Chapter 80: The Handbook of Common Sense

After the director had left, Tang Banxia turned around, only to see the captain gazing at her with deep gratitude.

Tang Banxia: …

“Captain, if there’s nothing else, I’ll head back now,” she said.

Hu Dashan, whose affection for Tang Banxia was now overflowing, responded kindly, “I can’t let you go back alone. I’ll have Jia Jun give you a ride home.”

Tang Banxia was truly exhausted and didn’t refuse. “Thank you, Captain.”

Having a donkey cart to ride spared her the walk home.

The next day, the Hu family finally returned. It was Hu Laosuan and his wife, along with several sons. Their first act upon arrival was to bring eggs to thank Tang Banxia.

“Comrade Tang, we really owe you. If it weren’t for you… If it weren’t for you, our family…” Hu Laosuan’s voice trembled, and tears ran down his face as he thought of his grandchildren still on IV drips in the hospital.

What terrible luck had befallen their family?

Tang Banxia, of course, wouldn’t accept the eggs. “Uncle Laosuan, you’re too polite. This is what I should do.”

Hu Laosuan insisted, ignoring Tang Banxia’s polite refusal, determined to leave the eggs, even going so far as to try to kneel before her. He’d heard from the doctor: that kind of poisoning could be fatal. Comrade Tang had saved his entire family; what were a few eggs compared to that?

“Uncle Laosuan, please, there’s really no need.”

“Take them, Tang,” Captain Hu said, entering from outside. “If you accept them, their hearts will be at ease.”

Seeing the sincerity on the faces of the Hu family, Tang Banxia could only accept the eggs, though she said, “Vomiting has strained your stomachs. I’ll prepare a few prescriptions to help you recover.”

The Hu family was deeply moved, especially Hu Peanut, husband to Third Sister-in-law Hu. Seeing Tang Banxia’s kindness, he felt ashamed of how he’d treated Comrade Wen in the past. From now on, he’d never stop his wife from supporting Tang Banxia.

After preparing the medicine and giving instructions, Tang Banxia finally asked the question that everyone was curious about. “What exactly did you eat that caused such severe food poisoning?”

As soon as she posed the question, the Hu family looked so aggrieved they nearly cried again.

Grandma Hu clutched Tang Banxia’s hand, sobbing uncontrollably. “We didn’t eat anything unusual.”

How unlucky they were—to have the whole family hospitalized during the New Year.

“We stewed a soft-shelled turtle with potatoes. We didn’t eat any mushrooms, so how could we have gotten poisoned?”

“A turtle?” Tang Banxia’s senses sharpened.

Grandma Hu let out a sigh. “Peanut bought it at the market—it was cheap. We only had a little meat left for guests, so we stewed the turtle for New Year’s Eve. To stretch it, we added some potatoes.”

Hu Peanut quickly asked, “Comrade Tang, is turtle not safe to eat?”

“It’s safe,” Tang Banxia affirmed, then asked, “Did you eat walnuts afterwards?”

Ah, well…

“The children wanted some. Since it was New Year’s, I indulged them just this once,” Grandma Hu replied, dazed.

“That explains it,” Tang Banxia said. “Turtle and walnuts should never be eaten together—they can cause poisoning.”

Yet even so, the severity seemed unusual.

Her gaze landed on the potatoes by the stove, and in a flash, she realized something. “The potatoes you stewed—were they sprouting?”

“I, I don’t know,” Grandma Hu admitted, baffled. Such a minor task as peeling potatoes hardly required her attention. “But our potatoes did have sprouts.”

Mystery solved.

Turtle and walnuts combined for one layer of toxicity; sprouted potatoes another.

No wonder the whole family was so severely affected—double trouble had struck them.

Had it been just one issue, they would have merely suffered bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. But this time, their family had the misfortune of a hospital trip.

“Sprouted potatoes should never be eaten, especially the sprouts—they’re toxic,” Tang Banxia explained earnestly.

She understood how rough life was these days, and how everyone tried to save food, but some things simply couldn’t be eaten—they could be fatal.

Not just the Hu family—even Captain Hu was staring at her wide-eyed.

Tang Banxia asked incredulously, “Don’t tell me none of you knew?”

The others blushed. Captain Hu coughed awkwardly, explaining, “We’ve always lived like this, never heard that sprouting potatoes were unsafe.”

Tang Banxia thought: they were lucky indeed.

“That’s only because you haven’t eaten much of them,” she sighed.

Besides, potato sprouts are unpredictable; some people are hardy and only get diarrhea.

She patiently explained the dangers to everyone.

Though the group found it all rather confusing, they firmly remembered: turtle and walnuts should never be eaten together, sprouted potatoes should be avoided, and if they must eat them, the sprouts must be cut away.

After sending everyone off, Tang Banxia sat dazed at the entrance of the main room.

Wen Mubai returned from outside. “What are you thinking about?”

Tang Banxia came back to herself. “About making a little science booklet.” She didn’t elaborate. “Why are you back so early? Weren’t you going up the mountain with Qixin and the others?”

Wen Mubai carried a small stool and sat beside her. “There’s nothing up the mountain—boring.”

“But I did run into Song Qing and Liu Liyun. The two of them were sneaking around, not sure what they were up to,” he mentioned casually.

“Song Qing? And Liu Liyun?” Tang Banxia was intrigued.

“Yes, I only caught a glimpse of their backs,” Wen Mubai replied.

The heroine and the antagonist?

Together?

She couldn’t make sense of this development.

Though she’d never viewed this world as a novel, there was no doubt that Song Qing was favored by fate. After all, getting a second chance at life was not something any ordinary person could achieve.

Now, the righteous heroine and the villainous antagonist had joined forces?

Fortunately, Tang Banxia was a laid-back soul. If something didn’t concern her, she had no interest in worrying about it; she could barely manage her own affairs.

The thought lingered for a moment before she set it aside, turning instead to her science booklet.

The idea had come from the Hu family’s ordeal. At this time, common folk had almost no concept of food incompatibilities. For them, anything edible was considered good.

Take the Hu family as an example: turtle and walnuts were prized foods, and eating them even once was a luxury. The notion that they shouldn’t be combined had never crossed their minds.

There were other examples, too: cucumber and peanuts shouldn’t be eaten together within two hours, lest they harm the spleen. Yet people liked to snack on peanuts and cucumber with their drinks—bad habit.

Or tofu and spinach, which can lead to kidney stones if eaten together. Eggs and saccharin, consumed in excess, could be fatal, and so on.

Such dangers seemed foreign to people now.

So she wanted to compile a science booklet—not anything fancy, just a simple list of common food incompatibilities, with clear consequences.

It would surely prevent some tragedies.

Once she decided, she acted.

For her, making a science booklet was as easy as breathing. She loved tinkering with food and was skilled in medicinal cooking, so she knew the dangers by heart.

In one afternoon, she wrote out over a hundred entries.

Once done, she took the booklet and went to find the captain…