Extra 11
“Bang—bang—bang—!”
The sound of firecrackers outside the house broke the tranquility of the early morning. Z01 was the first to wake up. He checked outside the house and confirmed that there was no other threat except that PM2.5 had exceeded the standard for a short period of time. Then he continued to lie on his side, acting as a quiet life-size pillow.
The longer the sound of firecrackers lasted, the harder the human nudged himself into his arms, almost burying himself in it. Z01 did not open the barrier, but simply covered Jiang Yuanshi's ears with his hands. The other party did not struggle, but just mumbled something in his mouth. The translation failed, and the human fell asleep again.
Z01 then lowered the barrier and observed the layout of the entire house with his eyes open. The wooden furniture gave off a faint smell, which was not unpleasant. The bookshelves were neatly stuffed with various types of books, among which preschool books were placed on the top together with various educational toy models. There was a pen holder and an old-fashioned table lamp on the desk. The table top was clean and tidy, with scratches of varying depths. The chair was made of rattan and had a cushion on it. Looking at the height, it was hard to imagine how Yuanyuan climbed up there as a child.
The room retained everything that Jiang Yuanshi had during his childhood, even the bed was not changed. The 1.5-meter bed was big for children, but not enough for them to sleep on. When they lay on it, their legs were hanging a long way in the air. They had planned to sleep on the floor, but Z01 was really curious about Jiang Yuanshi's past. So, two things over 1.8 meters tall were lying on the last small bed. In order to feel complete, they huddled sideways with their legs crossed, which was another new experience for Z01.
The same goes for Jiang Yuanshi. He has never slept in the same bed with anyone else, and even couldn't sleep when there were strangers around. Although he spent very little time in the dormitory during college, he was afraid of disturbing others and moved very carefully, which resulted in him suffering from neurasthenia.
He never thought he could fall asleep so quickly. Even after sleeping with Z01, he realized that he was actually not very honest when sleeping. Just like now, he woke up and found himself lying on the bed, but his hand was inside someone else's clothes, touching her breasts and making eye contact.
Jiang Yuanshi grabbed a handful under Z01's calm gaze, and before leaving, he subconsciously touched his abdominal muscles again, then pretended to be dazed and buried it back.
Z01 had no idea that he was being touched, he just felt that this human was provoking him, but the other party had clearly said yesterday that he could not be at his grandmother's house. Z01 could not understand but still reached out and touched everything. Jiang Yuanshi wanted to close his eyes, but his red ears and trembling body betrayed him. He could not act at all. He woke up completely and grabbed the evil claw. The owner of the claw made an extremely unreliable voice: "I just touched it, it's a courtesy."
Jiang Yuanshi: “…” What a nice exchange of courtesy.
Jiang Yuanshi wanted to say something, but he yawned before he could speak. Z01 raised his hand to wipe away the tears that were flowing from the other person's eyes. Jiang Yuanshi said, "Don't touch my face with the same hand that touched my butt, thank you."
"It's the other one."
"Okay then, thanks. Wait, this is not right." Jiang Yuanshi realized that something was wrong. This guy was touching his hair with one hand, his eyes with one hand, his front with one hand, and his back with one hand, all at the same time.
Jiang Yuanshi stepped back and saw a human with four arms. He said silently, "Are you an octopus?"
Z01 gathered the people together silently: "They are not from the same family."
Jiang Yuanshi was no longer surprised. He rested his head on the other person's arm and yawned again, asking, "What time is it?"
"Today is New Year's Eve, 6:45 in the morning."
"So early." Jiang Yuanshi is an owl-type human with an inverted sleep and rest schedule. The earliest he wakes up during the day is at 10 a.m., when he is in the sanatorium and Z01 is pinned to the top. Otherwise, he usually wakes up in the afternoon.
I haven't seen the morning sun for a long time.
Jiang Yuanshi wanted to get up and draw the curtains, but found his legs were numb.
He and Z01 were squeezing their legs together. Originally, Jiang Yuanshi's legs were sandwiched between Z01's legs, but he didn't know when he was pressing on Z01's legs, directly like a koala, clinging to him. This also caused his legs to become numb because he had lifted them for too long.
Jiang Yuanshi manually pulled his legs off the man, and the pain from pulling made him groan. Z01, lying on the bed, grew another pair of hands to massage the man's legs. Jiang Yuanshi looked at him in surprise and said, "Aren't you going to get up? Sleep a little longer?"
Z01 also likes to stay in bed.
However, Z01 said calmly, "No, I can't get up. I'm numb."
Z01 was lying on his side very straight, like a plastic figurine, born in that position. Jiang Yuanshi: "..."
It turns out that non-human creatures can also feel numb.
Jiang Yuanshi reciprocated the courtesy and reached out to punch Z01 with just the right amount of force and rhythm, which gradually matched the sounds of firecrackers outside.
It was hard for Z01 not to suspect that the other party was playing a rhythm game on him. The human chuckled twice when he heard the words, without any fear of being caught, and was completely excited about the knock.
Z01 said nothing and just followed suit by tapping the human's legs.
After they had enough fun, they got up and went out to help their grandmother. However, who would have thought that their grandmother hadn't gotten up yet. When they knocked on the door, her gave them some money and sent them out to buy breakfast.
The two of them went out obediently and sat on the stall at the entrance of the village to eat tofu pudding and sesame cakes. It was so touching that there were still people willing to work and sell breakfast during the Chinese New Year. The stall owner chuckled and said that he was used to doing it and forgot that today was Chinese New Year. It would be a waste if he couldn't finish eating it, so he simply came out to sell as much as he could.
After Jiang Yuanshi finished chewing the crispy sweet sesame cake, he started to eat salty tofu pudding. Z01, who had never eaten it before, ordered both the salty and sweet dishes. As they were eating, more people came to the stall. Many of them had gotten up early to prepare lunch, and wanted to save trouble, so they came to buy breakfast to take back after setting off firecrackers.
After Jiang Yuanshi and his friends finished eating, they packed some food for their grandmother to take back and put it on the table. They covered it with a lid, washed and cut the vegetables, left a note, and then went out again.
This was probably the time when Jiang Yuanshi was most willing to go out in recent years. He had just come back to life and had not been back for a long time. The two creatures who looked like college students ran around in the village, teasing cats and dogs. In the middle of the trip, they also helped to fix a TV and connect to the Internet for someone else's family. By the way, they played mobile games with some little kids on the street. After they became the first, they were completely dependent on him and did not get away until they failed to perform perfectly.
It was almost noon when I got home. The village was filled with the aroma of food. The closer I got to the door, the more familiar yet unfamiliar the smell became. Jiang Yuanshi couldn't help but sniff a few more times. The way his head lifted up when he sniffed the air matched the appearance of the cat in the Z01 database.
Jiang Yuanshi said: "Grandma seems to be making sweet and sour spare ribs."
Z01: "How do you smell this?"
Jiang Yuanshi: "It's that sour, sweet and slightly pungent smell. Do you want to smell it?"
Z01 followed and smelled: "I detected vinegar in the air, which matches the smell you described."
Is this how to hear the Dharma? Jiang Yuanshi was slightly shocked, but after all, they are different species, and each has his own way of hearing the Dharma, which is normal.
After returning home, the two of them went to the kitchen to look at their grandmother. Jiang Yuanshi asked, "Do you need any help, Ms. Gu?"
Z01 followed with a questioning look.
Ms. Gu Siyuan was cooking and let them play on the side, but after thinking about it, she asked the two of them to light the fire. The kitchen at grandma's house was an old-fashioned stove that required adding firewood, so the two college students divided the work, one was responsible for adding firewood, and the other was responsible for pulling the bellows.
The fire was burning brightly, the food smelled delicious, but the people looked a little darker.
The two painted each other's faces, and I don't know what was wrong with Jiang Yuanshi, he was so bold as to paint the grandmother's face as well. Z01 didn't dare to do anything, but under the puzzled look of the grandmother and the obedient look of Jiang Yuanshi who said "save me", he reached out his hand and added a symmetrical pattern. The grandmother didn't say anything, but took out a mirror from her pocket and looked at herself, and found that she had been transformed into the chief of a foreign village.
Very angry.
Two unlucky children were thrown out, each holding a baked potato with a well-behaved expression.
Jiang Yuanshi brought out a small stool and ate potatoes with Z01 in the yard. The food with the aroma of firewood tasted much better than those sold outside, and was soft and delicate.
Not long after we finished eating, it was time for lunch. There was indeed sweet and sour pork ribs on the table. Grandma said she didn't know what Z01 would eat so she made a little more, but it was indeed a bit too much and would probably become leftovers tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow.
Z01 said that he would eat anything, so he and Jiang Yuanshi were very considerate and ate rice in big mouthfuls, finishing five bowls in a row, which shocked his grandmother, as if he had not eaten for a hundred years.
In fact, Z01 hasn't eaten for billions of years.
After eating, the two were responsible for washing the dishes and pots. After they finished cleaning up, they started to paste the Spring Festival couplets. The Spring Festival couplets in Jiang Yuanshi's family were written and pasted on the spot. In the past, it was his grandmother who was responsible for writing them, but now Jiang Yuanshi and his grandmother work together, and Z01 is responsible for grinding, pasting, and aligning the couplets.
But for some reason, Jiang Yuanshi and Z01 could not escape the business arrangements in reality, and were caught by the villagers above and dragged out to write. Not only were there Spring Festival couplets, but there were also children who wanted to draw Ultraman to join in the fun. It just so happened that Jiang Yuanshi could really do it, so the calligraphy and painting business started.
After finishing their work, the two returned home carrying a bunch of fruits, vegetables, snacks, children's toy guns, crystal hairbands, etc. They made Ms. Gu smile so much and said that they would not have to worry about finding a job in the future and they could even set up a stall.
Z01 nodded in agreement and calculated where to set up a stall to make the most money. Jiang Yuanshi showed a tired smile, picked up a children's toy gun and shot at Z01.
[The Spring Festival Gala starts now——]
In the evening, they sat on the mahogany sofa, wrapped in down jackets and covered with quilts, watching the party and listening to grandma complain about how boring the party was.
This year's party went as planned and was a drowsiness-inducing affair, but Jiang Yuanshi felt like he didn't have time to listen to his grandmother's complaints before it was over.
With the countdown to the New Year, Jiang Yuanshi and Z01 welcomed the new year.
Grandma brought out two cakes from somewhere, each with an abstract cream figurine poked on it, with slanted eyes and crooked mouths, looking very naive. Grandma said, "Everyone went home for the New Year, and we almost missed the date. The cake shops here are just so-so, so we'll just have to make do with it. If you want something better in the future, we can go to the city. Here, one for each of you, and you're not allowed to be disgusted."
Jiang Yuanshi and Z01 shook their heads and were very grateful to their grandmother. Z0 originally wanted to give it to Jiang Yuanshi first, but Jiang Yuanshi pulled him along.
The two celebrated their birthdays together. They lit the candles at the same time, closed their eyes and made a wish at the same time. When their grandmother sang the birthday song, they closed their eyes and sang along. The scene was warm and weird.
"call--"
The candles went out, they looked at each other and said:
"Happy birthday."
People make wishes on their birthdays, and the gods receive each other’s wishes and smile at each other.
On New Year's Eve, firecrackers were heard outside the house again. The house was brightly lit, and everyone sat in rows making dumplings, randomly selecting ones and putting coins in them.
By the next morning, the two people who could clearly be identified through divine power just had a normal meal of dumplings.
“Ka——”
If your teeth touch something hard, spit it out.
The six of them looked at each other, and the three coins, one each, lay quietly on the table. Before they could say anything, they heard Ms. Gu covering her face and saying calmly, "I think one of my teeth was knocked out."
Jiang Yuanshi:?!
Z01:?!
The two of them didn't care about anything else and rushed to their grandmother to see the tooth. Although the tooth didn't fall out, it was indeed painful.
The clinic is closed during the Chinese New Year, so this is where God comes in handy.
Jiang Yuanshi and Z01 used their magical powers to strengthen grandma's teeth, giving her a good set of teeth so that she could chew big bones and taffy when she was a hundred years old.
Grandma didn't understand why her teeth suddenly got better, but it was a good thing. After a false alarm early in the morning, the three of them sat in the yard in a daze. Grandma was lying in a rocking chair and handed Z01 a red envelope. Z01 didn't understand what was going on, because grandma had already given him New Year's money yesterday and night, so he couldn't take it anymore.
Grandma said "Hey——" and raised her eyebrows at Jiang Yuanshi who was fighting with four pieces of sorghum candy. She said to Z01: "Aren't you going to marry into the family? This is the money for changing your name."
Jiang Yuanshi's mouth was still sticky and his eyes were blank. Z01 nodded seriously, took it with both hands and said, "Okay, thank you grandma."
"But I seem to be calling you grandma all the time?" Z01 asked again. Ms. Gu waved her hand and said, "It's okay. It's a sense of ritual. After all, I don't know how long I can see you. The sooner the better."
The topic suddenly turned sad, Jiang Yuanshi was stunned, and seeing Yuanyuan's helpless expression, grandma and Z01 began to coax her. Grandma promised herself that she could live to be ninety-nine, and Z01 nodded while planning with Jiang Yuanshi in his mind a plan to bring grandma into the bookstore in the future.
Then Jiang Yuanshi remained silent. Just when the two were a little panicked, Jiang Yuanshi smacked his lips and said with difficulty: "I think my throat is stuck with candy, help--"
He vowed never to stuff so much in one go again.
"!"
Grandma jumped up from the recliner and walked briskly.
Z01 looked calm, but he was on his knees, and was in a panic.
Today's rescue plan has started again, and it looks like it will be another turbulent year.
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