Chapter 257 Arrival in Shanghai
Early in the morning in mid-May, Mo Weiwen came back on his bicycle and got off at the entrance of the alley to push it.
"Oh, Mr. Mo! Why did you buy so many side dishes today?"
"Oh! Sister, Teacher Mo's mother-in-law is coming." A fat aunt came over and looked through the vegetable basket.
The tall and thin aunt asked in surprise: "Didn't Mr. Zhuang's parents die in the bombing by the Japanese?"
"Wasn't Teacher Zhuang later taken back by a wealthy businessman from Southeast Asia? Her sister and brother-in-law came last year. This is her adoptive mother." The fat aunt saw fish and meat in the basket, "Teacher Mo! What time did you line up to buy it?"
"I left at around four o'clock." Mo Weiwen patted a wicker basket hanging on the back seat of the bicycle, then opened it. Inside was a turtle as big as a soup bowl, scratching the wicker basket.
"This turtle is really big, and its shell is very yellow. Is this turtle really expensive?"
"Eight dollars." Mo Weiwen said, "And these pond carp and river shrimp, smart, right?"
"Where did you get it?"
"It's the old man with the bent back who always comes to sell fish. Today he has a lot of good stuff, including river shrimp, small crucian carp, striped fish, and long-spined fish."
After hearing what Mo Weiwen said, the two fat and thin aunts, as well as the older sister who was washing clothes at the faucet, all hurried home to get baskets to buy fish.
After the reform and opening up, shopping has become more convenient than before, but meat and eggs are still in limited supply and require tickets. If you want to buy good ones, you have to go out and queue up early in the morning.
Fortunately, now farmers can come to the city to set up stalls, and this old man with a bent back often comes to set up a stall to sell the fish and shrimp he caught. No tickets are required, so everyone can have a good meal.
Mo Weiwen parked his bicycle and carried the basket. He happened to run into Zhuang Baoru who had just finished washing clothes in the bathroom. Mo Weiwen showed her as if he was presenting a treasure: "Baoru! I bought a big turtle today."
Zhuang Baoru took one look and exclaimed, "I'm going to die, such a big turtle!" She then asked, "Can you kill a turtle?"
Mo Weiwen was stunned for a moment. He had only thought about how delicious the soft-shelled turtle was, and never considered that he had never killed a soft-shelled turtle before.
A man wearing glasses came over and looked down: "It's a big turtle!"
"Teacher Chen, can you kill a soft-shelled turtle?" Zhuang Baoru asked.
Teacher Chen waved his hands and said, "I can only burn, not kill."
The two went upstairs together, and Zhuang Baoru went to ask two more families. This building was a school family building, and most of the residents were professors of the school, who made their livings by writing. How could they kill turtles?
A neighbor suggested: "Why don't I go across the street and find my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law is a surgeon. He can even cut open a person's belly, so killing a turtle shouldn't be a problem."
"That's not good. If he gets bitten by a turtle, he won't be able to have surgery." Zhuang Baoru quickly shook his head and refused.
"Teacher Zhuang, wasn't your wife sent to the northwest? She went through so much hardship, but she still can't kill a turtle?"
When they were in the northwest, Zhirong and Ningning would kill the turtle, so why would he need to do it? Mo Weiwen said, "Don't mess around. I'll go find Ningning and ask her to kill the turtle for me and then cook it."
"How could you come up with that? Ningning is here as a guest." Zhuang Baoru was helpless about her lover's thoughts.
"It's okay." Mo Weiwen took the basket from Zhuang Baoru, went home, poured the turtle, fish and shrimp into a washbasin, and covered it with a large basin. "I'll return the basket to the old man and go get Ningning."
Zhuang Baoru chased out: "Are you embarrassed?"
"It's okay, she's our own daughter!" Mo Weiwen walked out carrying the basket.
Zhuang Baoru couldn't do anything about him, so she stamped her feet and cursed, "This 13th point."
"Teacher Zhuang, what's wrong?" the neighbor asked.
Zhuang Baoru shook her head: "Our Lao Mo! Let's not talk about him anymore."
Downstairs, Mo Weiwen pushed his bicycle out and went to the corner of the road ahead. He saw an old man in his sixties or seventies with a hunched back. He returned the basket to the old man and saw that the old man's bucket was empty. He asked, "Are you sold out?"
The old man took the basket and said, "Teacher Mo, it will be sold out in a while. Thank you!"
"You're welcome. Today is Sunday, and I just said something, and everyone came to grab it."
Mo Weiwen entered the hotel. Yue Ning and Qiao Junxian just came back from their morning run. Yue Ning ran over and asked, "Uncle, why are you here?"
It was already eight o'clock in the evening when they arrived yesterday. After the couple accompanied them into the hotel, they made an appointment to have dinner at their house today. What was the uncle doing here so early in the morning?
"I bought a huge turtle today," Mo Weiwen described the turtle, "Neither your mother nor I know how to kill it. You should go and kill it!"
"Okay! Okay! I'll go take a shower and have breakfast. Uncle, have you had breakfast?"
"No."
"Let's eat together."
Yue Ning took a shower, had breakfast with Qiao Junxian and Mo Weiwen, and then asked Qiao Junxian to tell her grandmother and brothers and sisters that she was going to her uncle's house first.
Mo Weiwen went to push the bicycle. Yue Ning thought about his uncle's bad knees and said, "I'll ride the bicycle, you sit."
Zhuang Baoru answered the phone at home. Lao Mo asked her to have breakfast first, and he would eat with the children in the hotel.
After finishing her breakfast and hanging up the clothes, she came to the entrance of the alley and saw Yue Ning riding a bike with Mo Weiwen. Mo Weiwen got off the bike.
Zhuang Baoru wiped Yue Ning's sweat with a handkerchief and said, "Your uncle is so stupid..."
Yue Ning handed the bicycle to Uncle Mo and hooked Zhuang Baoru's arm: "Grandma, let's go! Let's go! Let's go kill the turtles."
Yue Ning and Zhuang Baoru were walking in front. A neighbor saw a pretty little girl and asked, "Teacher Zhuang! Is this your niece from Singapore? She's so pretty."
"No, you've seen the photo! It's the girl who took care of my old Mo in the northwest!"
During the years when Mo Weiwen was sent down to the countryside, Zhuang Baoru relied on the letters and photos she received to check on her lover's condition. She was relieved after seeing a father and daughter by his side. She always kept the photos that Lao Mo had sent her in her wallet.
"Your name is Ningning, right? The little girl in the photo has grown so big and is so beautiful now?"
Yue Ning quickly greeted her in Shanghainese: "Hello, Auntie!"
"This girl is so sweet! Can she speak Shanghainese?"
"Yes, I was raised by my father and uncle!" Yue Ning said.
“Are Northwestern girls so fashionable?”
"Around this time last year, my grandfather went to the northwest to look for me and took me to Gangcheng." Yue Ning said with a smile, "I have been in Gangcheng for a year."
"It's a port city after all. The girls raised there are really different."
Mo Weiwen brought an apron to Yue Ning. Yue Ning saw a turtle in a large basin, a dozen small pond carps, and a small basin of river shrimps next to it.
Mo Weiwen brought over the other vegetables he had bought and asked, "Ningning, how do you think we should cook it?"
"Put the broad beans in water. Do you have any black fungus at home? Soak some. Do you have any bacon?"
"We have everything. We have everything." Mo Weiwen took out the things.
Yue Ning looked at the ingredients and said, "Braised soft-shelled turtle with rock sugar, sweet and sour spareribs..."
"As you say."
"Where to kill?"
"downstairs."
Mo Weiwen was about to reach out to grab the turtle, but the turtle stuck its head out. Yue Ning quickly shook off his uncle's hand and said, "Be careful not to get bitten."
She picked up the turtle in one hand and carried a bucket: "Get the chopping board and kitchen knife, let's go down."
This house is a public kitchen with a row of sinks outside where every household washes vegetables and rice.
"Teacher Mo! Your teacher Zhuang was so worried when he saw you go out just now. He said you asked the guests at home to kill the soft-shelled turtle." said the uncle who was washing vegetables.
"Uncle! I'm not a guest, I'm a family member." Yue Ning asked Mo Weiwen to put the chopping board on the ground, "Uncle, help me get half a bucket of water."
She turned the turtle over so that its belly was facing up. The turtle's neck was stretched out. Yue Ning raised her knife and chopped off the turtle's neck.
Since they were all family, there was no need to be too particular about the side dishes. She didn't care whether the presentation was pretty or not, and she just gutted the turtle and chopped it into pieces.
Today is Sunday and there are a lot of people in the family building. Everyone came to watch as she, a little girl, killed the turtle so cleanly and neatly.
"Teacher Mo, now I believe that this little sister is from the northwest. She works really efficiently."
"Sister! Have you found a partner?" An aunt looked at her carefully.
Yue Ning said quickly: "I found it, I found it."
"You've already found someone at such a young age? Young girls should look around more and not settle down so quickly, Auntie..."
"Sister Shen, Ningning's partner is Baoru's nephew." Mo Weiwen hurriedly stopped Sister Shen from being a matchmaker.
Sister Shen's husband is a professor, and she is from a working-class family. One of the couple is an intellectual and quiet, while the other is the most enthusiastic and likes to act as a matchmaker, especially when she sees such a beautiful and capable girl.
Sister Shen felt very sorry: "Oh! I'm still thinking about Mr. Zhuang's student Xiao Zou. Mr. Zhuang even asked me to be a matchmaker for him!"
Zhuang Baoru smiled and put her hand on Sister Shen's shoulder: "Please try harder and help me solve Xiao Zou's lifelong event. Come on, help me peel the broad beans."
Sister Shen and Zhuang Baoru sat under the Chinaberry tree, peeling broad beans together. Sister Shen said, "Xiao Zou is really good. I also want to find him a pretty and capable girl..."
Yue Ning listened to the family gossip while chopped the turtle into pieces and killed the pond carp as well.
"Ningning, the soft-shelled turtle needs to be blanched, right?" Mo Weiwen asked.
"That's right." Yue Ning replied.
"The water is ready."
Yue Ning took the bowl of armored fish and went into the public kitchen. There were five stoves in the kitchen. Everyone in this two-story building cooked here, and everyone had to take turns using the stove to cook.
Yue Ning knew from the pots and shovels in his uncle's house that the couple usually ate at work and rarely cooked.
Yue Ning blanched the soft-shell turtle, then cleaned it, and marinated the pond carp with onion, ginger, cooking wine and salt.
"Ningning! I stewed pig's feet and soybeans together." Mo Weiwen opened the lid of the pot.
Yue Ning looked over and said, "Sure."
"I've also cut the bacon. The jellyfish head is soaked, mix it with the cucumber! I'm going to pick the vegetables."
"Okay, I'll make the stir-fried shrimp, sweet and sour pork ribs, and boiled chicken first."
"The cold boiled water is there." Mo Weiwen knew that the boiled chicken had to be passed through a cold river.
Of course, cold boiled water is not as good as ice water, but it doesn’t matter. This Pudong three-yellow chicken is very plump.
While cooking the boiled chicken, Yue Ning fried the spare ribs in oil. The oil from frying the spare ribs was then used to fry river shrimps, making fried shrimps.
"Whose relatives are coming today? It smells so good!" Someone walked into the kitchen and was stunned when he saw Yue Ning's unfamiliar face.
Yue Ning took the initiative to explain: "I am the goddaughter of Professor Mo and Professor Zhuang."
"Hello, hello." This man came over to stew the pork ribs.
The boiled chicken was cooked. Yue Ning took it out and soaked it in boiled water. She turned around, opened the lid of the sweet and sour spare ribs, poured aged vinegar into the pot, and a sour aroma wafted up.
This is how chefs cook. Even though it is just a home-cooked dish, the taste is so delicious that it makes people hungry...
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