A Guide to Growing Your Own Food

At just twenty-three, Tang Zhizhi got married on impulse and woke up the next day with a husband and a three-year-old kid. They had met through a matchmaking arrangement. Before the wedding, Tang Zhizhi had a good impression of Song Yu. He was polite and handsome, and she figured that even if they didn’t have much chemistry, at least looking at his face would put her in a good mood. On the first day of their marriage, she woke up in a huge villa with a yard and realized she’d married into a seriously wealthy family. Then she saw the bare yard, and her gardening-blogger DNA kicked in. The size of the fortune didn’t matter. Now that they were married, surely she could do whatever she wanted with the yard, right? With Mr. Song’s approval, Tang Zhizhi let loose, happily buying seedlings, mixing soil, and making compost. Then one crisp autumn day, as she was planting strawberry seedlings in the yard, the little kid watched her working hard and called out brightly, “Mom!” Tang Zhizhi nearly had a heart attack. You can say anything you want, but you can’t just call someone Mom! Tang Zhizhi: I’m not your mom. Your mom’s in the Maldives. Kid: Waaaaah! Tang Zhizhi: But you can call me Big Sister. Kid: Big Sister…? Mr. Song, back from a business trip: Hmm? The yard was so big that they produced lots of food scraps and dead leaves every day, and growing flowers and vegetables also required plenty of fertilizer, so Tang Zhizhi started composting. Composting means putting food scraps and shredded leaves together. Microorganisms break them down into organic fertilizer. The fermentation process generates heat, which kills insect eggs, germs, and weed seeds. But the temperature in the center of the pile gets too high for earthworms and bacteria to survive, so you need to turn it over every couple of days. It was hard work, and Tang Zhizhi couldn’t be bothered. Every time, she’d sweet-talk germaphobic Song Yu into turning it for her. Then one day, after the two of them had an argument, Song Yu slammed the door and stormed off. Once she’d calmed down, Tang Zhizhi realized she was in the wrong. She searched the whole house without finding him, then went downstairs and saw him outside, sleeves rolled up, furiously turning the compost with a shovel. Tang Zhizhi: … All right, she really was wrong. QAQ It’s basically a gardening novel? A sweet, everyday story about growing flowers, falling in love, and raising a kid. P.S. The hero has been married before, and the child is his biological child. Theme: Love life.