out books.

After this conversation with Ji Xue, Ji Yue suddenly remembered that Ji Qiran, the little rascal, had never worked on Wang Houxiong’s books from childhood to adulthood.

That was just wrong. As a successor of socialism raised under the red flag, even if Ji Qiran had attended international schools all his life, he shouldn’t have skipped Wang Houxiong.

Ji Yue opened her phone, checked her Alipay balance and her bank account, and with the mindset that she couldn’t skimp on education, even if it meant taking on jobs next month, she bit the bullet and ordered the complete set of Wang Houxiong for Ji Qiran.

With the belief that Wang Houxiong and “Five Three” were a perfect match, Ji Yue also purchased a set of “Five Three” for Ji Qiran.

Ah, I truly am a rare jewel of a big sister.

Ji Yue quietly put down her phone, exchanged glances with Ji Xue, and revealed a big sister’s warm smile.