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Chapter 161: Chapter 161: Why Should I Make Dumpling Filling for You?
Yesterday, she had a quarrel with Liu Haisheng. Instead of placating her like before, Liu Haisheng not only didn’t back down, but also slept in the living room. Li Meiyu’s pride prevented her from calling him back into the room. They remained at odds throughout the night. When she woke up in the morning, Liu Haisheng had already gone to work, and she wasn’t sure whether he would return at noon.
Her mood was already sour, and she just wanted to quietly read a book. But then Tong Yao started to make noise. Was Tong Yao doing this on purpose?
The angrier Li Meiyu got, the more she forgot about Liu Haisheng’s instructions. She slammed the book she was reading onto the table, stormed out of the room, and arrived at the kitchen door. The sound of Tong Yao chopping dumpling fillings was even louder now, which made Li Meiyu glare at her.
"You’ve been making noise all afternoon. Don’t people need to sleep? Are you doing this on purpose?"
Upon hearing her, Tong Yao turned her head only to find Li Meiyu staring intensely at her as if she owed her several hundred thousand yuan. It was quite apparent that she was looking for a fight. Tong Yao shot her a cold look, and retorted irritably: "If you can’t sleep, that means you’re not tired. What does this have to do with me?"
Normally in school, all students treated her deferentially, no one had ever spoken to her in such a manner. Li Meiyu was so angry, her face turned red, "I can’t sleep because you’re chopping dumpling fillings so loudly!"
Tong Yao put her kitchen knife down on the table, "Then why don’t you chop a soundless one for me?"
Li Meiyu glared, "Why on earth should I chop dumpling fillings for you?"
Tong Yao snorted with laughter, "Then why on earth should you care how I chop dumpling fillings?"
"You could eat dumplings anytime, why specifically when I am here? If this isn’t intentional then what is it?"
Tong Yao rolled her eyes, "I have never heard of having to choose a day to eat dumplings. You don’t sleep in the morning or the afternoon why you chose to sleep when I am chopping the fillings?"
"..."
Li Meiyu choked, unable to continue her argument. Tong Yao had outfoxed her with her quick wit. Not to mention, if they really got down to it, Li Meiyu was the one not in the right here.
Considering it all, Li Meiyu snorted disdainfully, and tried to look indifferent, saying, "I won’t stoop to your level of arguments, arguing with someone who has no culture is beneath me."
Having said that, she strode over to the sink and washed her hands, and sneeringly commented on the pork and pickles on the table: "Typical rural folk, always liking these common dishes."
"If the food from the countryside isn’t good enough for you, why don’t you eat the food grown on the city’s asphalt roads?" Tong Yao turned to look at her, mocking in the same tone: "Teacher Li, from what I know, you only graduated from high school and didn’t get into university, and you are not an officially hired teacher. So where does this confidence of yours come from to mock someone who graduated from Kyoto University?"
"Just because you say you’re a university graduate, doesn’t make it true!" Li Meiyu hadn’t expected Tong Yao to know about her not having an official teaching position. Who was spreading such slander? Enraged to the point of turning green, she defended herself: "Yes, I did not finish high school, but I am more than qualified to teach primary school. Among the teachers in our rural area, eight out of ten don’t have official positions either. But didn’t they still manage to teach students like Dr. Si?"
Tong Yao didn’t respond but just let a sarcastic smile play on her lips. It irked Li Meiyu even more than words could. Li Meiyu had always seen herself as a peacock of a sort due to teaching at a school and treated everyone in the residential compound below her. Yet being so openly exposed by Tong Yao rose feelings of embarrassment. After giving Tong Yao a hate-filled glance, she turned away and stomped out of the kitchen.
The next moment, the door to the house was slammed shut with a ’bang’, startling Baodan, who had been taking his nap, into a fit of wailing. Chen Yanmei, holding her son, stood at the door, cursing at the hallway until she finally felt relieved.
Tong Yao, having sent off her challenger, was in a good mood. She continued to chop the fillings for a while then started to knead the dough for the dumplings. Whatever Chen Yanmei was yelling about wasn’t her problem, she certainly didn’t care for such petty matters.
For lunch, only she and Si Chen were eating dumplings. She hadn’t made too much dough, so she cooked her own dumplings first and only after finishing her portion did she prepare Si Chen’s. Although it was her first time making pickles dumplings, they turned out to be delicious. The aroma even wafted out of the kitchen.
Just as she finished cooking, it was time for work to be over. She put the dumplings into a lunch box and left for the hospital, closing the door behind her. No sooner had she gone than Li Meiyu, wearing slippers, emerged from her room.
The smell of pickles dumplings was too enticing. She had already smelled it from inside her room, and the aroma had made her mouth water.
After looking around the kitchen to make sure Tong Yao wasn’t around, Li Meiyu lifted the lid of the pot. It turned out the pot had already been cleaned and there wasn’t a single dumpling left. Furious, Li Meiyu slammed the pot lid back onto the pot. The clanging of the pot gave her quite a headache.
"What are you banging about in the kitchen?" Liu Haisheng had returned from work and didn’t find anyone in the room. The noise from the kitchen led him to investigate, and the last thing he expected was to catch his wife slamming someone else’s pot lid. It was a good thing Tong Yao had gone to deliver food to Si Chen. Otherwise, who knew what could have happened.
Seeing Liu Haisheng scolding her as soon as he returned, Li Meiyu retorted, "I will smash it if I want to, why did you come back? If you’ve got guts go die outside!"
"What’s all this talk about dying? Can’t you say something more auspicious?" Looking at her spiteful expression, Liu Haisheng barely managed to hold back his anger. He quickly walked up to her and dragged her back to their room.
This was the residential compound, after all, surrounded by their colleagues. Liu Haisheng didn’t want to blow things out of proportion. After thinking it over all morning, he decided to come home to appease his wife. After all, Li Meiyu was going to work tomorrow morning, she wouldn’t be home for several days.
Elsewhere.
Tong Yao had brought the lunch box to the office, just in time to run into Guo Nan on his way down the stairs. Seeing the lunch box in her hand, he laughed and said, "You’re here to bring lunch to Dr. Si, aren’t you? He’s on the second floor of the inpatient department, making rounds."
"Okay, thank you."
Since Si Chen wasn’t in his office, going there is pointless; so Tong Yao made her way over to the Inpatient Department. It was lunchtime, and most of the family members of patients had gone to the canteen. The Inpatient Department was fairly quiet. Tong Yao wasn’t sure which room Si Chen was in; she had no choice but to go down the hallway. After walking just a short distance, she heard an elderly man’s sullen voice from a nearby ward.
"I won’t eat it. This isn’t even a real pickles dumpling. You’re trying to trick me because I’m old."
This was quickly followed by a man’s exasperated voice, "Dad, these are pickles dumplings, Wenqing especially bought them from a farm."
"Yes, Dad, try a few more." The woman called Wenqing chimed in.
"You’re fooling me. Take them away, I won’t eat," the old man complained just like a child.
As Tong Yao happened to be passing the door of the ward, she glanced inside out of curiosity. Inside the single room was a man in his seventies lying on a bed, with a couple in their forties looking helpless at the bedside. They were worried since the old man hadn’t eaten, but there was nothing they could do.
