After lunch, Yu Yue took Yu Chi into the house for an afternoon nap, and Chen Zhao went back to the cowshed to rest. Only Yu Zhile and Zhou Yuesheng remained in the courtyard.
“Your arm,” Zhou Yuesheng said, sitting beside the rocking chair.
Yu Zhile extended her arm. Under the glare of the midday sun, her skin was so pale it was almost dazzling. Two thumb-sized blisters had formed on the burn, and a stinging pain radiated from the injury.
It was only then that she truly noticed Zhou Yuesheng sitting on the small bamboo chair. His long legs had nowhere to go, making his entire posture look somewhat cramped.
“Pfft,” Yu Zhile burst out laughing.
Zhou Yuesheng cast a confused glance at her.
“I’ve inconvenienced the little steward’s legs,” Yu Zhile said, leaning against the armrest. She reached out with her other hand and patted the muscles of Zhou Yuesheng’s thigh.
Zhou Yuesheng suddenly retreated with the bamboo chair, causing it to make a harsh scraping sound against the ground.
“What are you hiding for? You belong to me anyway,” Yu Zhile teased with a smile.
Zhou Yuesheng stood up and walked out the door, his silhouette looking very much like he was fleeing in panic. As the rocking chair creaked rhythmically, Yu Zhile’s eyelids grew heavy, and she drifted off.
When Zhou Yuesheng returned to the courtyard from the health clinic, he saw the fine hairs at Yu Zhile’s temples being ruffled by the breeze. Her breathing was slow and deep. He slowed his pace as he returned to her side, turned the inner side of her arm over, and gently treated the blisters.
During the process, Yu Zhile let out a few whimpers, sounding either dissatisfied or like a low cry of pain, which caused him to make his movements even gentler.
Zhou Yuesheng made dinner. He prepared half a bowl of mixed-grain rice for each person, reheated the shepherd’s purse and cod soup from lunch, and tossed together a small cold side dish. It was simple and quick, but the taste was quite good.
The next day, they once again went out for the early morning tide, though the receding tide was much later than the day before. Zhou Yuesheng also made breakfast: mixed-grain porridge and boiled vegetables.
Seeing that his complexion wasn’t great, Yu Zhile asked, “Did building the storage rack yesterday consume too much energy?”
“I didn’t sle—”
A flash of realization hit him. Zhou Yuesheng swallowed the words he hadn’t finished and nodded. Despite his fatigue, he still accompanied Yu Zhile out to the shore.
Yu Zhile pushed open the backyard door, started her livestream, and selected the panoramic view. The viewers in the livestream room never seemed to tire of the early morning ocean, flooding the screen with messages of appreciation.
“Good morning, today—”
After walking a few meters, Yu Zhile’s voice came to an abrupt halt. The usually empty beach was scattered with figures, and the air was filled with clamor.
“Oh, look, it’s nice that Leni doesn’t have to go to work; she can come tide-pooling so late,” someone called out loudly upon seeing her approach.
Others who were bent over searching for seafood looked up, smiled at Yu Zhile, and then lowered their heads again.
Yu Zhile glanced at the woman’s bamboo basket and smiled. “You certainly came early, but I don’t see you’ve picked up anything good.”
The woman wanted to snap back, but seeing the tall and sturdy Zhou Yuesheng beside her, she pursed her lips and walked away.
“Today is a semi-immersive tide-pooling livestream,” Yu Zhile said, not finding the situation to be a problem. Seeing questions in the bullet comments, she had Xiao Yun reply to the audience with text. Everyone found this style of streaming quite novel.
Yu Zhile led Zhou Yuesheng toward a less crowded area. As they walked, she suddenly bent down and flicked a piece of bamboo into the sand. A flower crab flew out, landing on its back and waving its claws.
Zhou Yuesheng was a quick learner. He could identify the bulges in the sand with perfect accuracy, and before long, his basket was half-filled with flower crabs.
Yu Zhile spotted a patch of Gracilaria seaweed in the distance, but as she approached, a child running from the side cut her off. The child shoved her hard, nearly making her fall.
“I saw it first!” the child said triumphantly, his double chin wobbling as he spoke.
Yu Zhile felt his face looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite recall his name or identity. In the blink of an eye, she discovered another string of Gracilaria on a different stretch of sand. The quantity was more than double what the child had picked up, and it directly filled Zhou Yuesheng’s basket.
Yu Zhile gave the chubby kid a smug look and said, “Thank you.”
“You… you’re bullying me! I’m going to tell Caini not to play with you anymore!” The chubby boy ran away huffing and puffing in anger.
Yu Zhile grabbed Zhou Yuesheng’s arm and laughed happily.
Like a child, Zhou Yuesheng silently evaluated.
They walked a bit further toward the coastline, where the tide gently brushed against the fine sand. Both of them spotted some mussels ahead, and Yu Zhile stopped Zhou Yuesheng. She disliked the feeling of water soaking through cloth shoes, so she had dug out Yu Wanqin’s rubber boots today and wasn’t afraid to step into the water.
Mussels liked to cluster together, so they could be picked in whole strings. she removed a few that had already opened and dragged a long string of mussels back to the sand. The task of carrying the mussels naturally fell to Zhou Yuesheng.
As Yu Zhile walked toward the reef area, she suddenly heard familiar music. Looking up into the air, she saw the screen occupied by a “Sea of Clouds” special effect. User “xxxx” had dropped a hundred “Seas of Clouds” for her and left a message: The sea urchins were delicious.
“Thank you, xxxx, for the Seas of Clouds,” Yu Zhile said suddenly.
Zhou Yuesheng subconsciously scanned the surroundings; no one was nearby. Looking back at Yu Zhile, he saw she had stopped walking and was staring into the void, her gaze seemingly focused on something specific. He suppressed the confusion in his heart and returned to his expressionless demeanor before Yu Zhile looked back.
There were quite a few people tide-pooling in the reef area, but most had no harvest, and their expressions were sour. Moving closer, she could hear some people quietly cursing Tang Guihua. Yu Zhile pricked up her ears curiously to listen, but her attention was quickly caught by a passing glimmer of light.
She walked forward a few steps and found a large yellow croaker in the crevice between two rocks. As she leaned down to grab it, she was nearly struck on her wound by the fish’s tail.
Zhou Yuesheng sighed inwardly and caught the yellow croaker with speed and precision. As he stood up, his foot slipped, and he stepped back into a puddle, splashing droplets of water onto his olive-green clothes.
Yu Zhile looked up and laughed, her face blooming like a flower.
“There’s a fish,” Zhou Yuesheng said, placing the yellow croaker into her basket and reaching down to feel around in the puddle. A second later, he pulled a struggling sea bass out of the water with both hands.
“We’re lucky today. Let’s finish up and head home,” Yu Zhile said, tapping the cloud icon to turn off the livestream.
The two had a bountiful harvest. Despite being the last to arrive, they were the first to leave, drawing many stares.
“Leni really does have good fortune,” an older woman whispered, only to have her daughter nervously tug at her hem.
Not far away, Wu Caixia heard this and let out a sneer, shouting loudly, “What fortune? What kind of ‘fortunate’ person has a dead father and a comatose mother, with one brother paralyzed and the other an idiot?”
The matter of the forced marriage exchange had failed miserably, and she had to pay twenty yuan to the Zhang family. Wu Caixia was already fuming with rage, and after following Tang Guihua’s advice to come here today only to find nothing, her anger boiled over.
“Who knows if she’s a jinx? Maybe her eldest brother was even cursed to death by her!”
Seeing that Yu Zhile was ignoring her, Wu Caixia raised her voice even higher. The next moment, Yu Zhile turned around, walked toward her, and slapped her hard across the face. The crisp sound jolted everyone.
“Ahhh! Yu Zhile, you actually dared to hit me!” Wu Caixia shrieked and tried to fight back, only to be dazed when Yu Zhile swung her bamboo basket over her head.
Yu Zhile sneered, “If you don’t keep your mouth clean, I don’t mind shoving your head into the sand and using it to wash your mouth.”
Everyone fell silent, only daring to discuss it in hushed tones after she had walked a distance away.
“Since she jumped into the sea, Leni’s personality has really changed.”
“Could it be that she’s been possessed by—”
Someone left the sentence half-finished, and the atmosphere fell into an eerie silence again. They stood quiet for a long time before scattering to find seafood, though two girls remained staring at Yu Zhile’s back. One was gritting her teeth with a distorted expression; the other’s eyes lit up with a look of admiration.
In the Yu family courtyard, a book was spread across Yu Yue’s knees. His fingertip rested on the corner of a page, but his eyes were fixed on the backyard door. Yu Chi and Crawly each sat on a bamboo chair, maintaining the same waiting posture.
“Save the sea bass for steaming tonight,” Yu Zhile’s voice carried through the wall.
Yu Chi and Crawly scurried toward the backyard while Yu Yue shifted his gaze back to his book.
“Has Little Treasure been good at home?” Yu Zhile asked softly, ruffling Yu Chi’s hair. Yu Chi nodded and held up Crawly for her to pet; Crawly let out a comfortable purr.
The seafood was sorted into wooden basins to soak, and a bamboo sieve weighted with a stone was placed over the basin containing the flower crabs. The storage rack had been drying in a ventilated area all night, and the unpleasant smell of the wood lacquer had vanished. Zhou Yuesheng moved the rack into the kitchen and followed Yu Zhile’s instructions to organize her small jars of pickles and the various sauces she had bought at the market.
Yang Suyun had gone back to her parents’ home in Xishan Village yesterday and brought back a basket of green plums and plums, sharing many with Yu Zhile. Green plums and March plums were sour and astringent, making them unsuitable to eat raw. The people of Xishan Village used them to brew wine, and the village had become a famous wealthy village in Hai County because of its plum wine.
Yu Zhile divided the fruit into two parts: one for making wine and the other for sugar-pickling. The process for making wine was simple: pour the washed and air-dried green plums and plums into jars, add rock sugar in the correct ratio, then pour in high-proof liquor bought from the market to submerge the fruit, and seal the jars. The pickling method for the March plums was also easy: blanch them in boiling water, place them in a small jar, add salt and sugar, pour in cooled boiled water to submerge them, and seal the lid. They would be ready to eat after a few days in a cool place.
“Use the wooden slats to press them down, but don’t use too much force,” Yu Zhile instructed Zhou Yuesheng as he handled the green plums.
With a rhythmic rise and fall of Zhou Yuesheng’s arms, tiny cracks appeared on the surface of the plums. The cracked plums were coated in coarse salt and left to sit; after eight hours, the salt water would be washed away before the next step.
Once the fruit was processed, it was time to cook lunch.
“For lunch today, we’re having yellow croaker noodles, spicy flower crabs, dry-boiled mussels, and cold Gracilaria salad.”
Yu Zhile started her livestream as usual and announced the menu.
[I’m already salivating just hearing the names. My daily question: when will the Cloud Stream add a shop feature?]
[The host is so lucky. I saw that others didn’t pick up much today. I’m here to soak up some of that luck.]
[Soaking up luck +1, and also soaking up those cooking skills.]
They had received two pounds of white flour during the family separation, and Yu Zhile had Zhou Yuesheng turn it all into hand-pulled noodles. The aroma of wheat wasn’t as aggressive as the spicy crab, but it was enough to captivate many people. Three eggs were cracked into the flour, and warm salt water was added gradually while stirring until the mixture became crumbly. Zhou Yuesheng’s arm muscles flexed as he kneaded the dough into a firm, rough ball, which was then left to rest.
In the courtyard, Yu Zhile scrubbed the flower crabs clean, removed the gills and stomachs, and cut them in half. Then, she evenly coated the cut surfaces with starch, heated some oil, and fried the crab pieces until the shells turned crispy before scooping them out. A few minutes later, once the clay pot had cooled enough to handle, she held the handles and poured out the excess oil.
She started the fire again to heat some oil and tossed in the prepared aromatics to fry until fragrant. When the chili paste hit the pot, a pungent, spicy scent quickly spread through the small courtyard. Coughs and sneezes broke out one after another; Yu Zhile, unaffected, curled her lips into a smile.
“Sister, what are you making?” Chen Zhao was caught off guard as he stepped into the courtyard, looking particularly disheveled.
Yu Zhile poured the fried crab pieces into the pot and replied, “Spicy crabs.”
Within seconds, the spicy and fresh aroma exploded, making Chen Zhao and the viewers in the livestream room salivate uncontrollably. Chen Zhao stared at Yu Zhile’s stir-frying movements and gulped.
“What are you carrying?” Yu Zhile asked.
“My rations and food expenses. I can’t eat your food for free,” Chen Zhao said, quickly placing a cloth bag on the storage rack. Then, remembering Jiang Shangqing’s words, his expression became hesitant.
The spicy crabs were ready, looking perfect in color, aroma, and taste. Yu Zhile turned to get the mussels, which had been soaking in salt water to remove sand. Seeing his expression, she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Jiang Shangqing asked me to remind you that there’s something wrong with Zhang Caihong. He said you should be careful,” Chen Zhao said, carefully watching her reaction. The villagers didn’t like Jiang Shangqing, and since there was no evidence for what he said, Chen Zhao was afraid Yu Zhile would have a bad impression of him.
At the mention of Zhang Caihong’s name, a sharp, violent pain shot through Yu Zhile’s brain. Her vision went black, her limbs went weak, and she collapsed backward.