Hearing what Charles Bennett and Steward Evans said, how could Mrs. Reed not understand that the two were looking out for her? She packed up the food box, then nodded to Charles Bennett and said, “Alright, young master, you are a man of great ability, you will surely restore the prestige of the Zhou family. When that time comes, this old woman will come back to cook for you and the two young ladies!”

Mrs. Reed was never one to dawdle. After saying these words, she bid farewell to Charles Bennett. Charles Bennett also knew that Mrs. Reed still had a long way to walk to get back to the north of the city, so he didn’t keep her. Together with Steward Evans, he escorted her out the main gate, and only then did he carry the food to Mrs. Walker’s courtyard.

When Mrs. Walker, Grace, and Lily saw the food brought by the two, they were all quite surprised. After all, ever since the household servants had been dismissed, most of their meals had been cooked by Steward Evans. With debts piling up, their food had naturally become very simple. Now, suddenly, several of their favorite dishes were brought to them, which made them happy but also a bit puzzled.

Charles Bennett didn’t hide anything and told them about Mrs. Reed bringing the food earlier. As a result, Mrs. Walker and Grace were so moved that they burst into tears, while only four-year-old Lily didn’t really understand and just stared at her favorite sweet and sour pork, drooling.

Seeing Lily like that, Charles Bennett quickly comforted Mrs. Walker and Grace a few words, and took the opportunity to point at Lily, which made Mrs. Walker and Grace both laugh and feel sorry at the same time. They stopped crying and invited Steward Evans to sit down and eat together. Steward Evans had always held a high position in the Zhou household, and now that the family had fallen, he still loyally refused to leave. So Mrs. Walker didn’t treat him as an outsider. These days, everyone ate together. At first, Steward Evans declined a few times, but later he just went along and sat down.

Mrs. Reed’s cooking was beyond reproach, especially the sweet and sour pork that Charles Bennett loved most. This is a southern Cantonese dish, mainly sweet and sour in flavor, so it’s also called sweet and sour pork. It’s made by coating pork tenderloin in flour, frying it in oil until about sixty percent done, then stir-frying it with a specially prepared sweet and sour sauce. When you eat it, the sweet and sour taste is mixed with the tenderness of the pork, and it’s simply wonderful.

The whole plate of sweet and sour pork was finished off by Charles Bennett and Lily. Even Grace, who usually didn’t eat much, ate more than half the steamed fish. Mrs. Walker had a bowl of porridge and some stir-fried cabbage, while the mushroom soup was finished off by Steward Evans alone. The rest of the dishes and half a bowl of porridge also ended up in Steward Evans’s stomach. Even so, Charles Bennett guessed that Steward Evans still wasn’t full. After all, he had seen with his own eyes that Steward Evans could eat eight bowls of rice in one meal—truly a bottomless pit.

After dinner, Steward Evans took the dishes to the kitchen to clean up. Lily’s mother, Mrs. Taylor, had run away, so at night Lily could only sleep with Mrs. Walker. Also, since Lily had eaten a lot of meat that evening, Mrs. Walker was worried she’d have trouble digesting if she went to bed too early, so she and Grace played with Lily in the room. As for Charles Bennett, he went back to his room to continue worrying about how to support the family.

The night passed uneventfully. The next day, Steward Evans took the clothes he had sorted yesterday to the pawnshop, and at the same time spread the word that the front courtyards of the Zhou residence were for rent. What he didn’t expect was that as soon as the news got out, the first tenant quickly showed up.

Chapter 8: The Market

North Street in Songjiang Prefecture was a bustling street, lined with shops on both sides. At the easternmost end of the street stood a tall shop, quite unique, with a fence in front of the main entrance, as if deliberately preventing customers from entering. Hanging above the door was a plaque with four large characters—Dingfeng Pawnshop.

Dressed in a shabby cotton-padded jacket, Steward Evans came out of the pawnshop’s main entrance with an angry face. After circling around the fence in front, he turned back to glance at the pawnshop’s door, spat fiercely at it, then turned away, cursing the black-hearted head manager inside as he felt the shriveled purse in his pocket and slowly walked off.

At dawn today, Steward Evans had left the house with a bundle of clothes. The Zhou residence was in the south of the city, and he was familiar with the pawnshops there, knowing that each one was greedier than the last. He was also worried that people would see him going to a pawnshop and disgrace the Zhou family, so he deliberately went to a pawnshop in the north of the city. But crows are black everywhere—today, the two bundles of clothes he brought were pawned for only two taels of silver, which was nowhere near enough for the New Year. Thinking of this, Steward Evans couldn’t help but spit twice more in the direction of the pawnshop.

Actually, it wasn’t really the pawnshop’s fault. Pawnbrokers always try to drive the price down as much as possible. Clothes aren’t like jade or antiques; new clothes might be worth something, but as soon as they’ve been worn, their value drops by more than half. So no matter how good the clothes are, once they’re taken to a pawnshop, they’re rarely worth much—except for furs and the like.

Braving the cold morning wind, Steward Evans returned to the south of the city, clutching the money as he headed to the market. There was still some rice and grain at home, but they couldn’t just eat porridge every meal, so he needed to buy some vegetables to bring back.