She looked around the kitchen through the square open window and found what she was looking for, just a day earlier, she bought two chickens with her to nourish the children and Fang Chi. After all, she was taking care of someone else’s child and could not just cook anything that she wanted to save the efforts without Chen Mi here, one of the chickens was cooked yesterday in a savoury chicken curry that was eaten together with rice but today making curry was not an option given that she has to carry it to the shore of the ocean which was at a good distance from here.

Yu Dong walked towards the simply built kitchen that had a counter used for cutting the vegetables and meat, next to it was a brick stove and just sitting next to it was an oven that their family hardly used but Yu Dong who always had a vision for the future had it built given that she thought it might come in use and sure enough today it was finally going to get a chance to shine.

The chicken was hanging on the wall facing the south that had many hooks and ropes attached to it, these ropes were tied to the upper beam of the kitchen and the other end was tied to a basket that held most of their vegetables to save some space and on the hooks, they generally left their meat dangling to avoid the cat or the kids from getting to it.

She took the chicken off its hook and placed it down on the counter before bowing down and taking out a large sheet pan from the bottom of the cabinet that was under the counter. She set it on the counter and then tossed the chicken in it after chopping it up and dressed it with —-sesame oil and soy sauce, once she was done, she peered out of the window and when she saw that the kids were in their rooms and Fang Chi was busy knitting his sweater, she carefully took out a foil from her space and covered the chicken with it and hurriedly put in in the oven leaving it to brown.

Ten minutes later she tossed the cabbage with the same dressing and nestled it under the chicken before tossing and turning it as it should have been.

” Do you need help?” Who knows when Fang Chi came to stand behind her but his sudden appearance made Yu Dong almost jump as she shook her head and closed the oven. ” No, you don’t have to do anything, I will do it just fine.”

God, don’t tell her that she messed up and Fang Chi got a glimpse of the foil, she was running out of excuses that she has to give to him. It wasn’t that she was trying to hide anything from Fang Chi but she knew he wasn’t ready for something like that especially when he was pregnant, the others accepted her because they were in a much more desperate condition and were willing to take whatever was given to them but Fang Chi —— she didn’t know how he will he react after finding out that she didn’t belong to this world and that she couldn’t even be counted normal.

” If you do it alone then it will take a long time, the kids will be ready by an hour or so and there are four of them, don’t tell me you will be able to cook enough for four growing kids and that too alone?” Fang Chi was a little surprised by her actions but decided not to think too much about it, after all, it was his fault that he crept behind Yu Dong all of a sudden.

Yu Dong looked out of the window pane that was on the west of the kitchen and sure enough, it was getting a bit too dark, they didn’t want to spend the night at the shore so it was better to quickly finish up and head there. She sighed and handed a piece of washed and chopped duck meat and the five spice, as she said, ” You do know how to make spiced duck salad right?”

”I do, Brother Mi taught me,” said Fang Chi as he took over the job and started helping Yu Dong with his nimble hands.

With Fang Chi helping out the picnic menu that was decided in a jiffy was cooked before the kids came out of their rooms after they were done taking a nap. Yu Dong packed the last and final item that was the chrysanthemum tea in a long water pouch and smiled at the kids who were prepared to head out, especially Yu Mai, who had packed his toys with him, amused she teased him, ” If you lose any of the toys I am not going to look for it in the middle of the ocean.”

Yu Mai pouted and then turned around and stomped back to his room before coming empty-handed, seeing that he was a bit upset, Yu Dong carefully looked around the kitchen and when she was certain that Fang Chi was in his room, she took out a bunch of children beach bucket and shovel set from her space. Her brothers liked to sit down and build castles near small ponds since going to the ocean wasn’t an option—— as she thought about her brothers and looked down at the small children’s set, she wished her brothers were doing fine and her team delivered her brothers safely to her parents.

” Sister, what’s wrong?” asked Yu Mai when he noticed the glazed look in the eyes of his sister to which Yu Dong smiled and said, “Nothing just something fell into my eyes.”