NOVPUBChapter 822: Chapter 821: Your Grandfather is Your Grandfather
Chapter 822 -821: Your Grandfather is Your Grandfather
Young Jiang Feng didn’t realize that in the eyes of Jiang Weiming, their actions were comparable to the pioneering deeds of Jiang Chengde. Even if he had known, he would have just chuckled and told Granduncle Weiming he was overthinking it.
Founding a school? Right now, all he wanted to do was to smash Chef Arno in the finals of the Sino-US Master Chef competition.
Although the semi-finals of the show hadn’t even started and the organizers had seemed to vanish for over a month, with the finals far away, Jiang Feng still hoped that he could create his own version of Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup before the finals and then silently say “shit” while pointing at the dish Chef Arno made.
Admittedly, there was no deep hatred between him and Chef Arno, just a slight misunderstanding that hardly counted as a grudge, but the thought of saying “shit” in front of Chef Arno felt wildly satisfying.
“Feng, is one mango enough?” the aunt asked with a cheerful smile.
Jiang Feng glanced at the fruit tea, half filled with mango juice and mangoes, topped with a grape split in half and perched on the rim of the glass.
All the tea shops in the country should learn from his aunt—this is what a real mango abundance looks like!
“That’s more than enough,” Jiang Feng hurriedly replied.
“Great, I’ll make you another cup of grape juice then,” his aunt said joyfully, and went on to make another cup half filled with grape juice and grapes, topped with a mango slice cut in half and stuck on the rim.
Jiang Feng: ?
In the end, Jiang Feng ended up drinking mango abundance, grape abundance, peach abundance, and fresh orange abundance, and he was burping from all the juice before he even had a single bite of dumpling. If nothing else, his first four bites of dumplings would likely be grape-flavored, mango-flavored, peach-flavored, and fresh orange-flavored.
Just as Jiang Feng started scooping up mangoes from his mango abundance to eat, Wu Minqi finally came back carrying a cake, with Jiang Zaidi in tow, probably having run into each other downstairs.
Jiang Zaidi, who had finished a day’s work fully geared up as if he was a member of an Antarctic expedition team, instantly brightened up at the sight of Jiang Feng drinking fruit tea and rushed to his mom, loudly articulating his desire.
“Mom, I want some mango juice too!”
“Make it yourself!”
Jiang Zaidi: QAQ
Jiang Zaidi, green with envy, glanced at the four cups of fruit tea in front of Jiang Feng, making Jiang Feng feel embarrassed enough to offer, “I’ll make one for you.”
“No need, no need,” Jiang Zaidi hastily declined, “Little brother, you’ve been staying at home working so hard every day, how can I let you make juice for me just because I’ve just come back from work? I’ll make it myself, myself!”
Jiang Feng: ?
As soon as Wu Minqi returned and set down the cake, she went to the kitchen to help Mrs. Jiang with the dumplings, while Jiang Feng continued to slowly eat his mangoes, watching his family around him, listening to his mom and his aunt chat about household matters, dieting, skincare, and the new winter coats. Jiang Zaidi complained to Jiang Shoucheng about stupid clients while Jiang Shoucheng reciprocated with hospital frustrations. The simultaneous familiarity and strangeness of this situation left Jiang Feng feeling somewhat bewildered.
He suddenly realized it had been a long time since he had felt this way.
It even felt like ages since he had last seen everyone.
These days, his daily routine had been to get up, cook, and sleep, barely interacting with others. Even living under the same roof as Qiqi, they only ate breakfast together and chatted briefly while eating fruit in the evening; their interaction didn’t even match that of university roommates, much less a couple. On closer thought, he realized that even those evening fruit conversations lacked meaningful content, not even touching upon the day-to-day of Taifeng Building.
Jiang Feng had not heard the trivial life details from his family for a long time.
He hadn’t heard Wang Hao boasting about another achievement that impressed his boss, hadn’t heard his dad ramble about a new type of kitchen knife he really wanted to buy, hadn’t heard Ji Yue exclaim about going bankrupt after checking her account balances in Alipay, WeChat, and her bank, hadn’t heard Xiaxia complain about the radishes being sold out again in the convenience store next door, and hadn’t even heard Qiqi tell him to buy more napkins from the supermarket because they had run out at home.
He was physically close to everyone, yet felt distant at the same time.
But clearly, he preferred this feeling now.
As Mrs. Jiang walked out of the kitchen with a steaming basin of dumplings, the Jiang family’s irregular, spontaneous, and unquantifiable dumpling feast began—something they did several times a year.
The entire dumpling-making process today, from mixing the dough, preparing the fillings, rolling out the wrappers, to eventually wrapping the dumplings, was solely handled by Sir. Only the cooking part was done by Mrs. Jiang. She expressed her dissatisfaction as she believed she made excellent dumplings, big and firm, just like the rice dumplings she made, which were filling as two ordinary ones.
Although not everyone in the Jiang family was present, the ones with big appetites were mostly there. In order to make the meal enjoyable, Sir had specifically prepared various fillings: pork with leek, lamb with leek, chive with egg, cabbage with pork, cabbage with mushrooms, and white radish. There was something for everyone, although the meat fillings obviously outnumbered the vegetarian ones.
When Sir was wrapping, he used separate bowls for different fillings, but for Mrs. Jiang, cooking didn’t require such distinction—she threw everything in the pot together. After several rounds of cooking, all the dumplings were served in one basin at once, causing those at the bottom to be warm and those on top to be hot enough to scorch your mouth, requiring the more temperature-sensitive people to dig around for the cooler ones at the bottom.
However, temperature was not the biggest issue they faced.
It was the fillings.
Since Mrs. Jiang cooked the dumplings all mixed together, apart from the easily distinguishable chive and egg dumplings, no one could tell whether the dumplings in their bowl were filled with cabbage and pork or white radish before taking a bite.
A large pot of dumplings was placed on the dining table with a clang, causing the table to shake slightly.
“Dinner’s ready, time for dumplings!” Mrs. Jiang bellowed energetically, prompting everyone to gravitate towards the sound, as if she had made the dumplings herself.
Sir silently put down the unfinished dumpling wrapper he was holding, brushed the flour off his hands, and went to find a bowl for his dumplings.
The dining table wasn’t large; Jiang Jiankang’s table was just a cheap one from an ordinary furniture store, capable of holding a pot of dumplings but not the people eating from it. But no one seemed to mind, as long as they had a bowl in their hands, vinegar in the bowl, and dumplings in the vinegar, it didn’t matter where they ate.
They could eat around the table, on the sofa, on the small stools beside the coffee table, or even standing at the edge of the living room or squatting by the window. In this scenario, the edge of the dining table was no longer the prime spot—the soft sofa was.
“Little brother, sit here, there’s plenty of space!” Jiang Zaidi quickly snagged the best spot on the sofa and enthusiastically waved Jiang Feng over.
“Little bro, this dumpling is definitely pork with green onion, your favorite, right? Here, have this one!” Jiang Shoucheng decided to give his own dumpling from his bowl to Jiang Feng.
“Son, you haven’t added any vinegar yet, right? Dad will get some for you,” Jiang Jiankang offered another solution.
“Dear, this is the fruit tea I just learned to make from your aunt, come and try it!” Wang Xiuli handed Jiang Feng a cup barely containing mangoes.
There was no doubt, at this moment, Jiang Feng was the center of the Jiang family.
Sir, who was sitting quietly by the dining table eating dumplings: ?
Suddenly, Sir felt that the hot and fragrant dumplings in his bowl were tasteless.
The scene was familiar yet strange.
Familiar was everyone’s attentive attitude, strange was the focus of their attention.
Sir: Ծ‸Ծ
Noticing Sir’s change in mood, Jiang Weiming, who was also quietly eating dumplings next to him, smiled and put down his chopsticks, “What’s wrong, not used to it?”
“Hmph.” Sir snorted coldly, his feelings clear without words.
“A bunch of ungrateful brats.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Jiang Weiming said with a spectator’s grin.
“Impossible.” Sir said sternly, cleared his throat, and loudly announced, “The braised pork and pork knuckles in the kitchen downstairs should be ready by now, who will go fetch them?”
The entire living room seemed to hit the pause button.
The next moment, everyone was stirred up.
“Dad, I’ll go, I’ll go right now!” Jiang Jiankang put his bowl on the coffee table and rushed out.
“Uncle, you’ve had a long day, take a rest; I’ll go!” Jiang Zaidi blocked Jiankang, turning into a roadblock.
“Son, you just got off work, don’t go, it’s too tiring to carry up the heavy pork and knuckles, let Dad do it,” Jiang Jianguo said, almost drooling with sympathy.
“Big brother, let me go!” Jiang Jianye had already grabbed the keys.
…
After a fierce competition, Jiang Jianguo won with an absolute weight advantage and the spare keys to Sir’s house.
Jiang Weiming was dumbfounded.
It wasn’t until Jiang Jianguo stepped out the door with steps joyous with anticipation of eating the braised pork that Jiang Weiming came back to his senses and asked, “When did you make the braised pork and knuckles?”
“I got up early this morning to prepare,” Sir said proudly, glancing at Jiang Feng, who sat confused on the sofa, his look as if to say:
Kid, you’re still too green!
Jiang Feng, noticing Sir’s look: ?
ヽ(゜▽゜)~
