The Peasant Wife: The Prime Minister's Beloved

"I am still not your biological child. You keep praising Chen Xi and belittling me. No matter how good she is, my feelings for Xie Tianyi are no less than anyone else's."

Xu Jing's dissatisfaction was evident in her words. She did have a good impression of Xie Tianyi and had hoped that her father could lend her a helping hand as the village chief. However, she did not expect to be met with her father's ruthless cold water.

"If you really love Xie Tianyi as much as you say, why did you choose to leave and marry someone else when he was injured and needed help? Jing'er, I know exactly what you are thinking. Don't waste your time on it. There is no way Xie Tianyi would fall in love with you."

No one knows a daughter better than her father. This sentence by Xu Gaoping reveals his thorough understanding of his daughter's character.

"How do you know it won't work if you don't try? What if he is a little interested in me?"

Xu Gaoping was very angry at his daughter's stubborn words: "You are such a person that you will not turn back until you hit your head against the wall. I am too lazy to care about your affairs anymore. You can do it yourself. Don't come to me crying when the time comes."

Xu Gaoping, holding Qiao'er in his arms, stepped over the threshold and walked into the house.

The house was filled with the aroma of food. My wife was busy in the kitchen, her hands flying, preparing dinner.

When she looked up and caught a glimpse of the little person in Xu Gaoping's arms, a gentle smile appeared on the corners of her mouth involuntarily. She then put down the kitchen utensils in her hands, rubbed her hands on her apron, and walked forward to tease Qiao'er.

The mention of Wu Jing's marriage cast a faint cloud of gloom over the entire family.

She married into a cloth merchant's family two villages away from her village. The man was more than ten years older than her. His family business was involved in cloth trade and seemed to be very prosperous.

However, Xu Gaoping always had objections to this in his heart, and that uneasiness seemed to foreshadow the twists and turns that would follow.

But Xu Jing's determination was as firm as a rock, and she firmly believed that she could embark on the road to happiness through this marriage.

It's just that fate plays tricks on us and often doesn't play by the rules.

It turned out that the cloth merchant was actually a prodigal son addicted to gambling. Not only did he lose all his business, he even lost the property passed down from his ancestors.

Faced with this sudden change, Xu Jing and her daughter had no choice but to leave and wander around, and finally returned to Xianghe Village.

Talking about this, we have to mention the accident of Xie Tianyi. His fall caused a broken leg. This incident was like a bolt from the blue for Xu Jing. She broke down emotionally for a while and impulsively threw herself into the arms of that gambler. She never thought that her married life would be a mess, with endless quarrels and no peace for a day.

After finally escaping from that gloomy marriage, when she returned to Xianghe Village with a tired heart, she found that Xie Tianyi's leg injury had healed.

Xu Jing was secretly thinking in her mind, wondering how to get close to Xie Tianyi again and mend the old rift.

But Xie Tianyi's cold attitude today made her suspicious: Could it be that he still hasn't let it go?

Do you resent yourself for leaving so decisively and turning to someone else's arms?

After some self-reflection, she realized that all this was just her imagination. Xie Tianyi might never have had such thoughts. It was all just her wishful thinking.

As night fell quietly, Chen Xi began to prepare dinner, using fresh ingredients purchased from the town.

The pig intestines, ribs and pig's trotters were taken out one by one and carefully cleaned, especially the pig intestines, which were extremely tedious to handle. Every fold needed to be carefully cleaned, which took a lot of time.

Just as she was concentrating on the work at hand, Xie Tianyi quietly stepped into the kitchen, witnessed this scene, and offered to share the burden, "Let me do these rough jobs!"

Chen Xi responded with a gentle smile, tacitly agreed to his help, and assigned him the task of chopping the ribs and pig's trotters, "Then you are responsible for chopping these into large pieces, and do the same with the pig's trotters. Afterwards, I will braise them together with the pig's intestines."

"Okay, leave it to me." Xie Tianyi answered cheerfully, the kitchen knife in his hand flew up and down, and he completed the task neatly in a few strokes. People couldn't help but sigh that if this kind of heavy work fell on Chen Xi, it would definitely take a lot of effort.

After cleaning the pig intestines, Chen Xi put the three ingredients into boiling water to blanch them to remove the fishy smell, then took them out, rinsed them, and poured them back into the big pot.

Just as she was about to add more marinade ingredients, she found that there was very little stock left at home.

Seeing that Xie Tianyi had just left the kitchen for a moment, Chen Xi suddenly had an idea and quickly entered the space mall to exchange for a bag of marinade, and then returned to the real world, to the kitchen.

The marinade is slowly poured into the pot, along with carefully selected spices, appropriate amounts of salt and soy sauce, and enough water. Finally, the pot is covered, the heat is turned to the lowest, and the long stewing process begins.

At the same time, Chen Rong, Xiao Yang and Xiao Chen returned home. As soon as they entered the house, they were attracted by the fragrance from the kitchen. "Sister, it smells so good! What delicious food are you going to make today?"

Chen Xi responded with a smile while tidying up the stove: "A big pot full of braised pig intestines, pig's trotters and spareribs. I remember you complained last time that you didn't have enough to eat, but today you can eat as much as you want."

"Wow, today's dinner is so sumptuous, are there any special guests coming?" Chen Rong asked curiously.

"No, just our family enjoying the food."

The sun shyly broke through the clouds and finally generously spread across the entire village.

After a few days of rest, the workers' faces were filled with anticipation and energy for returning to work. Although lunch was distributed by the foreman and was rich and enough to comfort their hard work, the freedom to arrange dinner made everyone have some calculations in their minds, and when the bell rang, they scattered like birds and beasts.

Chen Rong nodded slightly, a hint of concern between his eyebrows, "If there is anything that needs to be moved or sorted, can I help?"

Chen Xi cast a gentle look at him with a hint of smile on his lips, "Really, that's not necessary. Go play with Xiaoyang and Xiaochen for a while. It's getting late and dinner time is almost here."

"Sister, I want to taste the crayfish we caught by the river again. How about we go catch them together on a free day?" Chen Rong's eyes were shining with nostalgia.

Chen Xi agreed with a smile, "Of course, I'll make more spicy flavors this time so you can satisfy your craving."

Chen Rong was very excited to get the permission. He led Xiaoyang and Xiaochen back to the room and took out several thick textbooks from the bookshelf.

As the school opening date approached, he made up his mind to use this precious time to catch up on the courses he had missed one by one so as not to fall behind his classmates in the new semester.

In the courtyard, Xie Tianyi was chopping firewood diligently. The stove at home had been consuming a lot of firewood recently due to the frequent cooking of soups and stewed dishes. The firewood that Chen Rong had helped to chop earlier had already been used up.

Sweat slid down his determined face and dripped onto the soil.

Chen Xi noticed that Xie Tianyi was tired, and hurriedly handed him a glass of water, saying with concern: "Drink some water first and take a rest."