Chapter 18 - Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Five Tripod Mushrooms_l (1/2)

Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Five Tripod Mushrooms_l

Translator: 549690339

Yingbao stayed there for four or five years, enduring daily whippings and being forced to learn acrobatics and song-and-dance routines, learning how to charm and please people.

It was in that place that she learned to read and understand scripts from an elder sister.

It wasn’t until she was fourteen that her biological father, Chen Changping, passed the scholar examination. The Han family feared that her shameful past as a slave would be discovered, so they redeemed her.

After all, Chen Changping was now a man of distinction. The imperial court valued family ties and filial piety. If someone were to report that he had sold his daughter into slavery, he would be barred from taking the official examination, and even if he had passed, his results might be revoked. In severe cases, his scholar status could even be stripped away.

That was the truth, not what was written in the book, that she was sent to the countryside.

Ha-ha, it’s not worth reading such a book filled with nonsense, describing a deer as a horse.

The next day, when she woke up…

Yingbao checked her wrist; the charred area had begun to heal and didn’t hurt much anymore.

“Indeed, the Five Ding Herbs are a treasure of nature.” She was both surprised and pleased.

Judging by this rate of recovery, in a few days, the wound should be scabbed over. What she was unsure about was whether the birthmark had been removed.

Upon thinking, Yingbao took out a large batch of Five Ding Herbs, chewed them for a while, and swallowed them.

They tasted fresh and slightly sweet as soon as they entered her mouth. She couldn’t describe the taste, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

She may have eaten too many this time, as she only felt a warm stream flowing through her entire body, making her feel cozy and comfortable.

Her mind became clear in an instant, and her body filled with vigor.

She stretched her legs, joyfully dressed herself, wrapped her wrist, opened the door to her room, only to find that it had snowed outside.

The pristine snow had blanketed the courtyard up to the thickness of half a knee.

Yingbao rubbed her face, steps on the snow with her cotton shoes, but she felt

unusually cheerful.

Youyou was calling her from the newly built straw shed, and the hens were clucking away nonstop.

Yingbao ran over, dipping one foot deeply in the snow and raising the other, placing some straw and a few beautiful green soybean sprouts in Youyou’s stone trough.

The straw was leftover from the rice harvest in their own paddy field, while the bean sprouts were produced in the cave dwelling.

Youyou didn’t mind the fewer green plants and slowly chewed down the straw and bean sprouts.

Yingbao then scattered some barnyard millet and a handful of shepherd’s purse for the chickens before she picked up four eggs from the chicken nest and put them into the egg basket.

Her father couldn’t bear to kill these five chickens after all and bought new ones to boost the body of his wife.

Jiang Erlang built another straw shed in the courtyard for the chickens to perch and made a cozy shed for Youyou as well.

The kitchen is finally a lot cleaner without the daily chore of cleaning up chicken droppings and that stench of chicken feces.

“Baobao, why are you up so early?”

Her father, Jiang Erlang, was carrying a bucket, heading out of the courtyard.

Seeing his daughter already busy in the chicken pen, he said, “It’s cold outside. Don’t catch a chill. Come back inside. I’ll cook in a while.”

“Alright.” Yingbao clapped her hands together and then hopped back to the east room to check on her brothers.

The two little ones were already awake, and Chunniang was feeding them.

Yingbao peered over the edge of the kang (a traditional Chinese heated bed) at the brother in her mother’s arms, wishing they would quickly grow up so she could take them out to play.

Chunniang gently said to her daughter, “Come up here on the kang, it’s cold on the ground.”

“Alright.” Yingbao quickly climbed up onto the kang and sat next to her mother.

Now her daily task was to take care of her brothers, freeing up more time for her mother to rest.

The family would only improve as long as her mother got a good rest and regained her strength.

Yingbao thought about the Five Ding Herbs in the cave dwelling and hesitated whether to give her mother some.

But her brothers were still breastfeeding, and she couldn’t guarantee that the herb wouldn’t affect the babies’ normal development.