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Aunt Zhao washed a few cucumbers and ate one as she said, "This morning, when Director Shang from the police station brought two leaders from the city bureau to see Little Tao and Little Huo, I overheard him mention it. The liangpi and roujiamo Little Tao made last night were both specialties of Qin Province. Maybe these two kids are from Qin Province?"

Aunt Tao disagreed. "Oh, come on. I heard our neighbor say that the Tiger-Tooth Potatoes Little Tao fried last night were a Sichuan Province specialty. Why don't you say they're both from Sichuan Province?"

"Maybe one is from Qin Province and the other is from Sichuan Province?"

"Then how do they know each other?" Aunt Tao continued. "Just listen to them chatting. You can tell they've known each other since they were little. Otherwise, they couldn't be this close."

Aunt Zhao fell silent.

The other volunteer aunties laughed. "I say, wherever those two kids are from, that's where they're from. We shouldn't ask or make wild guesses. If even the police station couldn't get it out of them, how would we know?"

Upstairs, Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan finished showering and sat in the dorm for a while longer. When they felt the time was about right, they slowly headed downstairs in slippers.

In the water vat in the corner of the kitchen, the translucent jelly had completely cooled. Under the lights, it gleamed with crystal clarity.

Huo Baichuan lifted the large aluminum basin from the vat and set it on the counter. Then he took out a stack of bowls from the dish cabinet.

Tao Yan scooped a spoonful of jelly into a bowl, poured in half a bowl of honey fruit jam, sprinkled crushed peanuts and walnut kernels over it, then handed it to Huo Baichuan. "Eat."

Huo Baichuan grinned and took the jelly. "Much obliged!"

Tao Yan snorted softly, served himself a bowl as well, then called to the old director, the volunteer aunties, and the children who had been waiting eagerly for ages. "Come eat."

The children waiting at the kitchen door cheered and rushed inside. Before they could reach Tao Yan, a volunteer auntie stopped them. "Who told you to come into the kitchen? Children aren't allowed in here. Go sit properly in the cafeteria."

Hearing that, the children made faces at Tao Yan before turning and running off.

A volunteer auntie came over to Tao Yan and explained with a smile, "There's rice, flour, beans, oil, kitchen knives, iron ladles, all sorts of things in here. We can't let children come in. We're afraid they'll ruin things because they don't know better, and we're also afraid they'll fool around and hurt themselves. Kids don't know their own strength or their limits."

Tao Yan nodded in understanding. "I didn't think it through."

No matter the era, kids would still act up when they were supposed to. Tao Yan really had not considered that carefully enough.

The volunteer auntie waved her hand. "How could we blame you? You're children yourselves!"

As they spoke, Tao Yan had already served twenty bowls of jelly. The volunteer aunties brought out trays and carried fourteen bowls to the children in the cafeteria and the upstairs dorms first. The rest were for themselves.

"Oh my, this jelly is delicious." The old director licked her lips and could not help saying, "It's so good."

After cooling in the water vat for nearly two hours, the jelly was slippery, cool, smooth, and delightfully springy. Paired with the sweet, silky honey fruit jam packed with fruit pulp, it had a distinctive fresh fruitiness. The finely crushed peanuts and walnut kernels were crisp when chewed, adding another layer of texture.

All in all, having a bowl of refreshing, sweet jelly in the blazing summer heat was a satisfaction beyond words.

Excited children's shrieks came from the cafeteria as well. It seemed the children were very pleased with the jelly too.

"I think if this jelly were sold outside, it'd definitely be more popular than Tiger-Tooth Potatoes." Aunt Tao spoke bluntly, praising it without hesitation.

"It does use quite a lot of ingredients." Another auntie looked at the diced watermelon, peaches, and strawberries in her bowl, then counted the walnut kernels and crushed peanuts. She could not help shaking her head. "There's just too much to put in it."

"Summer is exactly when there's the widest variety of fruit, and all these watermelons, peaches, and strawberries weren't that expensive combined." Huo Baichuan explained as he ate. "The crushed peanuts were left over from when we bought liangpi ingredients yesterday. We bought the honey and walnuts today, and a jar of honey plus a pound of walnuts cost less than five yuan altogether. The total cost was under ten yuan. If one bowl of jelly sells for fifty cents, it seems more worthwhile than Tiger-Tooth Potatoes."

"How could it be more worthwhile than fried potatoes?" Aunt Zhao returned carrying a tray, clearly unconvinced by what she heard. "The oil used for frying potatoes can be reused, so the only real cost is the potatoes. How much are potatoes per pound? No matter how expensive chili powder and cumin are, they can't cost more than fruit."

Hearing this, Tao Yan could not help saying, "The oil used to fry potatoes can't be reused. It causes cancer."

"What do you mean, causes cancer?" Aunt Zhao curled her lip, thinking Tao Yan was being alarmist. "Why haven't I heard of that? Haven't people always done it this way? What family can afford to waste half a bucket of oil every day? When we fry New Year goods, one pot of oil lasts the whole first lunar month. Who would be willing to throw it away?"

"You really don't know how expensive rice and firewood are until you run a household," Aunt Zhao muttered, clearly disapproving of Tao Yan's wastefulness. "Even a capitalist's child wouldn't squander things like that!"

"Cooking oil really can't be reused. There's scientific evidence for it." Huo Baichuan spoke up. "If you don't believe me, I'll go ask the health bureau for you tomorrow. If we're selling food to the neighbors, food safety has to be guaranteed. We absolutely can't harm anyone."

"Oh, give it a rest!" Aunt Zhao complained. "I don't care where you go to ask. Go stand in the street and ask whether the neighbors would agree to you wasting half a bucket of oil a day."

"How many days of good living have we even had? Those hard times when people gnawed on grass roots and ate tree bark weren't that long ago! You've never lived through bitter days, so you can bear to waste food like this."

Everyone had different ideas about how to live. Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan clearly could not reason with the aunties, but they also could not stand by and watch them reuse fried oil just to save money.