NOVPUB"Oh!"
Yao Jiping didn’t just pay lip service about letting Xu Qingfan cook all the meals during the holiday period, she really meant it.
Since the beginning of the summer vacation in June, Xu Qingfan had been cooking for nearly two months straight, and the kicker was that he was using his own money to pay for the groceries.
Yao Jiping knew that Xu Qingfan had received a substantial amount of money in red envelopes over the New Year and had won several scholarships from school after various exams. Although she had not confiscated his money under the pretext of safekeeping it, she had also not given him money to buy groceries and cook.
Xu Qingfan, a budding millionaire, naturally wouldn’t quibble with his own mother over such matters, and he was quite happy that Yao Jiping could take it easy without bothering about him.
Having seen his parents endure so much hardship in his past life, looking like they were in their fifties when they were just in their forties, Xu Qingfan was quite proud that he could let his parents retire early in this new life.
In his previous life, during parent-teacher meetings in elementary school, Yao Jiping always arrived at the school smelling like cooking fumes, and Xu Qingfan had complained about this for quite a while.
But if it weren’t for life’s pressures, which parent wouldn’t want to drive a luxury car, wear designer watches, and show up at their child’s parent-teacher meeting all spruced up?
The clippings from Xu Qingfan’s nails that had splattered to the ground below fell on the dozing dog. Dahuang looked up in confusion for a moment, and after seeing Xu Qingfan’s silhouette, closed its eyes again to feign sleep, as if to say that it wasn’t surprised by this kid’s antics.
Xu Qingfan squatted down on the ground to trim his toenails as well, snipping off a large piece of the nail from his big toe neatly.
"Xu Qingfan, are you sick or something?" Xia Xiaoxiao couldn’t help but curse when she saw him actually hold his toenail up to his nose and sniff it.
"Cough cough... go change your shoes, I’m done!" Xu Qingfan, embarrassed, pretended to act as if nothing had happened and flicked the nail away casually.
"Speechless! Remember to wash your hands, that’s so gross." Xia Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes at him and returned to her own home.
After washing his hands, Xu Qingfan also rinsed the nail clippers with water, dried them, put them away neatly, put on his shoes, and went out the door with Xia Xiaoxiao.
"What do you feel like eating today?" The two strolled leisurely through Fupeng Market, and Xu Qingfan asked.
Today’s food choice, a seemingly simple question for everyone entering the market, was far from simple. Many indecisive shoppers would walk several rounds through the market only to leave empty-handed, still unsure about what to eat for the day.
"Xu Qingfan, what is that vegetable?" Xia Xiaoxiao pointed to a vegetable that looked like a fern-like plant and asked him.
"That one, tonghao, it has a taste of chrysanthemum when you eat it," Xu Qingfan explained with a glance, thanks to his extensive knowledge. 𝚗ovp𝚞b.𝚌om
"Then I want to eat that!" Xia Xiaoxiao, with the curiosity of a child, was intrigued by the green vegetable she had never tried before.
"Are you sure? It has a strange taste, similar to cilantro and perilla leaves. Those who like it adore it, but those who don’t might want to vomit at the smell." Xu Qingfan tried to warn kindly, since he had not started to like this vegetable until he was older.
"I want to try!" the little girl was undeterred.
"Alright, just make sure you’ll eat it later."
Xu Qingfan approached the vendor to negotiate a price of one and a half yuan per jin for the vegetable, which was slightly expensive in the realm of vegetables. He spent two yuan and fifty cents for just over a jin and a half, which, along with Lin Jing, would be enough for the five of them.
"Here, hold this." Xu Qingfan handed the bag of vegetables to Xia Xiaoxiao.
Xia Xiaoxiao, lacking any progressive ideas that girls shouldn’t carry things, happily took the plastic bag. "I want to drink green bean and lotus root pork rib soup!"
The prime time to harvest lotus root is from July to October; by mid-August, it was the ideal season for eating lotus roots.
"It’s already eleven o’clock, there’s no time to make soup now," Xu Qingfan shook his head.
"Then we’ll drink it tonight!" Xia Xiaoxiao grabbed Xu Qingfan’s hand and was about to head towards a vendor selling lotus roots in front.
The lotus roots still had mud on them, looking like they had just been dug out from the lotus pond.
"Boss, is this lotus root the starchy kind or the glutinous kind?" a customer who was watching asked.
"I have both types here, the starchy and the glutinous. Are you stir-frying it or making soup?" the vendor asked in return.
"I’ll take two pounds of the sticky variety, for soup!" the person added.
"Sure thing!"
Xu Qingfan and Xia Xiaoxiao followed suit and also bought two pounds of the sticky lotus root, as they had mung beans at home and didn’t need to buy any more, leaving only the ribs left to purchase.
By eleven o’clock, which was considered late for the market, when they arrived at the fresh meat section, the majority of the shops had already sold out and closed, with only one corner pork shop still open.
"How much for the ribs per pound?" Xu Qingfan approached and asked.
"Nine eighty a pound," the shopkeeper said, smiling like a crafty merchant as he got up.
Xu Qingfan frowned slightly. It was already the late market, yet the owner was still charging him the morning market price – it was obvious he thought the two children were easy to deceive.
However, since it was the only shop left, he couldn’t be bothered to run around for a few pounds of ribs, so he slipped on a plastic bag and started picking.
"Kids, they’re all fresh. Choose this one, this one’s great!" the pork vendor pointed to the largest rib and told him.
Xu Qingfan didn’t heed his advice and took two medium-sized ribs, saying, "I want these two, please weigh them for me."
"That’s two pounds and eight ounces in total, twenty-nine seventy-eight, rounded to thirty. Kid, do you want me to chop them for you?" The pork vendor placed the ribs on the chopping board and asked him.
Xu Qingfan almost couldn’t help but swear "Chop your meow." The two ribs were barely two pounds at most, and at worst, a crafty merchant would only pretend to put on an extra eight ounces, yet this guy went straight for an extra six ounces, and the rounding up was just pure brilliance – rounding twenty-nine seventy-eight up to thirty, even capitalists would acknowledge he was a professional.
He held back a barrage of scathing comments and said indifferently, "I’m not buying, I only brought fifteen bucks." After speaking, he pulled Xia Xiaoxiao away and left.
"Hey, kid, you can get one for fifteen bucks. Hey! You little #@ stinker, screw you!" Seeing Xu Qingfan walking away faster, the pork vendor couldn’t help but curse out loud.
[No wonder his business is so bad.]
"Pfft!"
The more Xu Qingfan thought about it as he walked away, the angrier he got. It was one thing to curse at him, but to insult Yao Jiping was simply asking for trouble.
After they left the market, he looked up to memorize the phone number of the Market Supervision Bureau and, without looking back, headed to the nearby public phone booth with Xia Xiaoxiao in tow.
Xia Xiaoxiao didn’t know why Xu Qingfan suddenly decided not to buy and obediently followed him to the public phone booth.
"Hello? Is this the Market Supervision Bureau? I’m at stall 302, B area, at Fupeng Market. I’ve noticed that the meat sold by the owner lacks a quarantine label, and he was sneaky about bringing a pig in this morning to sell. I suspect he’s selling diseased pork... Yes, yes, that’s right, I saw it with my own eyes. Also, his scales are rigged, it’s a six-ounce scale. Please hurry over for an inspection because a lot of people have already bought his pork, and it would be bad if anyone got sick from it!"
With his exaggerated account, Xu Qingfan alarmed the person on the other end of the phone, who hung up and swiftly dispatched inspectors. No joke, a secure job may be secure, but if a major food safety issue arises, getting fired is still on the table, and in serious cases, it can lead to prison time for negligence.
Before long, the pork stall was shut down by the Market Supervision Bureau due to issues with the illegal scale and the inability to prove the legality of their pork supply chain.
"Xu Qingfan, you’re so mean!" On the way back, Xia Xiaoxiao said with a laugh.
"You like that, don’t you?" Xu Qingfan asked with a smile.
Xia Xiaoxiao’s ears turned red, secretly wondering how Xu Qingfan also had the Mind Reading Technique!
"You... You’re farting, don’t be shameless, no one likes you, you liar!" she said, feigning calm.
"Long hair but short on smarts, I call that a white lie, a scholar’s affair. How could that be considered stealing?" Xu Qingfan reached out and ruffled the little girl’s hair.
"Ah yes, yes, just like when you lied to me about my pocket money in kindergarten, that was a white lie too!" Xia Xiaoxiao said sarcastically.
"Uh... haha... Let’s buy the ribs from the supermarket!"
"Hmph!" Xia Xiaoxiao had a triumphant little expression on her face.
