"How old are you again this year, Chen Banxia?"
At the dinner table, Chen Shu asked the question once more.
"You don't even remember how old your sister is!" Chen Banxia sounded like she was lecturing him, clearly displeased. "Just look at yourself. Is that any way to behave?"
"So?"
"I'm twenty-two by actual age, twenty-nine by traditional reckoning. Remember it from now on."
"I've got a bad memory."
"Nonsense!"
Chen Banxia's eyes darted around before she glanced at the young girl beside her. "Then tell me, how old is Xiaoxiao?"
"Twelve by actual age, nineteen by traditional reckoning."
"See? What's that supposed to mean?" Chen Banxia raised an eyebrow. "You remember hers, but not mine?"
"I remember she's ten years younger than you," Chen Shu explained.
"Like hell I believe you..." Chen Banxia snorted.
"Brother-in-law really doesn't remember mine," the young girl clarified from the side. "He asks every year... He only remembers Qingqing's."
"That's because Qingqing and I are the same age."
"Like hell I believe you..."
The young girl lowered her head and said nothing.
But Qingqing, sitting beside him, turned to glance at him and asked lightly, "If I weren't the same age as you, would you forget mine too?"
Fine! I'll stop talking!
Chen Shu picked up a piece of fish with his chopsticks.
You couldn't talk while eating fish.
Otherwise, a bone might get stuck in your throat.
The good news was that Golden-Finned Fish had finally reached the market. Large-scale farming had brought the price down, so Brother Suannai no longer had to scavenge for them in Long Lake.
Chen Shu had bought a whole fish that morning, weighing several pounds, for less than two hundred yuan.
It still wasn't cheap, but it was already like "swallows once nesting beneath the halls of