She doesn't eat cabbage.
She doesn't eat cabbage.
twenty three.
The only person who would call on Christmas Eve is Miss Lu.
On the phone, Meimei didn't come to wish him a Merry Christmas, but to confront him—she was furious that Chongming had taken another woman to the arcade.
"Who told you to stay out during your vacation and not come home, instead running wild outside?" Chongming handled Meimei with ease. "Besides, I brought your sister-in-law here to play, not some other woman."
The person on the other end of the phone was silent for a long time. "Brother, have you forgotten what day it is today?"
Chongming's brain was working at high speed. After going through the birthdays of all the important family members, even the housekeeper and his wife, he thought, "Could it be the birthday of one of your dolls?"
"...Today is the only day this year that Mom cooks for us herself. If you want my brother and me to continue to have a complete family, I advise you to go back now and save Major General Lu's life. It's not too late."
Every year on the last Sunday, Ming Zijuan cooks for herself.
It's also a day when a family war inevitably breaks out every year.
Last week, Chongming was only thinking about Christmas this weekend and wanted to spend the holiday outside with Lanjian, so he didn't want to go home. He completely ignored the "The Last Sunday Kitchen" event by the God of Dark Cuisine, Ms. Ming Zijuan.
On the way home, Chongming apologized to Lanjian for changing his plans at the last minute, and explained to her in detail the things that had happened between Ms. Ming and the kitchen over the years.
Blowing up the kitchen with bare hands was a minor incident; causing Major General Lu to suffer from food poisoning twice was truly frightening. Lu Jie's first food poisoning was caused by Ming Zijuan adding undercooked kidney beans to a dough ball so mushy that it was impossible to tell if it contained eggs or meat. While he was receiving intravenous fluids in the hospital, Ming Zijuan, out of guilt, personally cooked him porridge. In addition to the prepared meal kit provided by Aunt Lian, she secretly added the "miracle mushrooms" that the aunt selling mushrooms outside the hospital had touted as miraculous.
Looking at the Southern Army Major General who had been harmed by his wife again right before his eyes, the doctor at the military hospital said to Lu Jie earnestly, "Commander, in the future, you should have anything your wife gives you tested by the toxicology department before you eat it."
As a result, Ming Zijuan was deprived of the right to cook.
However, she is very dedicated to cooking; it's no exaggeration to say that she's a great cook but also a big fan of it.
After Aunt Lian patiently taught her for three weekends, she finally decided to let the four of them vote. Chongming and Meimei both voted in favor, vowing never to let their mother into the kitchen again. Under his wife's coercion and enticement, Lu Jie offered a compromise: Ming Zijuan could cook once a year.
From then on, the last weekend of each year became Chongming and Meimei's "SaveDad-day". After all, apart from Lu Jie, no one wanted to eat Ms. Ming's "deadly dishes".
Meimei is not here this year, so the responsibility falls on Chongming and his newlywed wife, Lanjian.
When Chongming arrived at the kitchen, Ms. Ming had just finished making her butterfly pea flower egg rolls, which were so blue they were almost poisonous to look at. Aunt Lian, who was supervising the process, whispered to Chongming, "She was just about to add American ginseng to it, saying she wanted to nourish your father, but I stopped her."
Chongming felt a sudden darkness before his eyes.
"Mama, you finished so quickly?" Lan Jian spoke up at the right moment. She walked to her mother-in-law's side and pretended to be puzzled. "Did you want to carve a Smurf?"
Ming Zijuan's eyes lit up. "That's a great idea!"
"My knife skills are pretty good, do you need any help?"
"Okay, okay! Sweetie, will you be able to cook for yourself in the North?"
"Yes, everyone loves my sweet soup. Mama, would you like some?"
"That would be great!"
"What kind of dishes from Chongming would you like to eat? We'll cook them for you."
Chongming, who had been skillfully scooping out the strange shellfish that Ming Zijuan had tossed into the soup, quickly chimed in, "Yes, Mom, today is Christmas, and you've already made... an egg roll, and vegetables..."
"The soup's done. The rest is up to me and Lan Jian!"
Ming Zijuan was half-pushed and half-helped out of the kitchen by Aunt Lian. She reluctantly told Lan Jian, "Sweetie, remember to carve me a cute Smurf!"
Lan Jian winked at her.
After the kitchen was cleared out, Chongming leaned on the countertop and suddenly burst out laughing.
Lan Jian didn't understand why, but she still laughed along.
Chongming laughed heartily for a while before taking down the apron hanging on the wall. He handed it to Lanjian first, saying, "It's very smoky, you should wear this."
Are you planning to make a fancy dish?
Lan Jian couldn't find another rope anywhere. Before she could even look up, Chongming leaned over and, in an embracing gesture, pulled out the thin rope hidden around her waist and tied it for her. The bow fell at her lower back, highlighting her slender waistline.
"Aunt Lian has prepared a lot of semi-finished products. Look, even the white fungus is soaked."
Lan Jian volunteered, "Then I'll cook the white fungus soup!"
Chongming hung up his apron, turned his back to her, and said, "Okay, we have fresh eel at home today, so I'll make you a stir-fried eel dish."
"I really like eating eel!"
"I know."
How did you know I like to eat eel?
Lan Jian tied two bows for Chongming, very tightly, so he would have to ask her to untie them later!
“You once said that you don’t like onions, but you can accept the onions in stir-fried eel with onions.”
Chongming drew inferences from this and concluded that Meng Lanjian must have really enjoyed eating eel, a food that many people on the southern slopes dared not eat.
"You have a great memory, even better than Guan Shaoxiao! That guy only remembers that I don't eat cabbage, nothing else."
Chongming didn't respond. He also vividly remembered Lanjian's dislike of cabbage. Sometimes, when there were publicly funded lunch boxes for institute activities, if cabbage appeared, Lanjian would go to Guan Shaoxiao or Zhuang Huiting with a long face to exchange it for vegetables. Another time, in the lab, a vegetarian professor came to visit. Xue Xiangding had provided two kinds of off-campus lunch boxes, one of which contained cabbage. Lanjian came back late from class, and there was only one left. Before even opening the lunch box, Lanjian silently prayed, "Amitabha," that there wouldn't be any cabbage.
Upon hearing this, the professor looked at Lan Jian with affection and asked, "What's wrong, Lan Jian?"
“She doesn’t eat cabbage,” Chongming answered for her. “She’s performing a ritual.”
"How about you give it to me or your senior if you have any later?" The professor was frugal by nature and couldn't stand the waste of food.
Fortunately, Lan Jian received the portion without cabbage after opening the box.
Lan Jian suddenly remembered this matter and asked Chongming, "Last time when Professor Sang came to the lab, was the lunchbox you left for me?"
“Everyone has their own order, it wasn’t me who reserved it for you.” Chongming guessed what she wanted to ask. “I just reserved the portion without cabbage for you.”
Lan Jian was overjoyed to hear this, "Thank you!"
Just as Chongming was about to reply politely, Lanjian launched into her whimsical remark: "I suddenly remembered that when Rutherford, one of the founding fathers of atomic physics, was working in the fields, he learned he had won a university scholarship and said, 'This is the last potato I'll dig!'"
Oh no! Chongming looked warily at Meng Lanjian, who was grinning wickedly. This guy was sure to spout nonsense again.
"On the day I receive my doctorate, I'm going to call over the secretary at the institute who loves ordering cabbage lunchboxes and tell her, 'This is the last cabbage I'll ever eat!'"
After she finished speaking, she laughed to herself, feeling incredibly happy.
Chongming was exasperated, wondering to herself, "How could she be so sure that there would be cabbage in my lunchbox on the day of my oral exam?"
@Drafts: Replacing 4T in operation.
@Author: So far, no one has called me "Bald Head Every Day" because my initials are all TTTT, lol.
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