Chapter 9 Going Home with You
Yue Ning stood up, picked up the bowl of wolfberry tea on the stove, sat on the kang, and said, "Grandpa Luo really took care of my father and me. When he was alive, he often sent us things. When I was a child, every time I saw a letter from Grandpa Luo, I knew I would have new clothes to wear. Although Aunt Luo and Brother Guoqiang have bad intentions, for Grandpa Luo's sake, let's not make things awkward."
"How should I put it?" Yue Baohua sighed, "When the owner of Fuyunlou split up the family, the first wife stayed in Yuecheng, and the second wife went to Hongcheng. Your grandfather Luo and I are the two best chefs in Fuyunlou, and the second young master wanted to take one of us to Hongcheng to open a restaurant. Your grandfather Luo has a family of many people, including a sick old mother, so he didn't want to go and begged me to stay, so I followed the second young master to Hongcheng."
Yue Baohua looked down at his son's photo, and the more he thought about it, the more heartbroken he became: "The eldest son is a steady person, but the second son is a second-generation rich man. The branch of Fuyunlou in Hong Kong was lost by the second son in less than two years. At that time, I returned to Yuecheng. The eldest son wanted me to go back, but your grandfather Luo was already the master chef of Fuyunlou. If I went back, how should I arrange it? Besides, many people poured into Hong Kong after the war, and I also wanted to make a living on my own, so I entrusted your father to your grandfather Luo and went to Hong Kong again. Unexpectedly..."
Touching the photo, Yue Baohua suddenly felt something was wrong. Ningning did not respond to his words. He looked up at the child and saw Ningning was in deep thought. Then he realized that what he had just said was not appropriate.
He was thinking about his granddaughter, so he told her everything in his heart, but he didn't consider that his senior brother took good care of them. In the child's heart, his senior brother might be more like a grandfather than himself. What he said was a bit of shirking responsibility and ungratefulness.
"Ningning, I'm not saying I won't help Guoqiang, what I mean is..." Now Yue Baohua didn't know how to explain it. This was the first time he and Ningning met. To use a less accurate way of saying these words was that they were too intimate to be true friends. To explain it now would only make things worse.
Yue Ning came back to her senses. Just now, she heard Yue Baohua talking about the first and second wives of the boss of Fuyunlou, which reminded her that her grandfather had been in Hongcheng for more than 30 years and it was very likely that he had started a new family in Hongcheng.
She was lost in thought for a moment, causing Grandpa to misunderstand her, so she said: "Grandpa, I told you that Aunt Luo wanted Brother Guoqiang to marry me because I wanted you to know her wishful thinking. I think so too. Grandpa Luo helped us father and daughter, whether because he owed you something or because he took care of Dad for so many years and had a deep affection for us, this affection is always there. Grandpa Luo is gone, and it is only right to repay his children and grandchildren. It's just that Aunt Luo, or the couple, have bad intentions, so we have to guard against it. However, this Luo Guoqiang looks okay. He dared to force his mother to say those words in front of Dad's photo today..."
Yue Ning told Yue Baohua what Luo Guoqiang said, and then said: "Of course, it is also possible that the mother and son are acting in front of me, one playing the good guy and the other playing the bad guy."
Yue Baohua was very pleased that his child not only understood him but also took his time to think about everything. He picked up the bowl, took a sip of wolfberry tea, and said, "I've never tasted such sweet wolfberry tea before."
"This is local wild wolfberry. I picked it myself and dried it. It is really sweet." Yue Ning also lowered his head and took a sip of tea.
"Are you selling them here? I want to take a few packs back."
"The wolfberries in the supply and marketing cooperative are bigger than this one, but not as good. But maybe there are good ones, I'm not sure. After coming here, I have only been to the county town twice." Yue Ning said, "I'll pack the wolfberries in the jar, you can take them back."
"Okay!" Yue Baohua finished the remaining wolfberry tea.
Yue Ning found a plastic bag for flour. Here everyone used newspapers to wrap food. After she awakened her memory, she could not use newspapers to wrap food even if she was not particular. Therefore, whenever she saw such plastic bags for flour and biscuits, she would wash them, dry them and put them away. She would use them to pack dried vegetables or food. While pouring the wolfberries, she said, "Grandpa, I want to stay in Yuecheng after my father is buried, and not go to Hong Kong City."
"Ah?" Yue Baohua stared at his granddaughter with wide eyes.
Yue Baohua waited for so many years before the country's doors opened, but his son is gone and only this only bloodline is left, but the child says he doesn't want to go to Hong Kong?
"Grandpa, I'm so happy that you can come all the way to see me. You and Dad have been separated for more than 30 years. I guess you have settled down in Gangcheng and have a wife and children. If I, a granddaughter from the countryside, go to Gangcheng, I'm afraid it will cause a lot of trouble to the originally good family. No one will be able to adapt by then, so it's better for me to live in Guangdong City. If you are free, please come to see me, and I will also go to Gangcheng to see you when I am free. As the saying goes, 'Far away, the smell is better than near.'" Yue Ning tied the plastic bag tightly.
Yue Baohua had just secretly sighed that the child was thoughtful, but now she was unwilling to go to Hong Kong City because of overthinking, which made him feel a little uncomfortable. If he really married another wife and started a family in Hong Kong City, she was indeed thinking about him, but didn't she think about herself?
"You are thinking about me, but what about yourself? Don't you want to go to Gangcheng?" Yue Baohua asked his granddaughter.
Yue Ning put the wolfberries on the lid of the box.
In that era, Hong Kong City had a huge appeal to mainlanders. Her mother abandoned her husband and daughter, risked her life, and swam across the sea to Hong Kong City.
However, for her, who was born in the 1990s in her previous life and grew up in the new century, Hong Kong is good, but there are more opportunities in the mainland.
She had already planned for her future. Although her father was a cook, he was obsessed with reading and believed that literacy was the basis for doing any job well, even being a cook required literacy.
On days when there were basically no classes at school, her father would not allow her to fall behind in her studies. If her father was just nagging her to study hard, then Uncle Mo, who was also reformed here, was an expert and university professor who returned from the United States. He really guided her in her studies. The most favorite phrase of this Shanghai man was: "Nannan, let's do another math problem. When you finish it, uncle will read you a Song Dynasty poem, okay?"
With such a powerful person taking her to study, even if she doesn't recover her memory, she will have no problem taking the college entrance examination and getting into university.
In 1977, when the college entrance examination was resumed, she signed up for it. The scores were not announced that year, and the admissions were divided into two batches in the first half of 1978. Her name was not on either the first or the second batch. The test questions were obviously very simple for her, so I think it was because of the political review.
She was not in a hurry, since the second college entrance examination would be held in July 1978 anyway.
But who would have known that during the days of the college entrance examination, there happened to be a sheep plague. All the sheep in their area had fever, mouth sores, and diarrhea, and she was simply unable to get away.
This year she signed up for the college entrance examination again, and she was always worried, hoping that nothing would go wrong again. Until the news came on the radio that everyone should take off their hats, she no longer had to worry about this. She just hoped that the sheep would be fine, and she would be fine and everything would go smoothly.
She had planned to go to college first and then embark on the journey of life.
In her previous life, she was known as the woman who contracted the roast meat rice for overseas Chinese and foreigners.
During her graduate studies, she traveled to many places and kept thinking about a question: Why can't Cantonese roast meat, which has a universal taste, have a representative brand like malatang, beef noodles, or even Shaxian snacks?
Someone told her that Cantonese roast meat has high requirements on ingredients, and the roast goose must be made from Qingyuan black-brown goose; some people said that Cantonese roast meat is a test of the chef's skills, and Cantonese restaurants will hire famous roast meat chefs at a high price, so it is difficult to achieve uniformity; others said that Cantonese roast meat emphasizes the human touch, and is a unique sentiment of the old Cantonese.
These statements all make sense, but if we exclude the top taste and sentimental pursuit of high-end dining, industrialization, standardization and replicability are issues that must be addressed if we want to spread it widely.
She started her own business, and her roast meat brand was indeed very competitive. After getting investment, she opened stores all over the country. But it was the overseas market that really brought her huge profits. In China, roast meat was served as a cold dish in big restaurants, and small roast meat workshops were scattered all over the streets. Although her store was famous, it was not so famous that people would think of her store when they wanted to eat roast meat. Moreover, under fierce competition, the profit was meager.
While abroad, she turned roast pork rice into Chinese fast food that has both Chinese flavor and is suitable for foreigners' tastes.
The popular single product, barbecued pork rice, sold more than 20,000 copies a day worldwide. Later, she also launched the glass crispy roast duck rice, which was also very popular but also criticized on the hot search. There was a lot of discussion on the Internet. Some people questioned whether the roast meat that was changed beyond recognition to cater to the taste of local people could still be considered the taste of old Guangzhou?
Many chefs took advantage of the criticism of her dishes to sell authentic Guangdong roast meat. For a time, Guangdong roast meat became popular on the Internet. People went to the streets and alleys to search for the authentic Cantonese flavor and also criticized her roast meat for being not authentic.
So what? This did not affect her making a lot of money, the company's valuation continued to rise, and she also made it onto the rich list.
As she made more money, she became arrogant. Faced with the online doubts that she did not understand Cantonese cuisine, she became unhappy and publicly announced that she would open a high-end Cantonese restaurant, where she would personally cook the dishes with care.
Netizens were waiting to see her make a fool of herself, but the restaurant was packed with customers. She had no choice but to start a high-end restaurant brand line, opening 18 stores in China and Southeast Asia.
Later, she found a beautiful place and opened a restaurant with a limited entrance, focusing on her own cooking. The customers were all celebrities from all walks of life. Their requirements became higher and higher, which made her very picky about ingredients. If there were no good ingredients, she would refuse to cook. The more picky she was, the more those people thought her dishes were worth waiting for.
I don't know if God thought she didn't know how to cherish things, so he sent her to the northwest. Here, giant groupers and king crabs can only be seen in dreams, abalone and sea cucumbers are out of the question, and even cattle and sheep are owned by the state.
Fortunately, with the reform and opening up, she can always get back on her feet in this life with the experience of her previous life. But she can't be like she was in her previous life, and she can't be so picky about food ingredients anymore.
Back to the point, Grandpa now feels guilty towards Dad, but when he arrives in Hong Kong, he has a wife and children and grandchildren at home. If she goes to Hong Kong, it will inevitably infringe on their interests. How can she, a granddaughter who has never been with Grandpa, compare with his wife and children who have been with him for decades?
How long can this little bit of grandparent-grandchild relationship last? Rather than letting the relationship fade away by then, it’s better not to go. I should follow my original plan and take the college entrance examination and return to the city.
After thinking it over, Yue Ning nodded and said, "Hong Kong is good, but I will cause you a lot of trouble if I go there. Now that reform and opening up have taken place, I will have the opportunity to go to Hong Kong in the future. I will open a barbecue stall and should be able to support myself."
Don’t tell grandpa about the college entrance examination.
"You can cook?" Yue Baohua was a little surprised. The child came here when she was five years old. There was a shortage of supplies here, so how could she have the opportunity to learn to cook?
You see, her father is a very skilled cook, but her grandfather doesn’t believe that she can cook, let alone take the college entrance examination. There’s no point in explaining.
One year during the Spring Festival, her father killed the duck she had raised for a long time and made a roast duck for her. She followed her father's trouser legs, watching him prepare the crispy water and listening to him helplessly saying that there were not many spices here. When her father finished roasting the duck, she said confidently that she could make it too.
She ate it voraciously, and seeing how much she liked it, her father bought a duck for her birthday. This time she insisted on making the roast duck herself, and her father couldn't persuade her, so he let her try.
She followed the steps step by step and it was exactly the same. When the roast duck came out of the oven, the taste was almost the same as her father's. Her father hugged her and cried, saying that if she was in Yuecheng and studied hard, she would definitely become the best chef.
Later, her father would always save eggs and meat coupons to teach her how to cook, and she would learn it every time.
At that time, she was very proud and thought she was a genius. After her memory was awakened, she realized that it was just a skill brought from her previous life.
Yue Ning said firmly: "Yes, my father said that I have a talent for cooking and I can learn it once I learn it."
Seeing the little girl's confidence, Yue Baohua learned cooking himself, became an apprentice at the age of 12, and graduated at the age of 18. Among his fellow apprentices, he was considered to be the most talented. The job of a chef is acquired through repeated practice. Can you learn it in one go? This is just a child's talk. However, it is always a good thing that the child wants to learn cooking.
He reached out and touched Yue Ning's hair, saying, "Silly child, Dad said you have a high talent, and you must have a high talent. But how can you learn to cook overnight?"
"Grandpa, I really can cook." Yue Ning reiterated, "I cook very well."
Yue Baohua didn't think so. The child was very smart. After all, she grew up in a small mountain village in the northwest and didn't know the outside world. She thought she could open a restaurant just by cooking a few dishes. He couldn't dampen her confidence. Yue Baohua nodded and said in a coaxing tone: "Yes! Grandpa is waiting to taste Ningning's cooking skills."
He went on to say, "Grandpa was the only one in Gangcheng. When he went out, the conditions were tough, so I asked your dad to learn a craft from your Grandpa Luo. I wanted to wait until I earned a fortune and then take your dad out, but the situation changed and the country was closed. I regret not bringing your dad with me, and I can only hope that the country will open every day. I have been waiting for so many years, and I have no other family members except you. If you had stayed in Yuecheng, would we, the grandparents and grandchildren, have to continue to be separated?"
Grandpa didn't get married again, waiting for the country to open up, that's another story. But she has been preparing for the college entrance examination for so long, and Uncle Mo is still waiting for her to take the exam and go to Shanghai.
Yue Ning hesitated, but saw his grandfather picked up his father's photo again.
Grandpa is so old, and when he found out his son was gone, his granddaughter was unwilling to go back with him. Does she want him to go back to Gangcheng alone?
It can only be said that she has no chance of taking the college entrance examination. Yue Ning thought about it and finally made up his mind: "Grandpa, I will go home with you."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
