Brother Nan unbuckled her seatbelt. "I wonder if that fat cat has lost any weight these past few days."
"Probably not," Zhou Li said as he got out of the car. "This is your dad's car, right?"
"Yeah." Brother Nan casually patted the hood. "It's an old Accord, been with us for many years. It drives better than our car, but I still prefer our little car; after all, it's mine."
"Half of it is mine."
"TSK, half then, half!" Brother Nan retorted, then furrowed her brows, urging Zhou Li, "Don't dawdle. There are too many old ladies in the courtyard. If they see us, they'll start gossiping again. They're old; it takes more effort to deal with them."
"What about Jiang Han?"
"He went back to his hometown too."
"I see." Zhou Li and Huai Xu quickened their pace.
They had been to Brother Nan's home before. It was an old-style building, not looking great from the outside, but the interior was quite nicely renovated. The house had been thoroughly cleaned on the twenty-third of the twelfth lunar month—a local custom they called "beating the sunshine"—so it was also very clean inside.
The moment Brother Nan entered the door, she started calling out— Follow current novels on 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡·𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖·𝔫𝔢𝔱
However, there was no response.
She then went to check the place where the cat food was kept. Nearly ten days had passed, and about half of the week's supply of cat food was still left. If it were someone else, they might have already started worrying that the cat had run away or met with an accident, but Brother Nan only felt a bit awkward.
After all, she had come up with the excuse of fearing Pumpkin might starve.
"Don't worry, it's definitely out catching mice, or went to see its sweetheart or Little Brother to mooch food," Brother Nan said, her face turning red as she turned to head outside. "Come on, let's go get the stuff from the trunk!"
The trunk held a small box for Brother Nan's luggage; the rest was filled with various foods, frozen and unfrozen, as well as oranges and grapefruit from her hometown, and a bottle of white wine.
The three of them had to make two trips to carry everything in.
"What do you guys want to eat tonight?"
"Steamed Pork Belly! Pork Knuckle! Intestines!"
"Oh, you chose well," Brother Nan laughed. "These dishes are my dad's specialties, and they go well with drinks."
"HEHE!" Huai Xu chuckled.
Zhou Li then turned to look at the courtyard outside, vaguely remembering last summer, during Brother Nan's birthday, sitting in this very yard and describing the taste of these dishes to the invisible person beside him.
Then Brother Nan took out a pot of Egg Balls, picked out a small piece of cured pork, and stored the rest in the refrigerator.
She also said, "There's nothing much to do in Yan City anyhow. In a few days, we might go hang out with Little Zheng. It's fun there, and you can even ride horses. I told her I'd bring some dishes for her."
"Yeah," Brother Nan nodded. "She also asked me to record a video of my dad making Egg Balls and frying the sauce for Dongpo Pork Knuckle. She can't see, so I'll watch the video and teach her."
It seemed their chats were quite frequent.
Just then, Brother Nan's cat returned, still plump and with sleek fur, walking in a manner similar to Brother Nan. Upon seeing the three people inside, it paused, then shook its head, and took another look, as if to confirm.
Oh, they really are back.
That's probably what it thought, but from its feline face, you couldn't tell if it was happy or sad.
Brother Nan spoke sternly, "You still know how to come back? I was worried you were starving, risking my life to come back and feed you! And you? Seven days' worth of food, and you've only eaten two-thirds in ten days. Confess, where have you been messing around?"
His tone grew stern towards the end.
Big Orange lazily glanced at her. Noticing a sunbeam shining through the window, it walked into the light, lay down, and squinted its eyes.
Brother Nan really wanted to give it a good smack.
She took a deep breath, repeating Family disgrace must not be publicized in her mind to calm herself down. Then she said to the human and the demon, "There's nowhere to go this afternoon. How about we team up for some video games?"
"Oh," Huai Xu's voice immediately softened. "I said I can only play five rounds of games a day."
"And you haven't copied today's text, twenty idioms, or new words either," Zhou Li reminded him from the side. "If you play games this afternoon, you'll definitely try to weasel out of it tonight."
"...You only read a bit today too," Huai Xu weakly retorted. "Just a little bit."
"What are you two talking about?" Brother Nan asked. "A study supervision group?"
"Something like that." Zhou Li then recounted his agreement with Huai Xu to her.
Brother Nan's eyes widened as she listened. After hearing it all, she blinked twice and said, "I'm really envious of you guys, still able to study. Back in my hometown, all I did was play—this mountain, that mountain, this river, that river. It was so dull!"
Suddenly, Huai Xu suggested, "How about we add a new rule to our agreement—that playing with Brother Nan doesn't count as breaking our word?"
"One must be true to one's word."
Zhou Li wasn't worried; after all, he had only said he needed to read every day, not how much.
"You're also going to visit Miss Zheng and play with Brother Nan. Can you guarantee you'll study every day then too? Maybe you'll be too caught up in having fun or doing chores and won't feel like reading," Huai Xu looked at him expectantly. "Wouldn't it be nice to just enjoy playing with Brother Nan? And if you just glance at your book and then put it away, wouldn't that be deceiving yourself? What would be the point then?"
"…That's actually quite logical!" Zhou Li was surprised.
"So..." Huai Xu prompted.
"Agreed," Zhou Li conceded.
"YAY!" Huai Xu cheered.
He was very happy. In a flash, he returned to Zhou Li's room and brought over the computer.
Adding in Brother Nan's laptop and her home desktop, they played games all afternoon. Although Zhou Li was quite bad at the game, this special mode did indeed give him some gaming experience.
At five o'clock in the afternoon, Brother Nan stood up, stretched, and snapped her laptop shut. "Time to cook and heat up the food."
"Need any help?" Zhou Li asked.
"We use natural gas."
"No need, just heating up the food," Brother Nan waved her hand and headed towards the kitchen. "It's embarrassing for me if you watch. My cooking skills can't compare to Little Zheng's or my dad's. They're way better."
Zhou Li still followed her.
Perhaps because her family had cooks, Brother Nan's kitchen was very professional, almost like a restaurant's. Zhou Li first looked around curiously, then stood quietly behind Brother Nan, watching her rinse rice and prepare it for cooking.
Brother Nan was more adept at cooking rice than Zhou Li. She didn't even need to measure the water, while Zhou Li had to use a cup.
Dongpo Pork Knuckle, Egg Balls, and Salty Steamed Pork Belly were all steamed dishes; they just needed to be placed on the steaming rack.
The cured meat was washed, boiled, sliced, and then ready to eat. You could tell its quality was very high: it had even fat distribution and had been smoked. Thus, the taste depended solely on the knife work—the thinner the slices, the better.
The braised large intestines were set aside to be reheated later.
Every now and then, Brother Nan would turn to glance at Zhou Li, muttering, "What are you looking at! You're guests today, so I'm making an effort. In the future, I absolutely, absolutely will not cook. Even if I get married, I'll be the one earning money to support the family."
This phrase triggered a lot of thoughts in Zhou Li.
"Will you earn money by buying lottery tickets?"
Before long, Brother Nan rolled down her sleeves, tilted her head to adjust her hair, and then looked at Zhou Li. "Your hair has gotten a bit long; it needs trimming."
"Were you planning to get it cut when you went back to Yan City but got caught up in the pandemic?" Brother Nan didn't wait for his answer. "HAHA, same here! I was planning to get a perm and dye my hair over the New Year. What color do you think would look good on me?"
"How about non-mainstream green?"
"…How about granny gray? Blue? Red? Or one of those colors that change in sunlight?"
"Any of them would work."
"Are you just mindlessly agreeing again?"
Forty minutes later, the three of them were seated around the table.
Huai Xu dug in silently.
Brother Nan leisurely poured herself a glass of wine. She first popped a piece of meat into her mouth, then held up her wine glass, sniffed its aroma, took a small sip, and squinted her eyes—a picture of utter contentment.
She quickly finished half a bottle of wine.
Brother Nan's face remained fair and clear, showing no signs of flushing. She looked at Zhou Li, who was feeding Pumpkin meat beside her. She watched him silently until he noticed and met her gaze. Only then did she say, "Why don't you guys stay at my place tonight? Let's pull an all-nighter gaming."
As she spoke, she even burped.