Chapter 46 Fried Yellow Croaker Auntie, please bring more delicious food next time...
Recalling this incident, Qin Xiangxiang was utterly shocked. Her current neighbor was none other than the tragic ex-wife of Chief of Staff Zhang from her dream—two lives lost in the end.
When I first heard about this from others, I only felt indignant and saddened. But when I truly realized that such a living, breathing person was gone, the feeling sent chills down my spine.
If you didn't know about this, that would be fine. But now that you do, try to help your neighbor escape this mess. That brother of Sister Huang is the real scumbag.
"Comrade Qin, thank you so much."
"It's nothing, we'll all be neighbors from now on."
After saying goodbye to the Zhang family, Qin Xiangxiang stood in the corridor and looked down. She saw Sister Gao and waved to her, signaling her to come up. At the same time, she knocked on the door of Zhou Lu's house next door.
When Sister Gao went upstairs, she was shocked. Qin Xiangxiang gave her a crispy ice cream cone with a chocolate cap inside. "It's chocolate? This stuff is expensive!"
Qin Xiangxiang said, "It's homemade, so I'm sharing it with the neighbors. I just happened to see you, so I quickly called you up to have a taste."
"This is so good, I almost don't want to eat it myself. I'll take it back for my child."
"We need to eat it quickly, or it will melt."
When Sister Gao saw Qin Xiangxiang knock on Zhou Lu's door, she felt a toothache and guilt while eating ice cream. She was conflicted about whether she should remind Qin Xiangxiang not to "show off her wealth" in front of Zhou Lu, otherwise this little lamb would be in trouble, either getting ripped off or being bothered.
Xiao Qin, this family member from the big city, is really well-off. So far, she seems well-mannered, and her husband is also emotionally intelligent. Let's hope they don't have any conflicts because of the neighbors' affairs.
Should I remind her later?
"Qin Xiangxiang?" Zhou Lu opened the door and smiled when she saw Qin Xiangxiang. But when she saw the ice cream Qin Xiangxiang was holding, she was even more surprised. A thought flashed through her mind: She's taken the bait! What a fat sheep!
"Little Fatty, call her Auntie."
Hello, Auntie.
"Hello, hello." Zhou Lu called her child over to eat ice cream, and then said she wanted to get some candy and cookies for Qin Xiangxiang, which Qin Xiangxiang asked the little fat boy to take.
When Sister Gao saw this scene, she thought to herself, "Oh no, it might not even work if I become a bad person."
Qin Xiangxiang asked in a particularly cheeky tone, "Sister Zhou, do you still have any chocolate beans? My little Fatty wants some more."
Upon hearing his mother say this, the chubby boy looked at Zhou Lu with sparkling eyes.
"Auntie, is there any food left?"
Zhou Lu was stunned for a moment, "?"
This family took almost half a pound of her chocolate beans! Now they're just asking her for more.
Sister Gao said from the side, "Since that's how it is, Zhou Lu, why don't you let the children have a little more?"
Zhou Lu was in a difficult position: "Xiao Qin, we gave all our chocolate beans to your child yesterday."
Sister Gao: "?!" How strange, Zhou Lu has become stingy.
"You only have that little bit left? I'm so sorry." Qin Xiangxiang brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "After eating the chocolate beans you gave us yesterday, my child wanted to eat chocolate, so my husband Li went and bought four yuan worth of chocolate today to melt it down and make chocolate ice cream for the child."
Four dollars' worth of chocolate!!!
Not to mention the "well-informed" Sister Gao, even Zhou Lu, who usually lives a "luxurious" life, stared wide-eyed.
Little Fatty: "Dad's so generous! The ice cream I just ate is covered in chocolate!"
Sister Gao: "Xiao Qin, your family spoils your child way too much."
"Sigh, there's nothing we can do about it. The child insists on eating. He's a half-grown boy who's going to eat his father out of house and home. We're barely making ends meet. If we run into financial difficulties later on, we'll need the neighbors to help us out."
Sister Gao almost spat out a mouthful of ice cream from her nose.
Zhou Lu's gaze shifted from shock to confusion: "??????"
Seeing the shocked expressions on their faces, Qin Xiangxiang chuckled to himself: "Take the path of the extreme, and leave the extreme with nowhere to go."
"Sister Zhou, if you buy chocolate beans next time, please share a little more with my family. My little chubby doesn't have enough."
The chubby boy shouted, "Auntie, please bring more delicious food next time!"
"We knew yesterday that you are a generous person and your family must be well-off. Our whole family is overjoyed. We will feel very embarrassed to take advantage of your wealth from now on."
The chubby boy chimed in, "Auntie is just as generous as my dad!"
Zhou Lu's lips twitched. Were these two women trying to take advantage of her? Her gaze swept over the chubby face of the little fat boy, Li Qingfeng, and she felt a little scared.
Sister Gao, munching on her ice cream, was overjoyed to see this scene. "So, you all do this, huh? Who knows who'll end up eating more in the future?" she thought.
She glanced at the chubby boy's face. This kid is really fat!
Zhou Lu chickened out at this moment and decided to back down for the time being, because her son looked like he could really eat a lot.
People melt chocolate at home to make crispy ice cream, and they don't feel ashamed no matter how many chocolate chips they eat... She even wants more while she has a child!
Li Jianzhi set a date for the family reunion dinner and invited a few comrades who had free time to eat. He decided to be the head chef and make the dinner a great success. He would choose a pork knuckle as the main dish, as well as chicken stew with ham. Other dishes would include fish, shrimp, shellfish, and bean products. He would also use canned tomatoes to make a tomato soup base for future hot pots and just throw everything into the pot and cook it all together.
Qin Xiangxiang didn't comment on the "menu" he set out for her. Anyway, it was just a dinner invitation, and it wasn't going to end up in her mouth, so she could do whatever the man wanted with it.
For snacks to accompany drinks, we'll have stir-fried peanuts, some braised tofu, and local specialties from the island, such as deep-fried small yellow croaker.
The small yellow croakers on the island are not worth much, only two or three cents a pound. These small yellow croakers are too small to eat on their own, so they are coated in flour and deep-fried in restaurants. A single deep-fried small yellow croaker costs between five cents and ten cents depending on its size. The freshly fried small yellow croakers are the most fragrant and crispy, and the restaurants cook them to order.
Qin Xiangxiang took her son to buy fried yellow croaker. They bought a dozen or so for one yuan. They ate them on the way home, and by the time they got to their doorstep, there were only a few left. Li Jianzhi finished the rest.
The fish are gone.
The way this family ate left the Zhang family's child next door completely bewildered.
Li Jianzhi: "These small yellow croakers are great as a snack with drinks; they're crispy and fresh after being fried."
Li, who was trying to lose weight, silently complained to herself: "I've become decadent, eating fried yellow croakers one after another."
"Think about it, if we buy a little extra fried yellow croaker that day, and we can put the leftovers in the refrigerator, we can add some chili and stir-fry them again, they'll probably taste good too."
"Okay, then I'll buy three yuan's worth." Qin Xiangxiang was very satisfied with her current life. She didn't have to work, and she had good food and drinks every day. There wasn't enough meat for her, but she could definitely eat her fill of fish.
The fried yellow croaker here is really fresh, but it's a bit pricey. Although there's no cream cake, there is fried yellow croaker.
Actually, deep-fried yellow croaker tastes even better.
She imagined having some fried yellow croaker, braised tofu, and peanuts, and perhaps some bayberry wine as well. Listening to the radio, she could happily enjoy a leisurely afternoon.
“Today, a distant cousin from my village came to visit. He said he would arrange his time to help me prepare a home-cooked meal.”
“He shares my surname, and his name is Lai Yiu-wai. I’m not entirely sure what our relationship is, so just call him brother. He’s two years older than me and is a battalion-level officer in the nearby army. His wife works in Minnesota.”
When this fellow villager came to his door, Li Jianzhi was quite surprised. He didn't expect to find someone with the same surname and from the same village on this island, and that the man would take the initiative to offer his help. Li Jianzhi didn't refuse.
Qin Xiangxiang: "!"
Upon hearing the name, Qin Xiangxiang recalled some things. She remembered Li Yaowei, the older brother from the same village as the dead man. He started as a common soldier, joined the army two years before Li Jianzhi, and later became an officer, then a company commander and battalion commander. He married a woman who worked in Mingzhou City.
This Lai Yiu-wai is probably jealous of Lai Kin-chi. He always comes over to stir up trouble between the couple. Or rather, he likes to gossip. When she and Lai Kin-chi argue, this brother says he wants to "mediate," but in reality, he adds fuel to the fire and doesn't want things to get any worse.
They probably wanted Li Jianzhi to divorce his Shanghai wife more than anyone else. They kept talking about what was going on in their village, urging Li Jianzhi to take his wife back to the village, and saying how understanding his wife was, how she did this and that when she went back to his hometown with him, and how she knelt down in public before her parents and the village elders, and so on.
Anyway, he doesn't speak properly and does whatever it takes to stir up trouble. At first, Qin Xiangxiang didn't understand what he meant and thought he was putting on airs and had malice towards her. Later, she realized that he was maliciously targeting Li Jianzhi and was hoping that Li Jianzhi would divorce his wife in Shanghai.
However, although Lai Yiu-wai's wife works in Minnesota as a teacher, she comes from an island fishing family. Her family has been fishing for generations, and their homemade products, such as pickled fish, dried fish, snail sauce, crab sauce, and bayberry wine, taste very good.
Qin Xiangxiang doesn't dare to eat raw pickled foods like snail sauce and crab sauce, nor can she accept them. However, she quite likes to eat things like dried fish and pickled fish that need to be steamed or boiled.
Those old fishermen are very skilled; they dry salted fish directly on their fishing boats. Although they are all salted fish, the different methods of preparation result in different flavors of dried fish, making each family's dish unique.
Lai Yiu-wai's wife's family makes delicious seafood, and his mother-in-law's bayberry wine is also very tasty. The bayberries used for making the wine are all top-quality bayberries that couldn't be eaten that year, and they are big and sweet.
Lai Yiu-wai is also a very interesting person. He likes to come over to watch Lai Kin-chi and his wife argue. He never comes empty-handed, bringing things like bayberry wine, fermented fish, or dried and smoked fish. Sometimes he also brings large swimming crabs, blue crabs, and other more expensive fresh live fish.
In her dreams, Qin Xiangxiang sometimes wanted to eat something, and would even deliberately argue with her deadbeat husband. Especially when the bayberry wine was ready, her mother-in-law would send something to her daughter and son-in-law. After arguing, she didn't even need to ask for it directly; her mother-in-law would eagerly come to deliver the wine.
Qin Xiangxiang thought she was quite smart.
“Jianzhi, the houses in your family compound are in better condition. This one is quite big, but the corridor outside is a bit small. Otherwise, we could put more things outside.”
Lai Yiu-wai was also a tall man, a bit thinner than Lai Kin-chi, with very dark skin, a very simple-looking face, and he was also quite eloquent.
He joined the army two years earlier and was very respectable in the village. Later, Li Jianzhi appeared, and he couldn't surpass Li Jianzhi in popularity. Then, Li Yaowei married a teacher with a job in Mingzhou City and brought her back to his hometown, and he regained his respectability. But then Li Jianzhi married a woman from Shanghai, and the villagers felt that Li Jianzhi was more respectable.
The feeling of always being outdone made Li Yaowei unhappy. He felt that Li Jianzhi was doing it on purpose, secretly competing with him.
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