Tang Residence, 11:30 AM.
“Xiaotian, since you’re joining us for lunch today and I didn’t buy much groceries, we just have some simple home-cooked dishes prepared by Rongrong,” Li Fengzhen said to Chu Tianshu with a smile at the dining table.
Chu Tianshu chuckled, “Oh, I was just expecting a simple meal, but my wife actually made six dishes. She’s so efficient!”
Five dishes and one soup, plus specially prepared Children’s Nutritional Meals for the two little ones.
Jiang Furong’s efficiency was simply superhuman!
Though there were many dishes, each portion was small to avoid leftovers.
Jiang Furong said, “It’s not that much. Let’s finish everything, don’t leave any leftovers.”
Chu Tianshu glanced at the table and noticed that the dishes he disliked were all placed right in front of him.
The edible ones like scrambled eggs with tomatoes and eggplant with minced pork were placed far away.
Intentional. This woman was definitely doing it on purpose.
Perhaps as revenge, or maybe a test.
Yet Chu Tianshu remained unperturbed, even smiling as he picked up a piece of bitter gourd with his chopsticks and ate it without changing his expression.
“Wow!” His son made a funny face at him, his little mouth forming an ‘O’ shape in utter surprise.
Lingling said to her sister, “Baba actually ate bitter gourd!”
“Wow~” Xiuxiu also scrunched up her little face as if she had tasted the bitterness herself.
The two children stared at Chu Tianshu with shock and admiration, their faces clearly asking, “How dare you eat that?”
The siblings shifted their little chairs further away from the plate of bitter gourd.
Li Fengzhen watched them and laughed.
Children were so amusing.
Xiuxiu asked, “Baba, isn’t it bitter?”
Chu Tianshu smiled and replied, “This little bitterness is nothing. There are many harder things in life that we have to endure.”
The two little ones looked at him blankly, shook their heads, and didn’t understand.
The two children obediently picked up their spoons to eat.
Jiang Furong ate slowly, her gaze almost entirely fixed on Chu Tianshu.
She had intentionally made dishes he didn’t like.
It wasn’t really a test, just a spontaneous little prank.
She also wanted to see how he would react.
Unexpectedly, he didn’t give her a cold shoulder or lose his temper. He could be said to have eaten the disliked food willingly without changing his expression.
His eyes were dark and bright, deeper than before. Combined with his earlier heartfelt remark, she suddenly…
Felt a sharp pain in her heart.
What had happened? Why did he sound so weathered yet calm?
Jiang Furong realized that recently had indeed been another low point in his life. The last time was when his father passed away.
Chu Tianshu ate naturally, occasionally chatting with Li Fengzhen and playing with the children.
He quickly finished one bowl of rice and served himself another.
Without looking up, Jiang Furong said softly, “Eat more eggs and less bitter gourd. Too much bitter gourd can cause stomach cold…”
Chu Tianshu suddenly felt much more cheerful and laughed, “A health expert, are you?”
“That’s right, Rongrong knows a lot. She’s always reminding us about this and that,” Li Fengzhen also laughed. “The tomatoes today are really good, so fragrant, just like the ones we used to have. How did you pick them so well?”
Chu Tianshu said, “If you like them, we can have them every day from now on.”
Jiang Furong said, “Alright, we can’t even finish these. We only used three for lunch, and there are still ten left!”
Li Fengzhen raised her aged eyes to look at them both, smiling without saying a word.
The meal ended slowly, and Chu Tianshu felt quite full.
He slumped on the sofa, “I’ll rest for a while to digest first. I’ll do the dishes.”
Since he said so, Jiang Furong didn’t move and focused on taking care of the children instead.
Li Fengzhen smiled but didn’t intervene either.
After ten minutes, Chu Tianshu went to wash the bowls.
Watching his diligent figure, Jiang Furong wondered: Had he really changed for the better?
After his business failure, he seemed to have matured, becoming much more steady and reliable than before.
He’d also developed an… indescribable quality about him.
If a man wants to achieve something, he needs to have this kind of magnanimity.
Thinking this, she decided the testing must continue.
He was really too impulsive and rash.
The current changes didn’t prove much – she needed to observe long-term.
“Aunt Zhen, you should rest. I need to go check how my mom’s business is doing.”
Chu Tianshu really had just come for a meal.
Li Fengzhen: “Alright, tell your mom to come visit when she has time.”
Chu Tianshu kissed the two babies, winked at Jiang Furong, and left.
…
Chu Tianshu: “Mom, where are you?”
Xu Xiuxia: “At the shop.”
Chu Tianshu went straight to the fruit shop, where Xu Xiuxia was eating takeout rice with toppings.
Seeing him, Xu Xiuxia immediately exclaimed: “Everything’s sold out! After eating I still need to cut more.”
“That’s enough, don’t exhaust yourself,” Chu Tianshu hadn’t expected such good sales either. “Did you take your medicine?”
Xu Xiuxia was a breast cancer patient who hadn’t undergone surgery but had received chemotherapy, so she still needed medication to stabilize her condition.
Xu Xiuxia rolled her eyes: “Do I need you to remind me?”
“You rest first, I’ll do the cutting.” Chu Tianshu methodically continued slicing watermelons.
In high spirits, Xu Xiuxia calculated with him: setting up a stall outside the school, once at noon break, once after lunch, and once after school in the afternoon.
Three times a day, earning over 500 each time – that’s 1600 a day!
Plus the fruit shop still had some income.
Ah, how wonderful~
Chu Tianshu couldn’t help laughing: “This is your first time, so business is better. If you go every day, it definitely won’t be like this. Where would elementary students get so much pocket money? Each person can only buy once a day at most. If we can stabilize daily income around eight hundred, that would be quite good already.”
Xu Xiuxia said: “Those kids are really clever. When one person doesn’t have enough money, two or three pool their money together! If they want to eat, they’ll find a way.”
Then she added: “How many poor families are there among those who can attend Experimental Elementary School?”
But upon reflection, she realized her son did have a point.
Still, this was much better than before!
Chu Tianshu, meanwhile, was thinking that during this initial capital accumulation phase, he should work harder to earn more money!
After cutting three watermelons, yielding another 100-plus cups, he said: “Mom, I need to get busy.”
“Go ahead, go ahead.” Xu Xiuxia didn’t stop him or ask too many questions.
Her son had grown up and had his own ventures – he couldn’t possibly tell his family everything, and they might not even understand it all.
Chu Tianshu immediately returned to the Old House.
He was determined to work diligently, earn money first, and buy equipment so he wouldn’t have to do manual labor anymore.
This was called enduring bitterness before enjoying sweetness.
Mainly because time in the Space kept passing, with one hour roughly equivalent to five days outside.
Just in the few hours this morning, many watermelons and tomatoes in the field had ripened again, all waiting to be harvested.
Entering the Space, Chu Tianshu was surprised to discover that some tomatoes and watermelons had detached from their vines on their own!
“When the melon is ripe, it falls from the vine – this is actually true?”
He checked and found these naturally fallen ripe fruits remained fresh and plump, without any deterioration, exactly like those he had picked in the morning.
“When they reach a certain level of maturity, they’ll fall off on their own. In the Space, mature fruits won’t continue growing, and their shelf life is greatly extended?”
Chu Tianshu speculated, his eyes gleaming.
This Space was truly miraculous!
The problem was…
Even at its current small scale, the harvest amounted to several hundred jin every hour.
With so much, who could he sell it all to???