Chapter 18 Sweet Potato and Braised Pork Trotters [VIP]
Today I had my favorite roasted sweet potatoes from my childhood.
It’s a pity that the person I love will always remain in childhood.
——"Zhen Haozi's Diary"
No. 1010, Louzi Lane.
Zhou Chunrui and Yan Yunshu met the mysterious Mr. Qiu for the first time.
"You're the two Haozi friends Haozi often mentions, right?" Mr. Qiu said with a gentle smile. "Come, sit down, and try some of the peaches I planted myself."
Both of them were impressed by his elegant temperament and easy-going personality, and forgot to call for help for a moment.
In the end, it was Yan Yunshu who reacted first: "Thank you, Mr. Qiu."
After she called out to him, she tugged at the hem of Zhou Chunrui's school uniform inconspicuously.
"Ah?" Zhou Chunrui exclaimed softly, then his brain switched on and he smiled, "Thank you, Mr. Qiu!"
As soon as she finished speaking, two more people walked in.
The girl has bright eyes, white teeth and a tall figure. She is a rare beauty.
The boy's face was a little pale, but it couldn't hide his face that was stunning at first sight.
They both knew these two people, who were celebrities in No. 3 Middle School, Meng Nanyin and Lu Xingzhan.
Zhou Chunrui glanced at Zhen Haozi, who shrugged his shoulders in ignorance.
She really didn't know the relationship between Meng Nanyin, Lu Xingzhan and Mr. Qiu.
"You two, school hasn't ended yet, why are you back?" Mr. Qiu looked up at the clock on the wall and asked.
"Azhan is feeling a little unwell, so I asked for leave to bring him to see Mr. Qiu." Meng Nanyin looked at the young man beside her with a worried look on her face.
In fact, they don’t come here very often, this time is a special case.
When he heard that Lu Xingzhan was unwell, Mr. Qiu's gentle expression was replaced by anxiety: "Where do you feel unwell? Let me take a look."
Seeing Mr. Qiu examining the young woman, writing down a prescription and instructing the girl to get the medicine from the pharmacy on the street, Zhen Haozi was no less shocked than everyone else.
She had not known before that Mr. Qiu was also a Chinese medicine practitioner.
Seeing her bewildered look, Mr. Qiu finally remembered to introduce her: "Good girl, good girl, the little girl who just went out to get medicine is my granddaughter, Meng Nanyin."
This made Zhen Haozi even more surprised.
Unexpectedly, even his own granddaughter called him Mr. Qiu.
"As for the young man sitting here..." Mr. Qiu said with a smile, "He is the senior brother I mentioned to you."
Zhen Haozi widened his eyes slightly.
She never dreamed that the "Little Prince of Traditional Chinese Medicine", one of the campus celebrities, was actually her own senior.
She opened her mouth, but couldn't say "Senior Brother".
As if he knew she was in a difficult situation, Lu Xingzhan said nonchalantly, "You don't have to call me Senior Brother, just call me by my name."
He only wanted to be Meng Nanyin's junior apprentice and didn't want to be anyone else's senior apprentice.
Zhen Haozi nodded dully: "Haozi, classmate Lu."
She didn't actually call him by his name, but chose a name that would be unmistakable.
"Azhan, please go into the inner room and rest for a while." Mr. Qiu said gently.
Lu Xingzhan's frail health was something he had been suffering from since his mother's womb. Ignoring his strange illness, which no one could find the cause of, there was nothing seriously wrong with his body. He just needed to get more rest and pay attention to his diet.
After settling his son Lu Xingzhan, Mr. Qiu began to prepare to teach Zhen Haozi.
She mainly learned some theoretical knowledge that day. Zhou Chunrui was drowsy while listening, but Yan Yunshu listened with great interest.
Nanyin, also known as "string and pipe", is the traditional music of the southern Fujian region and one of the UNESCO masterpieces of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Known as a "living fossil in Chinese musical history," Nanyin, originating in the Southern Fujian region and performed in the Minnan dialect, is a Han Chinese music with a long history in China. Immigrants from the Central Plains during the Han, Jin, Tang, and Song dynasties brought their musical culture to the Southern Fujian region, centered around Min City. Nanyin, where it merged with local folk music, formed a cultural expression that embodies the legacy of ancient Central Plains music.
Nanyin originated in the Tang Dynasty and took shape in the Song Dynasty. Its singing style retains the traditional ancient folk singing methods from before the Tang Dynasty. Its singers and performers are highly spontaneous in their re-creation, and the performance of Nanguan also maintains the characteristics of the Tang and Song Dynasties.
Mr. Qiu would sing a few lines while telling the story. As soon as Zhen Haozi heard the Nanyin, he couldn't help but think of his grandfather.
Time seemed to have flown away in the blink of an eye. Grandpa Zhen would always hold her hand with a smile and say, "Grandpa has made money. Let's take Haozi to buy the most expensive ice cream."
When I was little, when other kids used fifty cents to buy five popsicles, Grandpa Zhen would say to Zhen Haozi, "The popsicles that cost ten cents each aren't sweet enough, and they don't have enough milk flavor. Grandpa will give you one dollar, so you can have two at a time! Haozi, Haozi, go ahead and buy them. We Haozi, Haozi, only want the sweetest popsicles."
In the 1990s in Minzhen, the 50-cent Torch Ice Cream Cone was a coveted snack for countless children.
, you can own two at a time.
, but gave Zhen Haozi a lot of love.
The love from Grandpa Bai Zhen was enough to heal Zhen Haozi's miserable childhood.
At that time, beautiful clouds covered the sky in the evening.
Reasonable.
"Shall we go eat Minzhou fish balls?" Zhou Chunrui didn't notice anything unusual about Zhen Haozi and was thinking about what to eat for dinner.
Yan Yunshu noticed it.
When Mr. Qiu was giving a lecture, she saw Zhen Haozi's eyes gradually turning red.
She knew without asking that Zhen Haozi must be thinking of his grandfather.
The three of them all had their own problems at home, but Zhen Haozi's family was the most difficult.
"Good boy, good boy." Yan Yunshu gently took Zhen Haozi's arm, "I'm hungry, what shall we eat?"
She didn't want Zhen Haozi to be immersed in sad memories, so she took the initiative to waste time on the issue of what to eat.
Only then did Zhen Haozi realize that he was hungry too.
At this moment, a tricycle selling roasted sweet potatoes passed by and then stopped not far from the alley entrance.
Smelling the fragrant roasted sweet potatoes, Zhen Haozi's eyes lit up: "I want to eat roasted sweet potatoes."
"Good boy, good boy, you're a bit of a weirdo too. You actually like eating white sweet potatoes." Zhou Chunrui, unaware of the situation, chit-chatted as if discussing whether to eat salty or sweet rice dumplings. "Sweet potatoes are so sweet! No objection."
Zhen Haozi just smiled and said nothing.
She knew that few people liked to eat white sweet potatoes, and even roasted sweet potato carts were often unavailable, but this was the taste that she remembered most vividly from her childhood.
She could eat it for a lifetime.
After the millennium, the Zhen family's situation gradually improved, but they were still considered a poor household in the town.
At that time, He Yunlian was still making a living in Tianjin with Zhen's father. Grandma Zhen took her to Xiamen four years after Zhen Mei was born. Zhen Li was not born yet.
There are many left-behind children in Min Town, and Zhen Haozi is one of them.
But she never expected that the days she lived with her grandpa and great-grandmother would be the most unforgettable happiest time in her life.
Great-grandmother, like Grandpa Zhen, loved her very much.
When she made a mistake and was made to stand in a circle by her grandfather as punishment, Old Lady Zhen would secretly give her two plump bananas, but she stubbornly refused to take them: "Grandpa said I can't eat until I'm done standing. I don't want any."
Old Madam Zhen shook her head helplessly: "Why are you so stubborn, child?"
At that time, the sunlight gradually shifted to the top of Zhen Haozi's head, and it was noon.
Grandpa Zhen drank a little wine, and the snoring coming from the inner room indicated that he was sleeping soundly.
Before taking a nap, Old Lady Zhen strolled over to take a look. Seeing Zhen Haozi still standing in the circle without moving, she couldn't help but reach out and pull her: "You'll get sunburned if you stay out any longer. Your grandfather is asleep, he won't know you came out early..."
Zhen Haozi gritted his teeth and started pulling the river with the old man.
Old Madam Zhen tried to pull her out of the circle, but she pushed back even harder, refusing to leave no matter what she said: "I won't go out. I'll stand here until Grandpa wakes up."
Old Mrs. Zhen really couldn't persuade her, so she could only shake her head and go back to her own room.
Not long after she left, Grandpa Zhen walked out.
He had heard the conversation between his granddaughter and her mother just now, and finally couldn't bear to let Zhen Haozi stand there any longer.
In the summer in Minzhen, even the sunlight is white, making people's skin burn.
Zhen Haozi stood straight, looking unyielding.
Grandpa Zhen couldn't help laughing and went back into the house.
When he came out again, he was holding a steaming but ready-to-eat roasted sweet potato.
Zhen Haozi had been hungry for a long time, and when he saw the beautifully roasted white sweet potato, he immediately swallowed his saliva.
When the family was getting a new stove, Grandpa Zhen told the workers, "My granddaughter loves to eat roasted sweet potatoes. Could you please build a small oven next to it? I can throw a sweet potato in there every day when I cook, and my granddaughter will have a delicious roasted sweet potato to eat."
The worker working on the stove said with a smile: "Mr. Zhen really loves his granddaughter."
Grandpa Zhen's tone was full of Bai Hao: "Of course not, I only have this one granddaughter by my side."
From then on, Zhen Haozi could eat a fragrant roasted sweet potato every day when he woke up.
"Good girl, good girl, don't do this again next time." Grandpa Zhen waved at her, "Here, your favorite roasted sweet potato."
With his grandfather's permission, Zhen Haozi took a big step out of the drawn circle, took the roasted sweet potato, and started eating it in big mouthfuls.
The consequence of eating too fast was that she kept burping. Grandpa Zhen patted her back and brought her a cup of sweet tea with sugar: "Eat slowly, no one will snatch it from you."
"Grandpa, I won't dare to do it again." After Haozi finally stopped hiccuping, Zhen Haozi admitted his mistake wholeheartedly.
This time, grandpa was right to punish her.
Grandpa wasn't home that morning, so she didn't have to go to school for the weekend. When she found a pack of instant noodles in the cupboard, her craving was piqued, and she decided to boil some water. She immediately filled the kettle with water and placed it on the coal stove, but when a neighbor called her to fly a kite, she forgot about it.
When my grandfather called me back home, the burning coal balls in the coal stove were extinguished by the boiling water. Not only did I have to light the fire again, but the kettle was almost burned through.
Grandpa Zhen said to her earnestly, "Haozi, Haozi, you can't be half-hearted when doing things. You have to do them one by one, and see them through to the end. Look at today, the coal briquettes went out, and the kettle burned. These are small matters. What if there was a fire in the kitchen, or if someone at home was asleep? What would the consequences be? Haozi, Haozi, have you ever thought about it?"
His tone was not harsh and his expression was not serious, but Zhen Haozi couldn't help but have red eyes. He pursed his lips and refused to say a word.
When she first stood in the circle, she was still dissatisfied.
But as time passed, she gradually figured it out and realized her mistakes.
Grandpa Zhen rubbed her head with satisfaction: "You admit your mistakes and correct them. You are still a good child. Grandpa will make you braised pork trotters tonight. Is it a good child?"
"Haozi!" Children's emotions come and go quickly. When he heard that there was meat to eat, Zhen Haozi's eyes curved like crescent moons.
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