As soon as Li Xiangru returned home from work and washed her hands to prepare dinner, she heard movement at the door.
Stepping out of the kitchen, she saw her son had thrown his muddy shoes aside without tidying them up. Just as she was about to scold him, she noticed a girl carrying a basket standing behind him.
“Oh, Hui Hui is here!” Li Xiangru greeted her with a beaming smile, warmly inviting her inside.
“Auntie Li, sorry to disturb you.”
“Not at all, not at all! Come in and sit down. You must be thirsty after working outside all morning. Let me get you some sweet water.”
Leng Hui entered the house carrying the basket.
Li Xiangru noticed the Shu Qu Grass inside. “Oh, this Qingming Vegetable looks so tender.”
“Mom, Leng Hui and I spent the whole morning gathering these. It was hard work! You should take them to the kitchen and prepare them right away. I want Jiao Ba for lunch, with preserved meat filling and egg filling.”
Catching the meaningful look from her son, Li Xiangru immediately stood up. “Alright, I’ll show off my skills at lunchtime. Hui Hui, you must stay and eat with us!”
After Li Xiangru took the basket to the kitchen, Leng Hui took a sip of the sweet water and stared intently at Jiang Jingtao.
Jiang Jingtao grew uneasy under her gaze, shrinking back guiltily. “Why are you staring at me like that? Did you just realize how handsome I am today?”
She had never met anyone so narcissistic.
Leng Hui averted her eyes and stated, “You lied to me today.”
“I lied to you?” Jiang Jingtao scratched his head. “What did I lie about?”
Glancing toward the kitchen, Leng Hui said with certainty, “You didn’t arrange this with your mother in advance, and she didn’t actually invite me to eat here today.”
Jiang Jingtao clicked his tongue. Smart women were troublesome—hard to deceive and difficult to fool.
“Everything I said this morning was true. If you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can do.”
Leng Hui didn’t argue further. Whether she believed him or not was her own business—after all, she was genuinely craving the preserved meat filling Jiao Ba he had described.
For a moment, they sat in silence. Not wanting to remain awkwardly seated, Jiang Jingtao stood up and turned on the radio.
Sure enough, Leng Hui was quickly captivated by the radio. It was her first time seeing such an ancient transistor radio; she had only read brief mentions of it in books before.
“Do you like listening to the radio?” Jiang Jingtao began showing off again. “This transistor radio was brought back from Shanghai by someone my dad asked.”
“Do you know that radios are divided into transistor radios and vacuum tube radios? The former is smaller, lighter, more energy-efficient, and most importantly, more durable. Between the two, transistor radios are more popular.”
After examining it briefly, Leng Hui placed the radio back on the table and pointed out bluntly, “But you didn’t mention that vacuum tube radios have warmer and more distinctive sound quality.”
“…” Jiang Jingtao gritted his teeth secretly.
Indeed, showing off invites trouble.
Smart women were not cute at all.
He had wanted to impress her with his knowledge and appear sophisticated, but the outcome was… disappointing.
Sitting in the yard sorting Qingming Vegetable, Li Xiangru was burning with curiosity about how her son usually interacted with girls.
As she worked, she kept an ear tuned to the movements inside the house. Hearing her son being bested by the girl, the corners of her mouth couldn’t help but curl upward.
When Jiang Yulin returned home from work and entered the yard, he saw his wife grinning from ear to ear. After parking his bicycle, he walked over and crouched beside her, asking, “What are you laughing at?”
Li Xiangru gathered the Qingming Vegetables she had sorted—enough for her noon use—and shot her husband a sidelong glance. “Nothing. Go wash your hands and help me mince the meat in the kitchen.”
“Mince the meat?” Jiang Yulin was taken aback for a moment before rolling up his sleeves and asking, “What delicious dish are you preparing for lunch?”
“You’ll find out when it’s done.”
At the Jiang family’s home, Leng Hui not only got to taste the Qingming Jiao Ba she had never eaten before but also learned how to wrap them.
Although the Jiao Ba she made weren’t particularly attractive in shape, at least they didn’t split open after being cooked.
Before leaving, Li Xiangru packed a portion in a lunchbox for her mother, asking her to take it to the hospital for Tang Lin to try.
“Aunt Li is such a good person.”
In the hospital ward, Leng Hui couldn’t help but sigh as she watched Tang Lin eat with great relish.
Hadn’t she noticed the family members at the neighboring bed swallowing their saliva?
This showed that meat-filled Qingming Jiao Ba were a rare delicacy even in this era.
Tang Lin couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Have you been won over by just a little food?”
Leng Hui chuckled. In any case, Li Xiangru was the first person in this world willing to share such precious food with her.
Leng Hui had a favorable impression of her.
After Tang Lin finished two Jiao Ba and rinsed her mouth, Leng Hui glanced at the man sitting by the neighboring bed and asked Tang Lin, “Why is there a different person today? Has Da Niang gone back?”
At that moment, the man at the neighboring bed turned his head, and Tang Lin gave him a faint smile before replying, “Da Niang said she had too many things to attend to at home and needed to go back to take care of them. She left her son here to handle things at the hospital. This is Da Niang’s eldest son.”
Leng Hui nodded at the man. The patient’s husband was the most suitable person to care for her.
Da Niang’s eldest son was a man of few words, and Leng Hui didn’t like chatting too much with unfamiliar people. Besides, Tang Lin was a patient.
The ward no longer had the cheerful atmosphere of the previous day, and it grew quiet for a while.
Such an environment was quite suitable for a patient’s recovery.
In the evening, Leng Hui went to the cafeteria to get a bowl of nutritious porridge. The mother and daughter paired it with the Qingming Jiao Ba, and the meal left them completely satisfied.
Since there was now a male family member in the ward, after dinner, while he went to the cafeteria to eat, Leng Hui took the opportunity to help Tang Lin wipe herself down.
She then went to the bathroom to take a quick shower herself. By the time she returned to the ward, it was only a little past eight.
There were no entertainment activities in the hospital, and those accompanying patients had to follow the hospital’s schedule.
The man at the neighboring bed only left the ward with his washbasin after everyone had lain down to rest in their clothes, presumably to freshen up.
Leng Hui, half-asleep, heard someone enter the ward. Her consciousness sharpened slightly, and soon after, she heard the couple at the neighboring bed whispering about something.
Her vigilance, honed from surviving the apocalypse, made her instinctively pay more attention, and she grew even more alert.
The dim yellow light illuminated the entire ward, allowing her to see people clearly, though it wasn’t very bright.
Leng Hui opened her eyes and looked toward the neighboring bed. What met her eyes was the man’s bare upper body and a bluish handprint on his shoulder.
It was a clear five-fingered handprint, as if a palm had been pressed firmly against it.
Leng Hui sat up. The couple at the neighboring bed heard the movement and turned to look at her.
Leng Hui happened to meet their terrified gazes.
“What’s going on here?” Leng Hui was curious. How much force would it take to leave such a clearly defined bruise from a single slap?
As soon as Leng Hui spoke, the couple seemed to have found an outlet for their fear.
The woman lying on the bed spoke first, “My husband just went out to wash up. Since the bathroom on our floor was occupied, he went to the one at the far end of the first floor. Something slapped him there, and he ended up like this.”
“Huh?”
Leng Hui didn’t understand immediately. The bruise on Da Niang’s son’s shoulder was clearly made by a human hand—how could it have been caused by “something”?