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After seeing off Lan Hua, the time was almost right, so Lin Wei washed the pork clean, and Lin Yuan went to knead the dough to prepare for making dumplings.

Making dumplings is quite similar to making steamed buns, just without the step of leavening the dough, so the preparation was rather convenient.

The only difficulty was that no one in the household knew how to make dumplings, and it seemed that dumplings had not yet made an appearance here.

Having heard that big sister was going to try something new, Xiao Linshuang eagerly gathered around the small table to watch the small dough pieces on the chopping board, which were the size of fingertips.

She repeatedly displayed an eagerness to sneakily grab one to play with in the palm of her hand.

Even Lady Liu had washed her hands and was sitting nearby, excitedly learning how to make dumplings with them.

Rolling out the dough is rather tricky, and without a few months of practice, it’s hard to roll out a good wrapper. Luckily, Lady Liu knew how to roll out bun wrappers, and after practicing a few times with her daughters, she could roll them out quite well, albeit at a slower pace than Lin Yuan.

With a dumpling wrapper in hand, Lin Yuan scooped a spoonful of meat filling into the center and explained while demonstrating, "First, put the filling in the center, then pinch the two sides of the wrapper together with both hands. Yes, just like that. Then, use the spaces between both thumbs and forefingers to squeeze the rest of the wrapper together—hey, little sister, that won’t do, you need to put more force into it.

If you leave an opening, it’s going to be troublesome.

When we boil the dumplings, the filling will definitely leak out! "

"Haha, the filling will leak out! Leak out! So funny!" Xiao Linshuang was clearly not focused on making dumplings; a single phrase had her laughing heartily, her face dusted with flour, looking just like a little flower cat.

Seeing her laughing so joyfully, neither Lady Liu nor her daughters had the heart to scold her and simply shook their heads, leaving her be.

Although Lin Wei’s dumpling-making movements were a bit slow at the beginning, and her dumplings resembled limp shrimp and couldn’t stand firmly on the basket like Lin Yuan’s, at least they were filled and not left open. Once boiled, they would still be edible.

With the help of Lady Liu and Lin Wei, and Lin Yuan’s swift dumpling-making speed, they had already wrapped more than a hundred dumplings in less than an hour.

The plump little dumplings were neatly laid on the chopping board, truly a heartwarming sight.

The family’s cooking pot was large enough to cook half of them in one go.

For dinner that evening, they all went to the eastern room to eat with Lin Jiaxin, who had been recuperating since Lao Fan had reset his bone.

His leg no longer hurt like before with every movement, so now, as long as he did not disturb the splint on his leg, Lin Jiaxin could somewhat move around on the bed.

The family hadn’t been able to gather for a meal like this in over half a year, and they had a truly delightful dinner.

What made them even happier was that just after dinner, Lady Liu suddenly clutched her belly, her face a mixture of shock and fear as she dared not move.

Worried that her mother was feeling unwell, Lin Yuan quickly rushed over and asked anxiously, "Mother, what’s wrong? Where does it hurt? Is it your stomach? Does it hurt?"

Lin Jiaxin was also terrified. Last time, after giving birth to a stillborn son, Lady Liu had been weak and nearly bled out, so with this pregnancy, all he wished for was his wife’s safety; whether it was a boy or a girl didn’t matter at all to him.

Lady Liu suddenly burst into laughter, gently caressing her round belly, a look of pure joy on her face: "Mother’s fine, just now, this little one suddenly kicked me, it gave me such a scare. It’s never kicked this hard before; this is really the first time!"

Hearing Lady Liu say this, everyone let out a sigh of relief.

Xiao Linshuang pulled a serious face, crawled next to her mother, and also gently caressed her belly, adopting the tone of an older sister, "You little rascal, can’t stay put, can you?

Listen to your third sister’s words, stay peacefully in mom’s belly.

As long as you behave, I’ll give you all my tasty treats later, you hear?

Hey, say something, huh... Oh right, you can’t talk yet, then just give me a kick, but don’t kick too hard, or you’ll hurt mom, and I won’t give you any treats! "