"Qingtong!" Yang Chuxia suddenly looked mischievously at her younger brother, laughing, "Now that you’re not going to school, don’t you miss your tearful classmate?"
"Why would I miss that crybaby?" Yang Qingtong rolled his eyes in response.
"So you really don’t miss him at all?" Yang Chuxia asked again.
"Sis, you’re so annoying!" Yang Qingtong said and ran away.
Yang Chuxia looked speechless at the now distant Yang Qingtong, "This little brat, he’s really itching for a beating, daring to complain about me being annoying!"
Ms. Wang shook her head at the bickering siblings and continued slicing the potatoes in her hand.
"Mother, how much have you got done in the past few days?" Yang Chuxia looked at the thinly-sliced potatoes, which were all uniform in size.
"We’ve sliced several bags, all dried and ready for frying," Ms. Wang replied while continuing to cut.
"What about the potato strips?"
Xiu’er, the young maid, said, "Miss, we’ve also sliced several bags of potato strips."
"Oh, a few bags aren’t enough, we need to prepare more." Yang Chuxia said, "Also, Mother, later inform Aunt Caixia and Granny Lan that we need to speed up on making the shrimp paste and drunken crabs. We need to prepare more stock before the start of the fishing ban."
"Mhm, I’ve told them about that already. The other day, when you weren’t home, Shopkeeper Li came to pick up a batch of goods. He said he wanted to prepare more drunken crabs this year to transport to the Capital City. So, yesterday your father went to the Wu Family and asked them to deliver more crabs and shrimp."
Upon hearing this, Yang Chuxia couldn’t help but sigh. Ms. Wang and Yang Dachuan were no longer as submissive as before, handling matters in a more orderly manner.
"Mhm, that’s good." Yang Chuxia nodded, "Are you planning to fry these potatoes tomorrow, Mother?"
"Yes, we’ll cut and dry the washed potatoes today, then fry the dried ones tomorrow." Ms. Wang replied, "If you’re free, go grind up the coarse salt into fine salt powder for use tomorrow. Recently, fine salt powder has been hard to buy, so we have to grind the coarse salt ourselves."
"Alright, I’ll do it now!"
Yang Chuxia quickly took out some coarse salt and fetched a mortar.
Her hands were fast and strong, grinding a large plate of fine salt powder in no time.
"Brother Qingtong, may I ask if Brother Qingtong is here?" As Yang Chuxia was about to put another batch of salt into the mortar, a soft and cute child’s voice came from outside the door.
When Yang Chuxia went out to see, it was the little girl who had been here before – the one who always stuck to Yang Qingtong.
"Little sister, are you looking for Qingtong?"
The child looked earnestly at Yang Chuxia and said, "Big sister, I’m a little brother!"
"Pfft..." Yang Chuxia laughed, "But you’re clearly a little girl."
"Nanny said I couldn’t tell anyone at the academy that I’m a little girl."
"But we’re not at the academy now, are we?"
The little girl listened and nodded seriously, "Oh, alright. Then, big sister, could you tell me if Brother Qingtong is here?"
"Pfft..." This little girl was too cute. "He’s here. You wait here for a while, and I’ll have someone go get him, okay?"
"Okay!" The little girl obediently nodded. Yang Chuxia turned to look at the maid and two young boys accompanying the little girl, and said, "You all can come in too."
Then she called out, "Xiu’er, Xiu’er, go to Brother An’s house and bring Qingtong and Qingrui back."
"Yes, Miss, I’ll go now."
"Wait, when you go, don’t tell Qingtong who’s come, understand?"