Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Watery Multigrain Porridge
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A few days ago, I awakened as a Hunter.
To be more precise, a 'Jianghu Chef'.
For someone like me who'd been scraping by as a street food vendor for years, the abilities of a Jianghu Chef felt incredibly intriguing and useful.
'I can enhance the power inherent in ingredients.'
I made full use of this awakening ability, running my stall non-stop for several days.
The results were a resounding success.
With customers multiplying several times over, I didn't even have a moment to straighten my back, and my legs trembled in an involuntary twist dance regardless of my will.
But when I saw the money piling up in my money pouch, all the fatigue vanished as if it had never been.
I shook the wok relentlessly in front of the roaring brazier.
As the flames surged high, beads of sweat large and small welled up on my forehead.
"……!"
That was when it happened.
Amid the long line of customers, a small girl wearing a headscarf caught my eye.
For some reason, the moment our eyes met, a brilliant smile bloomed across the child's face.
Soon enough, she bolted straight toward me without hesitation.
"Wh-what's with that kid...?"
The girl and I were complete strangers.
Yet the child standing before me sparkled with anticipation, clutching something that looked like a radish root in her tiny hands.
Her eyes held a clear purpose.
The girl seemed to carry some story with her.
Atop a steep hillside stood a rickety old thatched hut that looked ready to collapse at any moment.
The mud walls had crumbled bit by bit from the rain, and the straw roof was rotten in places, long forgetting its duty.
This hovel, reminiscent of a mere animal shed in its poverty, was home to a mother and daughter.
The child, who barely reached an adult's waist, had the appearance and build of a five- or six-year-old at first glance. But she was ten this year.
Yeon Somi, wearing an old cotton cloth flipped over as a headscarf.
Beneath it, her jet-black bangs, slightly covering her forehead, stuck out like dried seaweed.
Somi wore straw sandals woven from rough bundles unfit even to call shoes.
She was clad in a ragged garment pieced together from scraps of cloth, her slender wrists peeking from the frayed cuffs.
Somi was malnourished.
Smaller and thinner than her peers.
Yet she had unusually round cheeks like a full moon lighting the night sky—vibrant and rosy with life.
Her mother often said Somi resembled a white peach basking in summer sunlight.
Though wrapped in shabby cloth, the child's pitch-black eyes brimmed with irrepressible cleverness and fierce spirit.
Somi headed to the kitchen at the back of the room to make multigrain porridge.
"I have to make multigrain porridge for Mother, who's not feeling well."
The child adjusted her headscarf and stood before the jar of grains, holding a cracked gourd ladle in her fern-like hands.
She dipped the gourd into the jar and stirred.
The ladle wandered through what felt like empty space, clinking against the jar's walls.
A moment later, her tiny hand slowly rose, gripping the gourd.
What it held were coarse grains: millet, sorghum, barley. Not a single grain of white rice in sight.
"Let's see."
The rough grains barely filled half the gourd.
Yet Somi twinkled her black eyes and curved her lips in a gentle smile.
"Good thing. Half full. This should be enough."
It was woefully too little even for one person.
But the child never despaired at her lot. She simply accepted it, as if another way would present itself.
She revived the embers in the brazier. Then poured the grains into an iron pot and added plenty of water.
No special recipe was needed.
The child hunkered down before the pot, staring fixedly at the bubbling porridge like it was a sacred relic.
Her cute lips moved slightly.
Thirsty, she ladled sips of water from the water jar.
Gulp, gulp—
Not enough, it seemed; soon she lifted the entire jar and drank.
"This should do it, right?"
Somi gazed down at her belly, now bulging with water.
With hands like maple leaves, she patted it contentedly.
"Be tasty, be tasty."
She stirred vigorously with a log as tall as herself to keep the porridge from sticking to the pot bottom.
Forgetting not her own little chant.
The pot sat a bit high on the brazier for Somi, so her plump little feet stood on tiptoe.
The nutty aroma of grains rose with white steam, gradually filling the kitchen.
Somi peeked into the pot. A satisfied smile bloomed across her peach-like face.
Yeon Somi-style watery multigrain porridge was complete.
Somi hurried toward the room. The tiny hut required only a few steps.
Entering, her eyes first fell on the wooden window, where tattered window paper flapped incessantly in the wind.
"Ugh, Somi? Cough, cough."
Her mother, lying on the sleeping platform, let out a dry cough.
Once started, the coughs wouldn't subside easily. She struggled to catch her breath, but more dry hacks followed.
In the end, Hye-yoon reached out a frail hand and pulled the worn blanket up to her mouth.
Yeon Hye-yoon.
Twenty-six this year, Somi's mother. Soon after marriage, she lost her husband to a plague. She'd raised Somi alone ever since.
With little education and steeped in poverty, Yeon Hye-yoon.
She took any odd job in the village: farming, cleaning, drawing water from the well—nothing was beneath her.
In the end, overwork led to Wind-Cold.
Wind-Cold was a cold caught from prolonged exposure to chill winds or low temperatures.
Unlike summer flu with its sweating, it brought bone-deep chills and persistent coughs.
"Somi, I'm sorry. Mother should recover soon, cough cough. But it's been seven days and nights like this..."
A weary voice leaked from her parched lips.
Somi drooped her eyes and scurried to her mother's side.
"Mother, save your words. Your throat must hurt from the Wind-Cold."
The child readjusted her headscarf and offered the steaming multigrain porridge.
"I made porridge. Please have a spoonful."
Yeon Hye-yoon stared at the watery gruel, then shook her head with a warm smile.
"Mother has no appetite. You eat it, Somi."
Hye-yoon hadn't gone to work for seven days due to the Wind-Cold.
Which meant young Somi hadn't had a proper meal in days.
Hye-yoon knew this better than anyone, so she pretended to be fine and yielded to her only daughter.
That was when it happened.
"Actually, Mother... I couldn't hold back my hunger earlier and ate the porridge first."
Somi rolled her round eyes, then stroked her bulging belly as if on cue.
"I secretly ate three full bowls in the kitchen."
To reassure her mother, Somi arched her back dramatically, feigning fullness.
A clever child.
She had anticipated her mother yielding and filled her belly with water beforehand.
Hye-yoon watched her daughter's small gestures hiding an empty stomach, wrinkles forming pitifully at her eye corners.
To modern people, a cold was so minor it scarcely deserved the name disease.
A single fever reducer and ample rest sufficed for recovery.
But the common folk of the Central Plains, malnourished, saw colds worsen easily into severe fevers, even pneumonia.
Prolonged high fever and coughs led inevitably to death.
As her mother began to eat, Somi watched with a beaming smile.
"Mother, just hold on a little. I'll go to the apothecary and buy Ephedra Decoction or Cinnamon Twig Decoction good for Wind-Cold."
Somi recited remedies she'd overheard somewhere, her cute lips pursed.
At those words, Hye-yoon's shoulders slumped, and she gripped her child's fern-like hand tightly.
The tiny fingertips were ice-cold.
"Somi, where would you get money? Mother's fine, don't worry... cough cough."
Hye-yoon tried to reassure her, but an untimely cough burst out.
In their hand-to-mouth life, medicine money was nonexistent.
Seeing this, Somi pulled ten coins from the folds of her tattered rags.
"Mother, look. 10 mon."
She placed the coins carefully on her palm and held out both hands.
A commoner's daily wage for Hye-yoon was usually 10 to 20 mon.
Enough for a bowl of noodles and a few steamed buns at market.
Not much, but sufficient for a day's worth of Wind-Cold remedy.
"Somi, where did you get that money...?"
Her mother's eyes wavered.
Fearing the child might have stolen for her medicine.
"While you were abed, I went to the market and helped in a kitchen."
As if reading her mind, Somi quickly offered a comforting reply.
"Then I'll head to the apothecary."
The child sprang up and hurried to the door.
Lest prolonged talk reveal her hidden hunger.
"Yes, be careful. Cough cough..."
Hye-yoon waved gently with her frayed sleeve cuff.
Slam, thud.
Out came Yeon Somi.
Behind her, the rotten wooden door cast a long shadow.
Step, step.
As Somi crossed her short legs, taking one step at a time.
A wind gliding through the sky whistled sharply past the child.
Whoosh—
Her headscarf fluttered into the air, revealing her closely cropped hair down to her ears.
"Ah, the scarf..."
Somi hastily grabbed the cloth.
She quickly covered her shortened hair, then glanced back to check the door was shut.
"I have to wear the scarf until Mother recovers... If she learns I sold my hair for medicine money, she'll be heartbroken."
No employer would hire a child as small and frail as Somi.
In the end, she sold her hair at a wig shop.
Ignoring the tight pull, she tied the scarf firmly.
One step, another, toward the market where the apothecary lay.
Somi's footsteps faded into the distance. Moments later, what seemed a firmly shut door creaked softly open.
Her mother, mustering her sick body to see her off, had been behind it.
Hye-yoon peered through the narrow gap at her daughter's shrinking back, letting a single tear fall in heartache.
She had glimpsed the child's shortened hair. And knew better than anyone what it meant.
The market near the city walls buzzed with energy.
Stalls lined the streets, shaking freshly roasted peanuts to lure customers, while steam rose enticingly from newly steamed buns.
Somi ignored the mouthwatering scents that tugged at her feet and headed straight for the apothecary.
Soon, she arrived before Benevolent Heart Hall.
Benevolent Heart Hall meant 'tending the people with a just heart'—the sole dealer of herbs near Chinese Gate.
In her haste, Somi clutched coins from her pouch before even crossing the threshold.
Entering, the musty scent of aged herbs assaulted her nose.
At the herb counter sat the owner, sporting a long beard like a radish root.
He eyed Somi up and down, then sighed shortly.
Too annoyed for greetings.
"My mother has Wind-Cold. Please give me a day's worth of herbs to dispel it."
Somi, unperturbed, placed 10 mon on her palm and offered it.
The owner tapped the counter with his fingertips, then bared yellowed teeth in a smirk.
"You know Wind-Cold's spreading like plague in the village lately. High demand means higher prices. A day's decoction is 100 mon."
He splayed his pudgy ten fingers wide. Ten times the old price.
Over the child's jet-black eyes, deep, heavy anxiety began to rise.