Zhenzhen covered her red face and looked at Xi Junjie. She was so attracted by him that her whole body was numb: How could such a handsome boy who is good at flirting and cooking be my boyfriend? I must have saved the world in my previous life!
Seeing Zhenzhen staring at him without blinking, Xi Junjie smiled and helped her tidy up her hair: "If you keep looking at me, our food might get cold."
Zhenzhen came back to her senses immediately. Although beauty is important, it can be seen at any time. If the food gets cold, the taste will be compromised, which would be a waste of Xi Junjie's hard work.
Zhenzhen immediately took out the long tray, placed six dishes on it, and was about to walk out. Xi Junjie quickly stopped her and smiled helplessly, "Didn't we agree that I would be responsible for all such work in the future?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Zhen Zhen carefully placed the tray in Xi Junjie's hands: "This is my first time having a partner, I'm not used to it yet." Looking at Xi Junjie's weak arms, Zhen Zhen reminded him with some concern: "If you can't lift it, remember to tell me, I'm very strong."
Xi Junjie took the tray and walked forward easily: "I still have this little bit of strength. After all, in the future..." He glanced at Zhenzhen: "I will have to carry heavier things."
Zhenzhen instantly understood what Xi Junjie meant, and she felt that her face must have turned red again.
As soon as they walked to the corridor, Mingbei and Mingxi came out. Zhenzhen pointed to the kitchen and said, "The dishes are ready. Please help bring them over."
Mingbei stretched his neck to look at the six delicious dishes on the plate, and suddenly felt a little hungry. After touching his stomach, Mingbei decided to flatter Zhenzhen and try to eat more in the future: "Sister, this dish you made is delicious, you are really getting better and better."
Zhenzhen glanced at Xi Junjie next to her and told Mingbei happily, "Junjie did it." Hearing Zhenzhen's tone of family, Xi Junjie felt as sweet as honey. Seeing Xi Junjie grinning at her, Zhenzhen held his arm with concern and urged him to keep going.
Mingbei looked at the two people's backs as they walked further and further away, and always felt that something was wrong.
"Brother, Xi Junjie is quite capable. He can cook. He looks better than Zhenzhen." Mingbei turned around and saw Mingxi's shocked expression. He was confused: "Even if he can cook, you don't have to be so scared, right?"
Mingxi covered his frightened little heart, feeling that he had discovered a huge secret. Thinking of how he had been so rude in the main room and told others that Zhenzhen and Xi Junjie had been jogging together in the morning, Mingxi wanted to slap himself in the face. No wonder his father looked at him like that, it turned out that his own juicy cabbages were about to be dug up by someone.
Mingbei was very straightforward and didn't think too much about it. He happily shared his experience with Mingxi: "I think we should get along well with Xi Junjie. When we have a weekend off, we can invite him to our house. Just by smelling the aroma of the food, we know it's delicious."
"Old Four! Since you are my brother, I'm telling you to keep quiet during the meal, okay?" Seeing Mingbei's stupid look, Mingxi sighed and concluded, "Especially don't praise the food for being delicious, otherwise you may not be able to return to school in one piece today."
Mingbei touched his head and saw that Mingxi had already gone to the kitchen. He instantly forgot what Mingxi had said. "Oh my god, it smells so good. I'm drooling."
After washing their hands, Old Lady Li led the guests to the main hall, where they found that the large round table was already filled with various dishes. Old Lady Li felt a little suspicious, thinking that the dishes on this table were definitely not made by Zhenzhen. Even though Zhenzhen knew how to cook, she had many tricks and had studied medicinal diet with Mr. Zhang, but compared with the dishes on the table today, there was still a big difference. At least the color, fragrance, and fancy presentation did not look like Zhenzhen's cooking.
In fact, Zhenzhen just ate a lot and saw a lot in her previous life, so she just copied others. However, the people in Beicha only cooked stews and rarely even stir-fried dishes, so they all thought that Zhenzhen's cooking was creative and delicious. But Xi Junjie was different. He wanted to do his best in everything he did. When he and his parents were in France, the school had a cooking class and invited a famous chef to teach students how to cook French. Xi Junjie took this as his main subject and studied it very seriously. After the school course ended, he even went to the restaurant to become the apprentice. Now the French food he cooks is better than that of ordinary restaurant chefs.
Xi Junjie learned to cook Chinese food because Xi Changbo met a chef who had taken refuge in France by chance when he was in Paris. Because of the chef's excellent cooking skills, many capitalists before the founding of the People's Republic of China were proud to book his table for dinner. Later, when the capitalists fell, he was also implicated. Fortunately, he saved a lot of money in those years and found a way to take his family directly to France.
When the chef first arrived in France, he didn't speak the language, and no suitable restaurant was willing to hire him. He couldn't even find a suitable place to live. He was in a very difficult situation for a while. It happened that Xi Changbo went out to visit a friend one day. The chef saw that he was from the same country, and he came to ask for help rashly when he was desperate. Xi Changbo had heard of this person's name when he was in China. Thinking that the house he bought was relatively large, there were two guest rooms on the first floor that had been idle, so he took this person and his family in. The chef had no way to repay him, and seeing that Xi Junjie was interested in cooking, he taught him carefully for three years. Later, Xi Changbo returned to China after completing his term. Before leaving, he helped the chef open a Chinese restaurant. However, because of the ten years in China, the two families did not dare to communicate. After so many years, there was no way to contact each other.
Although Xi Junjie is a top-notch cook, he rarely cooks because of his cleanliness. He usually only cooks for Chinese New Year or his parents' birthdays, grandparents' birthdays. Therefore, the elderly in the Xi and Ling families look forward to birthdays the most, after all, only on birthdays can they enjoy a feast.
Xi Changbo and Ling Xiulan were sitting in the guest seats. When they saw the dishes on the table, they immediately looked at each other silently. Xi Junjie had many quirks in cooking. For example, the braised shrimps had to be arranged one by one, with the shrimp heads next to each other, and the circle left in the middle looked like it was drawn with a compass; or like the fried pigeon, although Xi Junjie had cut them for ease of eating, in order to keep the shape intact, he put them back together bit by bit after cutting. If you didn't look carefully, you could basically not see any signs of cutting. Only when you picked it up, could you find that it was already divided.
The two families sat down around the round table. Li Muwu took out several kinds of wine from the house. He patted a large wine jar and opened it to look at Xi Changbo provocatively: "This is the wine I made in Beicha. It uses the original wine brewed by our hydrolysis factory. It has a full 62 degrees. It contains medicinal herbs such as ginseng, deer antlers, and ganoderma lucidum. Do you dare to drink it?"
Xi Changbo pulled out the cork of the wine, and instantly the rich aroma of wine hit his nose. He leaned over to take a look and saw seven or eight taels of ginseng, complete deer antlers, bowl-sized Ganoderma lucidum, and various unfamiliar medicinal herbs. He looked at Li Muwu in horror and said, "Won't you get a nosebleed if you drink this?"
Li Muwu glanced at him and said confidently, "I'm in great shape, I won't drink this."
"Then why are you soaking it?" Xi Changbo silently put the cork back on the wine, with a look of heartache on his face: "That ginseng must be hundreds of years old."
Li Muwu looked at him cheerfully and said, "This jar of wine of mine is specially used to cure all kinds of discontent. If anyone comes to my house discontented, I will treat him to this wine."
Xi Changbo looked at him speechlessly: "You are too petty."
Old Lady Li smiled and waved her hands: "Don't listen to his nonsense. This is the wine I usually drink, but I don't dare to drink too much, only one or two ounces a day."
Xi Changbo quickly let go of his hand, and Li Muwu took out a delicate little spoon and poured some wine into the pocket-sized wine cup in front of Old Lady Li, and then moved the jar of wine back.
Old Li's family has a lot of wine, and Li Muwen sends them here during the holidays. Usually, Li Muwu likes to drink sorghum wine at home, so he keeps the wine that Li Muwen sends for when guests come.
They took out a bottle of Moutai and poured a glass each. Mingxi was on vacation at home, so he also poured a glass. Ling Xiulan didn't drink white wine, and Wang Sufen was too embarrassed to ask for it, so Zhenzhen took out a bottle of wine from the cabinet next to her.
"I thought the grape vines in the yard were dead, but after half a year of tending to them, they produced a lot of big and sweet grapes. I picked some and made my own wine. It may not be as delicious as the ones sold overseas, but it's clean and fresh because I made it myself." Zhenzhen smiled and poured a glass for Ling Xiulan and Wang Sufen respectively. Mingbei smelled the sweetness and the faint aroma of wine and also wanted some.
Anyway, this stuff is not intoxicating, Zhenzhen poured a glass for Mingbei, Xi Junjie and herself. Xie Yanan and Wang Xinwen were pregnant, so they drank pure grape juice.
Old Mrs. Li led everyone to drink a sip of wine, then invited everyone to eat. Although Zhenzhen had already eaten her fill, when she looked at the delicious food on the table, she couldn't help but stretch out her chopsticks and picked up a piece of the mandarin duck chicken to eat.
Li Muwu is a rather rough man, having eaten simple meals all his life. In the past, stewed meat and fish were considered a good life. But now, seeing dishes arranged like paintings, he doesn't know which one to pick.
Seeing that Li Muwu and Wang Sufen didn't move their chopsticks, Zhenzhen rolled a roast duck for each of them. After they finished the roast duck and all the dishes on the plate were touched, they picked up the dishes that were closest to them. It's no wonder that the Li family is rough. Li Muwu didn't notice anything wrong with the food. He forgot about drinking after taking a few bites of the food. He picked up the dishes one by one and ate them as deliciously as Mingbei.
Xi Changbo took a piece of blue shrimp and put it in his mouth. He was convinced that Xi Junjie had made this dish in April for Mr. Ling's birthday. The taste was exactly the same. Xi Changbo looked up at Xi Junjie and saw that he was not afraid of getting his hands dirty this time. He was diligently peeling shrimp for Li Mingzhen. He sighed in his heart, "It's too late to keep a son when he grows up."
As if to make a good impression on the Li family, Xi Junjie cooked all the ingredients in the kitchen, even the carp that Zhenzhen originally thought had too many bones was made into a sweet and sour fish. After the carp slices were cut, they were deep-fried in oil, arranged in the shape of a carp leaping over the dragon gate, and then drizzled with the boiled soup. It tasted crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, with a strong sweet and sour taste.
In order to keep the sweet and sour fish intact in the kitchen just now, Zhenzhen didn't dare to try it. After Grandma Li took the first bite with chopsticks, Zhenzhen couldn't wait to pick up a piece for Wang Sufen first, and then picked up a piece of crispy fish for herself and put it in her mouth.
I had eaten sweet and sour fish when I traveled in my previous life, but I don’t know if it was not cooked well, the carp had a strong earthy smell under the strong sweet and sour taste. When Xi Junjie made sweet and sour fish, he first removed the fishy smell, and the oil temperature was just right when frying the fish, which not only preserved the freshness of the fish meat, but also did not leave any oil in the fish meat.
This sweet, sour, and tender dish won praise from all the ladies at the table. Not only did Mrs. Li praise it several times, but even Xie Yanan and Wang Xinwen, who had previously suffered from acid reflux due to the fishy smell, kept eating it. Not only did they not experience morning sickness, but their appetites also improved, and they ate an extra bowl of rice than usual.
The meal lasted more than an hour. Li Muwu was very satisfied, holding his bulging stomach. He wiped his hands and mouth with the warm handkerchief that Zhenzhen prepared for everyone, and looked at Xi Changbo with some complacency: "My daughter's cooking is delicious, isn't it?"
Xi Changbo looked at him strangely, wondering if telling the truth would drive him crazy.
Zhenzhen drank two glasses of wine at the table. Her cheeks were slightly red and her eyes were watery. She looked at Xi Junjie with a handkerchief and smiled. When she heard Li Muwu praising her cooking, she quickly cleared Xi Junjie's name: "Dad, except for the roast duck, the other dishes on this table were made by Junjie."
Xi Junjie looked at Zhenzhen with a smile, and his tone was very gentle: "Zhenzhen also helped a lot."
"Jun... Jie..." Li Muwu's brain was a little clumsy after drinking a lot of wine. He turned his head hesitantly to look at Xi Junjie, and then looked at Old Lady Li in a daze: "Mom, do you think I drank too much? Why do I feel like something is wrong?"
When Mrs. Li saw her granddaughter smiling happily at Xi Junjie, she felt a little confused. It seemed that they were polite and courteous when they met in the morning, but why did she call Junjie "Zhenzhen" so affectionately at noon? Why was she different even when cooking
In front of outsiders, it was not convenient for Old Lady Li to ask Zhenzhen directly, so she let Xi Changbo and Ling Xiulan drink some tea before sending them out the door.
Back in the house, Li Muwu was drunk and lying on the bed, sleeping soundly. Mingxi and the others were cleaning up the dishes in the main hall. Old Lady Li went in and saw that Zhenzhen was not in the room, so she asked Mingbei, "Where is our Baoer?"
Mingbei piled all the bowls together and prepared to carry them out: "Zhenzhen said the wine was a little bit too much, she wanted to go back to the room to wash her face and take a nap."
"Oh." Old Lady Li nodded: "Then which of you two brothers will talk to me?"
As soon as the words fell, Mingxi immediately lowered his head guiltily. Mingbei raised his head stupidly, with a blank look on his face: "What are you talking about? Grandma, aren't you sleepy? Why do you still want to chat?"
Old Mrs. Li found a chair and sat down, sighing deeply: "Although I told the child this morning to make his own decisions and develop freely, this has developed too fast. I was not mentally prepared at all. What do you think I should sleep for? My heart is pounding now. Your father must be drunk and reacting. You see, he will be unhappy when he wakes up."
"No, what are we developing?" Mingbei stared at Old Lady Li, then looked at Mingxi who was almost crawling under the table, but he still didn't get the point.
Old Lady Li looked at him speechlessly, and she wanted to poke his head with her hand: "Don't you realize that your sister is dating that boy from the Xi family?"
Mingbei was shocked: "No, when did it happen? When we came back yesterday, they were sitting in the front and the back, and they didn't look like they were a couple, did they?"
Old Lady Li felt even more bitter: "When did it happen? It happened today!" She glanced at Mingbei unhappily: "Let me ask you, what did they talk about when you were cooking? How did it get better in just a short time? Didn't you see your sister? She was so happy when she saw Xi Junjie."
"Nothing." Mingbei didn't even bother to clean up the bowl. He tried to recall what happened today: "This morning, Xi Junjie and I went out at the same time. I went to kill pigeons, and he went to the garden to find Zhenzhen. When they came back from the garden with fish, they chased us out and told us to go back to the house and rest."
"Then why don't you go back to your room and rest?" Old Lady Li looked at Mingbei speechlessly, and then glared at Mingxi, whose head was already invisible: "Stand up right now, you are already over 30 years old, why are you still crawling under the table?"
Mingxi poked his head out awkwardly, and said with a wry smile: "There are some bones on the ground. I'll pick them up." Afraid that Mrs. Li would not believe him, he even showed her a garbage bucket.
Old Lady Li rolled her eyes at him and exposed his little trick: "Don't do that useless thing, tell me the real business."
Mingxi saw that he couldn't hide from it, so he could only bite the bullet and say, "Yanan smelled fishy odor in the kitchen and vomited acid. I hurriedly accompanied her back. Grandma, I think you should ask Mingbei about this. His wife and Zhenzhen live upstairs and downstairs in school, and Mingbei goes to Imperial Capital University every day. He must know more than me."
Old lady Li looked over, and Mingbei was stunned: "I really don't know, I just remember Wenwen mentioned Zhenzhen that Xi Junjie was good-looking, but I didn't see them together later." After a pause, Li Mingbei added: "Wenwen and Zhenzhen are not in the same department, and their classes are different. Sometimes we don't see each other once a day."
Seeing her grandson's silly look, Mrs. Li knew she couldn't get any information out of him, so she just sat there and sighed. Seeing the old lady at home looking unhappy, Mingxi didn't care about being scolded anymore, he quickly put the things in his hands aside, sat next to Mrs. Li, and asked carefully: "Grandma, don't you like Xi Junjie?"
"I like him..." Old Lady Li's expression was a little tangled: "I just wasn't mentally prepared. You don't know how nervous I am. It's like your sister is getting married tomorrow. I feel so uncomfortable."
"What's so hard about that?" Mingbei was a little puzzled. "His family lives next door. If they really get married in the future, I think we can just tear down the wall that the government added later. Anyway, this house belongs to Zhenzhen. It will look more spacious after the connection is made. Just imagine how big the garden will be at the back."
Old Lady Li looked at Mingbei in shock, and suddenly stood up. Mingbei was frightened and took a step back. She asked weakly, "I... said the wrong thing again?"
Old Lady Li stood up and walked to Mingbei in three steps. She stretched out her hand and slapped him on the back, which made Mingbei shiver. Mingbei had a bitter face, and he didn't know what he said wrong, when he heard Old Lady Li burst into laughter: "Oh Mingbei, you are finally smart for once after all these years. Why didn't I think of it? Xi Junjie is the only son over there, and this is Zhenzhen's house. After they get married, they can be one family after the wall is removed."
The more Mrs. Li thought about it, the happier she became. She almost laughed out loud, "If that's the case, then it's actually quite good for them to be a couple. Even if Zhenzhen gets married, she won't be able to live outside. I can still help her take care of her during the confinement period and look after her baby."
Mingxi looked at Mrs. Li with a frown on her face: "Grandma, you are thinking too far ahead. Zhenzhen still has three years to graduate. It's too early to talk about marriage."
"What do you mean early? Three or four years will pass in the blink of an eye." Old Lady Li picked up her pipe, lit it, took two deep puffs, and thought for a moment: "We need to think about the dowry for Zhenzhen in advance."
The more Mrs. Li thought about it, the more she felt that this matter could not be delayed any longer. She pointed at Mingbei with her pipe and said, "Go to the house and call your mother. We need to discuss this matter carefully."
Mingxi looked at her with a smile on his face: "Grandma, aren't you afraid of scaring my mom?"
"You know nothing." Old Lady Li rolled her eyes at her and said, "I have to explain it to her clearly. When your father cries and pees at night, she will know how to persuade him."
Mingbei went to find Wang Sufen with a bitter face, while Mingxi cleaned the table quickly and took the dishes to the kitchen to wash. After washing the dishes, Mingxi thought that the table in the house still needed to be wiped and the floor needed to be swept, so he took the tools back to the main hall.
In the main hall, Old Lady Li had already told Wang Sufen about Xi Junjie and Zhenzhen's relationship. Wang Sufen was both happy and worried after hearing this: "Zhenzhen finally has a boyfriend. Mom, you don't know how worried I was before. I was wondering what kind of man our girl would like since she is so capable. Fortunately, she is not bad. We don't need to find one for her. She brought one back herself. If I were to find one, I wouldn't be able to find one this good-looking."
Wang Sufen said happily but then became a little worried: "I'm just worried that Zhenzhen's father must be uncomfortable. Although he usually doesn't say anything, he loves Zhenzhen very much. Every Saturday, he nags me early in the morning to buy some of Zhenzhen's favorite dishes, for fear that his daughter will be hungry. He loves Zhenzhen to the core. Look at how dark his face was today when he heard that Zhenzhen and Xi Junjie went out for a run this morning. If you say that Zhenzhen is dating, he will definitely be furious."
"That's right." Old Mrs. Li took a puff of her pipe and was a little worried: "But Zhenzhen has always been a strong-willed person. Besides, this is not a bad thing, so we can't stop her. Otherwise, we can hide it from her father first. Anyway, he is drunk and may not remember what happened at noon."
"What if I remember even a little bit?" Wang Sufen looked at Old Lady Li eagerly.
Old Lady Li put down her pipe and said firmly, "Just say he was dreaming. It's not true. Anyway, the Xi family kid will have to come to our house more often in the future. He will get used to it slowly."
Wang Sufen trusted Old Lady Li unconditionally. She immediately nodded and agreed, "There is absolutely no problem with Mom's idea."
Old Lady Li glanced at Mingbei who was sweeping the floor and called him over: "You should be more careful in school and keep an eye on your sister and the boy from the Xi family. If they are dating, don't let him touch your sister's hand, okay?"
"Got it." Mingbei patted his chest and said, "Don't worry, grandma. I won't let him hold my sister's hand."
That afternoon, Xi Junjie was waiting at the bus stop early. As soon as Mingbei, Wang Xinwen and Zhenzhen came out of the alley, Xi Junjie saw them with his sharp eyes and hurried over to greet them: "Zhenzhen..."
"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Mingbei stretched out his arms to block in front of Zhenzhen: "No holding hands."
Xi Junjie glanced at Mingbei and handed a paper bag to Mingbei: "I made some fried pork ribs this afternoon. Brother Mingbei and sister-in-law can eat them while they are hot in the car later."
Mingbei smelled the fragrance emanating from the paper bag and swallowed his saliva in a very useless way. He looked back at Zhenzhen and asked a little embarrassedly, "Can I have it?"
Zhenzhen looked at me with her mouth drooling, and nodded seriously: "Just take it if I give it to you."
Mingbei immediately turned around, took the paper bag, and showed it to Wang Xinwen: "Wife, smell this, is it edible?"
Zhen Zhen bypassed Ming Bei who was blocking the way and walked up to Xi Junjie. She looked at the lunch boxes in the big bag in his hand and asked curiously, "What are you bringing?"
Xi Junjie pointed to her with a smile: "My mother asked me to fry the remaining five pigeons when I got home this afternoon, so I brought you three. In addition, there were some newly delivered hairy crabs at home, so I stewed four crab meat crab heads for you. At noon, I saw that you like sweet and sour dishes, so I made a sweet and sour pork ribs, and a chestnut and Chinese cabbage heart dish to remove oil and relieve greasiness. The chestnuts were freshly harvested this fall, and they are not only big, but also sweet and soft." Finally, Xi Junjie pointed to the not-so-big thermos bucket at the top: "There is also a dish of conch in soup, which can not only stimulate the appetite and relieve stagnation, but also beautify the skin. It is especially suitable for you."
Zhenzhen was drooling just by listening to this. Looking at the lunch boxes one after another, Zhenzhen was touched and distressed: "You cooked so many dishes at noon, why didn't you take a break in the afternoon?"
"It doesn't take much effort." Xi Junjie looked at Zhenzhen and smiled warmly: "Besides, I like to see you eat the food I cook."
Zhenzhen looked up at him, her face flushed: "Then let's have dinner together tonight."
"Ding ding..." A car horn sounded, and Zhenzhen looked back and saw that it was a bus. The door opened, and Zhenzhen quickly reached out and held Xi Junjie's hand and got on the bus.
Mingbei, who was holding a paper bag of fried pork ribs, was stunned: "Grandma said that Xi Junjie couldn't touch Zhenzhen's hand, but this time it was Zhenzhen who took the initiative to touch someone's hand. What should I do?"
The author has something to say: If you like the lucky star heroine, you can read my latest completed work: "Traveling through the lucky star" by: Credit Card
Thank you to everyone who voted for Overlord, muah!
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