Chapter 70 Chapter 70 Hot Pot
*
Cleaning the deck, disinfecting indoors and outdoors, refilling the Fengyi's water tank with mountain spring water... Gu Mengran tried his best to keep himself busy and not think too much.
But at midnight, when Gu Mengran finished his shower and lay in bed, his head was still buzzing. Liang Zhao's words at noon were like a group of hardworking little bees, flying around Gu Mengran's ears again and again, making him restless.
Liang Zhao recovered from his previous life——
No, he dreamed about his previous life and had some memories of his previous life.
As for why he possessed it, Liang Zhao said that he watched a "movie" from the perspective of an observer, rather than digging out memories from deep in his mind.
Well... this is already terrifying for Gu Mengran!
Good news: Liang Zhao currently only knows the content presented in the "movie", such as how they met and some major events they experienced together, but the details of their relationship are still relatively vague.
This means...
Gu Mengran still has a fig leaf left and is not completely exposed.
Bad news: Although the reason is unknown, given the current situation, it should only be a matter of time before memory is restored. And Liang Zhao is very likely to know that he, Gu Mengran, also has memories that do not belong to the present.
At first Gu Mengran couldn't understand it. Liang Zhao clearly didn't realize that he was reborn. If he just thought of it as a strange dream, why did he hide it?
When he was taking a shower, he realized it belatedly.
Liang Zhao was testing him.
When Liang Zhao first boarded the ship, in order to have a reasonable explanation, Gu Mengran lied that he had a dream in which he saw the future and that Liang Zhao had saved him in the dream.
The more he talks, the more mistakes he makes. To avoid exposing himself, Gu Mengran usually avoids mentioning this "dream" and deliberately acts as if he only dreamed of fragments and has only a vague understanding of it.
The two people had the same dream, and the seeds of doubt were already planted in Liang Zhao's heart. He obviously didn't believe that this was just a dream, and suspected that Gu Mengran knew more details, so Liang Zhao used the information he had obtained to test him.
The three fish were obviously just one bait, the bait thrown out by Liang Zhao. When Gu Mengran seriously asked him for confirmation, he implicitly admitted that he knew it and cared about it.
He took the initiative to bite the hook...
Gu Mengran punched the quilt heavily, "Damn it!"
The thought that Liang Zhao might remember his past life completely filled Gu Mengran's mind with embarrassment, awkwardness, and secret joy, making him extremely excited. He was so sleepy that he couldn't even fall asleep in the middle of the night.
He didn't want to lose face, even in front of Liang Zhao.
Since his memory will be restored sooner or later, and he will die anyway, he might as well take advantage of it now, while he still has a slight advantage, and take advantage of the fact that Liang Zhao is a little easier to fool.
*
“Boom boom—”
The dark clouds rolled rapidly, several silver lightnings streaked across the sky, and a thunder exploded. Gu Mengran, who was sleeping, was awakened instantly. He threw back the quilt and got up at the speed of light, without even having time to put on his slippers.
Pulling open the curtains, the dark sky came into view. Bright lightning flashed through the clouds one after another, and silver centipedes flashed across the river surface stirred by the strong wind.
After the lightning, there was another loud "boom", as if the sky and earth were collapsing and thousands of horses were galloping. The aftereffects echoing between heaven and earth made people's scalps numb.
"Patta, patter", dense water droplets spread out on the deck. Gu Mengran slowly raised his head. In the sky with lightning and thunder, heavy rain was pouring down.
The scene was so huge that it seemed as if someone had opened a floodgate in the sky. Water rushed down rapidly and furiously like a waterfall. In just a few minutes, the white mist cast a mysterious veil over the Huangjiang River.
“Boo-boo-boo——”
The sound of rapid rain lingered over the Huangjiang River. Apart from the occasional rumbling thunder, Gu Mengran could hear no other sound.
Of course, there are exceptions.
"It's raining! It's raining, my friends!"
The intercom on the bedside table rang, and Zheng Yijie's loud voice drowned out the sound of rain outside the window and reached his ears very clearly.
Gu Mengran turned and walked towards the bed. Just as he picked up the intercom, his father responded before he did:
"What's so strange about raining? Our Meng Ran said it will rain every day from now on. You look pretty energetic after staying up all night. Why don't you come to the driver's room and take charge for a while?"
Zheng Yijie: "I'm playing, Grandpa Meng. I just got off work."
"What do you mean you just got off work? It's already so late. You can't sleep anyway, so come sit with the old man for a while. The temperature has dropped today, how about we have hot pot for lunch?"
It was too boring to sail alone, so the old man tried every means to trick Zheng Yijie.
Zheng Yijie didn't take it seriously at first, but when the word "hot pot" came out, he was obviously tempted. He was silent for a few seconds and tried to bargain: "Then I will take over later in the evening?"
The old man agreed immediately: "No problem, no problem. Go and wake up Gu Mengran first. He's still sleeping at this hour."
After hearing this, Gu Mengran realized something was wrong and raised his hand to check the time - 11:30 in the afternoon.
It was so dark that if he hadn't looked at the time he would have thought it was just dawn.
Gu Mengran had just finished washing up and was about to go out when there was a knock on the door.
They opened the door and looked at each other. Without giving Zheng Yijie a chance to speak, Gu Mengran said that he had heard it and took him directly to the kitchen to prepare the ingredients.
Liang Zhao couldn't go out yet, so the three of them were cooking hot pot, and Gu Mengran didn't intend to make it too troublesome.
Cut the best beef and mutton into several plates, put fresh vegetables, soy products, and various frozen meatballs on each plate, and add some wide noodles and mushrooms to complete the meal.
The two of them worked together and prepared the dishes in just half an hour.
Finally, after cleaning up the table, Gu Mengran turned his head to look at Zheng Yijie who was standing aside, raised his chin and said, "Why are you standing there? Take it to the driver's cabin."
Zheng Yijie's eyes swept across the counter, the stove, and slowly shifted to Gu Mengran, his eyes revealing a bit of confusion, "Where are the hot pot ingredients? Don't you plan to stir-fry them? Boiling them directly with water won't be tasty enough. I'm telling you, I——"
"Who said we need hot pot ingredients?" Gu Mengran turned on the faucet to wash his hands, took a piece of kitchen paper, and wiped the water slowly.
Zheng Yijie, a native of Shancheng, was increasingly confused. "What do you mean? How can you eat hot pot without hot pot base?"
Before he could finish his words, a pot suddenly appeared on the clean and tidy counter.
The pot has a round body, a chimney that is narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, and two small ears on the edge of the pot. This is a copper hot pot!
Zheng Yijie almost exploded with anger. He pointed at the copper pot and glared at Gu Mengran fiercely, "You are kidding me! I am so sleepy but I am still here preparing ingredients. After all this time, I ended up with this thing. You call this a hot pot?"
"Why not? It's called copper hotpot. It's just a different cuisine between the north and the south." Gu Mengran shrugged and said innocently, "Besides, it was you who decided to eat hotpot. I just chose a flavor."
Zheng Yijie tried to struggle and reached out to grab Gu Mengran's arm, "Brother, Brother Mengran! I'm from a mountain city. I don't even eat geese hotpot normally. What's the point of this bland soup? Let's stir-fry some ingredients."
Gu Mengran pulled his arm out of his hand, patted his shoulders twice, and said seriously: "Be patient, Liang Zhao has just recovered from his illness and can't eat spicy food. Wait a few days, when we are settled in Fengjin Lake, we can eat whatever we want."
Zheng Yijie really wanted to turn around and leave, but the plates of brightly colored, fat-and-lean freshly cut beef and mutton were too tempting.
After much hesitation, he finally endured it.
I thought, forget it, at worst I can just make a spicy dipping sauce.
The smokeless charcoal heated the water in the pot, and three pairs of chopsticks holding the mutton were immediately inserted into the pot. In just a few seconds, the curled mutton was taken out of the pot, and the delicious and mellow mutton flavor filled the driver's cabin.
Rainy days and hot pot are a perfect match. After ordering mutton and beef, the three of them immersed themselves in the feast. No one spoke, and the only sound in the house was the faint sound of chewing.
After several large portions of beef and mutton were completely eaten, Zheng Yijie, who had initially sneered at the copper hot pot, licked his lips and looked at his grandfather with a smile, "Is that enough, Grandpa Meng? How about I go cut a few more plates?"
"Hey kid, if you want to eat it, just go and cut it yourself. Why are you asking me in a roundabout way?" The old man saw through his thoughts and his mouth twitched.
Hearing what his old man said, Zheng Yijie slapped his thigh and stood up, "Okay, then I won't be polite."
As if someone was chasing him, Zheng Yijie hurried out of the driver's seat.
What did this person say before? Gu Mengran smiled, picked up the chopsticks slowly, put the last piece of mutton roll in the pot into the takeaway box, and then closed the lid and put the takeaway box away.
The old man saw this, squinted his eyes, and said with disdain: "You are so considerate. You think of Liang Zhao when you eat, just like a little wife."
Gu Mengran didn't say anything. He picked up the plate and started serving vegetarian dishes. He took a moment out of his busy schedule to glare at his old man.
Meng Gaoyang pretended not to notice and changed the subject a little stiffly: "Say these meats and vegetables, should we send some to Heng Rong Sheng? We are enjoying the good food here while they are eating instant noodles in the back. I feel a little guilty about that."
It would be better not to look for this topic.
Gu Mengran sighed helplessly, "How to send it? Just say we have space? Grandpa, these are not things that should exist now, there is no way to explain it. Even if we say we planted them, we couldn't grow them in the extremely high temperature some time ago."
"I, I know that, but I feel that since they sent us so much fuel, we..." Before he could finish his words, the old man touched his nose embarrassedly.
He put some vegetarian dishes in the pot as well. Gu Mengran put down his chopsticks and looked at his grandfather, expressing his understanding: "I understand. People who take things from others are soft-hearted and always feel like they owe them something. Wait a little longer. Once things settle down, I can find a way to give them something reasonably."
From the tone of his voice, it seemed that he had already planned this. The old man looked at him expectantly, "What's the reasonable way?"
Gu Mengran pursed his lips and said with a confident smile: "Keep it secret for now."