I never expected that when I returned to my hometown a few years later, my parents were gone and my home was gone too.
Upon further inquiry, it turned out his wife had already taken the children back to her parents' home, and the children no longer considered his...
The scumbag boyfriend came to make trouble, little did he know that the people in the old mountain valley were a bunch of unreasonable hunters!
Several guns were pointed at him, which scared the coward so much that he wet himself and never dared to come and bother him again.
When Jiang Xiaoman heard this strange story from Lang Ying, she laughed so hard she almost fell off her stool. She was incredibly impressed with Miss Shanying's mother!
Women in that era valued virtue, morality, and fidelity. Women like Aunt Shanying, who were clear-headed and not brainwashed by scumbags, were extremely rare!
It's a pity the old lady suffered too much when she was young, and passed away before she could enjoy the blessings of her two daughters. Otherwise, Jiang Xiaoman would definitely pay her a visit, ask her to share her experience, and make a short video to warn her unmarried female fans!
The Qing Dynasty is long gone, so what "eighteen years of hardship in a cold cave"?
It's nothing but foolish self-pity.
However, because of this incident, Jiang Xiaoman immediately included Miss Shan Ying in her core team.
These days, the worst thing about hiring employees is encountering those with warped values or who aren't thinking clearly.
If the former has incompatible values, and the employees don't get along, it can easily lead to internal conflicts within the team.
The latter is even more terrifying. If one's mind is not clear, one is easily taken advantage of, and if a wolf is brought into the house, Jiang Xiaoman, the boss, will be in trouble.
With the help of two young ladies, Lang Ying and Shan Ying, Jiang Xiaoman quickly prepared a large table of dishes.
At this moment, several fans had already taken many photos and videos in the upstairs guest rooms. In particular, the three boys who stayed on the third floor were initially a little uncomfortable when they heard that they were staying in the attic, but once they got upstairs, the three of them couldn't wait to hug Jiang Xiaoman and kiss her!
The attic isn't hot at all this season. Moreover, Jiang Xiaoman's attic has a high ceiling, which is especially friendly to tall guys. The guest room is also quite large, and the bed is bigger than a typical hotel single bed. Surprisingly, it's furnished with very environmentally friendly bamboo and wood furniture!
The female fans on the second floor were also very satisfied, feeling that the design of Jiang Xiaoman's guest rooms was a blessing for socially anxious people. The four guest rooms were all independent small spaces when the doors were closed. Even in the middle living room, the single sofas were separated by bamboo and wood tables. On the tables were plants that Jiang Xiaoman had dug up from the mountain, such as saxifrage, spring orchid, and small pine. In the middle of the room was a floor mat with a few cushions on it.
The advantage of this design is that if you are a stranger, you can curl up on a single sofa, lean back, and there are green plants separating the two of you, so you don't have to make awkward small talk with each other.
If it's a group of acquaintances, they can sit on the ground and have a late-night chat right there.
"Dinner's ready!" Jiang Xiaoman called out from downstairs.
After clearing out the inventory in the warehouse, Jiang Xiaoman cleaned up the warehouse next door, opened several windows to ventilate for several days, and there was no smell inside. She then set up two square tables, which were just right to be used as a dining room.
In the afternoon, Jiang Xiaoman went on a shopping spree at the county's large vegetable market, buying a whole bunch of ingredients. The family's dining table suddenly became much more abundant. However, considering that his fans all said they wanted to eat local Langshan specialties, Jiang Xiaoman simply cooked according to his usual style.
I made a steamer basket of Langshan-style steamed pork belly. After it's cooked, you can take it out bowl by bowl, wrap it in plastic wrap, and put it on the top shelf of the refrigerator. It will keep for three days without spoiling. Just take it out and steam it to reheat it.
I chopped up a free-range chicken, cut some potatoes, and made a pot of braised chicken and potatoes.
The old duck was quite large, so it was cut in half. One half was used to make a stew with the wild dried bamboo shoots sold in the shop, and the other half was chopped into pieces and braised with dried bamboo shoots, dried ferns, and dried wild mushrooms. This kind of cooking is rarely done in restaurants because these three ingredients alone are more valuable than the old duck. Jiang Xiaoman didn't care, though, since although his shop had sold out, his father had harvested a lot this year!
Because his son was at home, Jiang Youliang didn't sell any of the wild vegetables and mushrooms he picked this year (he couldn't possibly sell them to his son), and kept them all for his own family to eat.
The weather has been a bit humid and hot lately, and I don't usually have much of an appetite. So Jiang Xiaoman made a few appetizing home-style dishes to go with rice, such as stir-fried shredded beef with pickled cabbage, with some wild chili peppers that she grew herself. One bite and it was an amazing experience!
The pickled bamboo shoots, pickled chili peppers, and pickled cowpeas are diced. The fatty and lean cured pork is first stir-fried in oil, then minced garlic and dried chili peppers are added. Finally, the pickled bamboo shoots and other ingredients are added. The pickled chili peppers are green and red, which looks very appealing. This is Jiang Xiaoman's favorite dish to eat with rice.
There was also steamed eggplant, steamed lean pork with edamame, steamed loach, and a big pot of pork rib and winter melon soup.
The large table was already packed full, but Jiang Xiaoman, the host, still felt it wasn't enough, so she brought out several small plates of her own homemade pickled vegetables for them to try.
"Wow! Xiaoman, your kimchi looks so good! What are all these?" Kong Feifei pointed to a plate of brightly colored kimchi placed next to her.
"This is actually just vegetables that we can't finish eating from our garden. We chop them up and make them into pickles. But this can't be kept for too long. Usually, after it's made, it's kept in the refrigerator and should be eaten within half a month. That's why I haven't put it on the shelves. Otherwise, with these ingredients, I could make thousands of kilograms in no time."
Jiang Xiaoman smiled and pointed to the pickled vegetables on the plate: "This is mountain chili pepper, this is sweet potato stalk, this is a kind of sour fruit we picked in the mountains, and this is ginger..."
The colorful kimchi looks delicious and tastes even more appetizing.
After having some kimchi to whet my appetite, it was time for the main meal.
The steamed pork with rice flour in Langshan is different from other places. It is steamed in a bamboo steamer with a cloth as a lining. The rice flour is also ground at home and stir-fried with five-spice powder, making the steamed pork with rice flour especially fragrant!
The braised free-range chicken is served with local red potatoes. The chicken is fragrant and firm, the potatoes are soft and glutinous, and the broth is absolutely delicious when mixed with rice!
There's also stir-fried shredded beef with pickled cabbage. At first glance, it looks like some random, bizarre combination, but once you taste it, you realize that the beef, coated in the spiciness of wild chili peppers, is both fragrant and spicy. And because of the pickled cabbage, it's especially appetizing...
The fans thoroughly enjoyed the meal, but these guys were particularly wicked; while eating, they took photos and videos and posted them in the fan group, infuriating the fans who didn't get a spot and making a fuss about kicking them out of the group.
Later, someone secretly assured them in the group that they would find a way to persuade Xiaoman to sell kimchi in the live stream, which temporarily spared their lives...
Jiang Xiaoman's kimchi is absolutely delicious!
This stuff is not only appetizing and makes you want to eat more, but it's also delicious to eat as a snack even if you don't have a meal. It's nothing like the salty pickles they used to eat, which were extremely salty. It probably contains rock sugar, so although it's sour and spicy, it doesn't make your stomach feel too uncomfortable.
Even though they were already quite full after dinner, everyone still couldn't resist picking up the last bit of kimchi and finishing it all. If they weren't a little embarrassed since they had just met, they would have forced Jiang Xiaoman to start developing kimchi right now!
After dinner, while the other fans went upstairs to wash up and rest, Jiang Cancan's fans came to find Jiang Xiaoman, saying they had bought some things and wanted to visit Grandma Jiang and Jiang Yueyue. They were just wondering if it would bother the elderly lady, and if it was inconvenient, they would leave the things with Jiang Xiaoman and ask him to pass them on.
“What’s inconvenient about that? Grandma Jiang is usually all alone at home, but Yueyue is in daycare this year, so she’s not usually home during the day. How about this, we’ll go fishing in the river tomorrow afternoon, and then go to Grandma Jiang’s house in the evening to cook a meal for Grandma Jiang and Yueyue together. We’ll have dinner there.”
Most of Jiang Xiaoman's fans know about the relationship between his family and Jiang Cancan's family. They heard that they were going to Jiang Cancan's house for dinner tomorrow night. Even those who don't usually follow celebrities are quite curious and want to know what a celebrity's home is like.
When they arrived the next evening and stood outside the courtyard where Grandma Jiang's family rented a house, carrying the fish and shrimp they had caught, their feelings became complicated.
To understand how much money celebrities in the entertainment industry make, just look at the news about various celebrities paying back taxes in recent years. Some have paid back hundreds of millions of yuan in taxes, which gives you an idea of how astonishing their annual income is.
Even if Jiang Cancan is just a child star who became popular last year, and still has to go to school and only does a few commercial performances each month, she still doesn't need to live in such a dilapidated farmhouse, does she?
The person who made this remark must be a new fan of Jiang Xiaoman.
After all, his longtime fans have seen the video he filmed at Jiang Cancan's house before, and that house was really dilapidated.
What they didn't know was that Lang Ying had come early that morning to help clean it.
Lang Ying has now moved to the new house with the children. However, she still has some living expenses that Jiang Cancan gave her. So Lang Ying has been helping to take care of Grandma Jiang and Yueyue. Since she also has to cook and eat, she simply combined the food expenses of the two families, so that she can have two more dishes at each meal.
When Grandma Jiang heard that it was a fan of Can Can who came to visit her, she specially changed into a new outfit. This outfit was also bought by Can Can and sent to Jiang Xiaoman. Even Yueyue, who came home from school, was made to wash her face and change into a new dress by Lang Ying.
The two girls, Da Niu and Er Niu, were envious and wanted to wear dresses too. Lang Ying now had money and couldn't bear to let her two daughters suffer. She couldn't afford expensive dresses, but she could afford dresses that cost twenty or thirty yuan on Pinduoduo. So she bought new dresses for her two daughters right away.
The fans had high hopes when they arrived, wanting to show Jiang Cancan's family back home. But once inside, they discovered that while the yard was a bit run-down, the interior was neatly organized. The wallpaper on the walls was actually made from the wrapping paper of a gift Jiang Cancan received from fans when she participated in a TV show.
Seeing that everyone seemed a bit reserved, as if they were suffering from social anxiety, Jiang Xiaoman smiled and stepped forward to introduce them loudly to Grandma Jiang—
"Great-Grandma! Can Can's fans have come to see you! They brought you and Yueyue lots of things."
The words startled some of the fans who were out of it, and they quickly put the rice, flour, cooking oil, and other food and supplies they had bought for Grandma Jiang and Yueyue into the main room.
"Sigh! Don't bring anything next time. Do you see my Cancan often? How is she now?" Grandma Jiang tried hard to open her blurry eyes, but she could only see a few blurry figures.
"Brother Xiaoman, is Grandma Jiang's eye... really incurable?" A fan with the online name "Divorce Made Me Rich Overnight" and real name Wu Yue was extremely distressed and couldn't help but whisper to Jiang Xiaoman if the medical expenses were insufficient. If not, she could help pay for it.
After all, she lived up to her name. Since her divorce from her scumbag ex-husband, she received a large sum of money, including three villas in the provincial capital. She has no children, so she can spend it however she wants.
“Sigh! We took her to a big hospital in the provincial capital, but there really wasn’t much we could do. Luckily, Cancan can earn money now, and we’ve hired someone in the village to help take care of her. Life is much better than it was in the mountains before,” Jiang Xiaoman explained.
Everyone was really looking forward to bringing warmth and comfort, but they didn't expect Grandma Jiang's house to be so clean. Even the bed sheets and blankets showed signs of being washed and cleaned frequently.
Fortunately, at this moment, Grandma Jiang asked them if they could see Jiang Cancan more often. The fans quickly took out their phones and showed Grandma Jiang videos of Jiang Cancan participating in rehearsals and performances of recent programs, which were taken by the fansite admin.
It's unbelievable that Jiang Cancan, a child star who hasn't even fully grown up yet, still has fans who are willing to take pictures of her...
But the truth is just that absurd.
Fan site admins also need to earn a living, so of course they'll photograph whichever fan group pays them the most.
As everyone knows, Jiang Cancan has a famously large number of wealthy fans in the industry!
Generally, if a nouveau riche like this likes a young and beautiful female celebrity, then there must be some intriguing purpose behind it... But these people like Jiang Cancan simply because they treat her as a daughter or even a granddaughter.
These wealthy people certainly don't have the time to chase after Jiang Cancan around like other fans.
But that's okay, they may not have time, but they have money!
For this reason, although Jiang Cancan isn't a particularly famous child star in the industry, she has a lot of materials, videos, and photos. There are even fans who have created a thread in Jiang Cancan's personal super topic to regularly update her latest materials...
Jiang Xiaoman felt that Jiang Xia should really see just how seriously Jiang Cancan's fans were in their pursuit of their idol!
Chapter 171
Although they couldn't bring warmth to Grandma Jiang, they allowed her to "see" her long-lost granddaughter through her blurry vision and hear Jiang Cancan's clear and melodious singing voice on stage. The fans were even happier than if they had seen their "daughter" Jiang Cancan themselves!
To their surprise, when they were leaving, Grandma Jiang heard that what they wanted most was Jiang Cancan's pencil autograph, so she took out a thick stack of lyrics that Jiang Cancan had handwritten when she was a child, and gave each of them a few sheets.
"This...this is too precious, we can't accept it!"
Although the fans really wanted it, it was given to them privately by Grandma Jiang without Jiang Cancan's consent. What if it was one of Cancan's treasured possessions?
Just like the Ultraman or Sailor Moon cards they collected when they were kids.
Parents think they're just a pile of scraps of paper, and only their peers can understand how precious they are.
"Hey! Take this! My Cancan is smart. No matter what song it is, she can memorize the lyrics after copying them once. She wrote these down while listening to the radio because she was afraid of forgetting them. After she finished writing them down, she just put them aside. Do you want them? I'll use them to start a fire later..." Grandma Jiang said happily.
Start a fire? No way!
The fans practically pounced on the stack of lyrics that Jiang Cancan had handwritten herself and divided them up.
Some of the pencil marks on these surfaces are quite faint, but that's not a problem!
With the filter of a fan, these handwritten lyrics have already acquired the qualities of a family heirloom.
Jiang Xiaoman, watching from the side, was also a little envious.
They're all fans, so why can't his fans simply love him in the same way?
Upon meeting him, she didn't even care whether he had lost weight recently due to exhaustion.
I didn't even notice that he had prepared a handwritten welcome card for each guest room.
All I know is to urge him to hurry up and make kimchi (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻
but--
Speaking of kimchi, Jiang Xiaoman thought about it carefully. Since she was free anyway, maybe she could try making a batch to sell?
After the Dragon Boat Festival, there aren't many jobs left to earn money in the countryside. The next batch of wild honey won't be harvested until around the Mid-Autumn Festival, the planted golden chrysanthemums are growing freely, and crops like potatoes and soybeans haven't reached harvest season yet.
At this time of year, the mothers left behind in the village had no money at all. They often argued over the phone to ask their husbands who were working away from home for some money. After the argument, they would look at their children and could only wipe away their tears and endure it.
What can I do if I can't bear it?
A man can be heartless enough to abandon his child in his hometown and not care about him at all, but a mother can't bring herself to do that.
Jiang Xiaoman still remembers a tragedy that happened in the village. A mother left behind by her child couldn't afford to buy school uniforms for her child, so she carried the vegetables she grew to the market to sell. However, the price of vegetables was particularly low in the summer, and a full basket of cabbages only sold for less than five yuan!