Chapter 14

Yu Bing burst out laughing and was amused by Xiao Lin’s serious look. “No problem, but you can’t eat it every day. You can just send it to the temporary dormitory once every three days. I’ll take conchs too.”

conchs tasted even muddier. It tasted worse than a loach if one didn’t know how to cook it, so not many people ate it.

Although Xiao Lin didn’t know why Yu Bing was even willing to accept conchs, he felt that the group of youths who came to build the village were all greedy for meat. They were willing to eat any sort of meat, so he rolled his eyes and said, “No problem, 10 loaches for 1 piece of candy. Is 50 conchs for a piece of candy okay?”

Yu Bing thought about it and agreed.

Xiao Lin decided to act immediately and ran home to get his tools.

Yu Bing smiled and shook her head. She continued walking forward. When she was about to reach the dormitory with the wooden basin in her hand, she didn’t notice the small pit under her feet. She lost her balance and fell forward.

Just as Yu Bing thought that she was screwed, a strong arm supported her. A few loaches jumped out of the basin due to inertia, but most of them were still in the basin.

After Yu Bing stabilized herself, she turned to look at the man in front of her. He had healthy tan skin and well-defined features. He was handsome, but tough-looking. The white coat that had some abrasion at the corners couldn’t hide his muscular body.

Yu Bing recognized the young man as Xiao Sheng. The two of them had never interacted in her previous life, but she had heard that the Xiao family’s parents had died early, leaving the three siblings to rely on each other. There were also some girls in the village who liked Xiao Sheng’s looks. They didn’t mind marrying Xiao Sheng and supporting his siblings, but for some reason, Xiao Sheng had always rejected them. Even until she returned to the city, she didn’t see Xiao Sheng get married.

At this moment, Xiao Sheng was carrying a pole with empty baskets hanging on both sides. Seeing that Yu Bing had stabilized herself, he retracted his hand and walked in the opposite direction.

The other party did a good deed without leaving his name. Yu Bing raised her eyebrows helplessly and squatted down to pick up the loaches that had fallen out. On the way back to the dormitory, she thought about where she had seen Xiao Sheng’s eyes before and suddenly smiled. He looked exactly the same as the little boy who had stopped him just now. Xiao Lin was probably Xiao Sheng’s younger brother.

When Yu Bing returned to the dormitory, she quickly removed the loaches’ stomach and internal organs. Usually, when cooking, a tiny amount of oil would be smeared onto the pan with a cloth, but this time, she extravagantly poured a little oil into the pot and simply fried the loach with salt. The ginger was cut into pieces, and a few onions were thrown into the pot as well. The water began to boil slowly. After the soup was boiled to a milky white color, small pieces of mustard were placed into the pot.

Everyone returned one after another and entered the kitchen.

Yu Bing picked out the bundle of onions and placed them aside before putting in the chopped fresh onions.

Everyone drooled.

Because there was loach mustard soup, she didn’t cook green vegetables anymore.

Before the meal, everyone drank a large bowl of soup. Everyone got three loaches and the remaining one was given to Yu Bing.

After everyone was full, the usually calm Liu Ming couldn’t help but praise, “Yu Bing, your culinary skills are superb!”

Qian Hao also smiled and said, “That’s right. I didn’t see much oil in the soup, but it didn’t taste fishy at all. In the past, my mother made it a few times at home. She used a lot of oil to fry it. It tasted crispy.”

Seeing that everyone was satisfied, Yu Bing was happy. In her previous life, after she returned to the city, in order to earn money, she went to a restaurant to work as a chef. Later, she opened a small restaurant on her own, so she developed good culinary skills.

At that moment, Xiao Lin also carried a wooden basin to the temporary dormitory and shouted outside the kitchen, “I’m here with the loaches.”

Everyone walked out when they heard the sound. Yu Bing took out a wooden basin from the kitchen and transferred the loach conchs in the basin while counting. In the end, she counted 18 loaches, 2 eel, and 100 conchs.

Yu Bing took out a bag of candy from the room. The mints with frosting looked tasty. Xiao Lin didn’t eat them immediately. Instead, he took out a small handkerchief and wiped his hand on his clothes twice. He reached out and carefully took four mints, then placed them in his handkerchief before wrapping them.

When Yu Bing saw this, she felt pity for him. A penny could buy five mint candies, so giving one more was nothing to her. She smiled and said, “You can take one more. By the way, my surname is Yu. You can call me Sister Yu.”

Xiao Lin hurriedly shook his head. “Sister Yu, the number I caught is only enough to exchange for four. The rest don’t belong to me.”

“I’ll take my leave first. I’ll come back in three days.”

With that, he ran off with his basin and candy.