Chapter 331: A Warm Heart

Chapter 331: Chapter 264: A Warm Heart

The authentic Tan lamb was incredibly delicious. The meat was tender, not the least bit gamy, and since it was freshly butchered and perfectly cooked, the savory flavor was out of this world!

Ni Bingyan couldn’t help herself. She devoured five ribs in one go before finally looking up.

Five rib bones, picked clean and of varying lengths, lay on the table. Ni Bingyan could practically hear the resounding SLAP of her own words coming back to bite her.

‘Oh, I don’t like lamb…’

‘What devil possessed me to say that?’

She deeply regretted asking the owner’s family for permission to film the dinner scene for her show.

‘They say mountain streams are fickle, but a person’s mind is even more so.’

Even though there was a reason for it and her previous words had clearly been a polite refusal, malicious people wouldn’t care about the context.

She was bound to be gossiped about later.

But what was done was done. Seeing the owner’s family looking at her with warm smiles, Ni Bingyan’s face turned as red as a beet. She drank another bowl of lamb broth before she finally composed herself.

But as a public figure, she had plenty of practice saving face. Ni Bingyan quickly found a smooth way out of the awkward situation:

“Aunt Dong, your cooking is simply amazing, and the lamb your grandaunt raises is the best! Ah, if only my stomach were bigger, I’d lick the pot clean for you…”

Her words were chosen skillfully.

The owner’s family felt her friendliness, her approval, and her praise. The words were sweeter than honey to their ears.

The owner’s wife was especially pleased. She glanced around at her family with a proud look, then lifted her chin slightly and set down the lamb bone she was holding.

“Hmph! See? I told you it was good. My aunt has been raising sheep her entire life, and hers are the best I’ve ever tasted! Now that she’s getting older and her children have moved away, she doesn’t have the energy she used to. She only raises a dozen or so each year for relatives. You just happened to come at the right time.”

Ni Bingyan was generous with her praise. “I’ve always been a very lucky person. No matter where I go, I always seem to meet kind and warm-hearted people. I often feel like I can never repay their kindness, so all I can do is be a little stricter with myself. Every morning when I wake up, I tell myself to do more good and avoid doing harm.”

“Haha!”

The owner, also a warm and generous man, felt incredibly pleased to hear her say that.

“Birds of a feather flock together. If you’re always meeting good people, it just means you’re a good person yourself!”

The compliments were all sincere, so it didn’t feel awkward at all. Ni Bingyan chuckled happily and picked up a lamb trotter.

‘They prepare it so differently from how they do back home. It won’t be easy to find lamb this good, with such a distinct local flavor, again.’

“Tomorrow morning, I’ll make you some lamb rice noodle soup. My daughter-in-law makes the noodles by hand—it’s a family recipe, haha! They’re really special! I remember you said your grandmother’s family is from Guisheng. I wonder if you’ll like them?”

The owner’s wife pointed to her daughter-in-law, her face beaming with delight.

‘Looks like the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law have a great relationship.’

‘That’s not always easy.’

“Oh, that’s too much trouble!”

“What trouble? My granddaughter loves it too, so it’s just a matter of making one extra bowl. It’s no trouble at all, really.”

The entire family of five sat around the table, all of them incredibly warm toward Ni Bingyan.

As the meal went on, everyone except the owner’s quiet son became very chatty.

“I’m from Guisheng,” the daughter-in-law explained. “Right after we got married, my father fell ill. My in-laws were very understanding and let us settle down in Guisheng. Now, both my parents have passed away, and this area has developed quite a bit. So my husband and I thought it over and decided to close our rice noodle shop and move back with our child. Since the family already had a restaurant, we just added a breakfast service. Lately, lots of people have been coming from far and wide just to eat here.”

The daughter-in-law had a very gentle demeanor. Because of her heavy accent, she spoke slowly and deliberately, worried that people might not understand her. It was easy to take a liking to her after even a short conversation.

“Living together with family and being able to look out for one another is wonderful,” Ni Bingyan said. “And now that tourism is booming, you have a bright future to work toward. Even though it’s just a county town and can’t compare to a big city, life here has its own special charm.”

“It does!”

After finishing the lamb trotter and another half-bowl of broth, Ni Bingyan was absolutely stuffed. She quickly had to decline the owner’s next offer of food.

“These hand-pulled noodles made from the new wheat harvest smell so fragrant, but I really can’t eat another bite.”

“If you’re full, just rest. Don’t be so polite. All this back-and-forth is just a hassle.”

The whole family had this straightforward attitude, which was why Ni Bingyan hadn’t felt the least bit awkward since she’d arrived.

“Sister Ni, how do you write your name? I’ve never met anyone with your last name before!”

The owner’s son had married young, and his daughter was already eight years old. Seeing that Ni Bingyan had finished eating and was wiping her hands with a wet napkin, the little girl decided to strike up a conversation.

Children don’t eat as much, so while the adults were still at the table, she had already finished her meal and was doing homework off to the side.

She was very well-mannered and never interrupted when the adults were talking.

Now that the adults were busy slurping their noodles, she finally saw her chance.

Hearing the question, Ni Bingyan took the girl’s pen and paper and neatly wrote her name down for her.

The little girl was delighted. She took the paper, looked at it again and again, then praised her with a happy smile.

“Sister, your handwriting is so pretty! I’m going to practice hard on mine too!”

Ni Bingyan deflected the compliment with a bit of modesty before giving the girl some heartfelt encouragement.

The little girl’s enthusiasm was instantly ignited!

“Then I’ll be sure to work hard at it! By the time you visit again, I promise my handwriting will be much better!”

“Okay!”

“What does your name mean? I was born in the spring, and my mom said I was like a little sprout budding in the spring rain, so she named me Yu Meng.”

“My name? Well, ‘Yan’ means inkstone, and ‘Bing’ means ice. So, Bingyan means a frozen inkstone.”

Ni Bingyan had never given the question much thought, but in the blink of an eye, a good explanation came to her.

“A long time ago, people didn’t have heating or air conditioning. They didn’t have convenient things like pencils, ballpoint pens, or fountain pens. They could only write with a brush. And when they wrote, they didn’t have bottled ink; they had to grind an ink stick on an inkstone to make it.”

“In the winter, when it got really cold, the water in the inkstone would freeze over. So if people wanted to learn and study, they had to put in much more effort. To be that dedicated is pretty amazing, right?”

Yu Meng furrowed her brow and nodded. “That sounds really hard! We’re so lucky to be able to sit in bright classrooms with air conditioning while we read and write!”

“Exactly! My family must have given me this name hoping that I would be diligent and eager to learn. I’m telling you this because I hope you’ll be diligent and eager to learn, too!”

“That’s no problem at all! I’ve always loved to learn!”

The rest of the family watched them talk, all smiling warmly.

After the meal, she was warm both in body and in spirit.

Some celebrities wouldn’t do a single conscientious thing, but others, like her, were as kind-hearted as they were beautiful.

They had been around long enough to be good judges of character, and they could tell what kind of person this young woman was.

Never mind slaughtering a lamb for her—if they’d had an ox, they would have offered that too.

If Xiao Ni hadn’t specifically asked them not to, they would have immediately posted on their social media and called all their friends and family to share the news. She had explained that she would be staying in Wutong County for a few more days and worried that if word got out, people might flock to see her, potentially causing a dangerous crowd.