Chapter 18: Everyone’s Acting Skills Are Not Only Excellent But Also Reasonable

Faced with her mother’s question about whether she knew what a sweet potato was,
Juanjuan answered truthfully: “No, this is my first time seeing it.”

It sounded somewhat familiar, as if she’d overheard the term in Third Brother’s whispers.
But in reality, she had never encountered this thing before.

Upon hearing this, Jiang Dai immediately smiled.

【After all, Juanjuan is a native here and often cooks. If she doesn’t know about it, then…】

【I knew it! Even though I’ve time-traveled without any space or system, my luck must be pretty good.】

【Look—sweet potatoes! Fragrant roasted yams!】

【Mommy, I want roasted yams! The cringey meme I used to despise is now something no one here would understand… sigh.】

“Mother, what exactly is this?”

Juanjuan was a bit confused. Why did Mother keep switching between “sweet potato” and “roasted yam”?

Hearing her mother’s cheerful tone, Juanjuan grew curious about what this thing really was.

A faint smile graced Jiang Dai’s face—it was clear she was genuinely happy.
She crouched down, affectionately pulling her youngest daughter into her arms, and gently explained:
“This is a sweet potato. Where Mother comes from, we also call it yam. You can boil it, steam it, or roast it. It’s fragrant and sweet!”

Most children upon hearing this would immediately think: Let’s eat it! It’s delicious!
But Juanjuan’s first thought was:

“Can we plant it?”

Something this good should be like eggs—coming in a steady supply rather than being eaten all at once and then gone forever.

Jiang Dai nodded: “Of course! It should be very easy to grow! How about we eat one tonight and plant the other?”
“Juanjuan is so clever, thinking to plant yams! Chickens lay eggs, eggs hatch into chickens—endless cycle!”

Juanjuan looked bewildered by the praise.
Was Mother… complimenting her? But why bring up eggs?

Jiang Dai: 【Luckily, before I time-traveled, I joined a farming reality show and actually grew a batch of sweet potatoes.】

【I may not know much else, but sweet potatoes and potatoes are very easy.】

【Otherwise, as a minor celebrity who doesn’t know medicine or schemes, only some basic martial arts, I’d really be cannon fodder here.】

After listening to her mother’s long speech, Juanjuan: …

It was too long, and she didn’t understand much of it. But it seemed Mother was very familiar with this sweet potato thing and knew how to grow it.
That was enough.

When Bai Tian came out, he saw his wife diligently digging a hole. How could his beautiful, delicate wife be doing farm work!

“Darling, let me do that. You go rest.”

Bai Tian rolled up his sleeves, took the notched hoe, and started digging. Jiang Dai didn’t pretend to refuse—she held the sweet potato and watched from the side. Seriously, when someone offers to help, why refuse!

“Okay, you can stop now.”

Seeing the excavated soil, Jiang Dai quickly called for him to stop.

Bai Tian cooperated immediately, only then remembering to ask: “What are we digging this hole for?”

“To plant something good.”

As Jiang Dai spoke, she brought out the sweet potato.
What she didn’t expect was:

“Sweet potato!”

Bai Tian looked utterly shocked upon seeing it—clearly, he recognized it.

“You know sweet potatoes?”
“You know this?”

Almost simultaneously, they asked each other.

Juanjuan, who had just buried the sweet potato in the fire and come out to tidy up: …
She’d only been inside for a moment to bury the sweet potato—how did her parents end up nearly arguing?

Bai Tian: 【How is this possible! In the original host’s memories, there’s no mention of sweet potatoes. How does Juanjuan’s mother know?】

Jiang Dai: 【Could sweet potatoes already be widely cultivated here?】

【But that can’t be right. If they were, Juanjuan would know. Sweet potato yields aren’t as insane as potatoes, but they’re still substantial.】

In that brief moment, numerous thoughts flashed through both Bai Tian and Jiang Dai’s minds.
Even the atmosphere between them grew subtly tense.

“I’ve seen this before, but…” Jiang Dai raised a hand to her forehead, her delicate features twisting in pain. “I can’t quite remember.”

Seeing his wife’s pained expression, Bai Tian didn’t press further. “Then don’t force yourself. It’s fine.”
“This really is a good thing. I only heard about it from a wandering monk before—it’s not available here. He called it sweet potato.”
“Seems like your hometown might be where that monk visited.”

Bai Tian smoothly explained why no one in Niantao Village knew about sweet potatoes except him.
The strange tension between them instantly dissipated.

Juanjuan blinked, hearing both her parents simultaneously exhale in relief.

Mother thought: 【Good thing I had that excuse ready. Tsk!】

【No wonder all transmigrators use the same excuse—amnesia. It really works!】

Father thought: 【Thank goodness my cheap wife currently has muddled memories and isn’t too aware of her surroundings. Easy to fool.】

Juanjuan: …

Why did this feel a bit strange?

“Sweet potato buried?”

A slightly hoarse, weak boy’s voice sounded beside her.

The sudden voice startled Juanjuan.

【Why is this child so jumpy?】

Yun An looked at his little sister, feeling this household still depended on him.

Juanjuan looked at Third Brother who had suddenly appeared and swallowed.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. You were too focused watching Father and Mother to hear me call you.”
Seeing the frightened child, Yun An ultimately explained himself for the sake of his favorability points.

“Oh.” Juanjuan nodded timidly, clearly not wanting to stay with Third Brother.
Just as she was about to go find her mother, she remembered she hadn’t answered Third Brother’s question.
She paused specifically to toss out: “Sweet potato’s buried!”

Yun An nodded contentedly.

After all, he wasn’t born before the apocalypse.
He was born during the apocalypse, not before it.
Even though Yun An had spatial and temporal abilities back then, his space didn’t have a system—it was completely empty.

The apocalypse lasted too long, and many foods had changed in flavor. Fortunately, Yun An was capable and hadn’t deprived himself of good food before time-traveling.

But this fragrant, sweet roasted sweet potato—he’d only heard of it, never tasted it.

“Juanjuan~”

Seeing her youngest daughter running toward her, Jiang Dai immediately bent down and opened her arms to catch the little one.

In her current excellent mood, even her voice calling for Juanjuan carried a charming lilt and genuine happiness.

Juanjuan moved somewhat stiffly, leaning into Jiang Dai’s embrace, her body awkward and tense.

“Mother, the sweet potato is buried.”
Juanjuan reported the completion of the task her mother had assigned.

“Our Juanjuan is so capable!”
Jiang Dai’s praise came effortlessly as she nuzzled her obedient little daughter.

“What? Buried sweet potato?” Bai Tian peered over. “Darling, you even know how to bury sweet potatoes?”

Jiang Dai snorted proudly: “Of course!”

Bai Tian: 【Awooo! Buried sweet potatoes! Sweet! Better than wild vegetable pancakes!】

Juanjuan looked at her father who was inwardly howling with joy like a monkey, thinking he seemed as cheerful as a child too.

Bai Tian seemed to notice Juanjuan’s gaze and turned his eyes toward her.

Then Juanjuan saw:

Her father gave her a fresh, cheerful smile.
Juanjuan instinctively smiled back faintly before slowly looking away, staring down at her sleeves.

Bai Tian’s smile widened.

【This little girl really is different from boys—so cute, so well-behaved!】

【I remember my little cousin always waving his broken toy gun around, shouting ‘I’ll shoot you dead!’ like a little devil.】

“Come, darling, you plant the sweet potato. I’m not very good at it.”

“Don’t let me kill it by burying it wrong, and also…”

Bai Tian paused before delivering his most important line:

“I’ll hold Juanjuan for you.”

Jiang Dai: 【I suspect this man just wants an excuse to hold our daughter.】

But she’d better plant this sweet potato herself.
Finding a pot, she put the excavated soil inside, added some water until the moisture felt right, then placed the sweet potato in.

Bai Tian held his little daughter while calling over their foolishly standing third son.

“Now we wait for it to sprout! Once it sprouts, we can take cuttings!”

Jiang Dai clapped her hands, satisfied looking at this pot full of hopeful sweet potato.

Under the tree shade, a handsome man radiant with joy held a somewhat stiff four-year-old, while a young boy stood nearby watching the woman plant sweet potatoes.

“These parents… they really seem different now.”

Bai Yunqi leaned by the window, watching his parents and younger siblings in the distance.

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

Bai Yunqi slowly turned to look at his second brother who lay on the bed but had suddenly spoken.

This guy had returned to bed immediately after coming back.

Actually, if anyone in this household was most unusual, it wasn’t their parents, not third brother or little sister, and not himself either.

It was this second brother before him.

Father’s personality change made sense—he’d stopped drinking and gambling. From Goudan’s vague memories, Father had been a good dad before taking up drinking.

Mother’s personality change resulted from falling off the ox cart and hitting her head, accidentally curing her foolishness. Though her memories were still muddled, that was normal.

As for himself, Bai Yunqi—though someone else now occupied this body—he dared say his performance had been excellent since that slap, showing gradual repentance.

His acting as Goudan had been flawless.

Third brother had always been simple-minded. Though he smiled more pleasantly now, Bai Yunqi knew if he told third brother to hit someone, he’d do it without thinking.

After all, third brother had been… well, Goudan’s lackey before.

Little sister remained as remembered—obedient and capable, but essentially the entire family’s servant.

Da Mao was different. Since waking up, his personality had completely changed for no apparent reason.

The previous Da Mao had been reckless and unrestrained—running when he could walk, standing when he could sit, fidgeting when he could be still.

Now he lay quietly in bed.

A terrifying thought surfaced in Bai Yunqi’s mind.
Could it be…
———

1. It’s a Chinese internet meme where someone whines, “Mommy, I want roasted yams!”—used ironically to mock childish, cringe, or over-the-top behavior. The character feels nostalgic for it, since no one in her new world would recognize the joke.