Chapter 58: The Extraordinarily "Delicate" Zhu Mingyue...
The exceptionally "delicate" Zhu Mingyue was still unable to shake off the grief of seeing things that reminded her of her loved ones.
Until they sat down at the dinner table,
Xie Pei was very lucky a couple of days ago and caught a big crucian carp with his bare hands. When he brought it home, it was still very lively and jumping around. That day, the family bought meat and vegetables, so Zhu Mingyue temporarily kept the fish in a small water tank in the yard.
Seeing that she wasn't very energetic when she swam tonight, I asked Xie Pei to tidy up and make a pot of tofu and fish soup for dinner.
The tofu was bought from town yesterday. He hadn't had Mapo Tofu in a long time, and there was a piece left over from yesterday's meal, so it came in handy tonight.
The tofu was soft and slippery, a perfect match for the fish soup. When it was done, a handful of chopped green onions were sprinkled on top. Zhu Mingyue almost chopped her jaw off after taking two sips of the soup, and all her low spirits disappeared.
Xie Pei is right. People should always look forward. I'm sure his family wouldn't want to see him living in another world but unable to let go of the past.
A piece of bright yellow fish roe appeared in the bowl. He looked up and saw someone casually drinking soup.
Zhu Mingyue remained silent, a warm feeling washing over her, her heart overflowing with tenderness.
Even though he ate fish with Xie Pei very few times during their time together, Xie Pei still remembered his smallest preferences. He always had a cold face and didn't communicate with people, always looking like he didn't care about anything, but he remembered exactly what Xie Pei liked and disliked to eat.
Although the relationship between the two was awkward, they unknowingly became like family. Who would have thought? Recalling the scene that day, Zhu Mingyue was somewhat dazed.
This feeling isn't so bad.
November 17th is Xie Pei's birthday.
Zhu Mingyue didn't close the shop; she got up and started kneading dough as soon as it was dark.
He wasn't a morning person and usually tried to find ways to sleep in a little longer, so Xie Pei made breakfast most of the time. Xie Pei would occasionally try a few different dishes to accommodate him, but he didn't know how to make many, usually just red bean porridge, taro porridge, and a few steamed buns or dumplings.
Zhu Mingyue sometimes gets tired of the same old breakfasts and misses the variety and variety that used to be so good that he could eat them for a month without repeating a single dish. He can actually make things like potstickers, glutinous rice cakes, fried dough sticks, and egg pancakes, but they are too time-consuming. Compared to that, the desire for delicious food is not so important. He would rather sleep a little longer and wake up to Xie Pei's porridge, even if it is a little bland, he can accept it.
The weather was cold as winter approached, and the water in the vat was icy cold. Zhu Mingyue scooped an appropriate amount of water into the dough and shivered from the cold while kneading it.
If you think about it carefully, he's been sleeping even more since winter started, not wanting to waste a single second, and hasn't even made breakfast once. It's a rare treat to experience this, and the experience was truly unpleasant.
If it weren't for making longevity noodles for Xie Pei, he would rather just drink porridge all the time.
Zhu Mingyue's clattering and clanging in the kitchen attracted Xie Pei's attention.
He was somewhat surprised to see Zhu Mingyue busy, but he didn't say much. He scooped up a few ladles of cold water and began to wash up.
Zhu Mingyue glanced at him indifferently, thinking to herself: What a brave man! I admire him! He dared to treat his face like that; it's probably chapped like a monkey's butt by now.
By the time the noodles were cooked, the sky was already beginning to lighten.
Zhu Mingyue warmed himself by the stove, the firelight reflecting off his face and making his pale face warm up again.
He lazily squinted and pretended to sleep, feeling warmer than his bed that he couldn't get warm all night, so comfortable that he didn't want to get up at all.
The water in the pot was boiling, and steam was rising into the air. The noodles were cooked. Sigh, it seems I can't stay in there any longer.
There were three eggs in the pot, which were bubbling around, looking plump and white. He only needed one, and the other two were for Xie Pei.
The sound of Xie Pei chopping wood came from the backyard.
He called out, "Xie Pei, time for breakfast!"
Before Xie Pei could even enter, Er Ya flew in.
quack!
"Wait a minute!" He tapped Er Ya's bird head twice.
The chicken pieces were a bit hard from being frozen, so he placed them near the stove and warmed them over the embers before putting them into Er Ya's special food bowl.
Xie Pei washed his hands, came in, took the bowl of noodles, and sat down to eat.
Zhu Mingyue reminded her from the side: "Don't eat too fast, try to finish it in one piece and don't bite it off."
Xie Pei then realized that there was only one noodle in the large bowl, which was even bigger than Zhu Mingyue's face.
Xie Pei stopped eating, looking somewhat at a loss.
Zhu Mingyue explained, "This is a custom from our hometown. On his birthday, we cook him a bowl of longevity noodles, and you eat the whole noodle without breaking it, which symbolizes a long and healthy life. Today is your birthday, and I don't know the customs here, so I'll just make you a bowl of noodles according to our custom."
Xie Pei's Adam's apple bobbed, as if something was about to burst out, but it was forcefully suppressed.
Birthday? It seems he's never celebrated one since he can remember. His mother warned him early on that since they were living under someone else's roof, they shouldn't be greedy and covet things they shouldn't have.
But the children's birthdays in the village were always celebrated simply. A couple more boiled eggs or a bowl of fragrant white rice would be a special treat for the day, and that was it. Was this something Xie Hong could only afford once every ten days or so, something he could only dream of?
Xie Pei was puzzled, but not saddened. This kind of unfairness was commonplace in the Xie family, more so than he had ever experienced in a meal. Xie Hong would boast about how much he was favored in front of him, but it rarely provoked him. The imagined outburst of anger never materialized, and gradually Xie Hong wisely stopped bothering him. He changed tactics, instead badmouthing Xie Hong to his parents, trying to ruin his image in their eyes.
Xie Pei didn't care anymore. He just found it funny. Two people who ignored his birthday were equally unimportant to him.
He was more than once grateful that he had killed Xie Hong in time, leaving himself no room for regret.
If... he couldn't even imagine it.
Flowers blooming in the sun and muddy silt exist in two different worlds, and are things that maggots, who are not worthy of being on the surface, can never and have no right to touch.
Xie Pei smiled slightly and ate the whole noodle under Zhu Mingyue's gaze.
There were two eggs resting in the soup base. Zhu Mingyue urged, "Eat the eggs, you have to eat the eggs too."
His grandmother was a somewhat superstitious old lady who used to make offerings for him on his birthday and the day of his exams.
A noodle with two eggs symbolizes both longevity and a perfect score. The old lady firmly believed that her grandson's near-perfect grades, ranking first in his class, were partly due to her persistent rituals. To Xiaomingyue, who had studied moral education, this was no less than a form of heresy. If his grandmother could perform rituals to make him number one, why couldn't she also make his family rich? If they remained poor, his underwear would be patched up!
Every time he tried to reason with her, his grandmother would retort defiantly, "Just you wait and see! If you eat like this every year, you'll not only get a perfect score on every test, but you'll also live to be a hundred!"
The old lady passed away before he started junior high school; she died of illness, and thus didn't see her beloved grandson's single-subject grades break the 100 mark, heading towards 120, and eventually 150. Otherwise, she might have subjected him to some kind of evil cultivation practice, since 100 points in rituals was no longer enough.
Later on, Zhu Mingyue also became superstitious. Following her method, she cooked herself a noodle and two eggs every year on her birthday, thinking that at least there was still the meaning of living a long and healthy life!
Then he died before he even reached adulthood.
This is blatant deception. Other families prepare sweet cream cakes for their children's birthdays, but his family is poor! So poor that they barely make ends meet at the end of each month after basic living expenses, let alone have extra money to buy him a cake.
To protect his young self-esteem, the old lady used a mix of deception and old-fashioned birthday celebrations to give him one birthday after another.
Now he's learned to use it for Xie Pei. It's not that he can't afford cakes, it's just that they're impossible to buy outside, and making them without the proper tools is quite troublesome. Plus, Xie Pei doesn't seem to be very interested in sweets, so he decisively gave up.
The old lady's method is still the most effective; she can fool people with just a bowl of noodles.
Xie Pei was still clueless and obviously didn't know what the two eggs meant, but he still listened to him without question.
He initially intended to explain that it represented living to be a hundred years old, but then realized that this meaning was given by Arabic numerals, and it was obvious that there were no Arabic numerals here at all.
Zhu Mingyue watched him finish eating, and when she was satisfied, she quickly ate some of the noodles in her own bowl before they became sticky, and then headed to town.
As always, Li Zhengyang squatted under a tree outside his house, munching on the large pancake his mother had made—a pancake that could easily choke someone if not handled carefully—while waiting for him.
Zhu Mingyue walked quickly out the door, but was called back after walking a few meters.
He turned around: "What's wrong?"
He saw Xie Pei's lips tremble slightly, almost imperceptibly, "Thank you."
Zhu Mingyue returned a big laugh, "You're welcome, it's nothing."
Once they were out of sight, Zhu Mingyue sighed softly. It was just a bowl of noodles on his birthday, yet the other person thanked him so earnestly. Before he even explained what had happened, Xie Pei had no idea it was his birthday.
This shows how indifferent his parents had been to him before.
Ironically, even Xie Pei had forgotten his own birthday, yet his source of information was Xie Hong.
When Xie Hong was sick, he was bored, and when he was in relatively good spirits, he liked to force himself to chat with him.
The person who talked about it the most was Xie Pei.
It's no wonder Xie Pei has such an unpleasant personality, is unloved by his parents, and is disliked by his peers in the village.
She also mentioned Xie Pei's childhood birthday, saying that his mother cooked eggs that day but didn't give them to him. Instead, she gave them to herself in front of him. The pride in her words made it seem as if she had already trampled him underfoot through this humiliating method.
Zhu Mingyue felt very depressed when he heard this. He couldn't understand why Xie Pei, who was just a child at the time, was ruthlessly ostracized by so many people around him. In terms of being disliked, wasn't Xie Hong more disliked?
Zhu Mingyue didn't want to listen to Xie Hong's malicious words at all, letting them go in one ear and out the other, only remembering Xie Pei's birthday.
Of course, I didn't deliberately write it down; it's just that I noticed the other person's birthday was exactly one month earlier than mine, which made it slightly more memorable.
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