The Game of Life

After Jiang Feng prepared the bathwater for Jiang Jianguo, when he returned to the kitchen, the fathead carp that had matched wits with Jiang Jiankang and Jiang Jiandang for half a month before being finally caught by Jiang Jianguo had already been beheaded.

They weren’t afraid of anything other than it waking up and struggling, making Jiang Weiming unable to hold it down, so they had to let it meet its maker early.

The fish was so large, its tail couldn’t be wasted. Jiang Weiming was processing the head, Jiang Weiguo handled the tail, and Jiang Jiankang was beside them, chopping scallions, ginger, and garlic.

The Jiang Family’s New Year’s Eve dinner generally featured eighteen dishes, six cold platters, and twelve hot dishes. The ingredients for the hot dishes were prepared in advance, while the cold platters were simple and usually ready by the morning. Sir would make the cold platters, though he tended to do so half-heartedly, since he didn’t have the leisure or interest to arrange and carve them as elaborately as banquet dishes.

How half-hearted was it? So much so that the goose in jelly was bought from the town.

Although the marinades from the town’s meat shop indeed tasted quite good— a family heritage—if Sir had been willing to marinate the goose himself…

No, that’s not right. Jiang Feng had never even seen Sir marinating a goose, which might be why he bought it from the town—he probably couldn’t make it taste good himself.

Out of the six cold dishes, five were already prepared.

Marinated goose, tiger-skin peanuts, a platter combining marinated pork offal, shredded pork with mung bean starch sheets, and soy sauce cucumbers.

The remaining dish, Jiang Feng could guess, was sure to be crispy fragrant apples.

Crispy fragrant apples, a dish from the Manchu Han Imperial Feast, were the only cold dish Sir really cared about. Essentially a fruit salad, but more complicated—it involved peeling, coring, and cutting the apples, coating them in egg batter, and then deep-frying them, much harder than an ordinary fruit salad, somewhat like an apple pie.

Every New Year, Sir was sure to prepare this dish, and not in large quantities either—just two apples per plate. It was crispy, refreshing, slightly sweet, and fragrant with the distinct aroma of the apples, and it was usually snapped up as soon as it hit the table.

As for this year’s twelve hot dishes, Jiang Feng found them somewhat puzzling.

Besides the nailed-on dishes like spicy chopped fish head, Nine Turns Intestine, braised prawns, pork knuckle, sweet and sour pork, and preserved vegetables with pork belly, as well as the chicken soup, Jiang Feng had an inkling that the vegetable dish might be stir-fried dragon’s beard vegetable. The dragon’s beard vegetable that Sir had gone to great lengths to bring over from the North was surely not just a kitchen decoration.

The rest was beyond Jiang Feng’s guesswork.

Sir had been busy for several days, and together with the food ingredients he had prepared, it was probably enough to fill up a large basket. There were also two ducks. Since Sir had decided to make chicken soup, he surely wouldn’t be making duck soup.

So, what were the ducks for?

Red-braising them was quite unlikely, as these two ducks were Beiping stuffed ducks, brought over with the dragon’s beard vegetable, and it would be a pity to red-braise ducks bred especially for roasting. The two plump ducks were still marinating in a basin.

“Grandpa, what are you going to do with these stuffed ducks?” Jiang Feng asked curiously.

“Rice-stuffed ducks. Go check if the glutinous rice is soaked yet,” Sir instructed.

Rice-stuffed duck could also be considered a court dish, no wonder Sir had cleaned and deboned the ducks the night before and had soaked the glutinous rice early.

The New Year’s Eve dinner started in the evening, but some dishes had already been stewed a long time before, like the pork knuckle and the soup.

That evening, besides the chicken soup, the other pot could be said to have been quite an investment—Jiang Feng only saw shark fin, sea cucumber, and shrimp slices in it. The sand pot that had been prepared for soup since this morning was simmering on a low flame, and up until now, Jiang Feng still couldn’t guess what kind of soup it was.

The most crucial thing was that Jiang Feng did ask, but Sir wouldn’t tell him and even scolded him out of the kitchen.

They had no food to eat all day and had to wait until the evening. Whoever couldn’t resist and went to the kitchen to boil dumplings for themselves would lose. Being near the kitchen was truly a torture, with the smell of delicious food making one hungry, and there wasn’t anything interesting on TV. Being captured by two younger female cousins for tutoring was even worse. The moment Jiang Feng was chased out, he slipped back to his room and locked the door. Jiang Ran had already been seized for English tutoring; he definitely didn’t want to be dragged in to tutor physics as well.

If he joined forces with Jiang Ran, they might have a chance to win.

However, Jiang Ran had recently lost 20 pounds dating, so the hopes were rather slim.

As he scrolled through his social media feeds, Jiang Feng suddenly felt that it had been a long time since QQhad popped up a new message.

Their Chess Club seemed to have disbanded for the holiday, as silent as a still pond, and Jiang Feng felt that, as the president, although his chess skills were inferior to Wu Minqi’s and his culinary abilities couldn’t compare to Wu Minqi’s, as the president, he should liven up the atmosphere.

Jiang Feng (President): [QQRed Envelope] Wishing you wealth and prosperity

Ji Yue (Former President) received your red envelope.

Liu Qian received your red envelope.

Liu Zixuan received your red envelope.

Less than half a minute later, everyone but Wu Minqi had claimed the red envelope.

Ji Yue (Former President): [Image]

Ji Yue (Former President): Jiang Feng, are you asking for trouble? A red envelope averaging 1 cent.

Ji Yue (Former President): [Image]

Jiang Feng (President): Everyone come out and talk, it’s about a cent!

Liu Qian:.

Liu Zixuan:.

Qiu Chen (Vice President):.

Wu Li:.

Jiang Feng looked at his phone, utterly confused.

Ji Yue (former President): Chatting isn’t free, you’ve used up your penny’s worth of chat, if you want to continue, you need to pay more.

Jiang Feng…

Forget it, forget it, can’t afford it.

Jiang Feng scrolled through the chat history again and noticed something amiss.

Liu Qian didn’t even send a dot, she didn’t chat for even a penny, but usually, she’s the most active in flooding the group chat, capable of spamming like a 99+ Gatling gun.

Unless she’s live streaming.

Jiang Feng was actually quite curious, what kind of family could raise someone like Liu Qian who loved to eat so much, and what they would do for the New Year’s celebration.

Exiting QQ Jiang Feng clicked on a streaming platform.

As expected, Liu Qian was live streaming. There were quite a few people in the stream, and Liu Qian was holding a spider skimmer, draining oil from the freshly fried crispy meat.

“Let me tell you guys, my mom’s fried crispy meat is so delicious, listen to this, it’s so crispy,” Liu Qian said, picking up a piece of hot crispy meat, and began crunching away.

The sound was very crisp and pleasant.

Jiang Feng:…

How has no one beaten up a streamer like this yet?

However, if one just looked at the crispy meat in the spider skimmer, Liu Qian’s mom, as an ordinary housewife, seemed to have done an outstanding job frying the crispy meat.

It might also be due to the live-streaming filter, but the crispy meat in the skimmer looked golden and appeared evenly fried. Furthermore, with Liu Qian continuously snacking on it, crunching away without even letting the oil drain properly, grabbing it to eat with oily lips, she made Jiang Feng feel genuinely hungry.

Jiang Feng felt like he could even smell the crispy meat’s aroma through his phone.

Maybe he should ask Sir if he can fry some crispy meat right now…

Forget it, Jiang Feng felt like Sir might dice him up and throw him into the pot to fry instead.

The audience in Liu Qian’s live streaming room was also amusing; while other streams had comments like ‘666’ or chatted about other stuff, the comments in Liu Qian’s stream were all.

“Chomp chomp-”

“Crunch crunch-”

“Crisp crisp-”

Very harmonious, but just looking makes one hungry.

“Hey, I feel like my mom didn’t use enough marinade this time, it’s not flavorful enough.” Liu Qian complained after eating about half a skimmer of crispy meat.

Yuanqi: “Annoying streamer thinks it’s not flavorful enough? Try using a Hunanese person next time; they eat chili peppers every day and will definitely add flavor.”

“Hunanese are too spicy, mix in some Hainanese for some salty sea vibe.”

“Actually, if you want flavor, the streamer could just go outside and grab someone from the street.”

“Speaking of spicy, Jiangxi people aren’t bad either.”

“Sweet-tasting people from Magic City are also nice.”

Jiang Feng: ???

Is everyone in this live streaming room a devil?

*Heehee, I realized I had looked at the calendar wrong before, I wrote about the Jiang Family’s New Year’s Eve on the right day after all!