Chapter 7 Potatoes are good with bald spots!
You slowed your pace and looked at the big guy with some wariness.
The landlord noticed you, greeted you with a smile, and stepped aside to let you go home.
I replied with a "hello," and you didn't look around, just glanced at the hallway out of the corner of your eye. Standing opposite the landlord were a few unfamiliar locals.
Close the door, lock it, and put your ear to the door to listen for any sounds.
This house is over a hundred years old, and its wooden structure and thin walls make it very poor at soundproofing. Conversations that are perfectly clear to the ear through the walls are essentially background noise that would be automatically filtered out by a mobile phone.
If you don't understand, you don't understand. The landlord and those people seemed to be having a good time, so they probably weren't there to cause trouble.
Perhaps a new tenant is viewing the property?
But my male roommate just "died" yesterday.
That's true. How can we think about human relationships in this world entirely using the logic of the real world?
You still have plenty of time today, and nothing else to do, so pick up your phone again and start learning Deyu.
You deeply understand that not being able to understand any language, or even what the other person is saying, will greatly hinder your survival.
First, you memorize vocabulary. You don't like doing things repeatedly, so you choose a faster way: find a video of reading a scrambled vocabulary list, watch the video, and read along. Do this once a day, which takes about two hours. Based on your learning ability, you can remember most of it in ten or twenty days. And for now, each time you read along, at least you will have an impression in your brain.
Then you continued to learn grammar quickly, memorized common simple sentences, and watched TV dramas with local dialect dubbing to train your ear.
Before you knew it, the landlord and those strangers had left, and you had been studying for almost 4 hours.
I was thirsty, and finally I had some water to drink.
You unscrew the bottle cap, and with a hiss, you realize something is wrong.
You took a sip and almost choked.
W-Why is it sparkling water?!
With a bitter face, you looked up the words on the bottle and realized that you not only bought sparkling mineral water, but also the one with the highest acid content.
Who would be so kind as to mix sparkling water and regular water together?!
Moreover, while drinking various sweet sodas is refreshing and enjoyable, swallowing bubbly water directly feels like countless needles rolling around in your throat.
You sip slowly, and after drinking for a while, you glance at the bottle and realize that only half a thumb's width of water has been removed.
Okay, let's go out and cook some before drinking. And while you're at it, boil some potatoes too. After you eat these 10 potatoes, you probably won't need to leave your room again today.
As you walk into the kitchen, expecting to find no one outside, you discover your second roommate.
A girl with long brown hair.
She looks fit and radiant, and even though you only briefly meet her, she's very lively and affectionate towards you.
Seeing that you were holding a water bottle and that the kitchen space was really small, she immediately gave up her spot, casually wiped her hands, said something enthusiastically, and pointed to the kettle for you to use.
“Don’t worry,” you said. As you walked past her, she even reached out and gently protected your waist to prevent you from bumping into the dining table that stretched from the pillar in the middle of the communal kitchen.
No matter how deeply you understand that these locals could turn into bizarre monsters at any moment, you still start to like this girl who is very friendly to you.
Sigh, if this were real life, you'd probably be very willing to become friends with a girl like that in a foreign country.
Shaking your head, you pour the sparkling water into the kettle, boil it briefly to remove the carbonation, then turn off the power and pour the warm water back into the plastic bottle.
On the other side, you washed the mud off the potatoes, filled a large pot with beer, and put the potatoes in.
There is no open flame here; the electric ceramic stove heats up very slowly, which allows the rich malt aroma of the beer to be released more slowly and thoroughly.
What bothered you last night, you actually found some enjoyment in today after getting everything sorted out.
This can only be described as optimism. On the other hand, being able to find your own fun is the only way to avoid going crazy.
The beer in the pot slowly heats up, and potatoes float and sink in the golden liquid. You lean against the kitchen counter, watching the foam rise and then dissipate, feeling a sense of relief.
While waiting, you get a little bored and look out through the small window that serves as a "range hood".
The sky is very blue, the clouds are very light, but you inexplicably feel that the color is grayish, unlike in China where the sky is not high and wide even when the weather is good, as if it is about to press down at any time.
Is this due to latitude? It turns out that people in different places really do see the sky differently. What about the moon? The stars? Do we see different constellations? Does the world we live in have a universe, or is it just a curtain?
Your thoughts have already flown to the heavens.
But some small, gurgling and hissing noises pulled them back to the ground.
At first, you thought it was just the sound of beer boiling. But soon, you realized that something was wrong with the sound coming from the pot.
It wasn't just the sound of bubbles, but a strange sound that was like a whisper or a chuckle.
You are no longer easily frightened; you simply approach the pot cautiously, squinting to try and see through the steam to get a better look inside.
The sight before you makes you gasp in shock.
There were no potatoes left in the pot! Instead, there was a small bag of miniature, bald human heads.
They tumbled and swished in the boiling beer, some with eerie smiles on their faces, while a few were actually glaring angrily, with that kind of fierce and indifferent look you've seen on the street at least a dozen times, as if you owed them money.
You suddenly took a few steps back and almost tripped over your own foot.
It's not that I'm scared, you just feel a bit ridiculous.
You remember passing by a bald man in the supermarket, and the landlord was also a big, fat, bald man.
Ahem, let's get serious.
"Gas?" you stammered. As soon as the words left your mouth, you realized that you had been so influenced by talking that you could actually blurt out some short words, such as "what".
After you made a sound, the miniature heads seemed to notice your presence. They suddenly stopped churning—so they weren't rolling around like dumplings in boiling water, you thought—and turned to you in unison, their tiny grooves or slightly sprouting pits filled with colorful eyes, staring at you intently.
Suddenly, a crack appeared, and it turned into a mouth.
"Puhosi Te!" a bald potato shouted in a hoarse voice, making gurgling sounds as he choked on his beer.
Soon, other bald potatoes also started shouting the same word.
Hey, you seem to remember this word, what was it again...?
Ah! Prost! To put it bluntly, it's a rambling toast.
These potatoes have a nice touch, and you laughed out loud.
"DB sunbathing!" another potato shouted, and the other potatoes echoed in unison.
You know that? It's a vulgar expression in Chinese, right? That's the first word you remembered. As for dB, you looked it up and found out it's an abbreviation for "De Guo Railway" (嘚国铁路).
This is really strange. Isn't it said that China's transportation system is excellent? Why are they criticizing it?
You want to hear what other interesting things they might say, but before that, you should first make sure that this scenario is "normal".
Based on the greenish sausage, you figured out the application scenarios for these rules. Without hesitation, you turned on the tap, and beer gushed out; you mentally applauded it.
Looking at this pot of bald potatoes again, your expression twisted slightly.
—Doesn't this mean that potatoes turning into old men is the norm? You might even have to crush and eat these bald guys.
Regardless of your feelings, the potatoes started shouting again: "Mei ah Bi ah!" "Yay yay yay ah ah ah!" "I'm coming to Hebei Province!"
They shouted louder and louder, and you felt as if you had stumbled into a football hooligan party.
Seeing that they could no longer say anything new, you coldly picked up a fork, stuck it into the bald head, confirmed it was cooked through, and quickly took it out without peeling it, then proceeded to stir and grind it.
The bald men wailed in despair, then gradually fell silent.
Fortunately, the finished mashed potatoes showed no signs of having been a bald pot of potatoes; they looked exactly like normal potatoes.
You added a little salt, and tried several times, but the spoon kept hitting the enter key and being withdrawn by you each time it touched your lips.
But if you don't eat, you're doomed.
Never mind!
With a pained expression, as if you were being tortured, you devoured a huge bowl of mashed potatoes. To be honest, even this messy, haphazardly prepared potato dish, seasoned only with salt and a pinch of pepper, tasted much better than the mashed potatoes you had at the Flower Restaurant yesterday.
belch.
Swaying slightly, cradling your bloated belly, you return to your room and collapse onto the bed. Having completed today's survival tasks ahead of schedule and studied intensely for so long, an overwhelming sense of fatigue washes over you.
You thought, "Just a little nap," and pulled down the blinds, instantly blocking out all the light. You slowly closed your eyes.
You had a long dream. You found yourself back in the supermarket. The shelves were like a giant maze, with no end in sight. You wandered aimlessly when suddenly you heard a rustling sound behind you. Turning around, you saw hundreds of tiny, bald "potato men" chasing you, their eyes glowing red in the darkness.
You take off running, and no matter how you turn or how fast you speed up, those "potato men" always keep up. They even start to accelerate, cutting off the limb-like stems that have grown on them, turning into round potato eggs that roll towards you with a gurgling sound.
Just as you are about to be caught, a jarring melody suddenly blares out, waking you from your nightmare.
You suddenly sit up, feeling dizzy and your heart is racing.
The room was pitch black, and you couldn't tell if it was day or night. The screams of the "Potato Man" from your nightmares still echoed in your ears, but they were quickly replaced by another sound—deafening electronic music coming from your female roommate.
You fumble for your phone, the screen's brightness stinging your eyes. When you finally see the time, a wave of annoyance washes over you—2:37 AM. You've actually slept right into the middle of the night!
You rubbed your temples. The excessive sleep hadn't made you feel refreshed; instead, it had left you even more tired and confused. The aftereffects of the nightmare lingered, and you weren't even sure if you were truly awake.
He shakily got up and pulled open the iron roller shutter, where moonlight streamed in.
But somehow a group of teenagers who looked no more than 15 or 16 years old had gathered on the street. Under the streetlights, their long shadows overlapped like snakes, entangling the building you were in.
You instantly regained consciousness.
These people were attracted by their roommate's music.
Besides, the rental rules state that you must keep quiet at night and not make noise.
But the people gathered downstairs made you feel annoyed, so you took out your phone, feeling a bit frustrated, as you felt you should exercise your right as a tenant to stop her from continuing the noise pollution.
But then I saw an app on the screen.
That's a commonly used chat app here in Germany. There are no other people in it, only the landlord's face appears on the profile picture of the only contact.
A note from the author:
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So, once when I was traveling in Italy, it was incredibly hot, and many of the shopkeepers on the street didn't speak English. I unwittingly bought a lot of sparkling water, and it got me really tipsy—it was so refreshing!
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