Chapter 65.1

Li Xin heard the commotion and rushed out from the kitchen, happily shouting, “Sister!”

She was still holding a glass of freshly squeezed juice that she hadn’t quite gotten right. The juice had a peculiar color, not quite red or green.

As soon as An An saw the juice in her aunt’s hand, she turned her little body away and clung tightly to her mother, immediately saying, “Auntie, go away.”

Jiang Rou patted the little one’s head curiously and asked, “What’s wrong? Aren’t you and Auntie the best of friends?”

An An pretended to be dead on Jiang Rou’s shoulder.

Li Xin, feeling somewhat embarrassed, rubbed her nose and said in a good-natured manner, “Don’t like it? Then Auntie will make a new glass.”

Li Xiao walked over and said, “Alright, put it down. I’ll take care of it.”

He took the glass from Li Xin and told the sisters to sit on the sofa and talk.

Li Xin handed the glass to her brother-in-law, feeling a huge sigh of relief inside.

She truly had no talent for cooking. At most, she could make a few home-cooked dishes, and those were only to the extent of being cooked. During the time her sister was away, the task of cooking initially fell on her brother-in-law, but since he was busy every day, the task of cooking fell to her whenever he wasn’t home.

Despite her young age, An An was quite picky. She would rather starve than eat something she didn’t like, especially during the days when Jin Dayou was at home, constantly making delicious food and refining An An’s palate.

Before leaving, Jin Dayou had told her brother-in-law that An An was too young to eat meat all the time and needed to eat more vegetables and fruits. If she didn’t like vegetables, she could have juice instead.

Speaking of juicing, Li Xin was quite troubled. “I clearly followed his method, but I don’t know why the juice I make doesn’t taste good.”

Jiang Rou found it amusing and said, “Is that so? Next time, I’ll ask him for tips.”

Li Xin nodded seriously, believing her sister was capable of anything. If she couldn’t do it, her sister surely would.

Jiang Rou asked about her college entrance examination, “How did you do?”

Li Xin couldn’t say for sure, “It should be okay, I did all the questions and didn’t leave any unanswered. It just depends on how many careless mistakes I made.”

Jiang Rou nodded, “It’s good that you did all the questions. Anyway, you’ll definitely get in. During this time, you can just relax at home, but once you’re in college, you’ll need to study hard.”

“I know that.”

Jiang Rou turned her head and looked around the house, “How come I haven’t seen Dayou and Auntie? Are they asleep?”

“No, they’ve gone.”

Li Xin explained, “Jin Dayou left a long time ago. A few days after the New Year, the teacher from the graduate school he applied to called him and said he didn’t need to do an interview. He was asked to go directly to help out, so he left.”

Li Xin felt a bit envious at this point, having heard that the graduate school interviews were quite difficult.

“Is it at the Peking University?”

“Yes.”

Jiang Rou’s expression became somewhat solemn. During March and April, the SARS outbreak in the capital had been quite severe. Seeing Li Xiao come out of the kitchen, she couldn’t help but ask, “How is Dayou now? Have you been in touch with him?”

Li Xiao brought out four glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice. Hearing the question, he said, “He’s doing very well. He called me last night. He’s been helping his mentor research the vaccine.”

Jiang Rou was surprised by this. It seemed that Jin Dayou was highly valued by his mentor, and of course, it was also because he was very outstanding.

She asked again, “What about Aunt Shi? I haven’t seen her around.”

“She’s been staying at Zhou Jian’s house these days. I’m at work every day, and Li Xin needs to study, so there’s no one at home to take care of Aunt Shi. She just decided to stay at Zhou Jian’s place. I heard she’s been learning to knit sweaters from Zhou Jian’s mother recently.”

Jiang Rou smiled upon hearing this, “That sounds quite nice.”

After finishing the orange juice, the family of four watched TV for a while. However, since it was getting late, they only watched for half an hour before heading to their rooms to sleep. They decided to take care of other things the next day.

That night, An An, as expected, insisted on sleeping with her mother.

Jiang Rou naturally agreed as she had missed An An a lot.

Once they lay down in bed, they cuddled closely. An An snuggled into her mother’s arms, smiling happily and asking for fairy tales.

To help An An fall asleep, Jiang Rou had been telling her little stories every day. Most of the stories were ones she made up herself. While she had read many Western fairy tales as a child, she hadn’t thought much of them at the time. It was only after growing up and engaging with the internet that she realized some of the content wasn’t very appropriate.

So she started making up stories instead, which An An enjoyed immensely. During Jiang Rou’s absence, Li Xiao had also told her stories, but his storytelling was rather dry, which An An found quite unappealing.

Now, Jiang Rou continued to create a story about a little fox spirit who turned human and went down the mountain, only to be tricked by bad people, and then meet a young Taoist priest. The two became good friends and fought monsters together.

Given An An’s young age and Jiang Rou’s gentle and soothing voice, she gradually closed her eyes and fell asleep after listening for a while. On the other hand, Li Xiao listened intently and, after Jiang Rou stopped, asked, “And then?”

Jiang Rou looked at him with amusement and said, “And then? Of course, it’s time to sleep.”

Li Xiao glanced at their sleeping daughter, feeling a bit uneasy. Earlier that afternoon, Jiang Rou had said she missed him more than she missed her daughter, which had made him quite happy.

Now, he was unsure whether it was true or not.

Still, he turned off the small light in the room, shifted closer to the middle of the bed, and reached out to hold Jiang Rou’s hand.

Jiang Rou felt a bit uncomfortable with the position, but she said nothing and gently scratched his palm with her fingers.

—o—o—o—

The next morning, Jiang Rou woke up early as usual. Her biological clock had adjusted to her routine over the past six months as a volunteer, where she had gone to bed around eleven or twelve and woke up around five in the morning.

After she woke up, Li Xiao and An An were still asleep. The father and daughter not only looked alike but also shared the same sleeping habits. Both had their right feet arched up and their left hands pressed under their heads, with a very relaxed position.

Jiang Rou couldn’t help but laugh.

She lay in bed for a while, unable to fall back asleep. Quietly, she got up and went downstairs to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. The villa’s kitchen was spacious and had two large refrigerators filled with a lot of food.

Since she was up early, Jiang Rou took extra time to make vegetable egg pancakes, potstickers, eggplant rolls, and seafood congee, and she also steamed sweet potatoes and corn.

She arranged the food on four plates, each looking very colorful.

When Li Xiao and An An woke up, Jiang Rou urged them to hurry up and eat.

An An was particularly enthusiastic, taking a big bite of the egg pancake and then looking up with a smile, saying, “It’s super delicious.”

Jiang Rou couldn’t help but laugh.

—o—o—o—

In the morning, Jiang Rou took An An to visit Zhou Jian’s house. Li Xiao went to work after breakfast, and Li Xin stayed home to study. She was preparing for the law school entrance exam, and since Jin Dayou had previously lived here and explained some basic knowledge about law, she knew she had to memorize many books. She had asked Jin Dayou to find out which books were needed and bought a few in advance to study at home, showing her diligence.

The two houses were not very far apart, so Jiang Rou simply held An An’s hand and walked over. The scenery here was beautiful, and the air was fresh, making her feel much more awake.

An An was still holding a small leather ball, awkwardly tapping it with her hands. This ball had been bought for her by Li Xiao.

Li Xiao was rather careless; every time he bought toys for An An, he would just pick something that looked nice, without considering whether it was suitable for a boy or a girl. When Jiang Rou got up that morning and started getting An An’s clothes ready, she discovered that two of An An’s summer pants from last year had holes in the front, the kind typically worn by boys.

When she asked, she found out that it was Li Xiao who had bought them.

Children grow quickly, and the summer pants Jiang Rou bought for An An last year were already a bit small. Li Xiao had bought new ones for her.

An An didn’t mind; she was quite comfortable in them.

When Jiang Rou and An An arrived at Zhou Jian’s house, they saw that the large garden in front had been turned into a two-acre vegetable plot, with chives, eggplants, and peppers planted there.

“……”

Jiang Rou called out, but there was no response. She walked in without hesitation, calling out as she went, “Auntie—”

The door was open, and as Jiang Rou entered the house, she heard a voice coming from behind, “Who’s there—”

Hearing Zhou Jian’s mother’s energetic voice, Jiang Rou was a bit surprised.

An An pointed her little chubby finger towards the back and said, “Grandma is feeding the chickens. Mom, I’ll take you there.”

“……”

Jiang Rou followed An An, feeling somewhat incredulous. She then saw that the small lawn behind Zhou Jian’s house had been converted into several acres of fields, planted with corn and fruit trees. Under the fruit trees were dozens of chickens, enclosed by a fence.

The once beautiful swimming pool was now not just a pool but also a reservoir. Zhou Jian’s mother and Aunt Shi were using a water pipe to irrigate the newly cleared field beside the corn with water from the pool.

Meanwhile, Zhou Jian’s two sons were sweeping chicken manure near the chicken coop.

Jiang Rou observed this scene and recalled asking Li Xiao in the morning about the large number of eggs at their house, wondering how they could possibly eat them all and not waste them.

At the time, Li Xiao had said that they hadn’t spent any money on them.

She had thought it was just a small amount of money, but now she realized that the eggs were probably from the chickens at Zhou Jian’s house.

Zhou Jian’s mother saw Jiang Rou and greeted her with a particularly joyful smile. “Xiao Rou is back? Don’t come over, it’s dirty here. Sit down for a while, and I’ll prepare some chicken for you to eat at noon.”

An An quickly covered her nose and tugged at Jiang Rou’s clothes. “Mommy, don’t go over there, it’s smelly.”

Indeed, the smell was unpleasant, so Jiang Rou stayed where she was.

At noon, Zhou Jian’s mother slaughtered two or three chickens, cooked one, and gave one to Jiang Rou to take home.

By the end of June, the school had arranged for graduation photos.

It was supposed to be a joyful occasion, but out of seventy-eight students from two classes who volunteered, only seventy-five returned. Jiang Rou’s class was missing one girl. The class leader was later treated, but she was now at home recovering.

On the day of the photo shoot, Li Xiao took a day off to accompany Jiang Rou and also brought An An along.

He even brought his own camera.

Jiang Rou put on her graduation gown, and before it was time for the official photos, the family of three took some photos for fun. They took both group and individual shots, and eventually, An An even learned how to take pictures of her parents.

Little An An, following her mother’s instructions, squatted on the ground and managed to take pictures that made her parents look like they had long legs.

Nearby students watched this scene and couldn’t help but laugh, finding the family very amusing.

During the class photo session, everyone was less cheerful because, after all, two people were missing, especially one student who was no longer there.

After the photo shoot, Jiang Rou left. Although the SARS situation had improved a lot, Jiang Rou still felt it was unsafe. In the past, she would have gone out shopping and dining, but now they only visited Li Xiao’s factory together.

Perhaps due to Li Xiao’s effective preventive measures, the factory employees, influenced by their boss, also paid attention to protection. No infections occurred among the factory employees, and Zhou Jian, unlike in the past, was doing well.

Seeing the vibrant atmosphere in the factory, Jiang Rou’s mood improved significantly.