Meat Buns and Mooncakes

Perhaps it was some kind of innate superpower, or excellent intuition and keen sense of smell, but Zhou Dongdong suddenly felt a strange force that stopped her from continuing to yell "whoosh whoosh whoosh" at the electric fan. When she turned her head, she saw the plate that her brother Chang'an was holding.

"Brother Chang'an, Mom made meat buns and said she'd wait for you to come and eat with her." Zhou Dongdong bit her finger, staring intently at the plate that Brother Chang'an was holding. Although the plate was held quite high, Zhou Dongdong couldn't quite tell what was inside.

"Meat buns?" Liu Chang'an looked at Zhou Shuling with a puzzled expression.

"Moon... moon... mooncake." Zhou Shuling stammered, glaring indignantly at her child. Who told her it was a meat bun! She said mooncake!

Zhou Shuling wasn't going to give her mooncakes to those two annoying kids, one big and one small. She'd keep them for herself for breakfast and late-night snacks, enough to last her at least a week.

"A kind of meat bun called mooncake, right?" Just like Zhou Dongdong, Liu Chang'an cleverly discovered the true identity of this "mooncake".

"Anyway, I'm not giving you any." Zhou Shuling took off her apron and plopped down on the sofa, looking at the plate in Liu Chang'an's hand.

Liu Chang'an sat down next to him and placed his ice cream mooncakes on the brown wooden table in front of the sofa.

"I want to eat." Zhou Dongdong nestled between Liu Chang'an's legs, patting his knees and bouncing around.

"It'll be easier to eat this if we bring a plate over," Liu Chang'an said.

Although she didn't plan to give Liu Chang'an and Zhou Dongdong the mooncakes she made herself, Zhou Shuling still went to get plates and small plastic knives and forks.

"When I had my birthday before, I bought a small cake, but they gave me a lot of disposable paper plates and cutlery as gifts." Zhou Shuling has always been thrifty and believes that useful things shouldn't be thrown away casually.

Call me next time.

"What?"

"Birthday."

"Oh." Zhou Shuling rubbed her hands together, looking expectantly at Liu Chang'an as he took out three sets of cutlery and paper plates.

"Each flavor is different, and each person can only choose one to eat," Liu Chang'an said to Zhou Dongdong.

"Then can you and Mom each give me a small bite?" Zhou Dongdong gestured with her fingers to indicate the amount of a small bite she was eating. After hesitating for a moment, she showed her entire fingertip to indicate that the small bite was actually this much.

Liu Chang'an didn't say anything, but started cutting a little bit off each mooncake with a knife and feeding it to Zhou Dongdong. Zhou Shuling got a little anxious, "These mooncakes are so pretty, don't ruin them!"

Women are naturally drawn to beauty, and seeing Liu Chang'an cut a slit in each of these beautiful mooncakes was heartbreaking.

"Mooncakes are meant to be eaten; no matter how beautiful a mooncake is, it will eventually be bitten into pieces," Liu Chang'an said without any hesitation.

"No, we can't eat them all in one day. I'll put them away first." Zhou Shuling picked out the three mooncakes that Liu Chang'an had scratched and damaged, picked up the remaining mooncakes along with the plate, and walked towards the door to help Liu Chang'an put them away.

"Come back, it's all for you to eat." Liu Chang'an waved his hand, "I don't like this anyway."

"Then why did you make so many!" Zhou Shuling scolded him a little embarrassedly, and then, under Zhou Dongdong's watchful gaze, she covered the remaining mooncakes with plastic wrap and put them in the freezer.

"I made so many different flavors so she wouldn't know which one to eat, and she'd be so anxious she'd roll around on the floor in frustration, do you understand? You're ruining my plan." Liu Chang'an pointed to the sofa, gesturing for Zhou Shuling to sit down and eat the mooncakes, and said with some dissatisfaction.

Zhou Dongdong didn't pay any attention. She was eating her own mooncake while glancing at the mooncakes on Chang'an's and her mother's plates from time to time.

"How annoying, always taking advantage of her being so naive." Zhou Shuling's gaze softened. It had been a long time since they had eaten mooncakes together like this, and the bright moon outside the window seemed especially clear tonight.

Where are the mooncakes you made?

"Ah?"

"Just show it. You've already done it, why are you still hiding it?"

"Then... then you can't say that about me."

Liu Chang'an smiled. It seemed that she had indeed been subjected to a lot of setbacks in the past, and she was really taking it to heart.

Zhou Shuling busied herself in the kitchen for a few minutes and brought out the mooncakes she had made. Liu Chang'an looked at them; there were twenty or thirty piled up on a large plate. She must have just heated them up in the microwave. Each one was plump and white, radiating steam from the rising heat. The skin was delicate and soft, looking more like freshly baked steamed buns. There was a slightly concave crease in the middle, from which rich, flavorful meat juices oozed out. Surprisingly, they looked quite appetizing.

"Isn't this just a meat bun?" Liu Chang'an could smell the aroma of meat. It wasn't sarcasm, but rather a feeling of bewilderment. "I see you're a traditional woman, so why do you always like to be unconventional when it comes to making food?"

Zhou Shuling was quite accepting of the label "traditional woman," and noticing Liu Chang'an's mockery, she proudly showed off her mooncake-making skills, "I also make meat-filled mooncakes. The meat in my mooncakes is all cooked in bone broth, then minced, and simmered in the broth until it's almost dry, allowing the filling to absorb all the broth. Then I wrap it with lobster and shrimp meat, and put it in a bun wrapper... no, a mooncake wrapper."

"Do you have any mooncakes that need to be heated in a microwave?" Liu Chang'an continued to question.

"Well... that's because the meat got cold and the broth solidified, making it less tasty. We need to heat it up," Zhou Shuling explained.

"It's confirmed, she's a meat bun." Liu Chang'an waved his hand, indicating that she didn't need to argue anymore.

Zhou Shuling could only watch sullenly as he stuffed a "mooncake" into his mouth.

Although she didn't expect him to praise her, Zhou Shuling couldn't help but watch his expression expectantly.

Liu Chang'an didn't say anything. After finishing one, he glanced at Zhou Shuling with some surprise, then picked up the second one and started eating.

Zhou Shuling couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

"Okay, we can put it on the menu now." Liu Chang'an nodded. "This dish will be called 'Zhou Mama's Meat Buns'."

Zhou Shuling almost burst into tears of joy. She excitedly grabbed Liu Chang'an's arm and shook it several times, looking at Liu Chang'an incredulously, "Really? Really? Really?"

"Really, eat your mooncake." Liu Chang'an reached out and pushed Zhou Shuling's face away. He was eating, and her saliva was about to spray all over his bun.

Zhou Shuling happily sat back down, finally on equal footing with Zhou Dongdong on the menu. Just as she was about to eat, she noticed that Zhou Dongdong had already finished her ice cream mooncake. Unable to control herself, Zhou Dongdong reached over with a small knife to cut Zhou Shuling's mooncake, and Zhou Shuling quickly slapped Zhou Dongdong's hand.

"My hand is moving by itself!" Zhou Dongdong said incredulously, "What's going on!"

"I'll share half with you." Liu Chang'an cut his ice cream mooncake in half and gave it to Zhou Dongdong. "From now on, you and your mother can only have one each day."

"I'll give her the rest." Although the ice cream mooncake was extremely delicious, Zhou Shuling was her mother! Zhou Shuling didn't know if it was because she had received Liu Chang'an's approval and was in an extremely happy mood, but she felt like she was eating heavenly food.

I made mooncakes for you, won't you eat them?

"Okay," Zhou Shuling replied obediently.

After finishing the remaining half of his ice cream mooncake, Liu Chang'an ate ten meat buns and took one downstairs.

Liu Chang'an thought that since even he found the meat buns delicious, he might as well try to tempt Shangguan Dandan with them and see what the effect would be. After all, he had never seen Shangguan Dandan eat before. Just like in biological research, there are often projects that observe the eating of experimental subjects. Liu Chang'an was naturally very interested in Shangguan Dandan's obviously unusual behavior.

Just as Liu Chang'an reached the bottom of the stairs, he knocked on the door and looked up to see a group of dark figures whizzing past in the distant sky.

Looking closely, he saw a dense swarm of large bats. Liu Chang'an stared in the direction where the bats had disappeared, while continuing to knock on the door forcefully.

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