The Farmer's Wife Who Cooks

As a little girl, Qi knew that she would rather starve than become a child bride. When the bridal sedan carried her to the Wang family, she learned that a pretty face could hide a rotten heart. In a tenant farmer’s household, the three brothers’ wives took turns cooking. One morning, the head of the family cried out in dismay, “I can’t run this household anymore! We’ve gone through a whole jin of cooking oil in just three days!” They couldn’t go on like this, so they split up the household. Split it up! The eldest, who was good at managing things, took one young ox and their mother, then set up his own household. The other three brothers shared one old ox and four rooms. Apart from the main room, each family got one room. When their mother-in-law grew old, she was to live with the youngest daughter-in-law. They carried her back on a stretcher and cared for her attentively. There were natural disasters that starved countless people to death. The production team’s piglets, which often wandered off and didn’t come home, ended up on the dinner table. In the storeroom, not a single sweet potato remained among the seedlings, not even a stem. Instead, there lay a heap of black... things. “What, arrest me? Hmph, you haven’t even crossed that door yet. “If anything happens to me, you three are responsible for raising my sons. When you think about it, that’s a pretty good deal!” In the communal-kitchen days, capable and efficient Wang Sanniang was chosen to take charge. Food is the people’s greatest need. After a lifetime of cooking, she served up the sour and the sweet, and every flavor of life!