Twelfth Meow

“Meow meow~”

He Yunzhou’s phone rang.

After tapping on his phone, he wasn’t surprised to see Huo Zheng’s reply.

[I hate eating Fisherman’s style shrimp flavored things the most, I don’t like shrimp either.]

He Yunzhou couldn’t help but frown in confusion.

[Then what do you want to eat today? Today’s sea bass is also good, do you eat it?]

After the message was sent for a long time without a reply, He Yunzhou had to put the phone back into his pocket with a sigh.

He Yunzhou still remembers a dinner not so long ago, he made a fisherman’s style fried crab stick. At that time, Huo Zheng obviously liked it. If this weren’t the case, he wouldn’t consider cooking this dish for the other tonight.

After all, fresh king prawns aren’t cheap.

It didn’t matter if he bought a grilled fried shrimp before. After all, it was just a small snack. The amount of shrimp didn’t need to be too much and it didn’t hurt too much when he paid. But to make a dish properly, at least he has to be able to make up enough for a small plate.

“Sorry, Boss, just take half a catty^[1]500gof shrimp first.” 

He Yunzhou put away his phone and looked up, just in time to see the owner of the seafood stall using a net to fish a large number of shrimp into his basket. He quickly returned. In the end, he only carried half a catty of shrimp bought for Nangua and continued to wander around the market.

Along the way, if the bosses at the stalls are free, they all smile and greet him; recommending the goods in their stalls.

Particularly those boss’s wife who look after the shop, looking at He Yunzhou, such a smooth-skinned, delicate, handsome boy; even the price of vegetables is deliberately lowered. At that time, they’ll put a handful of green onions and a few garlic in He Yunzhou’s bag.

He Yunzhou smiled and exchanged pleasantries all the way. He obviously didn’t intend to buy anything. After walking for a short time in the market, the bag used to buy ingredients was already half full.

He Yunzhou wasn’t deliberate for being able to have such a good relationship with the bosses of the market. But from childhood to adulthood, he always seemed to get a lot of special care and affection from older people.

Thinking about it carefully, it’s probably because he has been living in the mountain village with his elderly grandparents since he can remember until he went to high school… He Yunzhou sometimes analyzes himself like this.

Moreover, He Yunzhou really likes to go on the market from the bottom of his heart. He likes fresh vegetable seedlings, fruits, and all kinds of fresh poultry meat. He can always keenly identify what is really good on those stalls—those crooked-looking, long, thin, and irregular eggplants. They are often native eggplants grown at random by the boss’s own house. They are easily sold at the stalls, but they taste far better than those purple and brilliantly shaped eggplants from foreign greenhouses; just stir-fry them with some lard and garlic cloves. Many greenhouse eggplants are as hard and thick as foam, while these unsightly-looking native eggplants are as soft and glutinous as curd cheese, and it’s easy to put a lid on top and deliver two bowls of rice.

Otherwise, they’re just small bunches of small bundles of vegetables full of mud and could occasionally see wormholes and yellowing small green vegetables. They are carried by women^[2]married womenwith a carrying pole^[3]Picture belowon the side of the road to the market and sold on plastic sheets. But this is the kind of small green vegetables that grow in the fields of farmers in the suburbs. After cleaning, they are slightly drizzled with tahini^[4]picture belowsauce and minced garlic light soy sauce. They taste crispy and delicious, and it has a refreshing sweetness of leafy vegetables. 

Not to mention some special seasons, small plastic baskets of various colors are used to place various kinds of mountain and wild vegetables among the leaves of the fresh vegetables. There are only a few of them every time you go there.

People who don’t know the ropes at all and ask for the price would suspect it’s expensive, so they would turn their heads and leave. However, He Yunzhou can tell which of the mountain vegetables on the stalls are picked by the stall owners’ leisure time and which are the specialties in the foreign greenhouses in the field. Just like the cold mushroom^[5]picture belowin winter, the reddish-brown mushrooms are covered with moss and mud, you have to choose the kind that is twisted and thin.

When you get home, take a basin of warm water and wash them carefully with a toothbrush. Then just cut a few slices of pork belly and simmer them with cold mushrooms. It’s a bowl of smooth, juicy, and delicious mountain vegetable side dishes.

There is also the first crop of toona in early spring, which is slender, bright red, and thin, but has a strong fragrance. It is slightly chopped and mixed with snow-white lactone tofu, topped with sesame oil and vinegar.

It’s most suitable as a side dish with a hot pot. There are also Artemesia quinoa in winter, lotus root, and tender water chestnut

…

Inexplicably, He Yunzhou’s poisonous^[6]usually means someone who is bad/cancerous but it’s the opposite in this context, like saying he has keen eyes.eyes know what’s what, but the vegetable market owners treat him more and more affectionately. Sometimes, they don’t need to greet him and will leave him the best dishes.

It’s just that in the past, He Yunzhou naturally had recipes in his mind while carrying vegetables and will have never bothered. Now that there is an additional Huo Zheng at home, he can no longer do whatever he wants when he cooks as usual.

Thinking of the lively jar of shrimps and special-priced sea bass on the seafood stall before, He Yunzhou inevitably felt some pity for Huo Zheng in his heart.

He found a corner to stand and once again took out his phone to see if there were any new messages from Huo Zheng.

[I hate eating fish. — Huo Zheng.]

“Alright,” Huo Zheng sighed but there was a tolerant smile at the corner of his mouth.

I’m afraid that even Huo Zheng himself didn’t notice that he was really quite capricious and arrogant in some ways… However, He Yunzhou found that even if Huo Zheng was like this, he had no way to hate it at all.

It’s fine to be arrogant, capricious, and awkward in all sorts of strange places…

As a rather annoying trait for humans, it’s a matter of course if it’s placed on cats.

It obviously liked the same brand of cat food when I bought it the first time, but once I bought a little more as a stock, it would become disgusted without warning and wouldn’t eat a bite.

Eating Brand A’s cat food this month went well. If it continues to eat it next month, it will vomit, have soft stools, and finally refuse to eat.

……

He Yunzhou, who had gone through all this, felt no fluctuations in his heart when he faced the awkward Huo Zheng, and he even felt very nostalgic. 

“How terrible… He’s becoming more and more like Guaji…”

When He Yunzhou thought of Huo Zheng, he couldn’t help but open the photo album of his phone and look at the photos belonging to Guaji, lost in thought.

And at this time, He Yunzhou was patted on the shoulder hard. 

“Ha, I knew I’d see you at the market.” As soon as he turned around, a bright smiling face appeared in He Yunzhou’s line of sight.

It was a very beautiful woman, so beautiful that it seemed as if she shouldn’t have appeared in this noisy and chaotic market, and so beautiful that it was difficult to distinguish her age.

Thump-thump—

In that instant, He Yunzhou only felt that his heart was about to jump out of his chest.

“Shu Ran?” He Yunzhou spoke vaguely as if his voice wasn’t his own.

“Why are you…”

Why are you back?

Just as He Yunzhou wanted to ask, the woman named Shu Ran already spoke first.

“I broke up with Liang Mengmeng, and now I can only return home^[7]as in return home to one’s country.dejectedly.” She said while smiling, with a brilliant expression as if she was talking about other people’s affairs. “What’s the matter? Old friends are no longer welcomed on your side to come to you to drink and cry to pour out the pain of their broken heart?” 

“How is it possible.” He Yunzhou stiffly pretended to look normal.

“The door of my house is always open to you, you know.” After saying this, He Yunzhou felt as if his words were too ambiguous, and hastily added, “What do you want to eat? I’ll make it for you… Do you want to eat shrimp?”

…………

While He Yunzhou was in a mess because of a sudden reunion with an old friend, in the Huo Group’s office more than 10km away from him, there is a man who was in a state of anxiety because of his late reply.

That person didn’t get angry, right?

Huo Zheng absentmindedly dealt with the heavy workload that was enough to drive an ordinary person crazy, but half of his mind was on his mobile phone.

He Yunzhou always replies to his messages in a timely manner, but this time, he hasn’t responded to him for a long time.

Huo Zheng’s mood, which was already anxious and gloomy, was even more covered with dark clouds for a while. It’s just that he couldn’t tell whether this kind of anger was more directed at himself or at He Yunzhou.

Does that person actually think that he is qualified to lose his temper now?

While Huo Zheng was thinking, the strength of his fingers tapping the keyboard unconsciously became stronger and stronger.

“No one has ever dared to put on airs in front of me before this.” Huo Zheng coldly said to himself.

What’s more, He Yunzhou, this person, now that he hasn’t even touched Huo Zheng’s bedside, had learned not to reply to WeChat—

The sound of typing on the keyboard abruptly stopped, Huo Zheng glared at his phone coldly.

A new message came.

And that message came from “A small boat rowing and rowing”.

Seeing the familiar WeChat name, Huo Zheng’s expression, which has been as cold as Asura’s,^[8]malevolent spirits in Indian mythologysuddenly relaxed.

“Heh.”

He smiled and fixedly sat on his seat for a few seconds.

In fact, Huo Zheng has the intention to give the cold shoulder on He Yunzhou for a while, but…

“Seeing that you’re so stupid, I don’t feel like arguing with you.”

Huo Zheng muttered coldly into the air, then he couldn’t wait to quickly click on the message.

[A small boat rowing and rowing:

Sorry. It seems that there really isn’t anything you like to eat today. Shall we take a rain check ba?]

Just as Huo Zheng finished reading this message, He Yunzhou, who was on the other side of the city across the electro waves, seemed to have secretly stolen Huo Zheng’s current thoughts and added another message.

[Don’t worry about me being angry, I really have something and it’s inconvenient to cook today. You have a good meal by yourself, don’t drink on an empty stomach or else you’ll get a stomachache. Be good.]

Huo Zheng’s gaze instantly glued to those last two words.

For a moment, he didn’t know whether he should be happy or angry.

“Be good?”

Huo Zheng almost couldn’t control his expression, wanting to laugh and be angry at the same time.

“He’s quite sticky when sending a message—”

However, in the next second, the second message was withdrawn.

He Yunzhou re-sent a new message—the previous sentences were exactly the same, it’s just that the last sentence “Be good” was deleted.

Huo Zheng’s expression froze instantly.

If it wasn’t for his last shred of sanity still online, I’m afraid he would’ve smashed his phone to the ground easily.

---

The author has something to say:

About the sentence “Be good” 

He Yunzhou: Damn, this voice input is killing me…

Huo Zheng [I don’t know why the deer started to collapse]^[9]restless, because of fear or strong emotions

And…

This story tells us that people shouldn’t act.

---

Women with carrying pole:

Tahini or tahina is a Middle Eastern condiment made from toasted ground hulled sesame:

Bowl of smooth, juicy, and delicious mountain vegetable side dishes:

Crop of toona – commonly called Chinese mahogany, Chinese cedar, etc. link:

 Snow-white lactone tofu, topped with sesame oil and vinegar:

Artemesia quinoa:

Lotus Root:

 Water chestnut: