Su Yongshun understood that Su Tang and her brother were truly determined to fulfill Su Laochuan’s last wish, so was very satisfied with the siblings and had no desire to see them putting themselves in danger by wandering off into the dark and snowy night to try to get to town. He wanted them to at least wait for dawn.
Seeing that the couple were insisting, Su Tang agreed without too much resistance. After all, it wasn’t as if there was any pressing need for her to leave right away.
Meanwhile, Su Nuan had been left at home to look after her young niece, and she had been very worried this whole time. So, when she finally saw Su Tang and her brother coming inside with her family, she quickly rushed up and grabbed Su Tang’s hands with red eyes. “Are you and Uncle Nuo both alright? There was such a big sound, I was so frightened.”
Su Tang squeezed her hand reassuringly and said with a smile, “We’re both fine. I heard some suspicious noises in advance so we both ran outside. In the end, the house collapsed, but we were both alright.”
“Don’t just stand around here. Go and get some warm water for our guests.” Madam Qin ordered her daughter.
After she found out that the siblings were alright, Su Nuan felt very relieved so, when she heard her mother’s orders, she immediately went over to make some warm water to serve.
It was still an hour until dawn, so everyone was very exhausted. After Su Nuan served them the warm water Su Yongshun told everyone to get some rest for now and leave anything else for after the sun came up.
Su Tang was arranged to live together with Su Nuan. Meanwhile, Su Nuo was still young, so he squeezed in alongside Su Yongshun and his wife.
In fact, Su Tang herself was more or less already awake and ready to start the day, but she saw that the little guy seemed to be tired after being woken up in the middle of the night and, considering she was currently under someone else’s roof, she decided to accept the arrangements of the host and follow Su Nuan to get some sleep.
Because of their sudden night excursion, Su Yongshun’s family were all very tired. In the end, Su Nuan ended up sleeping past dawn.
“Aunt Tang?” When Su Nuan finally opened her eyes, she was surprised to find that Su Tang was nowhere to be seen. She blearily got out of bed and went to look for the other girl, eventually finding her busy in the kitchen.
When she heard Su Nuan tiredly calling her name, Su Tang looked up and sent her a smile while saying, “Oh, you’re up?”
Su Nuan finally woke up a bit and noticed that Su Tang was already busy over the stove with a big ladle in her hand, so she hurriedly moved forward and tried to take over, “Aunt Tang, why are you working like this? You should just leave it to me.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry. I ended up waking up a little earlier so I went home and dug up two crucian carps so that I could give you guys a taste of my cooking skills.” As she spoke, Su Tang smiled and opened the pot, revealing two sets of fish bones that were nearly devoid of meat simmering in the hot water inside. And, at the surface of the water, there were a few juicy-looking fish balls that were emitting an appetizing aroma.
“Aunt Tang, those fish are for selling, so how could you…” Su Nuan was shocked to see that Su Tang had apparently gone and gotten some of her precious fish from home and used them to make fish balls. She didn’t even know what to say.
Su Tang smiled, “What do you mean they’re for selling? From the beginning, I planned to send these fish to your family. Plus, I even used your firewood!”
While they had been talking Madam Wen and Madam Tong also woke up and arrived in the kitchen. When they stepped inside and saw that Su Tang had actually already started cooking their faces flushed red and they rushed over to try to take the ladle away from her, “Aunt Tang, why would you do this sort of thing yourself? You should just leave it to us.”
“Well, I couldn’t sleep anyway, don’t mind it too much!” Su Tang readily surrendered the ladle to the two older women and said, “I’ve already made some fish balls, so could you two please make some other dishes to go with them? Fu’an’s wife, you can give some to your little one as well, my fish balls don’t have any little bones so they should be fine for her to eat.”
Su Tang immediately knew that she wouldn’t be able to stop the two older women, so she readily agreed to let them help and even assigned them tasks to do, which made Madam Wen and Madam Tong not sure whether to laugh or cry. Somehow they felt they had really lost face this time, after all, Su Tang was a guest in their home but they had let her cook for their family.
A bit later Madam Qin also woke up and found out that Su Tang had gotten up early to make fish balls and felt very apologetic. However, when she realized how her sister-in-law was feeling, Su Tang quickly set her cooking aside and went to say a few words to her.
“Actually, I had originally saved these fish especially for your family. And, for a while now, I’ve been wanting to send some of my fish balls to you, Brother Yongshun, and also to Brother Yongqiang. So, when I ended up waking up a little bit early this morning, I suddenly felt that today was the perfect opportunity. I even managed to save on firewood!”
Su Tang chuckled and continued to explain, “In fact, during the past few months I’ve been using to fish that I fish up from the river to make fish balls for a stall in town, and they always sell pretty well. Brother, sister-in-law, I’ve long wanted to share some with you, so today you should just obediently have a taste of my cooking!”
