Li Cuihong’s old face flushed. Wasn’t this clearly mocking her for coming over to make trouble without even eating? Ever since she had been surrounded and discussed by a large crowd last time, she had become sensitive, automatically interpreting anything others said as satire and sarcasm.
She twitched the corners of her mouth and smiled reluctantly. “My nephew lacks discipline, never stays home, and only knows how to run outside. He spends money lavishly too, so the money given by his grandparents is probably almost squandered. As his aunt, I can only discipline him a bit.” With that, she hypocritically sighed, “They say loyal advice hurts the ear. Had I known he was so ungrateful, I wouldn’t have played the villain.”
Liu Yu stood to the side, watching her put on this hypocritical act, and found it quite amusing. It would have been perfect if her pair of eyes hadn’t kept frequently glancing at the grain on his cart.
However, the reason Li Cuihong became a laughingstock wasn’t just because of her overbearing and aggressive personality, but ultimately because she wasn’t smart yet loved treating others like fools. She thought the villagers were all blind and foolish, unable to see through her little schemes.
He didn’t want to exchange empty pleasantries with such a person at the village entrance, so he smiled and said, “Uncles and aunts, let’s chat another day. I need to go back and make lunch.” With that, he continued to treat Li Cuihong like air, walking straight past her and leaving her standing in place with veins bulging on her forehead out of anger.
When dealing with such people, ignoring them was the most powerful weapon. Giving her too much attention would only feed her arrogance.
Having bought quite a bit of flour this time, Liu Yu planned to make more noodles for lunch. He couldn’t mistreat his stomach just for the sake of making money.
The eggplants sent by the village chief’s family hadn’t been eaten yet, so he steamed them together this time to mix with the noodles.
He was generous with his ingredients in daily cooking, and combined with his superb culinary skills, the flavor of his noodles could be considered peerless. In the end, he buried his head and ate two large bowls of noodles before finally stopping, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his belly in a daze.
Ever since coming here, he had spent almost every day in a rush. Now that he finally had a helper, he just needed to endure one more day, and life would presumably become much easier afterward.
Zhou Yu ultimately arrived amidst Liu Yu’s eager anticipation. At that moment, Liu Yu was running around in a dizzying blur; his breakfast stall was simply too explosive in popularity, with some people willing to queue for half an hour just for a single bite.
The moment crowds gathered, various conflicts arose: who was first in line, who cut the queue, or who got friends waiting further up to buy on their behalf. Poor Liu Yu had his hands full dealing with everything while still having to periodically lift his head to maintain order.
Zhou Yu’s arrival made him feel as though he had seen a heavenly general descending to save the day, radiating a golden sacred light all around.
“Brother, you’re finally here! Come save me!” Liu Yu stammered incoherently.
Seeing this, Zhou Yu didn’t drag his feet. He stepped right up beside him and took over the packaging process.
Liu Yu instantly felt much more relaxed. His mood improved significantly, and he even had the energy to chat with customers for a couple of sentences in between.
This was his first time experiencing the benefits of hiring someone to work. Now his mind was completely set on hiring someone to help with the fried spring rolls too once he had money later on. That way, he could lie in bed at home and sleep in while still pulling in a steady stream of income. That truly would be waking up laughing even while lying in bed.
With Zhou Yu’s assistance, the spring rolls sold out more than ten minutes earlier than usual today.
“Brother, let’s go! I’ll take you to my house so you can learn the way.” Liu Yu packed up his things and prepared to lead the way back.
Zhou Yu agreed with a nod, consciously pulling the handcart and following closely behind him.
Initially, Liu Yu felt a bit embarrassed, always feeling that he was empty-handed while making someone else pull a cart full of goods—an arrangement that bore a striking resemblance to a black-hearted boss exploiting an employee.
He made a gesture to push from behind, only to find that he couldn’t keep up with the speed at which the other person pulled the cart. After stumbling a few times, he gave up in resignation.
Exploitation or not, he was paying wages after all! At worst, he would just raise the salary generously once he had money.
“Brother, see that house ahead? The one with two rooms? That’s my home!” Liu Yu pointed into the distance at his own house.
Zhou Yu nodded, secretly accelerating his pace.
The scenery along the way had completely shattered his imagination. Having grown up in City J, where merchants and political dignitaries clustered across every bustling intersection, and with the Zhou family located in the most prosperous district, even studying abroad after adulthood meant all his food, housing, and transport were arranged in the best possible manner.
He had assumed the countryside would at least match the town with rows of grey-brick and white-tile houses, never expecting mud huts to actually exist. It seemed he had stayed in his comfort zone for too long, acting like a frog at the bottom of a well, completely oblivious to living conditions outside his circle.
Liu Yu unlocked the door and welcomed Zhou Yu inside.
Pouring him a cup of cold boiled water, Liu Yu said, “How is it? I live here all by myself. The courtyard in front belongs to our village chief. Later you can come with me to say hello so it’ll be convenient when entering the village in the future, and you won’t be suspected as a petty thief.”
Zhou Yu acknowledged this, then asked with a puzzled look, “Just you alone? Where is your family?”
Liu Yu explained casually, “My parents have both passed away, and the old house didn’t have enough room, so I moved out on my own.”
Seeing the look of apology and seeing him open his mouth as if to apologize, Liu Yu quickly cut him off. “It’s fine, it’s been several years already, and I’m living quite well on my own now.”
He truly didn’t care about these things. After all, he hadn’t had genuine emotional contact with the original owner’s relatives, and ever since he learned the original owner was living well in his own world, that tiny lingering trace of guilt had completely vanished.
He now considered himself completely unattached and didn’t think family affection was any kind of necessity. Family affection that required careful management on one’s own part was dispensable anyway. The original owner had craved family affection, only to receive complete indifference until his dying breath.
Zhou Yu, however, didn’t see it that way. He had grown up surrounded by parental love, and even though his parents had left him due to a suspicious car accident when he was thirteen, the care and protection he had experienced were things that genuinely existed.
He unconsciously softened his tone.
“If there are any chores you can’t handle in the future, just tell me.”
No family that genuinely cared for and protected a child would let a ten-odd-year-old child fend for themselves out in the world alone. Even someone as devoid of familial sentiment as his own grandfather had never harbored thoughts of withholding living expenses after his parents passed away.
He could well imagine just how badly the child before him had been bullied by relatives after losing his parents and finding himself utterly helpless.
Perhaps because they both shared the loss of their parents, Zhou Yu felt a surge of pity and protective affection for someone for the very first time.
He lowered his gaze in contemplation for a moment and decided to lay his cards on the table for the kid: “My surname isn’t He; my name is Zhou Yu. I wasn’t a beggar before either, I just came here by a twist of fate. As for the reason, I will definitely confess it to you later, but you can rest assured that I harbor absolutely no malicious intentions toward you.”
Liu Yu nodded obediently. “Then I’ll call you Big Brother Zhou from now on. By the way, my full name is Liu Heqing, and my childhood nickname is Liu Yu. You can just call me Xiao Yu from now on.”
He didn’t want to delve too deeply into Zhou Yu’s background; everyone had their own unspeakable little secrets as long as he could be certain the other person was upright in character.
Yet he was very glad the other person was willing to proactively confess something to him, which invisibly shortened the distance between them. Since that was the case, he was also willing to sincerely treat the other person as an elder brother.
In high spirits, Liu Yu grabbed the other’s arm and dragged him toward a seat. “Big Brother Zhou, since it’s your first time at my house, stay for dinner tonight! Try my cooking and see how it is!”
With that, as if anticipating what the other was about to say, he frowned and feigned a fierce expression. “No refusing!”
Zhou Yu found his little expression quite amusing, so instead of pushing back, he flicked the tip of his nose playfully like teasing a child and said softly, “Fine, Chef Liu’s hospitality is hard to turn down. Today, I’ll sample this renowned culinary skill that has stirred up Qinghe Town.”
Liu Yu’s facade instantly crumbled from that single flick, and hearing himself teased like that, he felt thoroughly unconvinced, puffing out his cheeks as he protested, “Big Brother Zhou can just sit and wait. Tonight I’ll make sure you experience what real gourmet food is like, guaranteed you’ve never tasted it before.”
Pronouncing these words made him sound exceptionally bold and confident, but inwardly, he wasn’t entirely certain either. Having arrived in these parts for some time now, he hadn’t ventured outside Qinghe Town. Although his cooking currently felt like a dimensional reduction strike across the entire town, he had no idea if there were mountains beyond mountains and experts beyond experts out in the wider world.
Hearing Big Brother Zhou’s earlier confession, he could roughly guess the gist of it: coming from a wealthy background and forced into destitution here due to certain circumstances. Such cliché tropes frequently appeared in the cheesy wealthy-family web novels he had read in his past life.
He wondered if this young master from the big city had ever eaten anything better than his own cooking. Thinking along these lines, Liu Yu couldn’t help feeling rather apprehensive.
Noticing the other person wasn’t properly mixing the dough but instead sneaking glances at him several times, Zhou Yu let out a helpless chuckle and said, “Is Chef Liu planning not to put in his best effort to treat his guest properly?”
Reminded by the remark, Liu Yu snapped back to his senses and flushed crimson.
Never mind whether the other had tasted better things or not, whatever Liu Yu made with his own hands would be the absolute most delicious food in the world!
What he planned to make tonight was amaranth paste soup. This dish used to be his staple food often in the past; the preparation was simple, and the flavor was exceptionally savory. However, due to its polarizing flavor profile, this dish always sparked intense debate, one of his colleagues had once declared an utter dislike for amaranth.
Liu Yu didn’t have that many dietary restrictions; aside from disliking fatty meat, he could eat anything as long as it was cooked well. He had been craving this amaranth paste soup for a long time and only now had the energy to make it.
He washed the amaranth thoroughly, cut it into sections, and dropped the shaped dough lumps one by one into a boiling pot of water where the base ingredients had already been stir-fried. When the time was right, he tossed the amaranth into the pot to cook together.
The aroma slowly drifted out of the kitchen, causing Zhou Yu to twitch his nose slightly. Having eaten too much of the bland, tasteless dishes prepared by foreigners, now catching a whiff of this hometown flavor, Zhou Yu couldn’t help generating saliva uncontrollably.
He hadn’t expected the kid not only to excel at making breakfast, but also to possess exceptionally high culinary attainments. Based on this aroma alone, his skill surpassed any master chef he had ever tasted back in China.
Liu Yu had no idea what the other person was thinking in the other room. He was currently dropping two poached eggs into the pot, thinking to himself that he would nest one in each person’s bowl later.
With nothing particularly fancy in the house right now to treat a guest, he could only use eggs to demonstrate his hospitality.