Chapter 83 Let's Have a Meal
Liu Zhiyi's house is newer than Wei and Cailing's.
After all, it had only been a few years since it was built. Fang Wei and Xu Cailing had both seen with their own eyes that this house was rebuilt from an old one. However, they were younger at that time and didn't feel they had any connection with this family, so they didn't take it too seriously.
But I didn't expect that I would come to visit this house now. It's still strange to think about it.
Although it is a newly built house, its decoration and furnishings are no different from those of other houses on the island.
The only difference is probably some rare home appliances in the house.
For example, the TV that is obviously much thinner and has a much larger screen; the white refrigerator that looks like a cabinet; the rice cooker that seems to be able to seal the devil Piccolo; the washing machine that can automatically clean itself by just pouring dirty clothes and detergent into it...
Fang Wei was not surprised by these home appliances, but Xu Cailing was much more curious. If Uncle Liu had not been there, the girl would have definitely gone over to touch and take a look.
However, in the presence of her elders, Xu Cailing was still very polite. She sat obediently and did not run around or look around.
She could also guess that these things, which were completely different from the overall style of the house, were probably what Uncle Liu and Zhiyi brought back from Shanghai when they moved that day.
Fang Wei and Xu Cailing came over as guests, and the quiet house seemed to become much more lively.
Uncle Liu seemed very happy, and did not look down on them just because they were young.
"Ah Wei, Cai Ling, please sit down for a while. Uncle will make you some tea."
"Uncle, there's no need to make tea! We can just drink some plain water!"
"It's okay, it's quick to make tea."
Uncle Liu seemed to have the habit of drinking tea on weekdays, and his own cup had a thick layer of tea stains on it.
Uncle Liu took out a set of tea sets from the coffee table. They were quite exquisite. They were bought by his son as a gift for him. However, he usually just used an enamel cup to make tea for himself. He would only use the tea sets when he had guests.
He simply brewed a pot of tea and served it to the boy and girl in front of him.
Fang Wei and Cai Ling also quickly took it with both hands.
After all, she is a little girl, and Xu Cailing is somewhat uncomfortable with sitting here and drinking tea like an adult.
I feel a little happy about being treated 'like an adult', but also a little uneasy. I don't know what I should do to make myself act like an adult.
Anyway, she just secretly observed Fang Wei and learned from him whatever he did.
"Zhiyi, go take the grapes out of the refrigerator, wash them, and give them to Awei and Cailing."
"it is good."
"Uncle, you're welcome! Zhiyi and I are good friends and we know each other very well." Fang Wei said.
"...Yes." Xu Cailing also said.
"Haha, there's nothing special, just things you kids like to eat."
Uncle Liu had no intention of stopping. He grabbed a handful of salted dried peanuts, and then took out water chestnuts, olives, persimmons, chestnuts, oranges, moon cakes and other Mid-Autumn snacks.
In previous years, my son would bring some things back when he went home, but this year, he bought them all by himself.
Even if the person is gone, the festival still needs to be celebrated.
Perhaps for Liu Liangxun, at his age, it doesn’t matter whether he celebrates the festival or not, but he must at least give his granddaughter a sense of ceremony.
She still has a long life ahead of her, and she will need to inherit this sense of ritual in the future.
Maybe it's a bit far-fetched, but Liu Liangxun hopes to see his granddaughter regain her own happy family as soon as possible.
Of course, his thinking is not as old-fashioned as that of other elders, and he will not interfere too much in this matter. It all depends on Zhiyi's own choice. Especially after experiencing so much, Liu Liangxun has also realized that nothing is more important than health and happiness.
"Awei, Cailing, come and eat. Don't be polite with your uncle." Uncle Liu called them when he saw them sitting there drinking tea.
"Then we won't be polite. Thank you, uncle." Fang Wei said with a smile.
"Thank you, uncle!" Cai Ling also said.
Seeing Fang Wei reaching out to take the snacks on the table, Xu Cailing followed suit.
"Water chestnuts and chestnuts are hard to open. I'll get you a pair of pliers."
Uncle Liu opened the drawer and took out a pair of pliers. "I can't chew these anymore. You have to have good teeth to eat them."
"Is uncle in good health?"
"It's OK, just some minor problems, it happens when you get older. How are your grandparents?"
……
They chatted about some family matters.
Xu Cailing was somewhat at a loss for words, unless Uncle Liu asked her something, she would answer it.
Fang Wei was much more comfortable with it. Even when they were just chatting about family matters, they were obviously all the same age, so why could he actually have such a good conversation with Uncle Liu, who was his grandfather's generation? !
It turned out to be the right decision to bring Fang Wei along. With Fang Wei charging at the front, Xu Cailing was able to take a break from her busy schedule and eat some peanuts and chew some olives.
After Liu Zhiyi washed the grapes, she also sat over.
The bench wasn't very big, but it wasn't crowded for three boys and girls to sit on.
Seeing that they only ate peanuts and other foods, Uncle Liu gave each of them some mooncakes.
Xu Cailing wanted to eat water chestnuts, but they were difficult to peel, so the girl didn't feel like eating them.
Water chestnuts look very much like cow horns, and their shells are extremely hard and cannot be peeled open by hand.
Fang Wei took the pliers and carefully crushed the water chestnut shell, peeled it off bit by bit, and then peeled out a plump, white, complete water chestnut.
He didn't eat it himself. After peeling it, he fed it to Cai Ling. After all, he had noticed that the girl had been eyeing it for a long time.
"For me?"
"Do you want it or not? If not, I'll eat it."
"Hey, of course!"
Xu Cailing was not polite with him and took the water chestnut from his hand. He had worked hard to peel it for a long time, but she ate it in one bite.
Of course, Fang Wei did not favor one over the other. He then peeled another water chestnut and fed it to Liu Zhiyi this time.
"You can actually peel it so completely..."
Liu Zhiyi was stunned by Fang Wei's martial arts skills.
Since Cai Ling had also eaten it, she didn't refuse and took the peeled water chestnut and started eating it.
To be honest, water chestnuts are just for fun, as they don't really have much flavor. They are very light in flavor, and are far inferior to chestnuts in aroma.
But it’s different when someone helps peel the water chestnuts. The taste is particularly different and it feels very pampering.
The three of them just sat there drinking tea, eating, and chatting with Uncle Liu.
Uncle Liu could also see that, except for Fang Wei, everyone else, including Cai Ling and his granddaughter, felt a little uncomfortable sitting there and drinking tea and chatting with their elders.
He just smiled and didn't invite them to chat anymore.
"Ah Wei, Cai Ling, you two can sit here for a while. If you want to watch TV, there is a remote control. If you want to do your homework, you can do it here. I won't disturb you. I will prepare lunch for you two. You can eat here at noon!"
"Uncle, you don't have to prepare our meals, we can just go home and eat!"
"Well, now that we're here, let's eat at Uncle's place today. I bought a lot of food, and Zhiyi and I can't finish it all. It's settled, don't sneak away again!"
"Uncle..."
Fang Wei and Cai Ling wanted to say something, but the elder in front of them had already stood up and left.
The two looked at each other.
Liu Zhiyi on the side also chimed in: "Fang Wei, Cai Ling, my grandpa has already said that you two should have lunch together at noon, right?"
"Well, I'm sorry to bother Uncle Liu again."
"It's okay, Grandpa looks very happy."
This is true.
Fang Wei could also tell that Uncle Liu really wanted to keep them for dinner and fun, so he nodded and said nothing more.
"Then Cailing, will you go home and tell them later? And tell my mom too?" Fang Wei said.
"I'm not going! If I go and say it, I'll definitely get scolded. You go and say it, go back and say it! And tell my mom by the way! My mom will definitely not scold me if you say it." Xu Cailing kicked the ball back to him.
"..."
"Go quickly."
Xu Cailing took his hand and asked him to get up from the chair.
The two of them were so intimate and natural in their actions that Liu Zhiyi was stunned.
"Then I'll go back and tell them first and then come back?"
"You are not allowed to take this opportunity to run away!" Xu Cailing warned.
"Why would I run when I have food to eat?"
Seeing Fang Wei going out to push his bicycle, Uncle Liu hurried out again.
"Uncle, I'll go back and tell my family and come over later!"
"Okay, uncle has already cleaned the rice. If your dad and the others don't agree, you can say it was uncle who said so!"
"Haha, don't worry, uncle, you are a teacher, they dare not disobey you."
……
When Fang Wei came back, he had two more bags in his hands.
"Uncle, Uncle Yuan asked me to bring this bag of oranges, and my father asked me to bring this grapefruit. They said they would come over for tea in the evening."
"Hey, it's thoughtful of you to make all these for a meal. Leave them here for now and take them back later."
Liu Liangxun was both moved and helpless, so he didn't say anything more.
Hearing the noise outside, Xu Cailing walked out of Liu Zhiyi's room.
"...I was wondering where you two had been."
"Doing homework in Zhiyi's room, come on, come on!"
"Can't we do it in the living room?"
“There’s something good here!”
After saying this mysteriously, the girl slipped back into her room.
Girls are all like this, they like to stay in their rooms when they have nothing to do.
Since Liu Zhiyi didn't mind, Fang Wei didn't mind either, and they went into the room together.
As soon as I opened the door, a cool breeze blew in.
He had just ridden his bike back and forth. The sun was scorching outside and it was very hot at the moment. When the cool air in the room blew, he immediately felt refreshed.
"Did you turn on the air conditioning?"
"Hey! Isn't it so novel? It can actually blow out such cold wind! What's the principle behind it?"
Nowadays, there are no more than five households on the island that have air conditioners, and Liu Zhiyi's room has such an air conditioner installed.
In fact, she rarely turns it on. But now that the weather is hot and Cai Ling Fangwei is coming over as a guest, Liu Zhiyi turns on the air conditioner for them.
Even Fang Wei had never thought that the first time he had used air conditioning in his life would be in Liu Zhiyi's room. "Close the door quickly! Otherwise the air conditioning will escape!" Xu Cailing reminded him quickly.
"You are quite knowledgeable?"
“I didn’t understand before, but now I understand!”
Perhaps it was because the learning environment had improved, even Xu Cailing became more motivated. After she finished speaking, she picked up a pen and began to write and draw at the desk.
Liu Zhiyi's room was very tidy. Next to the entrance was her bed, with a mosquito net put down to surround the bed to prevent mosquitoes from running in during the day.
There is a dressing table and wardrobe on the right, and next to the window is her desk, which is quite large. Now the two girls are sitting at the desk together doing their homework.
The most special thing is probably the bookshelf on the left.
It is meters high and divided into six layers, each layer contains books of different categories.
"Zhiyi, you have so many books."
Fang Wei walked to the bookshelf and took a look. There were probably hundreds of books on it, including "Ordinary World" and "Fortress Besieged" which he had just finished reading recently. In addition, there were the Four Great Classics, various Chinese and foreign novels, etc. There were many books that could not even be found in the bookstores in the town.
"Did you buy all of them yourself?"
Fang Wei picked up a book and took a look. These books were all well preserved. Except for some old books whose pages had naturally turned yellow, the other books looked as if they were new. If these books appeared in Cai Ling's room, he was sure that Cai Ling had never read them. But if they appeared in Liu Zhiyi's room, then they definitely could not be new. It could only be said that she took great care of them when she flipped through them.
"Well, some of them were bought by myself, but most of them were bought by my father. He likes reading, so he usually buys a lot of books, and then... these were all brought back."
After hearing this, Fang Wei turned the pages of the book more slowly.
"Have you seen them all?"
“There are still some that I haven’t seen yet.”
"Then Zhiyi, how many books have you finished reading?" Xu Cailing asked curiously.
"About 70 or 80 books..."
"??"
Not only Xu Cailing was stunned, even Fang Wei was stunned.
It would be fine if Liu Zhiyi was an adult, but she was only thirteen years old! Even if she could recognize all the characters and read without any problem at the age of eight, and finished seventy or eighty books in five years, on average, she would read about one or two books a month?!
You know, these are relatively obscure literary works, not online novels. While attending classes and studying, you can still finish one or two books in a month. This...? !
"Zhiyi, have you been watching this from day to night?"
Xu Cailing was stunned. If it were her, she would probably not be able to read so many books in her lifetime, unless comic books and textbooks were counted...
"Not really. I read books quickly. I read when I have nothing to do and I finish it in no time."
"You like literature very much." Fang Wei said.
He took a quick look at the types of books on the bookshelf. Almost all of them were literature-related, and there were even some books on writing theory.
"Not bad..." Liu Zhiyi nodded.
"Can I borrow books from you in the future?" Fang Wei said with a smile.
"all right."
Liu Zhiyi agreed without any hesitation.
She really treasured and loved these books. After all, quite a few of them were left to her by her father. If other classmates asked to borrow books from her, she would definitely not agree. But Fang was different.
During this period of time together, she knew that Fang Wei was also a person who cherished books.
"Then, then Zhiyi, can I also borrow books from you?" Xu Cailing also said excitedly.
"all right."
Although it was obvious that Cailing was not a book lover, Liu Zhiyi agreed without hesitation. After all, if you really counted it, Cailing was her first friend here, and she meant a lot to her.
"Hey, Zhiyi, you're so nice!"
"Cai Ling, which book do you want to borrow?"
"Uh...I'll borrow it from you when I want to see it!"
Fang Wei: “…”
Miss Cailing, don't even mention borrowing books. You may not have even looked through the junior high school textbooks left by your sister!
Since they had agreed to do homework together, Fang Wei did not linger in front of her bookshelf for long. He carefully put the book in his hand back to its original place.
There is only one desk in Liu Zhiyi's room, and it is only big enough for two people to sit.
She then reopened a small folding table, took out a small stool, and then put her notebook on the small table.
"Fang Wei, you and Cai Ling can do your homework at the desk. I can do it at the small table."
"It's okay, you two can write at the desk."
"Yes, Zhiyi, I want to sit at the same table with you!"
Seeing that they both said this, Liu Zhiyi had no choice but to return to his desk.
She felt a little embarrassed to let Fang Wei do her homework at the small table, but Fang Wei didn't care.
Seeing that her movements when she stood up and sat down were quite stiff, Xu Cailing also noticed it and asked curiously:
"Zhiyi, what's wrong with you? Does your leg hurt?"
"Um……"
Liu Zhiyi said honestly: "I went jogging with Fang Wei this morning and ran to the beach to watch the sunrise."
"Huh?! Did you go jogging with him?"
"Well, I plan to go jogging every morning to exercise my body. Cailing, do you want to join me?"
When Xu Cailing heard this, she immediately lost interest. She thought they were doing something secretly, but it turned out they were running...
"I won't go running. I thought you guys were secretly going out to play somewhere."
"how come……"
"Is it very sore? Do you want me to massage it for you?" Looking at Liu Zhiyi's slender legs, Cai Ling smiled and stretched out her magic claws.
"Oh, it's itchy." Liu Zhiyi giggled and opened her hand.
……
The three of them gathered together to do their homework, and the learning atmosphere was quite good.
It’s like many people who have computers at home but still like to go to Internet cafes to play games; and who like to go to libraries to read books even though there is no one to disturb them in the dormitory.
Under the influence of Fang Wei and Liu Zhiyi, Xu Cailing's learning efficiency and concentration have improved a lot. By the time Uncle Liu knocked on the door and called them to eat, they had almost finished their homework.
"Zhiyi, what are you going to write about in your drawing composition?"
The only thing Xu Cailing had left to do was drawing and writing the composition, and the same went for Liu Zhiyi and Fang Wei.
"I haven't thought about it yet, Cailing, how about you?"
"Well, I haven't thought about it yet!"
"Then let's think about it later. Let's go, go eat, and go out and help out together."
As Fang Wei spoke, he packed up his things and stood up, heading to the kitchen to see if he could help in any way.
The two girls quickly followed.
"It smells so good! Uncle, your cooking skills are really good!"
As soon as she entered the kitchen, she smelled the rich aroma of food. Xu Cailing's nose moved and she was not stingy with her praise.
"Haha, if it smells good, eat more. Even though my uncle used to be a teacher, more people know that I'm a chef than a teacher! In the past, when someone on the island held a banquet, they would always ask me to help. If you're hungry, eat first. I'll blanch the shrimps and they'll be ready soon! There's still soup in the pot, be careful of the heat..."
"Uncle, let's just have a simple meal. Why did you prepare such a sumptuous meal..." Fang Wei didn't know what to say for a moment.
I thought it was just a lively meal, but I didn't expect that Uncle Liu not only made soup, but also prepared several main dishes, including braised pork, which I rarely eat, chicken, and duck, as well as a fish, a plate of boiled shrimps, and a dish of vegetables. That's six dishes and one soup in total!
Even my family’s reunion dinner tonight is no more than this standard!
"It's a rare holiday! I'm happy that you can come and have dinner with me! Don't be polite to me, just eat as much as you can!"
The three of them had clear division of labor: Cai Ling was responsible for scooping the soup, Fang Wei was responsible for serving the dishes and soup, and Liu Zhiyi was responsible for serving the rice.
A sumptuous lunch was laid out on the log table, looking and smelling delicious.
When Uncle Liu came out of the kitchen with the last plate of clams, Fang Wei, Cai Ling and Zhi Yi were already seated at the dining table. They were very sensible and did not pick up their chopsticks yet.
"Why are you all standing there? Pick up your chopsticks and eat! There aren't so many rules in my uncle's house. Come on, eat!"
Seeing her grandfather's behavior, Liu Zhiyi also found it funny. After all, she knew the rules of her family very well. Apart from anything else, it was absolutely forbidden to start eating before all the elders were present.
Of course, grandpa isn't as strict as before, but the education he gave them has long been ingrained in their bones, and she, Fang Wei, and Cai Ling all abide by it.
As everyone started eating, the atmosphere at the table became more lively.
Uncle Liu would take the initiative to find some topics for them to talk about, such as school, or simply talk about their fathers' classes in the past, and the boys and girls would listen with great concentration.
"Don't just eat, Cailing, Awei, pick up some food to eat! Is it because the food that Uncle made is too salty?"
"Mmmmm! No! It's delicious!!"
Both of them even took the initiative to add more rice.
After the meal, Fang Wei, Cai Ling and Zhi Yi helped to clean up.
With Liu Zhiyi's introduction, Cai Ling finally learned how to use an electric rice cooker and a washing machine.
"Oh! Won't it burn the rice? Can we just leave it alone?"
"Well, remember to press this when you are cooking rice, and it will pop up by itself when the rice is cooked."
"Can it be used to seal the Great Demon King?"
"Eh?"
"Zhiyi, what is this, a game console?"
"Um, DVD."
Liu Zhiyi's family has a DVD player, which is much more interesting than a TV. You can play movies by putting a disc in it.
So the three of them watched a movie together again.
It’s a pity that there are not many discs, and they are old movies that they have seen before, "A Chinese Odyssey: Part One", but the three of them still watched it with gusto and laughed happily.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when they finished watching the movie, and Fang Wei and Xu Cailing were ready to go back.
"Uncle, let's go back first!"
"Zhiyi, we'll come find you after dinner tonight, and then we'll go to the beach to release sky lanterns together!"
"Uh-huh!"
Fang Wei sat in the back seat of the car, and Xu Cailing rode the bike to take him back.
Liu Zhiyi was watching at the door. This was probably the most special Mid-Autumn Festival for her.
(End of this chapter)
