Chapter 45 Ice Cream... Even her own mother would slap her if she saw it.

The water in the refrigerator froze into ice. Early in the morning, I took out the ice cream molds from the refrigerator, and even though they were just "popsicles" made from boiled water, my little chubby son happily munched on them.

Li Jianzhi exchanged milk coupons for a pound of fresh milk, heated some up for the mother and son to have for breakfast, and kept half to make ice cream.

The chubby boy pinched his nose and said, "It tastes awful, I don't want to drink it anymore."

He disliked the taste of milk, so Li Jianzhi added some boiled water and ice cubes, and the chubby boy accepted the milk flavor.

At this point, the milk flavor is very strong. After heating it slightly, the milky smell becomes very pungent, which many people cannot accept and feel nauseous after drinking it. They prefer to drink soy milk. However, if you dilute it with some water, you can still drink it as a flavorful beverage. Especially if you add some ice, it becomes another delicious drink.

Qin Xiangxiang really liked the taste of milk, but she couldn't think of adding ice cubes to it. When she saw Li Jianzhi throwing ice cubes into the milk, she suddenly thought this man was really good at it!

Li Jianzhi: "I'll make you milk tea when I have time in the future."

Qin Xiangxiang nodded.

Cook mung beans in a clay pot until they burst open, then drain the water. Add milk, glutinous rice flour, and sugar, and continue cooking until thickened. Li Jianzhi tasted the sweetness and found it to be just right. He poured the whole pot of milk and mung bean mixture into molds, each mold holding six popsicles. Once full, he placed a wooden stick inside.

There were only two molds at home. When he was pouring the second one, Li Jianzhi suddenly had a bright idea. He found the chocolate beans that Zhou Lu from across the street had given him yesterday and threw a few under the mold.

Three of them contained whole chocolate chips, while the other three contained broken chocolate chip pieces.

Qin Xiangxiang and the chubby boy: "Wow!"

Neither the mother nor her son had ever seen or tasted this way of eating. For most families, eating a chocolate bean is a luxury, let alone throwing chocolate beans into an ice cream mold—only a wealthy family could afford to do something like that.

Furthermore, it's unimaginable that most households don't even have refrigerators. Many factories do have freezers, such as the textile factory where Qin Xiangxiang used to work. In the summer, they provided employees with homemade popsicles and sodas, but they were very rudimentary, mostly consisting of sugary popsicles.

The man in front of me was already being extravagant by adding mung beans, glutinous rice flour, and milk, and now he's adding chocolate chips too!

Even one's own mother would slap him if she saw him.

Thankfully, Mrs. Xu from next door didn't see it, otherwise she would have stared wide-eyed, thinking they were putting all sorts of good stuff in there, treating the food too preciously.

Although the man in front of him was really bad at cooking, he was very "willing" to spend the money.

Qin Xiangxiang began to regret it. She reflected that in her dream, she should have let the man in front of her cook in the kitchen. He was too generous!

"Before we eat popsicles this afternoon, I have another surprise for you." Chef Li's sudden idea was met with cheers and amazement from his wife and children. Overjoyed by his victory, Chef Li decided to go all out in the afternoon. He was going to exchange sugar coupons for high-end chocolate, melt the chocolate, add melon seeds, and roll the frozen ice cream in the chocolate liquid to make homemade chocolate-coated ice cream.

Qin Xiangxiang took a nap and waited expectantly until the afternoon. The ice cream at the bottom of the refrigerator was frozen solid. Li Jianzhi told the mother and son not to rush to eat it, "There are even better ones here."

In front of his wife, Li Jianzhi took out three chocolates. Qin Xiangxiang's eyes widened. If she remembered correctly, chocolates of this size would cost one yuan. Three chocolates would cost three yuan! If he had exchanged them for sugar coupons, he would probably have spent close to four yuan.

Four yuan is the price of four jin (2 catties) of pork!

She would only reward herself with a small cream cake costing one yuan and two jiao after working a night shift. The five-yuan cake that Li Jianzhi bought when he came back was the most luxurious cake she had ever eaten.

But this tiny bit of chocolate, just enough to fill a tooth gap, costs three yuan!

This isn't just "getting beaten by mom," this is madness!

Li Jianzhi tore open the foil packaging, preparing to melt the chocolate. The chubby boy didn't care about the three yuan; his eyes were fixed on his father's hand. His grandfather used to buy him chocolates, but they were always the cheapest kind, costing six cents and no bigger than half a finger. These were inexpensive and didn't require coupons. Good chocolates were more expensive, only available during the New Year, and even then, they only cost a few cents. But in his father's hand was a whole bar of chocolates, the largest size available.

Compared to pure chocolate, chocolate beans are also inexpensive. Chocolate beans are mostly sold by the "tael" (a unit of weight), with one tael costing 2 mao (0.2 yuan) and one jin (a unit of weight) costing 2 yuan. Many people only buy a few taels to try it out.

Li Jianzhi put water into the steamer, preparing to melt the chocolate by heating it over water. He added some coconut oil to the chocolate and then heated it over water.

"You...you're crazy!" For the first time, the little drama queen discovered that there was someone even more terrifying than her in this world. This was a one-dollar chocolate! This guy didn't eat it properly; he even melted it.

Chocolate has a very low melting point; if you put it in your pocket, it will melt in a short while.

"Honey, I'm going to cook you something delicious. Wait here, there's a surprise coming soon."

Li Jianzhi realized he had bought too much chocolate. For making the crispy coating, one large piece of chocolate would be enough. The chocolate melted quickly in a double boiler. After stirring it, he added crushed peanuts and sunflower seeds.

At this moment, the popsicle molds placed outside began to loosen. By twisting the wooden sticks, the popsicles could be pulled out. In front of the mother and son, Li Jianzhi picked up the milk and mung bean popsicle, dipped it into the chocolate and nut liquid, and took it out after a moment. The chocolate liquid on the popsicle immediately solidified into a beautiful crispy shell.

Qin Xiangxiang was stunned by the change before her eyes. The man's actions left her speechless. The chocolate liquid... seemed to have solidified back into chocolate.

"My goodness, how can you be so smart!"

Li Jianzhi offered the crispy chocolate ice cream to his wife, Qin Xiangxiang. Holding the ice cream and smelling the chocolate aroma, she was reluctant to take a bite. The little chubby boy clung to her trouser leg, "I want it! I want it!! Mommy, let me have a bite too!"

Qin Xiangxiang immediately took a bite. The thin layer of crispy coating slowly melted between her lips and tongue. The chocolate coating slowly loosened and turned into small pieces that she chewed between her teeth. The milky flavor of the ice cream and the aroma of chocolate blended together. It was so delicious!

Li Jianzhi rolled another ice cream in the chocolate liquid, and soon made six crispy chocolate ice creams. Only the first two of these chocolate crispy ice creams were pretty and could be completely covered. The others could only be barely covered. As the amount of chocolate liquid decreased, there were only six chocolate crispy ice creams at most.

Not wanting to waste a single drop, Qin Xiangxiang pulled out all the ice cream from the other molds and tried her best to soak up all the chocolate liquid.

"Dad, this is so delicious!" The chubby boy felt that he had eaten the best snack in his life.

The family of three all ate a chocolate-coated ice cream. Li Jianzhi felt a sense of pride in himself, thinking that he was quite "talented in cooking." Sure enough, the chocolate coating he made had won over the taste buds of his wife and children.

"Think about it, I'll make you chocolate crispy rice next time!" Chocolate crispy rice is also an improvement on traditional rice candy. It's quite simple to make. Rice candy uses sugar syrup, while chocolate crispy rice uses chocolate instead of sugar syrup, which solidifies into chocolate crispy rice.

A very popular ice cream in the future will be milk ice cream wrapped around chocolate crispy rice, with a chocolate and nut crunchy outer shell, which will be loved by the public.

Chef Li, who considers himself to have a talent for cooking, decides to replicate the dish, unaware of how extravagant and terrifying such a concept is in this era.

Qin Xiangxiang: "You always have so many strange and unusual ideas."

She didn't understand what her husband meant by chocolate crispy rice, but she figured it probably wouldn't be bad. How could something made with expensive ingredients be bad?

Qin Xiangxiang and her son, Xiaopangdun, ate two crispy ice creams in one go and couldn't eat anymore. Li Jianzhi ate one, and there were seven ice creams left in the house.

Only one of them had a little too much chocolate on it, while the other six barely covered the top, like popsicles wearing chocolate hats.

Li Jianzhi wasn't sure whether what he made was a popsicle or an ice cream. Should it be considered an ice cream? Anyway, many people called it both. People were used to calling it a popsicle, as ice cream wasn't available often at this time.

"Let's share these popsicles with hats with the neighbors," Qin Xiangxiang thought, a brilliant idea popping into her head. She was going to go and annoy her neighbors across the street.

Qin Xiangxiang said, "Little Fatty, Dad spent three yuan to buy chocolate to make ice cream for us."

The chubby boy immediately exclaimed, "Dad is so generous!"

Li Jianzhi touched his nose: "There are two pieces left. Put them in the refrigerator and cook them later."

Perfect! Let everyone know that she has a spendthrift husband and a chubby son who's eaten so much that it's a miracle they can even survive without borrowing money, let alone lending money to others.

No one else knows that Qin Xiangxiang's parents gave her a subsidy of forty, and her great-aunt gave her another twenty.

Anyway, I have enough to eat and drink, and it would be best if no one came to borrow money.

Qin Xiangxiang took her son and some chocolate-hat ice cream to give away. First, she knocked on the door of her neighbor, Sister Huang, and said she was giving her homemade ice cream.

"You have two kids, here, have two."

Aunt Huang was flattered and quickly declined, "No need, no need, one is enough, just enough for the children to have a sweet treat. This stuff is so precious, why does it smell so good to me?"

"There's chocolate and milk, it tastes really good." Seeing this, Qin Xiangxiang concluded that Sister Huang was a normal, simple, and honest woman who wasn't greedy and seemed easy to get along with.

It seems that the middle residents on the second floor of this building are normal people in this extremely poor neighborhood.

"Kids, come and have a taste."

"Just take a bite to taste it. It was given to us by Aunt Qin next door. Aunt Qin and Uncle Li are new neighbors who recently moved in. This is their child. They will play together in the yard from now on."

"Brother, tell your sister to eat more. It's all cold, but don't eat too much. Share it with her."

"Mom, it's so delicious!"

After the children finished exclaiming, a man came out of the house. He was wearing a military uniform and was the husband of the woman surnamed Huang. He was Chief of Staff Zhang, with a square face, regular features, and a refined appearance. He had a pen clipped to his pocket.

People trained in the military tend to have better posture and appearance than ordinary men.

"Who's outside? Comrade Li's wife from next door?"

When Qin Xiangxiang saw Chief of Staff Zhang, she was startled, and many things came to mind.

She had seen this Chief of Staff Zhang in her dream. He was a fellow villager and friend of the male protagonist, Chen Ruifeng. The two had a very good relationship, and their families often visited each other. Later, Chief of Staff Zhang married a cousin of the female protagonist, Lin Xiuqin.

Yes, when she came to the family compound next year, her neighbor's wife had already passed away, and Chief of Staff Zhang had become a widower with a dead wife and two children.

Qin Xiangxiang had heard that Chief of Staff Zhang's first wife had an extremely awful younger brother.

Sister Huang is quite far along in her pregnancy. Her mother brought her younger brother, who had been sent to the countryside and was trying to return to the city, to the island, hoping to arrange a job for him or have him join the army as a logistics or communications soldier.

Her younger brother was reluctant to join the army. Under his mother's scolding, he secretly broke into his sister and brother-in-law's house, ran away with all of his sister's savings, forged a fake letter of introduction, and fled to Mingzhou by boat.

The younger brother was said to be a friend he had met when he was a sent-down youth, and they had agreed to go south together to escape to Hong Kong Island.

When Mrs. Huang, who was heavily pregnant at the time, heard the devastating news, she collapsed on the roadside. Her mother was rushing to the port with her child to catch up with her brother. There was no one to take care of the pregnant woman. By the time she was found and rushed to the hospital, it was too late. Both she and her unborn child died.