Chapter 13: The tomatoes are ripe

It was late so Lu Qingjiu made a simple noodle dish with mixed sauce for Bai Yuehu to eat. The noodles are cooked and spooned over, the richly flavoured bile melts into the hot noodle soup, the fat and aroma of the meat blends with the noodles, and a few green leaves and a handful of spring onions make it easy and tasty.

Lu Qingjiu was afraid that Bai Yuehu wouldn't have enough to eat, so he made him a big bowl of noodles, and Bai Yuehu ate half of it in one gulp, as if he wasn't afraid of the heat. Lu Qingjiu didn't eat as fast as he did, and Zhu Miaomiao, who should have been unconscious, woke up when he was halfway through the bowl.

She fumbled out of the bedroom in her pajamas with a confused look on her face, smelled the room of noodles and her mouth instantly watered, saying, "Sake, you're eating noodles, why didn't you call me?"

Lu Qingjiu looked at Bai Yuehu and saw that he didn't even look up, so he said, "You passed out in the shower, I just sent you back to your room, how can I tell you to get up and eat noodles?"

"Zhu Miaomiao was a bit confused as she tried to recall her shower, but found that her memory seemed to be fractured and she couldn't recall parts of it, scratching her head, "How long have I been unconscious?"

Lu Qingjiu looked at the time: "Not too long, just over an hour."

"Oooh, I'm hungry too." Zhu Miaomiao commiserated, "I want to eat noodles too."

Lu Qingjiu said, "Wait a minute, I'll give you a bowl too."

Zhu Miaomiao said, "There's no hurry, finish your noodles first, or they'll melt away later."

While Lu Qingjiu and Zhu Miaomiao were talking, Bai Yuehu had already finished his noodles, he always eats cleanly and this time he didn't even have any noodle soup left.

As soon as he wiped his mouth afterwards, he said faintly that he was going to bed and got up to leave.

Zhu Miaomiao looked at his back and whispered, "Qingjiu, what happened to us at night, is this man particularly powerful? Although Lu Qingjiu didn't say anything, Zhu Miaomiao's mind had already conjured up countless images of Bai Yuehu's superiority.

"It's quite impressive." Lu Qingjiu couldn't possibly tell Zhu Miaomiao who Bai Yuehu really was, so he had to babble, "He knows more about this stuff"

Zhu Miaomiao said excitedly, "So have you seen a ghost?"

Lu Qingjiu :""

Although he didn't answer, the subtle expression had given Zhu Miaomiao the answer, Zhu Miaomiao said, "Wow, so impressive, I envy you, you actually saw the ghost"

Lu Qingjiu is helpless: "What is there to envy?"

Zhu Miaomiao: "I've never seen it before"

Lu Qingjiu: "You want to see"

Zhu Miaomiao said, "A little bit, a little bit I think."

Lu Qingjiu sighed and put his chopsticks down: "Do you remember the school next to our company?"

Zhu Miaomiao was confused by the question: "I remember, why?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Isn't there an abandoned public toilet inside the school?" I'm telling you.

"Ahhhhhhhh stop it, I don't want to see it" Zhu Miaomiao, who was aware of this strange story, screamed and covered her ears, "I'm just kidding brother, stop it"

Lu Qingjiu said, "You, you're just a good dragon." He said he wanted to see it, but when he really saw it, he began to regret it.

Zhu Miaomiao realises his mistake: "I was wrong"

Lu Qingjiu stretched out his hand and didn't give her any more trouble, but went to the kitchen and cooked her a bowl of noodles. Zhu Miaomiao ate the noodles and went back to bed, while Lu Qingjiu cleaned up the kitchen before lying down on the bed and falling asleep as soon as she hit the pillow.

The next day, Lu Qingjiu slept a little longer, waiting until dawn to get up from bed.

He yawned in his pyjamas as he walked to the front yard to wash up, just as Bai Yuehu came back from watering outside, carrying a bamboo basket with a mess of red and green vegetables in it.

Lu Qingjiu said good morning to him and said, "Where did you get all these dishes?"

Bai Yuehu said, "Our vegetables are ripe."

Lu Qingjiu looked dumbfounded for a moment and whispered, "So soon."

From the time the vegetables were planted to the time they grew, he barely went into the ground, almost all of it was watered and tended to by Bai Yuehu, who usually only went to catch the occasional insect and weed, with little effort.

Yin Xun said it takes at least three months for things like tomatoes to ripen, but a month is about right for vegetables like cabbage.

"Mmm." Bai Yuehu responded and pulled a round tomato out of the basket, washed it on the side and handed it to Lu Qingjiu, "Yummy."

Lu Qingjiu took a bite of the tomato and his eyes lit up instantly. The tomatoes were completely different from those bought in the market, with a particularly strong, sour, sweet and juicy flavour that filled his mouth with the aroma of tomatoes.

"Delicious," exclaimed Lu Qingjiu, "these tomatoes are so good."

"Mmm." Bai Yuehu said, "The cucumber tastes good too."

Lu Qingjiu said that he felt another cucumber and it tasted as good as Bai Yuehu said, it was sweet and crisp, almost as good as a fruit, so it was good to eat without cooking.

Lu Qingjiu ate with gusto and decided on a recipe for lunch, making a beef stew with tomatoes and cucumbers for scrambled eggs.

Bai Yuehu nods, looking quite satisfied.

Lu Qingjiu grabbed a tomato and handed it to Zhu Miaomiao, who was amazed at the taste of it and asked him how they grew it.

"He grew it." Lu Qingjiu said, "I'm afraid you won't be able to learn."

"Zhu Miaomiao stared blankly, clearly not believing that Bai Yuehu, who looked so immortal, could still pull up his trouser legs and water the mud.

"Yeah." Lu Qingjiu said matter-of-factly, "He's basically the one who does the vegetable patch."

Zhu Miaomiao makes a gesture of admiration.

Bai Yuehu said that most of the vegetables in the field were ripe and ready to be picked, and Lu Qingjiu was worried that others would suspect that the vegetables were growing too fast. But I don't know if it was the small size of his family's land or Bai Yuehu's low profile, but the rest of the village didn't react.

Today, Li Xiaoyu from the house next door came to Lu Qingjiu's house to cut the pig's grass, so Lu Qingjiu also gave him a bag of tomatoes to take home to eat. When he went to see Li Xiaoyu in the pig pen a little later, he found that the boy had given some tomatoes to Xiao Hei and Xiao Hua, who were so happy that their eyes were narrowed.

Lu Qingjiu was a bit helpless, but didn't say anything as he casually asked, "Little Fish, why aren't you at school this morning?"

Li Xiaoyu was silent for a moment and whispered, "My father says it's useless to go to school and that it's better to work at home to earn money."

Lu Qingjiu frowned at these words, "Why is your father like this?"

"And I don't get good grades either." Li Xiaoyu hung her head, a little lost, "I couldn't learn something that was so simple."

Lu Qingjiu said, "You can ask me if there is anything you don't know, I can help you look at it."

"No need Brother Lu ." Li Xiaoyu shook his head, "I'm stupid."

Lu Qingjiu wanted to say something else, but when he saw that Li Xiaoyu didn't want to talk about it anymore, he had to give up. When he left the pigsty, he thought that he should talk to Li Xiaoyu's father sometime, as it was not possible for children to go to school.

At noon, Lu Qingjiu made a hot meal of vegetables brought back by Bai Yuehu and called Yin Xun to come over too.

Yin Xun has dark circles under his eyes and looks as if he didn't sleep well last night.

Lu Qingjiu asked him what was wrong and he said he had a nightmare all night.

"A nightmare," Zhu Miaomiao asked vaguely as he ate a piece of beef, "what did you dream about?"

Yin Xun said wanly, "Nothing much, I just dreamt that I was walking in a street and something was chasing me."

"Then it must be because you were scared last night." Zhu Miaomiao said, "Have a piece of meat to calm down."

Yin Xun nodded and held out his chopsticks.

The beef stew made from Bai Yuehu's tomatoes was really something, with no MSG or anything else, but the soup was incredibly tasty and the beef was very soft, not too hard to chew, making it very satisfying to eat. The four of them wiped out Lu Qingjiu's pot of dishes, and Bai Yuehu finished the last mouthful of soup, squinting in contentment. Lu Qingjiu gave him a look, thinking that only when he was full did Bai Yuehu look like a tame fox.

Zhu Miaomiao volunteered to wash the dishes, and Lu Qingjiu, seeing that Yin Xun was listless, told him to go back and take a nap. As soon as Yin Xun left, Bai Yuehu, who seemed to be falling asleep in the sun in the courtyard, suddenly said, "We can't finish the rest of the tomatoes, so let's sell them."

Lu Qingjiu was stunned at the words, "A lot more familiar?"

"A lot." Bai Yuehu said.

"You can't finish it either" Lu Qingjiu was a little puzzled, remembering that Bai Yuehu was quite a big eater.

"The food is finished." Bai Yuehu said.

"Then why sell?" Lu Qingjiu didn't understand.

"Because the money from the sale can be exchanged for meat." Bai Yuehu yawned and his eyes closed again, "I prefer meat."

Lu Qingjiu now understands Bai Yuehu's logic. Although tomatoes are edible, they are a vegetarian dish and it does seem too cruel for the fox to eat them every day.

So let's go to the market sometime and sell the tomatoes along with the rest of the extra vegetables, Lu Qingjiu decided.

What the author has to say: Bai Yuehu: The world's favourite things are meat and Lu Qingjiu.

Lu Qingjiu: You have to choose one

Bai Yuehu: the meat of Lu Qingjiu

Lu Qingjiu: Suddenly a horror film