Lunch was quite sumptuous.
Originally prepared for guests, but the guests had left.
However, on most people’s small tables, it just meant more dishes were added; the quantity itself hadn’t really changed, only Run Sheng now had two large bowls instead of one.
Li Sanjiang caught sight of this and couldn’t help but curse: "Damn it, why don’t you just eat out of a bathtub!"
Run Sheng asked joyfully: "Can I?"
Li Sanjiang was choked up and rolled his eyes.
It was then that Run Sheng realized he had misunderstood and gave an embarrassed smile, then started eating in earnest, alternating between holding incense sticks in his left hand and a spoon in his right.
Li Zhiyuan looked at the drunken shrimp in front of him, which had been soaked in rice wine and seasoned with green onion, ginger, and garlic to remove any fishy smell.
He picked one up, put it in his mouth and gently squeezed; the shrimp meat popped out, fresh and delicious.
He then grabbed a drunken mud snail, gripped the front end with his teeth, and slowly pushed outwards to separate the meat from the shell. The meat of the snail was tiny and crunchy when chewed.
One must eat this carefully, not hastily, or else risk swallowing the sand inside the snail with it.
The tradition of eating raw and pickled food is common in coastal areas, and for those used to it, it’s an unrelenting delight.
But for most people from inland areas, this kind of dish is simply horrifying.
In fact, it’s true that eating raw pickled food does come with a higher risk of parasites.
After tasting only a little, Li Zhiyuan saw that Alii also had little interest in these two dishes, not even touching them, so he got up to bring the dishes over to Li Sanjiang to accompany his drink.
So, Li Zhiyuan brought the drunken shrimp and drunken mud snail to Liu Yumei and Aunt Liu’s table.
"Not used to eating them?"
"Good stuff, you’re not enjoying it."
Liu Yumei ate two drunken mud snails in succession and then took a sip of yellow wine.
Aunt Liu said with a smile: "Alii doesn’t like these things either."
Liu Yumei shook her head: "Alii just finds them too much trouble."
Then, Liu Yumei asked Li Zhiyuan: "The people who came this morning, what were they planning to do?"
"Buy a house. They took a liking to Big Beard’s house."
"Oh, how’s that house?"
"It’s spacious and has a big fish pond; they’re in a hurry to sell so it’s very cheap now. Grandma, are you interested in going to take a look?"
"What would I go look at if I don’t have the money to buy?"
"You can still go take a look without buying."
"If I don’t have money to buy, looking at it will only make me feel more frustrated when I sleep at night. It’s better not to go. Besides, I’m not from this village, and according to the rules, I can’t buy it.
Anyway, everything must be done according to official rules."
Li Zhiyuan knew that this was Liu Yumei deliberately reminding him to handle the situation by reporting it to the police and not to do anything foolish.
"The police officers are busy too; besides, isn’t ’Police-citizen cooperation’ painted on the wall of the police station?"
Liu Yumei looked deep into the young boy’s face, lifted her yellow wine, took another sip, and said lightly: "Even in a group of monkeys, there’s a King of the Mountain."
Meaning, within this group of water monkeys, there’s indeed a tough nut.
Li Zhiyuan said: "It could also be just plucking a general from among the shorties."
"Haha." Liu Yumei laughed softly, waving her chopsticks, "Go eat, kid."
Li Zhiyuan went back to his own small table.
Aunt Liu lowered her voice and asked: "Should I go and check exactly which books Xiao Yuan is reading?"
The boy’s earlier words subtly included the situation with the Si Hai family’s fishing ponds, hinting that even if you’re good at recognizing bait holes, if you stumble, you’re just average after all.
This recognition had already startled Aunt Liu, even more than when the boy had asked her for poison in the morning.
The latter indicated a child’s temperament, but the former suggested that this kid might really have entered Xuanmen, and quite deeply at that.
Liu Yumei shook her head: "Before, when the boy hadn’t visited, going to look at the books in Li Sanjiang’s basement might have had some merit; now that the boy has seen the ropes, going to look would only entangle oneself further. Are you in that much of a hurry to meet Ali?"
"How could I, there should be someone to take care of you."
"Although I’ve lived to a ripe old age, I do not cook."
Aunt Liu: "It seems Uncle Sanjiang’s books in the basement are really extraordinary."
"Indeed they are extraordinary; didn’t he say they were kept with him deliberately by several groups of people during the destruction of the ’Four Olds’?"
"Now it seems that those groups were quite prestigious indeed."
"There’s no such logic in this world that allows only us to have good eyesight while everybody else is blind."
Liu Yumei actually had a few more thoughts, but she kept them in her heart without voicing them out.
That is, no matter how extraordinary the books are, they are still just books.
And the more extraordinary the books, the harder they are to understand.
Books of the Xuanmen, how many people have spent their entire lives without really understanding even one.
She enjoyed sitting on the dam to drink tea, while the boy would sit above her, reading books like flipping through picture stories, one after another.
If they really were extraordinary Xuanmen treasures, and he read them in this fashion yet still managed to understand and learn, that would really defy all reason.
Yet the facts seem to be laid out right here.
When he first moved in, he was just a child frightened by his first encounter with a corpse, but now, he was not only able to distinguish primary from bait holes, but also personally guide the spirits.
Such a child, before liberation, would have been coveted by every family to inherit their mantle.
If it were not for the fact that the tablet at home honored the deceased, if there was even a hint of spirit present, they would probably clamor at night for her to take him as an apprentice.
There might even be another big fight over whether to follow the Qin or the Liu family’s offering tablet.