Unexpected, Indeed
Liu Chang'an strode over, lifted Qin Peng up from under his armpits, and placed him on the ground.
"You still think of yourself as a child? Standing taller means seeing further, right?" Liu Chang'an chuckled, but seeing the pleading look in Qin Peng's eyes finally fade, replaced by a childlike contentment, he opened his arms and hugged Qin Peng. "I've come to see you."
"You've come to see me." Qin Peng murmured. For an old man, it's hard for a young person to understand that at this age, there is still an elder he admires living in the world.
Like many adults, even if they have long been independent and become the pillars of their families, having parents alive is a responsibility and a source of peace of mind. If their parents are gone, they feel an emptiness behind them, and that feeling of having no way out and no one to rely on, no matter how faint, lingers in their hearts.
Qin Peng had long since become a towering tree behind countless people, but he knew that even now, he was just a sapling under his elder brother's all-encompassing shade.
Several guards stood by, dumbfounded. This young man lifted the old man up like a child and put him down again, speaking to him with utter disrespect. What kind of person was this? Did anyone in the world talk to an old man like that?
He addressed the young man directly, his tone carrying a hint of reproach. Had it not been for the young lady beside him smiling sweetly, her eyes glistening with tears, the guards would have taken action against him.
"I checked the high-speed train schedule. You should have arrived in Jinling at 5:30. I've been waiting here since 5:20," Qin Peng said, holding Liu Chang'an's hand, clearly needing an explanation.
"We arrived in Jinling at 5:30. We're at Jinling High-Speed Railway Station. It takes a little longer to get here from the high-speed railway station," Qin Yanan said to Qin Peng. Her feelings for Qin Peng were complicated. He was a heroic elder whom she had admired since childhood, but in fact, they had a different relationship from a hundred years ago. Even now, she didn't know how to address Qin Peng.
"Oh right, I'm getting senile." Qin Peng laughed. As people get older, many things become unclear, and he couldn't even figure out the arrival time of the high-speed train or how long it would take them to get there.
"Go inside, I'll massage your legs for a bit. You've been standing for so long, didn't you try to persuade him to sit down for a while?" Liu Chang'an said the last sentence to the guards.
"He sat down, but wouldn't listen to advice. He just sat down and then tried to stand up again," the guard said hurriedly. The young man's tone was ordinary and gentle, but perhaps because of his intimate and casual attitude towards the old man, it was hard to figure out his identity, and his words carried a heavy sense of pressure.
"Do you think they can control me?" Qin Peng said, straightening his posture.
He even got arrogant. Liu Chang'an smiled. That's how ordinary people are. The older they get, the more childlike their temper becomes... Only the elderly who can enjoy their later years have that right.
Qin Peng took Liu Chang'an and Qin Yanan's hands and walked into the courtyard. "Let's eat first. I asked the kitchen to prepare your favorite dishes... I originally wanted to cook myself, but they wouldn't let me do anything."
"Let's skip tonight, I'll cook tomorrow." Liu Chang'an nodded.
"Make me some lychee pork. My sister Jin and I both loved it when we were little."
"I love eating it now."
Lychee meat is rich in oil and sugar and is a traditional dish of Fujian. Lean meat is cut into lychee-sized pieces, the skin is scored, and then it is deep-fried. The dish is named for its resemblance to lychees. It is not a healthy food suitable for the elderly, but Liu Chang'an would make it for Qin Peng to please him.
The dining area was in the east wing, where Qin Peng and Ye Sijin used to study and eat. Ye Chenyu often ate there with them and occasionally cooked. Back then, Ye Chenyu turned the tide during the Ye Family's crisis. The Qin Family and Ye Family were on good terms, and the investments they made to help yielded extremely high profits. Ye Chenyu was highly respected in both families, and the Qin Family was naturally happy to have Ye Chenyu teach Qin Peng. However, they never expected that Qin Peng would later embark on the revolutionary path and begin to believe in Marxism. When the Qin Family patriarch saw Ye Chenyu again, he believed that this was largely due to the teacher's poor guidance. Naturally, he was furious, but there was nothing he could do.
"Chicken and bamboo shoot soup, Liangxi crispy eel, Snow Mountain shrimp, yellow croaker soup with pickled mustard greens, and a bowl of noodles with minced meat sauce for everyone—these are all dishes we loved to eat when we were kids," Qin Peng said, pointing to several dishes. "Try them and see if they taste like they did back then?"
"The taste isn't important; what matters most is that we're eating together with the same people." Qin Yanan pulled Liu Chang'an and Qin Peng to sit down.
"It's a pity that the Su Family member isn't here," Qin Peng sighed softly.
Qin Yanan glanced at Liu Chang'an and saw that he was already seriously eating his bowl of noodles with minced meat sauce.
Qin Yanan recalled some stories about saozi noodles. The origin of saozi noodles is longevity noodles, which existed in the Tang Dynasty. Su Dongpo was associated with many delicacies, loved to eat saozi noodles and even wrote a poem, "I really want to become a soup noodle guest, but I need to prepare some books about playing with deer."
Back when Su Dongpo, the noodles were called longevity noodles. Later, they were called "Saozi noodles" because a scholar from Qishan married a wife who was a great cook. The day after she married into the family, she made a bowl of noodles that the whole family praised. Later, when the younger brother-in-law passed the imperial examination, he invited his classmates to dinner at home and asked his sister-in-law to make her best noodles... This noodle dish became known as Sister-in-law Noodles because of the word-of-mouth recommendations from these scholars.
So at this moment, Qin Peng brought up Su Mei. To Qin Peng and Ye Sijin, Su Mei was like a sister-in-law. Meanwhile, Liu Chang'an was diligently eating his noodles. Was it because he was also thinking of Su Mei? Or was it because he wanted to eat his sister-in-law's food?
"Grandpa, do you still call Su Mei' sister-in-law'?" Qin Yanan asked Qin Peng. The old man's thoughts were hard for ordinary people to fathom. His order for the kitchen to prepare this bowl of noodles with minced meat sauce might have been partly an attempt to mediate between Su Mei and Liu Chang'an.
"Go ahead and call her that. An elder sister-in-law is like a mother, and besides, she contributed a lot to our cause back then. It's not an exaggeration to call her sister-in-law." Qin Peng didn't quite understand why Qin Yanan suddenly asked this question. Over the years, his feelings for Qin Yanan had also been complicated. Rationally, he knew who she was, but watching a beautiful little girl grow up and enjoy the joys of family life, it was impossible for him not to feel that sense of elder-younger affection.
Hearing Qin Peng admit it so directly, Qin Yanan felt relieved, which meant that the old man had no ill intentions. If Qin Peng really intended to reunite Liu Chang'an and Su Mei and reconcile, Qin Yanan would be a little worried, because Liu Chang'an not only valued her as his sister, but also cared about his brother.
Liu Chang'an was eating noodles. Qin Peng's chef was naturally exceptional. In addition to preparing suitable meals for Qin Peng, he also made sure to satisfy any guests who came, and he didn't entertain people who lacked taste and knowledge.
The noodles with minced meat sauce were quite good, and he was savoring them carefully to show respect and appreciation for the chef's skills when he heard Qin Yanan's words. In the past, he would have just taken it as a casual question from Qin Yanan, but after experiencing the back-and-forth between Zhuge Liang and Manager Sima Yi in the waiting room today, he suddenly grasped the motive behind Qin Yanan's question and couldn't help but shake his head. They could think so much about even the smallest things; they would definitely survive to the last episode in a palace drama... Who knows, they might even kill the emperor and rule from behind the curtain.
-
-
The update is a bit late, but it still counts as two chapters of the new book and two chapters of the old book yesterday, a small burst of updates. A new month of voting for monthly tickets! More bursts today!