Her Cultivation Diary

The ham and rape flower soup that Seventh Uncle mentioned is actually quite simple to make.

Early in the morning, head to the Riverside Beach to slaughter a plump and still spry hen, and a young rooster that was raised in the winter with good strength. After bleeding and plucking, use the hen to stew the soup and keep the rooster for later use.

While stewing the soup, no time is wasted: "Qiaoqiao, go to the mountain and dig up a few nests of potatoes for lunch. We’ll make potato-braised chicken, and bake a few buns—should we do plain flour buns or crispy buns?"

"Crispy buns, crispy buns!" Zhang Yanping, who was having breakfast, immediately responded: "We’ve always had plain or yellow cornmeal buns before, let’s try something crispy this time!"

But Qiaoqiao was a bit hesitant: "The potatoes haven’t grown big yet..."

These potatoes were planted in February. With the low early temperature, their growth has been slow. While they can be eaten now, the actual harvest would be around June or July. Picking them one or two months early, they’d probably be quite small.

"No worries," Song Tan urged him, "Go dig them up, we planted a lot this year, won’t run out."

Last year, whatever they planted, they wanted to maximize sales and earn money. Qiaoqiao probably remembers it vividly. So whether picking rape flowers in early spring or digging potatoes now, he felt a sense of regret.

Seventh Uncle let out a hum; he’s old and sees the good in everything Qiaoqiao does. He praised, "Cherishing resources and food is a good thing. Qiaoqiao is so kind-hearted!"

Song Tan: ... She’s his real sister, what could she say?

And Yang Zhengxi indeed followed happily, bringing along the livestream equipment. Amidst the cool morning breeze, their laughter echoed:

"Come on! I’ll give you a heads-up, later we’ll be digging up potatoes loot-box style."

"The potatoes are so small though..."

"Whatever, you’re not selling them anyway, and they won’t get to eat them, the watermelon raffle yesterday was enough fun for them ... shall we raffle off potatoes today?"

"...they haven’t even matured yet..."

"So what! Just say the prizes will be shipped two months later!"

Meanwhile, Lun Chuan was skillfully opening the livestream room and curiously asked, "Are we using chicken soup to rinse the rape flowers at lunch?"

Speaking of which, Seventh Uncle wasn’t quite satisfied: no matter how well you freeze rape flowers, they can’t match the freshness of freshly picked ones. He pondered and straightforwardly suggested to Song Tan: "How about... can you spare some time to slowly pick a basket of fresh ones from the field?"

Song Tan: ...

She glanced at Lun Chuan, who slowly shook his head: "I have to work in the morning... I’ll probably finish between 9:30 and 10, will that be too late?"

He has a routine of working out at home early, helping Lun Jing at the guesthouse after breakfast, and starts work around 8. His disciplined schedule rarely changes, so everyone is well aware of this.

Song Tan wasn’t keen on doing such meticulous work either—the local rape flowers bloom around March and April, and it’s already May, so most have withered. To find remaining tender rape flowers would be quite a task...

If it were just a small plate, that’d be fine, but their family dishes by the bowlful.

Hence, she decisively picked up her phone: "I’ll call Yang Zhengxi."

Young folks are full of energy, they probably wouldn’t mind another trip to the rape flower field.

Taking a look at the livestream, the announcement now reads—

[Good morning, workers! Let’s open potato blind boxes together!]

Song Tan couldn’t help but chuckle: Young kids sure have energy for everything!

The 8 o’clock hour is indeed when all the working folks are wide awake.

As soon as the livestream starts, the viewer count quickly surges, doing much better than at 4 PM yesterday. Qiaoqiao and Yang Zhengxi bypassed the heavy partitions at the front to reach a flat rape flower field. Now, of course, there were no bright rape flowers, only vast stretches of green pods.

[??? Weren’t we doing the potato blind box?]

[I got it! Potatoes and rape flowers are interplanted, right?]

[You can interplant like this? With everything so dense, how do potatoes get sunlight?]

Yang Zhengxi hurried to explain: "Don’t misunderstand, don’t misunderstand, we’re just picking some rape flowers first before digging the potatoes..."

He panned the camera around: "Honestly, it’s tough finding tender rape flowers around here now. The longer we delay, the slimmer the chances—if you want to wait for the potato blind box, it’ll probably take about an hour. We need to pick this basket first, then we’ll dig the potatoes."

As he spoke, he raised the bamboo basket in his hand.

Livestream room: [...]

[May? This rape field? Picking flowers? This basket?]

[Oh man, they’re using full buffs! Look at this green field, how many little yellow flowers do you see?]

[It’s true spring vegetables should be eaten in spring, but it’s out of season now]

Yang Zhengxi read some questions aloud, and Qiaoqiao sheepishly laughed: "Seventh Uncle said to make ham and rape flower soup at noon. The frozen ones aren’t fresh enough, so we’re just trying to find some fresh ones."

He gestured: "We’ll use the plump hen to stew the soup, take out the chicken meat to make numbing spicy chicken bites, and then use the chicken broth to cook ham slices—right before serving, dip the rape flowers in, it’s so fresh and tasty!"

Many workers who haven’t managed to have breakfast yet:

[Noted]

[Eating is one thing, but why do you need to describe it?]

[This is torture!]

[Streamer, is this why you went live early? To turn me into a hungry fool?]

[On an empty stomach, but now running late, I can only order a black coffee to-go at work... Have you considered how I feel?]

Not just the livestream room, even Yang Zhengxi swallowed nervously. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

He was late to the spring rush of dipping rape flowers, only able to imagine the taste now.

In that case...

"The hen for soup, the rooster for braised dish with crispy buns?"

"Yes!" Qiaoqiao nodded: "Seventh Uncle makes the best crispy buns, they’re as big as a palm, I can eat ten in one go!"

It’s evident he learned it, just wasn’t skilled yet. And he didn’t forget to teach the younger audience, believing they could learn.

"Rub shortening repeatedly into the dough and sprinkle with sesame seeds—our sesame is so fragrant! Once the pan heats up, the shortening and dough puff up, and when you take a bite, the outside is so crispy it’s crumbly, but the inside is still soft..."

Yang Zhengxi: "... Gulp."

Looking again at the livestream room, it’s filled with responses of agony, like snow in June!

Though not in the workforce yet, Yang Zhengxi is a savvy netizen, well-aware of popular jokes about workers online. Even he felt bad.

He promptly changed the subject: "How about we just start picking the rape flowers? This takes time, and if there aren’t enough, we’ll use the frozen ones?"

Qiaoqiao shook his head: "Let’s try to find them. The frozen ones have a different texture, suitable for cold dishes with small peppers and sesame oil; it’s so refreshing for a bite!"

"But for this texture, it’s not suitable to dip in ham soup."

Yang Zhengxi: ... He didn’t dare look at the comments anymore.