Taotao was hunched over Rao Lili’s desk, scribbling away furiously, and she could still hear Grandpa Zhang’s loud voice booming through the alley as he bragged about the tarts everywhere:
“Isn’t the crust so flaky? Isn’t the butter flavor rich? I could tell the moment I bit into it! Let me tell you—I’m not usually stingy. When I buy something, it’s got to be worth the money. If it’s pricey, there’s got to be a reason. Look at this tart—three yuan each, and didn’t I still buy them? Hah! You guys just don’t get it!”
Taotao listened while writing, barely holding back her laughter.
When she was little, she had also hated Grandpa Zhang, finding him gossipy and meddlesome. But now, having grown up, gone to college, worked jobs, run a shop, and witnessed all sorts of human eccentricities, she realized that a chatty old man like Grandpa Zhang who loved to brag was actually quite endearing.
Someone like Grandpa Zhang—even if just to prove he hadn’t wasted his money—would promote the tarts with gusto. With him spreading the word, more people would definitely come by this afternoon!
Taotao had made up her mind: she was going to make the Portuguese egg tarts a smash hit!
She bent back over her notebook and kept writing. Her little hand couldn’t move fast, but she wrote with more and more enthusiasm, each stroke painstakingly careful.
The fan whirred overhead, and every time it swung around, it would flip her worksheet pages over. Taotao had to keep pressing them down with her arm.
“Grape, you’re so focused today—I’m not used to it!”
Rao Lili, who had dragged Zhang Jiaming off to watch TV, suddenly came over with a burp and plopped her round head onto Taotao’s shoulder. She was wearing light blue denim overall shorts today with a Mickey Mouse embroidered on the chest, her baby-fat round face making her look absolutely adorable.
Taotao turned her head and was instantly smitten by her childhood best friend’s cuteness. She couldn’t resist reaching out to pinch her soft cheeks. Who would believe it—this chubby, food-loving little girl would grow up to become an actress!
Rao Lili let Taotao squish her face however she wanted, gazing at her with admiration. “Grape, your handwriting is so neat today! My mom will definitely say you’ve improved. Okay, stop writing now—come eat with us! Here, I already poked the straw into your AD Calcium Milk.”
Taotao’s face flushed red from the praise.
She never expected that after her rebirth, she’d actually find a sense of accomplishment in studying… well, even if it was just first-grade homework.
She wasn’t worried about Teacher Luo or Tao Guangzhi noticing any change in her handwriting, because… heh heh… even as an adult, Taotao’s writing was still that childish, round, clumsy elementary-school scrawl.
When Lili said “neat,” it just meant going from missing strokes, smudged together, uneven sizes, radicals floating away from their components… to barely legible!
Still, Taotao felt incredibly encouraged.
She planned to finish all the extra phonics and character writing homework the school had assigned today. For the summer workbook, doing a little each day would be enough—there were still over twenty days until school started, plenty of time.
Someone like Zhang Jiaming, who’d already finished everything, was a rare exception.
Before Taotao had arrived, he’d already completed his remaining handwritten poster. He’d even brought along an extra math workbook his mom had bought him, full of application problems that hadn’t been taught in first grade yet—probably meant to get a head start on second-grade material.
Rao Lili barely managed to copy a few more pages of homework before getting tired. She ran downstairs again, grabbed a few bottles of AD Calcium Milk, a handful of football-shaped chocolates, and some fruit hard candies, dumped them on the floor, then thumped back out in her slippers.
She went to the next bedroom and snuck back with her dad’s radio.
She also secretly let Baiqieji in.
She expertly tuned the radio to China National Radio’s Little Trumpet program. In this era, children’s radio shows were plentiful—every morning there were reruns of Animal Kingdom, Fairy Tale World, Scarecrow, Story Castle, and other kids’ programs. For children, just listening was incredibly entertaining.
“Dee-dah-dee, dee-dah-dee… Dear little listeners, the Little Trumpet program is now on the air!”
Rao Lili turned up the volume, flopped backward, and lay flat on the floor. Baiqieji came over and licked her ear. She giggled and playfully swatted his furry head away. The dog whined, then settled down beside her head, resting his chin on her hair and squinting his eyes.
Zhang Jiaming lay down comfortably too.
A warm, resonant old man’s voice crackled through the radio.
“…Today, Grandpa Sun Jingxiu is going to tell you the story of Little Squirrel Gathering Pinecones. When the autumn wind blows, pinecones come raining down from the pine forest. Little Squirrel Huihui, carrying a little cloth bag, goes to collect pinecones every single day… That’s right, that’s right—thank you to little friend Li Mei from Shanghai for sending in your drawing. We’ve already hung your picture of your big tabby cat on the wall of the broadcast building! Dear young listeners, we welcome your letters—remember to send them to the Little Trumpet program team at the Beijing Broadcast Building!”
Rao Lili said enviously, “Ah, when will Grandpa Sun read my letter and show my drawing? My mom mailed two for me—how come mine never get on?”
Zhang Jiaming sipped his AD Calcium Milk beside her and grinned obnoxiously. “Just give up—with your drawings, nobody can even tell what they’re supposed to be. They’re really hard to look at. Better not waste the stamps!”
“Zhang Jiaming, you’re asking for it!”
“Aaaah! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, boss—”
The two of them started chasing each other around the room.
Taotao shook her head and continued writing her homework. After a while, she suddenly noticed the quiet.
She looked back and stared for a long time without quite knowing why.
Summer. Electric fan. Cicada chirps. The crackle of static from the radio.
Two little kids, having fought and made up just as easily, were now cuddled up with a scruffy little dog, lying lazily side by side on the cool stone-tile floor, feet kicked up, listening to stories, chatting, and eating and drinking to their hearts’ content.
Then, before they knew it, they’d dozed off.
·
Maybe it was because they were having too much fun—Taotao had brought over eight egg tarts, and the two of them plus Baiqieji, taking bite after bite, had polished off six without even noticing.
If Rao Lili hadn’t had a sudden attack of conscience and slapped Zhang Jiaming’s hand away to stop him from eating more, by the time Taotao finished writing and came over, there would have been nothing left.
But Taotao had brought them to share anyway.
She thought to herself with some emotion—with an adult’s soul inside her, she wasn’t even that tempted by snacks anymore.
How strange—why did people stop loving snacks so much when they grew up?
“So good! Grape, where did you buy these egg tarts? I’m definitely going to ask my mom to get me some!” Zhang Jiaming still had no idea his mother had already tried them. Earlier, when his grandpa had been loudly showing off downstairs, he and Lili had snuck off to watch TV. Now he was reluctantly stuffing the last bite of tart into his mouth.
Bits of flaky crust stuck to his lips, and he stuck out his tongue to lick them off, then sucked his fingers clean with a loud smack.
Rao Lili, hugging the dog and sipping her calcium milk—almost finished now, with the straw making a slurping sound at the bottom of the bottle—looked at Zhang Jiaming and scooted away in disgust.
He was so messy!
Taotao turned around and explained, “We didn’t buy them—my dad and I made them. A few days ago, there was a show about Macau on TV, and my dad and I saw it and tried making them together. I can’t believe they actually turned out!” She tried her best to mimic her younger self’s smug tone, even adding, “Dad even taught me how to make the tart shells—you know, the flaky puff pastry kind. I’ve already learned how.”
She’d be making a lot more breads and desserts in the future, so this was a good way to lay the groundwork.
Zhang Jiaming and Rao Lili both let out a “Wooow!”
Baiqieji gave a “Woof!” too.
Neither of them suspected a thing. Because Grape had always been amazing—she already knew how to knead dough back in kindergarten! When the teacher asked a question, she was the only one in the class who could explain what yeast was and what it did. She could even shape dough into little bunnies, mice, and cats with ease and give them to her friends.
That was why Rao Lili admired Taotao so much.
She herself wasn’t like that—her mom said she couldn’t do anything right, just eat.
But so what? Her grandma always said: being able to eat well is a blessing!
Zhang Jiaming said dreamily, “These are seriously delicious. Even the tea restaurants in the city don’t have anything this good.”
“Hey, Zhang Jiaming.” Hearing that, Taotao couldn’t help but turn around curiously, sitting backwards on her chair. “When you go to the city, have you ever seen egg tarts like ours?”
“No, this is my first time seeing them.” Zhang Jiaming shook his head. “Even the biggest restaurant in the city, Yuefu Restaurant, only sells the regular kind—not as good as these.”
Zhang Jiaming’s dad worked at the town government. Not only did he make a good salary, but he also got plenty of perks—grain subsidies, coal subsidies, laundry allowances, transportation fees, and more. Every summer, his family even received two cases of soda vouchers. His mother was always telling everyone that they were already on the waiting list for a government-subsidized housing unit and would move out in a couple of years.
Their family was undeniably one of the wealthiest in the alley.
Whenever his dad had business in the city, he’d take Zhang Jiaming along to explore, which meant the little guy had already eaten pizza, steak, and KFC in the city at a young age.
But he couldn’t go often—his dad wouldn’t take him unless he got first place or a perfect score on both tests.
So his “I’ve never seen them” was highly credible.
The Portuguese egg tarts hadn’t made their way over here yet, just as she’d thought.
Taotao’s eyes lit up. Great—if we’re making them now, we’ve got the market all to ourselves!
She took a big gulp of AD Calcium Milk and buried herself back in copying her characters. Homework that had once seemed difficult, tedious, and boring in her childhood now felt like a piece of cake. She could even multitask: once Tao Guangzhi got back from her uncle’s house, she’d have him make another batch of tarts to sell.
Oh, and after she finished writing, she’d draw a little sign to take home.
Zhang Jiaming had brought a set of watercolor markers and A4 printer paper for his handwritten poster—she’d borrow them later.
For now, in a hurry, she’d just draw two stacked egg tarts and write some big characters like “New Product Arrival”… Baiqieji wagged his tail and came over to rub against her feet. Taotao bent down to scratch his chin, happily planning away in her mind.
Just as she was thinking, she suddenly heard some kid from who-knows-which house riding a little tricycle past the mouth of the alley, calling out in a childish voice, “Sister, wait for me!”
How strange—the sounds from downstairs weren’t loud at all, yet from the upper floor, they carried perfectly clearly.
Taotao paused, pencil in hand, and suddenly thought of Yu Luan, who called her “Sister” every single day.
No wonder it felt so quiet today—she was missing the little guy who used “sister” as a comma in every sentence.
She hadn’t taken the boat to Lipu Village in years in her past life either. Unlike some pretty islands that had developed tourism, Lipu was small, rundown, and inconvenient to get to—nothing much to do there. After all the young people left for work in the cities, only the elderly remained.
By August, Lipu’s lychees had also gone out of season. The lychees around Zhangxi Town were mostly early-ripening varieties—Guiwei, Heiye, and such—which hit the market in May and June.
So there was no point in going to the island to pick lychees now.
Taotao rested her chin on her hand, unexpectedly feeling a little of that older-sister worry.
Hmm… I wonder what he’s doing right now?