CH 66

The Manchu banquet that Aunt Wang thought was naturally an exaggerated rhetoric, but the Xue family’s breakfast that morning was indeed very rich.

When Nong Yuan walked into the dining room with Xue Yunmu in his arms, the table was filled with taro cakes[1], fresh mushroom and millet porridge, black rice dumplings[2], potato omelettes, yuba mixed with spinach, and steamed eggs with black fungus and minced meat[3]. Compared to Xiao Xiu’s breakfast, he felt that his breakfast in the first 50 years was junk.

“Wow–” Xue Yunmu opened his mouth wide in exclamation, twisted in the arms of grandfather Nong, and wanted to go down to the ground.

Xue Chengxiu followed behind and walked into the dining room, deliberately complaining: “I don’t have such a rich breakfast on weekdays. Yang Yang is favoring one over the other.”

Nong Yuan gave him an angry look and happily pulled the chair and sat down, “I am a guest, what’s wrong with me eating a little richer, your master is really stingy.”

“You are right, I am stingy.” Xue Chengxiu admitted without shame and sat down on the main seat.

Yu Siyang took out the last piece of spicy kelp silk and sat down on Xue Chengxiu’s right hand. “Uncle Nong, I got up a little late, so I just did something casually. You can try it and see if it suits your appetite.” The attitude was extraordinarily diligent.

“This is too rich. How can you make it casually?”

Nong Yuan took a sip of fresh mushroom and millet porridge. The thick porridge was slightly hot, and the mushroom flavour was strong and fresh. The chives sprinkled on the porridge had a slightly spicy aroma and the freshness of the shiitake mushrooms complemented each other, the thick and smooth porridge slipped into the belly and made the stomach feel warm, and left the mouth with a delicious aftertaste, which was really satisfying.

Taro cake was made by mixing sticky rice noodles with water to make a paste, then boiling water was used to make a raw and cooked slurry, then oil, salt, and sugar were added to the inside, mixed well, then the taro was cut into small cubes, stir-fried, salt and water were added, and simmered until cooked. The diced simmered taro was put in the raw and cooked paste, mix well, and steam until cooked.

When eating, the taro cake was cut into small finger-length strips. One bite was just right. When he ate it, the rice noodles were slightly springy because of the sticky rice noodles. It was still soft and sweet, but not sticky.

Xue Chengxiu liked to eat black rice dumplings. He ordered the dumplings yesterday. The dumplings were made by two of them last night. The dumplings were filled with pork marinated by Yu Siyang with soy sauce, salt, garlic and sesame oil. The meat is specially added. A little cumin is added for fragrance, and the dumpling wrapper is a dough kneaded with black rice noodles and warm water. Therefore, the dumplings are black.

Among the 30 or so dumplings on the plate on the table, some were exquisite, and some were strangely shaped. Xue Yunmu accidentally scooped a strangely shaped dumpling with a small spoon and raised it up and said loudly, “Daddy’s, it’s so ugly.”

“I said how these dumplings present two completely different styles,” Nong Yuan picked up an exquisite dumpling and scolded: “Xiaoxiu, you shouldn’t spoil the food. The dumplings you make are not appetizing anymore.”

Xue Chengxiu: “…”

“Well, this dumpling is delicious,” Nong Yuan said,

“Xiaoxiu, you can eat your own dumplings, it’s too ugly to put it there.”

“Ugly.” Mu Mu nodded he was very happy to dismantle his father’s platform.

Xue Chengxiu was overwhelmed, that they even disliked him after eating his food, but he couldn’t hold it against the old and the young, so he could only express his discomfort in silence with a dark face.

“Mr. Xue, eating this is very refreshing.” Yu Siyang put a yuba mixed with spinach into Xue Chengxiu’s bowl, smiling and squinting.

To take care of the children’s taste, the yuba mixed with spinach deliberately did not have added chili, but only added a little pepper oil and stirred it. The spinach was only blanched until it was broken. It was crispy and refreshing.

It was only his family Yangyang that knew how to console people. Xue Chengxiu ate the spinach contentedly.

An overly rich breakfast, the result was that all four of them ate too much.

Nong Yuan was leaning on the sofa, Xue Yunmu was in the same posture as him. Xiaomu rubbed his belly with one hand and stretched out to rub the belly of Grandpa with the other hand. Xue Chengxiu still sat upright even after eating that much.

Before long, Yu Siyang was fully armed and covered his face from the upstairs. “Uncle Nong, can we go now?”

Nong Yuan stood up and said, “Let’s go.” The two were going to the street for experiential teaching.

Xue Yunmu immediately protested when he saw that grandpa and brother Yangyang were going out to play together but not taking him.

“Brother is not going out to play, but to study.” Yu Siyang squatted down and said to Xue Yunmu warmly.

The little guy’s mouth was so pouty that he could hang an oil bottle, holding Yu Siyang’s neck and not letting go, “No, my brother said that I can play with Mumu for these two days, and now brother will go out to play by himself without Mumu.”

“Mumu, grandfather and brother really are not going out to play, yo.”Nong Yuan also squatted down and tried to console the child.

Xue Yunmu’s head turned aside immediately, not looking at Grandpa Nong.

Mr. Xue had to deal with the bear child.

Xue Chengxiu came over, neatly “tore” the little fat man from Yu Siyang’s arms, and said to his son who was brewing to a shameful tantrum with howling and crying: “Don’t make trouble, brother has business…”

Xue Yunmu kept his mouth flat, and reluctantly said: “Okay, brother, you have to come back early.”

Yu Siyang nodded, touched the little guy’s head, went to the kitchen and brought him two kittens made of sugar. The kittens were only as big as the middle finger of an adult, and it’s all pinched out by hand. The different colours of the kittens were all sweetened with juice. One kitten was licking its paws and one was sleeping. It captured Xue Yunmu’s heart.

After comforting the little guy, Yu Siyang and Nong Yuan went out.

To study human nature was to go among the humans. Nong Yuan drove Yu Siyang to a large residential area in the city. There were several old-fashioned communities in this area, including original residents and renters of all ages. Everyone was there, and it was a weekend, and the vegetable market in the residential area was very lively.

Nong Yuan and Yu Siyang found a stone pier outside the vegetable market and sat there, observing the people coming and going in the vegetable market.

“In fact, anthropology can also be called gossip,” Nong Yuan said slowly: “When people talk about gossip, they will reveal the social environment they live in and the cultural value of this environment. Look at those two people…”

Yu Siyang looked in the direction of Nong Yuan’s fingers. Two women in their forties stood face to face and talked. One was wearing floral quilted pajamas, and the other was wearing a black windbreaker with slim-fitting trousers and stiletto heels.

“Through a person’s dress, most of the time you can see this person’s social status.”

“These two people, the person wearing pajamas should be a housewife, or they have opened a small shop in this residential area, and the store is not too big. Her husband should be just an ordinary factory technician.”

“The person wearing a windbreaker should be a white-collar worker from the company, and she rarely cooks at home, and then also perhaps because there are guests at home.”

Yu Siyang asked in surprise: “Why do you think she rarely cooks?”

Nong Yuan signalled him to walk towards the two women together. When he approached, he heard the woman in the windbreaker say: “My husband’s colleague came to eat at home and there was not enough food. I came out to buy some.”

Yu Siyang looked at Nong Yuan with a worshipping look.

Nong Yuan smiled and said: “Look at her, the floor of the vegetable market is so dirty and there is muddy water everywhere, but she came here wearing high heels. The windbreaker is also long, obviously she hasn’t cooked much.”

Yu Siyang carefully observed the woman wearing the windbreaker. And found that the hem of her windbreaker was splashed with many mud spots.

“Xiaoyu, in the process of acting, you are acting as living someone else’s life.” Nong Yuan led Yu Siyang to stroll slowly in the residential area. “Even if this person is created by a screenwriter, he should have a past. And the future, what he was like in the past, what he has experienced, would have had a great influence on him in his future, these are all important reasons that constitute the character now.”

Yu Siyang nodded at what he was taught.

The old and the young turned a corner, and saw a man beating a woman a few steps away, and a child about five or six years old was standing aside and crying.

“Why are you hitting?” Yu Siyang took a few steps and pushed the beating man away with a clever effort.

The man was stunned for a moment, seeing that he was a person with his face covered, he was full of anger, pointed at the woman and cursed: “Damn, this is your concubine, you still said you didn’t see people behind me, you stinky bitch, I am going to kill you today.”

The woman stood behind Yu Siyang, crying with her face covered, and kept saying: “I don’t have, I don’t…”

“What are you talking about.” Yu Siyang was very angry,” A big man hits a woman, you still have reason.”

The man spat on the ground, without saying anything, he rushed over to fight with Yu Siyang.

Although Yu Siyang was thin, but because of filming, he learned martial arts for several months. Even if he was a flowery fighter, he was much better than the man. He beat the man on the ground within two strokes.

“You, you…” The man got up, kept backing quietly, and said in an awkward manner: “You wait for me, don’t go, I call someone to kill you.”

The crowds around them were already a circle of onlookers from who knows when. Someone knew the man and laughed and said, “Lao Li, you are almost out of face. You still care if others think you have face.”

The man’s face was flushed, and he said to the woman: “Smelly bitch, don’t come back to Laozi. Go back and be ashamed outside.”

“You are the one who should be ashamed of yourself.” Nong Yuan walked to Yu Siyang, “If you have an affair and want to divorce, you can apply to the court. You don’t need to beat your wife to achieve your goal.”

The man’s face changed drastically, “You die old man, what nonsense.”

The woman who had just been beaten stopped crying, put down her hands covering her face, passed between Yu Siyang and Nong Yuan, and almost pushed Yu Siyang into a fall. Instead, she rushed to tear the man’s hair frantically, grabbed the man’s face with his nails, and cursed: “You son of a tortoise, it turns out that you cheated, you actually framed me for cheating, beat me, and almost killed me. You, I will kill you…”

The child who just stopped crying started crying again.

Yu Siyang was stunned. It was an ethical drama, and women’s force value was actually equal to that of men.

Nong Yuan pulled Yu Siyang and quickly retreated from the crowd, turned two turns, and found the car they were driving.

“A person’s character can be seen from his daily behavior, habitual actions, and his interpersonal interactions,” Nong Yuan kept driving while still teaching, “A person is motivated to do anything. To figure out a character, you must analyze his character. The man just now, do you see what character he is?”

Yu Siyang thought for a while and said: “Fake strong, cowardly, um…the brain is sick “

Nong Yuan laughed: “It’s not a person’s character to have a brain disease.”

“A diseased character.” Yu Siyang also laughed.

Nong Yuan didn’t say that he was right or wrong. He just said, “Xiaoyu, when you encounter such a situation in the future, you should treat it more sensibly. Don’t fight with people. This man was weak, but if you encounter a Kong Wu who is powerful, what should you do if you can’t beat him?”

Yu Siyang lowered his head and said annoyedly: “Uncle Nong, I know.” He was the man who hated hitting women the most, looking at him. Such a man will have a sense of justice and was indeed impulsive today.

Nong Yuan said nothing and drove him to the next place.

At the same time, an uninvited guest came to Xue’s villa.

Xue Chengxiu asked the bodyguard to take his son upstairs, and said coldly to the uninvited guest: “What are you here for?”

“Father came to see his son’s house, can’t I?”