You Have to Find the Right Person to Share a Household With

He had originally wanted to try something new at the state-run restaurant.

But now that he had gotten some tomatoes,

he would put that off.

First, he would go home and make some snow on Flaming Mountain.

Then he would find someone to make him a meal of scrambled eggs and tomatoes!

At worst, he could provide the ingredients himself!

He was damn well going to eat scrambled eggs and tomatoes today!

Liang Xin went home carrying a bag of tomatoes.

He chomped on them all the way, and by the time he got home, he had eaten almost a jin out of the six.

Back home, he picked up a cleaver and cut them into wedges.

The ball tomatoes were small, so four or five wedges apiece would do.

He cut up more than half a jin, then got half a jin of white sugar from the system shop, at eight mao a jin.

The quality of the stuff produced by the system really was good. The soft white sugar had fine grains and was fluffy, just like snow.

He grabbed a handful and sprinkled it into the basin.

The pure white sugar fell on the red tomato wedges. That was where the name "snow covering Flaming Mountain" came from.

He had nearly eaten his fill chomping away all the way home.

But with sugar added, it was a whole new flavor.

He polished off another half jin or so.

Liang Xin rubbed his belly in satisfaction. Those tomatoes had really given him a sense of happiness!

Now, let the happiness continue!

He needed to think about how to get some scrambled eggs and tomatoes!

Hadn't they said it? When you have trouble, turn to the organization!

And the organization had said that when he had trouble, he should go to Aunt He first!

So he would wait for Aunt He to get off work.

He got off work relatively early, so he waited quite a while before he gradually began to hear sounds outside.

Only then did everyone else start getting off work and coming home, one after another.

They all lived in this courtyard, and people were warmhearted these days, with voices to match.

With so many people around, whoever came home was almost certain to see someone else.

Then they would exchange greetings.

Once the greetings started, everyone in the courtyard knew the other person was home.

Liang Xin waited.

He waited for He Ting.

He had already decided that, one way or another, he was going to eat scrambled eggs and tomatoes today.

He didn't know how to make it himself, so he could only turn to his friends and family for help.

The person he knew best here was Aunt He.

He would provide the ingredients and have Aunt He cook.

At worst, he could let her family share the meal!

When he had talked about asking someone to introduce him to a widow, he had been joking.

But he really did want to find someone who was good at cooking to share a household with.

It absolutely couldn't be someone with a family like Aunt He's, though.

People said a growing boy could eat his father to death, and her family had two growing boys.

There were also Lao Jiang and Jiang Xinxin. He couldn't afford to feed all five of them.

With that many people, the little over a yuan he earned a day wouldn't go far.

If everyone contributed ingredients according to the number of people in their family, Aunt He's family definitely wouldn't agree, even if Liang Xin did.

If the food was poor, Liang Xin wouldn't be happy.

If they made good food at every meal, they wouldn't be happy.

They wouldn't squander food the way he did.

So they couldn't eat together.

Liang Xin lay on the kang with his head on a pillow, one leg crossed over the other and swinging back and forth.

Bored, he waited to hear Aunt He greeting someone outside.

For the past few days, he hadn't been eating well. He had spent all day thinking about what to eat and hadn't had the mind for anything else.

Now things were a little better and he no longer had to worry about food or clothing, and he immediately felt bored.

Especially now that he had started avoiding work, he had even more time on his hands.

"Sigh, what should I do with so much free time every day? Maybe I should get some books to read!"

"Otherwise, how am I supposed to pass the time?"

Passing the time, indeed. If other people knew what he was thinking, they might just beat him up!

Everyone else was so busy, spending every day laying bricks and tiles for a harmonious society.

Yet he actually felt bored because he had too much free time?

Wasn't he asking for a beating?

In the eyes of the people here, that sort of thinking was unacceptable!

That sort of thinking was dangerous!

Only street loafers and hooligans would have thoughts like that!

"Xiao Liang, are you home?"

Huh, that sounded like Big Thunder Sister—no, Sister Xiao Zhu.

Before Liang Xin could get up, Sister Xiao Zhu had already pushed the door open and swept inside.

That made Liang Xin want to remind her to get into the habit of knocking before coming in.

I'm a bachelor, so I don't have much to worry about, but you're so rash. What if you walked in on someone else in the middle of something good?

How could you stay friends afterward?

"Xiao Liang, my work unit handed out some sweet stalks. I brought some over for you to try."

Before Liang Xin could react, Sister Xiao Zhu had already put several sections of sweet stalk on the kang.

A lot of people in the south might not know what sweet stalks were.

Their scientific name was sweet sorghum, and they could also be called second-generation sugarcane.

Put that way, it was clear what they were for: they were a sweet snack.

Compared with sugarcane, they were much thinner, and each section was much longer.

The skin was easier to peel, too.

You bit into it and gave it a gentle pull, and the whole strip of skin came off.

It was much like peeling a banana; the whole strip came away smoothly.

It didn't cling to the stalk the way sugarcane skin did.

"Oh, Sister Xiao Zhu, you're too kind."

In Liang Xin's eyes, the gift wasn't expensive, but the thought behind it was precious!

Though most likely she was thinking about what he had said: a fellow villager still had eggs, and he would go buy some more in a few days and make sure she got first pick.

Even so, Liang Xin was happy!

"Sister Xiao Zhu, here, have some tomatoes."

Liang Xin didn't stand on ceremony and accepted the sweet stalks she had brought, a little over a jin in all.

Then he brought out some tomatoes to share with her.

If it had been He Ting, she probably would have declined.

But Sister Xiao Zhu, who was probably not much older than his current body, thought more like a young person like him.

When she saw the tomatoes, she didn't stand on ceremony either. She grabbed one and started eating.