Siheyuan: Sizhu starts blindly and takes a new path

"This isn't a sudden thought. I've had this plan for several months. You have a special sense of smell, which is unexpectedly helpful for your cooking skills. If you could come to this building, you'd have more opportunities to come into contact with high-quality ingredients and cook more dishes. Your future achievements would be limitless. If it weren't for this salary increase, it would have been very convenient to transfer you here." Master Sun expressed his plan.

"Then it's the same if I go to the building often." Sha Zhu comforted his master.

"How can it be the same? There are some things that you won't be allowed to make if you're not the chef in the building. No one can take the responsibility." Chef Sun shook his head. "Forget it. Maybe there will be another chance in the future."

"Master, have you ever thought that one day we will open a restaurant of our own, just like Fengze Garden? We will have countless high-quality ingredients to cook, and you, me and my fellow apprentices will all cook our signature dishes for the foodies who come to our restaurant to admire our reputation."

"Shh..." Master Sun quickly covered Sha Zhu's mouth, "You bastard, you are a working class person born in a poor family, how could you actually want to be a capitalist and open a restaurant? You don't want to live your life anymore, you want to become a rightist."

"I'm just asking casually." Seeing that his master was frightened, Sha Zhu said, "Don't be afraid, I haven't told anyone."

"That's good. You must not have this thought. Do you understand?"

"I know." Sha Zhu agreed, but he was thinking about the dream he had before. In the dream, he really opened a big restaurant with someone, about the same size as Fengze Garden. No one labeled him a rightist, and everyone supported him. He didn't know if all that would come true.

But there was no master and fellow apprentices in that dream. If there were these people to help, would my restaurant be bigger and more impressive? Would I open several restaurants? "Pah"

Shazhu slapped himself. No matter how many times he opened a car, it would be of little use. They would all go to that ungrateful guy Banggeng.

Master Sun saw that Sha Zhu was in a daze and slapped himself. He was frightened. Didn't he just beat his apprentice stupid? He finally had a special sense of smell and was beaten stupid again. When he saw his master in the afterlife, he would be beaten back to life by his master. "Zhu Zi, what are you doing?"

"I hit myself to stop myself from thinking too much and to avoid worrying you, Master." Sha Zhu lied.

"Okay, it's good that you know the seriousness of the matter. Stop beating yourself up." Master Sun thought of something else and said, "Did you visit your fellow apprentices at their homes before the New Year?"

Sha Zhu slapped his forehead and said, "I forgot. I went to visit two elders yesterday during the holiday and didn't go anywhere else. I will go there tomorrow."

"Well, as for your father's other brothers who are burning incense, you should also go and walk around. Don't let the elders pick on you. It won't do you any harm to walk around more."

"Got it. I want to visit my uncles tomorrow and my senior brother the day after tomorrow."

The sun finally set on New Year's Eve. Sha Zhu's family of five sat around the table, happily eating their New Year's Eve dinner and listening to the Spring Festival programs broadcast by the People's Broadcasting Station from the chatbox: crosstalk artists Hou Baolin and Guo Qiru performed the crosstalk "Night Travels", Mei Lanfang sang Mei style's representative work "Yuzhou Feng", Zhou Xinfang brought "Four Scholars", and Xin Fengxia performed "Liu Qiaoer" (the program list for 56, I couldn't find the one for 63, so I had to use the one for 56).

Yu Shui, who was listening to the radio, suddenly said, "Brother, I heard there will be a temple fair in Changdian tomorrow. Can you take me and my sister-in-law to go?"

"If you want to go, just say so. Why drag your sister-in-law along?"

"I want to go too. There hasn't been a temple fair in several years. I always feel like something is missing if I don't visit the temple fair during the New Year." It is obvious that Yu Li also supports Yu Shui.

Sha Zhu looked at Yu Li's belly and said, "Are you okay?"

"I'm not that delicate. I just need to be careful. The doctor told me to move around more."

"Okay, I'll go to some uncles' homes tomorrow morning to pay New Year's greetings. You guys wait for me at home. I'll come home and pick you up after I'm done."

The master's wife said to Master Sun, "There is a temple fair, why don't we go together? We have nothing to do at home anyway."

"What do you mean nothing? Those little bastards always come to pay New Year's greetings on the first day of the new year."

"You also said this in the morning. Yu Li, you two shouldn't go back tomorrow morning. Stay here at noon. Let's go to the temple fair together in the afternoon. It's closer to Changdian." The master's wife took charge of the matter.

After dinner, everyone chatted for a while. The master and his wife went into the house to rest, and Yu Li also went to rest. Sha Zhu and Yu Shui were making dumplings together.

Yu Shui asked Sha Zhu: "Brother, do you think the old lady will stay up to eat dumplings at night?"

"The old lady is too old, how could she stay up all night to celebrate the New Year? Eating dumplings is just a gesture for an aunt to wake her up and eat one or two."

The deaf old lady did as Sha Zhu said, and went back to her room after dinner. The uncle and aunt made some dumplings, and the aunt asked the uncle if he wanted to send some to the Jia family.

Because Qin Huairu and Xu Damao have been getting closer recently, the old man doesn't dare to entrust his retirement to her. He knows the principle that bad company breeds bad people, so he said, "Don't send it. These dumplings are not enough for her family to share. Sending it or not won't change anything."

If the dumplings from the uncle's house were delivered, maybe Qin Jingru would have been able to eat her fill at night, because of the uncle's one-sided thought, Qin Jingru had a half-full New Year. In fact, she could have eaten her fill, but because of the principle of "the ink is black", she had learned a lot of life principles from Xu Damao in the past six months, and she was careful not to let anyone take advantage of her, especially Qin Huairu's family, as Xu Damao had told her, so when she saw that the Jia family didn't prepare much for New Year's Eve, she still didn't go back to get anything.

The New Year's Eve dinner of the Jia family consisted of three vegetarian dishes and two plates of dumplings, which together amounted to more than 70 dumplings. As soon as the dumplings were served, Jia Pozi, Banggeng, and Xiaodang wielded chopsticks so fast that you could see the shadows of the chopsticks and dumplings. Jia Pozi and Banggeng chewed the dumplings only five or six times before they went down their throats. It was Xiaodang who was young and had not yet learned the skills of his grandmother and brother, so he ate slowly.

This scene shocked Qin Jingru. Born in the countryside, her family was not wealthy and she had never seen people eating like this. While she was shocked, half of the dumplings had disappeared. Fortunately, Qin Huairu had the conscience to call her, otherwise when she came to her senses, only the plate would be left.

Qin Huairu ate the dumplings with a steamed bun made of two-kneaded flour. She did not snatch the dumplings from her child and mother-in-law. Her maternal instinct did not allow her to do so.

The family of five finished the New Year's Eve dinner in no time. Jia Pozi and Bang Geng were still not satisfied and drank a bowl of dumpling soup each, calling it the original soup with the original food. In fact, the dumpling soup was more flavorful with rotten dumpling stuffing mixed in.

Qin Jingru, who was half full, was in no mood to stay at the Jia family to celebrate the New Year. She wanted to go home and eat alone.

===========

Please give some comments, thank you very much