Chapter 109

Cai Xiujuan and Jian Lu hurried back to the field and saw Shuangshuang making Duoduo happy.

Duoduo had just been dragged away by her father and was still thinking about her mother. She was not very happy to be back in her mother's office.

Shuangshuang noticed that Sister Duoduo was unhappy, so she immediately moved a stool and sat next to her, holding her hand and patting it gently, just like grandma talking to her old sister Grandma Liu.

"Sister Duoduo, Aunt Xiujuan will definitely be back soon. Don't worry, my parents are also very capable!"

"Yeah." Duoduo smiled at her and listened to Shuangshuang's chattering.

"We'll go pick lotus seeds later and eat delicious food! Eating more delicious food will make you happy."

Cai Xiujuan heard Shuangshuang's words as soon as she entered the house. She smiled and rushed to her daughter's side, hugged the child in her arms, and gently caressed Duoduo's back. "Okay, it's okay! We will take your Aunt Lulu, Uncle Cheng and Shuangshuang to pick lotus seeds later."

When Duoduo saw her mother coming back, she smiled, "Mom! Dad... is he gone?"

"Let's go. Don't worry. If you see him again in the future, stay away from him. You can find mom or someone else. Got it?"

"Know."

"You did a great job today." Cai Xiujuan felt that her daughter had grown up and was very calm when faced with problems, and she felt comforted in her heart.

"Dad and Mom!" Shuangshuang also rushed towards her parents, looked around, and saw Cheng Zheng pinching her face with his left hand.

"What are you looking at?"

"Did you win the fight?" Shuangshuang asked, looking up.

Cheng Zheng: "..."

Don't leave this impression on your children.

Cheng Zheng cleared his throat. "We didn't fight. How can we just fight casually? We are here to talk about reason."

Jian Lu glanced at the man who lied without thinking and echoed, "Yes, we don't fight."

"Oh~" Shuangshuang seemed to understand, but not quite. Was he talking about the truth? That was amazing.

Cheng Zheng rubbed the girl's head, took her hand and went out to pick lotus seeds.

The incident ended and everyone's mood was not affected too much, except that Duoduo became even closer to her mother.

Cai Xiujuan grew up by the water and was an expert at rowing a boat. She skillfully carried a few people and rowed the boat toward the center of the pond, passing through clusters of lotus leaves.

This time, Jian Lu deeply experienced what it meant to have endless green lotus leaves. What came into view were the emerald green lotus leaves, spreading out endlessly. The lotus flowers blooming in midsummer were tender and delicate. Rowing a boat among them was like entering a painting, so beautiful that it was beyond words.

The lotus is hidden in this scroll, with a long and thin stem and a curved lotus head on top.

Cai Xiujuan brought a few people to pick lotus flowers. To Jian Lu, the lotus flowers looked like shower heads, with jewel-like lotus seeds embedded in the green lotus heads.

Lotus pods were thrown onto the boat one by one, and both adults and children enjoyed it. Shuangshuang curiously took the lotus pod and looked at it from top to bottom, thinking it looked very interesting. He reached into it with his little hand and found a lotus seed.

Cai Xiujuan doesn't care about those things. She peeled a raw lotus seed for Shuangshuang, carefully peeled off the outer membrane, and fed it to her. "Do you like it?"

Both of them were full of expectations, but the raw lotus seeds had an indescribable taste as soon as they entered their mouths, "Huh~"

The little face wrinkled, Shuangshuang was not used to eating it! It was a bit bitter.

“Hahahahahahaha then vomited.” Cai Xiujuan didn’t care much. Some people are not used to eating raw food, unlike her, who has been eating it since she was a child. “I’ll make you some candied lotus seed soup when I get home, and fry some candied lotus seeds.”

"Good!" Shuangshuang thought, lotus seeds with sugar must be delicious.

Duoduo followed her mother and was used to eating lotus seeds, so she just peeled some and ate a few.

Jian Lu was also curious about the taste, so she ate one herself. Seeing Cheng Zheng looking at her, she smiled sweetly at him and said, "Want me to feed you?"

Cheng Zheng blinked and said nothing, staring at Jian Lu's hand with burning eyes.

"You've really become a patient, haven't you?" Jian Lu complained, but her hands didn't stop moving and she fed him a lotus seed.

The two adults accepted it well and continued to work after eating the lotus seeds.

More than 30 kilograms of lotus leaves were thrown onto the boat. Cai Xiujuan supported the boat back and introduced the scenery here to them.

"We don't have anything else here except a lot of water and a lot of things in the water. I grew up watching these lotus leaves and lotus flowers. When we were little, we loved to row a boat over here, pluck a lotus leaf to block the sun, and hold it on our heads. We felt special and different."

Jian Lu thought that look was quite cool for a child.

"Mom, I want one too!" Shuangshuang couldn't wait to try it after hearing Aunt Xiujuan mention the top of the lotus leaf.

Cai Xiujuan was very skillful. She leaned forward and plucked a few lotus leaves. "Come on, Shuangshuang, Duoduo, take them."

Each of them had a lotus leaf. The two little girls looked at the wide lotus leaves, touched them gently, and felt they were slippery. Then they put them on their heads, and they really covered their little heads tightly.

Not only did the children have a great time, but the adult Jian Lu was also happy. Holding a lotus leaf in one hand, she reached out from the boat, reached into the pond and scooped a handful of clear water onto the lotus leaf. The clear water quickly gathered in the middle of the concave lotus leaf, and water droplets hung on it, crystal clear, reflecting the emerald green of the lotus.

Cheng Zheng saw his wife having fun playing with a leaf and a handful of water, and he didn't know who was bigger, her or Shuangshuang.

He also had a lotus leaf in his hand. Sitting on the boat, Cheng Zheng leaned closer to his wife and covered her head with the lotus leaf in his hand, instantly blocking out most of the sunlight.

Jian Lu looked up reflexively, feeling a chill, she lowered her eyes to look at Cheng Zheng, smiling with a picturesque look.

Near noon, the group had lunch in the canteen of the pearl farm. There were already hundreds of workers on the site, comparable to a small state-owned factory, and the canteen and dormitories were fully equipped.

“The cafeteria tastes good.”

"Of course not. I took some lotus seeds to the kitchen and asked them to fry the candied lotus seeds." Cai Xiujuan came back with a plate of candied lotus seeds.

Everyone had already eaten, but they were still drooling at the sight of this delicious dessert.

After peeling the lotus seeds, wash and dry them, boil them in water until they are slightly cooked, then coat them with flour mixed with egg liquid, and fry them in a pan until the skin is golden and crispy.

Use the remaining oil in the pan to fry the rock sugar into syrup, pour it over the fried lotus seeds, and finally sprinkle with powdered sugar.

A plate of golden, crispy, sweet and delicious fried lotus seeds is served.

The lotus seeds are sweet, and the sugar juice on the surface adds a touch of sweetness. Each lotus seed is small and light, like a snack.

"I've peeled off all the rest for you. You can take them home and slowly make something to drink. Tremella and lotus seed soup is a good drink this weather."

Jian Lu ate the fried candied lotus seeds bite by bite, and agreed with Cai Xiujuan, "Yes, it's better to chill it. The taste is amazing!"

In the afternoon, Jian Lu's family of three packed up and left. Cai Xiujuan and her daughter saw them off to the boat and waved goodbye.

Cheng Zheng was holding more than ten pounds of peeled lotus seeds in his left hand, and Shuangshuang was also holding an oil paper bag containing fried candied lotus seeds, which she was eating to kill time on the boat.

Not only did Shuangshuang eat it herself, she also fed her parents. In the end, she stopped when there was only one third of the food left.

"I want to save some for Brother Dunzi and the others. These are the lotus seeds I picked myself, and I want to give them a taste."

"Your brother Dunzi loves you well." Jian Lu likes this kind of girl. If others are nice to her, she will also be nice to them.

After returning home, Shuangshuang took her fried candied lotus seeds and went around looking for friends to try them. She kept repeating her experience of picking lotus seeds, and several of her friends envied her.

"Brother Dunzi! Brother Dunzi!" Shuangshuang ran to the Liang family again. She was a frequent visitor to the Liang family and went up to the second floor easily. But unfortunately, Brother Dunzi was not there.

Feng Xiuhui came out of the house and was delighted to see Shuangshuang. "Shuangshuang, your brother Dunzi has gone out and hasn't come back yet."

"Oh." Shuangshuang felt a little regretful and immediately asked Aunt Xiuhui to eat something. "Aunt Xiuhui, have this. I picked lotus seeds myself. Fried candied lotus seeds. Is Uncle Liang at home? He will eat it too!"

"He was not here, so I ate it for him. Oh, it tastes so good, sweetie!"

At this moment, Liang Haisheng, who missed the delicious food, was indeed not at home. He was at Cheng's house.

When Jian Lu and Cheng Zheng went home to store their things, Cai Xiujuan not only gave them lotus seeds but also a lot of wild vegetables, saying that they grew by the water and tasted good whether eaten cold or cooked in soup.

"Old Cheng." Liang Haisheng came over immediately after hearing that Cheng Zheng had returned, and met him at the door of his house.

Jian Lu saw that Political Commissar Liang had something to say, so she took the things from Cheng Zheng's hand and went into the house first, "Political Commissar Liang, you two can chat slowly."

"Oh, okay."

Cheng Zheng saw Liang Haisheng's mysterious look and guessed what he was going to say, "Any news from Qian Hongzhuo?"

"Yes. You know what, it's quite a coincidence. On the train that Qian Hongzhuo was taking home, a case of child kidnapping occurred, so many people remember that day."

"What's wrong?"

Liang Haisheng recalled the information he had heard, "There was a deputy battalion commander from another regiment on the train that day. I had dinner with him and chatted with him for a few minutes. He mentioned that a university teacher in the capital had talked to Qian Hongzhuo at that time."

"College teacher?"

“Yes.”

"That day, there was a kidnapping case, and everyone in the car was very angry. Qian Hongzhuo was wearing a military uniform and helped. Later, several people went to talk to him to express their gratitude, including the university teacher. There were also a few people who admired the military and praised him a few times."

"Who else is there?"

"I heard from their conversation that one was a worker in a state-owned factory, one was a staff member of the Capital Broadcasting Station, and one was..."

Cheng Zheng suddenly raised his head and asked, "Radio station?"

"Yes, he's the one who controls the channels on the radio. He looks quite polite. Oh, and there's another person who sits opposite Qian Hongzhuo. He's a bus driver. I think the difference between university professors and bus drivers is... one only interacts with intellectuals, while the other interacts with many people, and never the same person every day."

Cheng Zheng felt that the analysis made sense, but he recalled what Jian Lu said that night: using the radio as a code to transmit messages?

It is indeed done without anyone noticing.

"Go check that radio station."

"ah?"

Liang Haisheng didn't expect Cheng Zheng to suspect this person. "This person doesn't look like him. I heard he doesn't like to talk."

"Try them all. Sometimes something that doesn't look like it actually is."

——

Jian Lu was busy in the kitchen, glancing outside from time to time. She saw two grown men standing at the entrance of her yard, talking. They kept looking around, and she didn't know what they were talking about.

The lotus seeds were washed and dried. She packed them into several bags to give to her sisters-in-law, and kept five pounds for herself, which was enough to last for a while.

Take out the Tremella fuciformis from the cupboard, tear it into small pieces and soak it. Then soak the lotus seeds and remove the bitter lotus core.

Lotus heart tastes bitter, so Jian Lu crushed a handful of lotus heart into paste and steamed it directly in a pot.

The white fungus and lotus seeds were boiled in clear water for one and a half hours. When the white fungus and lotus seeds were gradually boiled in the hot water, Jian Lu covered the pot. When she looked back, Cheng Zheng had already returned to the house.

"Have you finished talking to Political Commissar Liang?"

"Um."

Cheng Zheng walked to the kitchen and watched his wife busying herself. Just as he was about to raise his hand to brush away the strands of hair on her forehead, he remembered that he was still pretending to be a wounded man, so he resisted the urge to raise his right hand and stretched out his left hand instead.

Jian Lu looked at his right hand for a moment, then stared at his left hand and smiled sweetly, "Do you want me to feed you something delicious?"

Cheng Zheng's eyes lit up. Of course he would accept such treatment.

In just half a month, Team Leader Cheng has already realized the wonderful feeling of being taken care of by his wife. What is a man's face? It doesn't exist.

"Okay." He agreed straightforwardly.

Jian Lu took out the steamed lotus seed cake from the pot and cooled it to warm. Then she gently pinched the lotus seed cake and fed it to Cheng Zheng's mouth, "Ah~"

Cheng Zheng opened his lips slightly and was fed with lotus seed cake. It was a square lotus seed cake with a soft texture and a sweet taste. It was really delicious. However, Cheng Zheng, who was chewing non-stop, suddenly felt something was wrong...

Jian Lu's expression changed immediately when she looked at this man. She suppressed the smile on her lips and said, "Captain Cheng is truly a medical miracle. He looked so handsome when he performed the operation this morning. Your hand doesn't even hurt anymore?"

Cheng Zheng: "...! It was really discovered!"

With his handsome face wrinkled, Cheng Zheng swallowed with difficulty, and then he spoke, "Why is it so bitter?"

"I've specially ripped out the lotus heart to heal your wounds!"

Cheng Zheng: "..."