Chapter 79

Zhang Ma sat cross-legged on the bed, one hand grasping a string of wooden beads that had long been touched out of the wrapping, eyes closed and chanting in a low voice: “Nan Wu Guanyin Great Compassion …… Tai Shang Lao Jun …… God Great God… …Erlang Zhenjun ……”

While chattering about the great names of the various gods and goddesses, he was worried that Zhu Yanshu hadn’t returned yet.

Finally the front door rang! She immediately jumps out of bed, shuffles out with her cotton jacket and pushes the door open, and walks hurriedly to the door to see Zhu Yanshu sitting shakily on the sofa, □□□ shaking off her high heels.

“Aigoo, this foot of mine ……” Zhu Yanshu sat cross-legged on the sofa, rubbing her feet and crying out in pain.

Zhang Ma whispered, “Mistress! How come it’s so late!” She opened the door again and looked out before re-closing and locking it. She tightened her clothes and complained, “What time is it!”

Zhu Yanshu took off her shawl and said in a bad mood, “It’s not because Mrs. Liao won’t come down to the table. If she won’t get off the table, how can I get off the table? Alas, playing cards with her is really tiring.”

Zhang Ma brought her woolen slippers to help her change into them, then hung up the shawl and asked her in a low voice: “How much did you lose?”

Zhu Yanshu yawned, got up and walked towards the bedroom, while saying, “Not much, just two or three hundred.”

When she entered the house, she fell into bed.

Mrs. Zhang unscrewed the bedside lamp, then brought her pajamas and put them on the bed, and asked her, “There’s soup, I’ve wrapped up some wontons, do you want to eat them?”

Zhu Yanshu’s eyes immediately brightened up, her body was energized, and her head was raised: “You made wontons? What kind of filling?”

Mrs. Zhang: “It’s the one you like, pork, vegetables, ham and shrimp.”

Zhu Yanshu sat up, his stomach immediately called out: “I did not eat anything in the Liao family today!”

Mrs. Zhang: “Liao’s small family can eat what good things? Either big fish or big meat, not afraid to eat too much oil to block the heart.” She said, “You change your clothes first, I’ll go get you down. The stove is still on!”

Zhang Ma gently went into the kitchen to turn on the light, rattled the stove door, poked it twice more, added water to sit in the pot, and before long the fire got bigger. She uncovered the wet cage cloth, picked up four wontons, see the water slightly rolled down into it, and then take a large bowl, put in shrimp skin, purple cabbage, pour a spoonful of soy sauce, a spoonful of vinegar, a few drops of sesame oil. At this time the wontons also rolled up, first pour a spoonful of boiling soup to wash away the material, and then into the wontons, and finally cut a small scallion sprinkled in.

Zhang Ma carried the bowl on a tray, and also sifted a cup of osmanthus rice wine and sent it in together.

Zhu Yanshu had already changed into a nightgown, wrapped in a blanket and sat on the bed, leaning against the bedside to write in her diary: a certain year, month and day, lost 235 dollars playing mahjong. The apricot flower building to buy snacks as a gift 20 dollars. The yellow cart costs one dollar.

Zhang Ma put the tray on the bedside table, stretched her head to look, and said, “Keeping accounts again?”

Zhu Yanshu puts down her diary and pen, “I’m keeping a diary.”

Zhang Ma: “The Zhu family’s diary is the account book.”

Zhu Yanshu’s diary was a bit richer when she was a child. Old Mrs. Zhu made her learn how to write poems, and Old Master Zhu also made her write book notes after reading. However, when she grew up, the diary was slowly reduced to an account book, how much money she spent daily was written on it, at first glance it looked like all the money went out and none came in.

Zhu Yanshu sat on the bed, bent over and ate wontons, saw the osmanthus wine, said: “Why is there another glass of wine ah?”

Zhang Ma: “It’s so late, you drink it and have a good sleep.”

Zhu Yanshu finished the four wontons, even drank the soup, and finally took the cup to take a small sip of the sweet wine, his body and mind settled down.

Zhang Ma sent the bowl back and brought in the hot water bottle for washing, saying, “Mistress, wash up and hurry to sleep. We’ll talk about everything tomorrow.”

Zhu Yanshu sighed and came over to wash her face and rinse her mouth, and then sat in front of the dressing table to apply face cream and curl her hair.

Zhang Ma came and went a few times to pack up her things, Zhu Yanshu looked over from the mirror and sighed: “Zhang Ma, don’t do it.”

Zhang Ma straightened up, “I’m done.”

Zhu Yanshu put down her comb and went over to hold Zhang Ma’s hand and sat on the bed together, “Without you, what can I do.” She leaned on Zhang Ma’s shoulder, like she was leaning on her mother, a sister.

Zhang Ma was flattered, saddened, heartbroken, and relieved. With an open hand, she hugged Zhu Yanshu and gently patted her back, “Missy, you’ve been wronged.”

Zhu Yan Shu’s eyes instantly glazed over.

She straightened up, Zhang Ma also spread her hands, master and servant looked at each other, both as if they had seen all these decades, from a young girl to this time, time has gone by.

Zhu Yan Shu has long passed the age of love tears, the older the person, the deeper the eyes, easy to cry, tears are dry.

She said: “Not aggrieved. Wasn’t Dad going to be like this back then? He had to invite people to the theater, invite people to dinner, invite people around. He only drank a small cup of yellow wine every meal at home, but when he went out, which time did he not drink so much that he couldn’t walk before he came back? I’m just playing cards with people, and I like playing cards.”

She burrowed into the quilt, wrapped in the blanket, smiled and said, “I am in the Liao family most upset that Mrs. Liao even vegetarian! Aigoo, you don’t know, there is only one dish on the table, which is small onions with tofu! But it’s hard for me, I really can’t eat a bite.”

Zhang Ma smiled and said, “I’ll even make you yellow fish noodles in the morning. Go to sleep, ma’am.”

Zhang Ma gently went out and closed the door.

She saw that the light under the doorway was quickly turned off, and she also went back inside to sleep.

When she got up early in the morning, Zhang Ma hurried downstairs to wait for that fish seller. She waited and waited, and finally waited until the fish seller rode over on his tricycle, and she greeted him with her basin and complained, “Why are you late again!”

The fishmonger hurriedly got out of the car, went around to the back, and lifted up the straw mat to catch fish for Zhang Ma, while saying, “Don’t mention it! I was so unlucky this morning! I met two teams of gendarmes on my way out! The first time I was empty, they questioned me a few times, I paid two dollars to get away. The second time, I had a load of fish and they stopped me! I had to pay another two dollars to get out. I’ve lost four dollars this morning before I’ve even sold anything! I don’t have four dollars even after selling all the fish in this cart, alas.”

Zhang Ma caught four small yellow fish and picked up a few shrimps before returning home fully loaded.

She rushed back and hurriedly killed a, take the fish meat fried, the fish head fish tail fish bone soup, the rest of the whole cover in the basin to raise.

The family has prepared chicken soup for wontons, and then added yellowtail minced fish to cook, the soup is more fresh and thick.

Zhang Ma was so busy cooking yellow fish noodles for Zhu Yanshu that she didn’t have time to buy buns, so everyone ate wontons this morning!

Yang Yuyan would get up purely because the smell outside was too seductive, she climbed up and went straight to the kitchen, saw the pan-fried yellow fish on the plate and wanted to steal it, she was caught in time by Zhang Ma and knocked her chopsticks on her hand.

Zhang Ma: “This is the only bite of meat your mom has, and you’re still stealing it!”

Yang Yuyan covered her hand and didn’t dare to talk back, but she couldn’t help but smell the aroma of the soup, “I’m hungry.”

Zhang Ma pushed her back and looked at the time: “Why did you get up so early today? It’s only seven o’clock. Alright, hurry back and change your clothes, I’ll give you some wontons to eat.”

When Yang Yucan got up and Su Chunjun came to the door, Yang Yuyan had not only eaten breakfast long ago, but also had time to hold a book and practice Russian.

She stood on the balcony facing the morning light, reading word by word, reading Yang Yuchan and Zhu Yanshu’s heart muscle infarction.

– – Just not a single sentence.

Teacher Su was the one who adapted the best, slowly and methodically eating the wontons in front of herself.

What’s wrong with that? Second Miss Yang wouldn’t have read blindly like this when she used to read English and Japanese, which showed that she was rich in creativity.

Finally Yang Yuyan finished reading Haiyan, and Su Chunjun hurriedly called her in.

“The spring wind is still cool, don’t you stand in the wind and blow yourself sick again.” He pulled Second Miss Yang in and, seeing that the book of poems in her hand was new, asked, “This was given to you only by Professor Dai, wasn’t it?”

Ms. Yang nodded, “It’s only been given to me for a couple of days. Prof. Dai said that I would get tired of reading that one book all the time, so he asked me to read it differently to keep it fresh.” She sighed.

Previously, she was really tired of the last Russian poetry book.

Although she had read the translated poems in that book no less than ten times, the original Russian version was something completely new. At first, she felt a sense of intimacy, thinking that she was meeting an old friend and that she was bound to get acquainted quickly. But only a few days she realized that the friend she knew had been packaged and improved, had changed into a cheongsam and dyed his hair black, and his body was full of Chinese flavor. And the original low voice and huge body, speak low boring also always say very long sentences, she recognized up is really too difficult.

This friend, she did not want to make.

But after owning this new book of poems, she suddenly felt that her last “friend” was still very dear to her.

Because the new friend’s sentences are longer than the old friend’s. Su Chunjun knew that she was feeling the same way.

Su Chunjun knew that she was feeling frustrated and wanted to retreat. He definitely could not let her retreat, so he decided to change the way to promote her learning, stimulate her nerves.

He said, “I ran into Ma Tianbao yesterday, and I think his job search might not be going too well.”

Zhu Yanshu remembered and said, “By the way, Zhang Ma, find that old desk lamp of Yan Yan’s and send it to Ma’s family, then ask an electrician to come and connect a plugboard in the corridor. Let him copy in the corridor from now on. He even copied under the streetlight, he’s really not afraid of getting into trouble.”

Zhang Ma agreed and said not too happily, “That electricity bill isn’t cheap, it’s going to cost more money again!”

Yang Yucan had no way to say anything else, after all, the family had already helped the Ma family too much. She could only try to do more herself.

At this moment, she hurriedly stood up and helped Zhang Ma clean up the dining table.

Zhu Yanshu called out to her in no good humor, “Elder sister, bring me the accounts you’ve written these past few days, I’ll see how much money has been used.”

–Truly, what are you following with a weak heart! The Ma family has nothing to do with you.

Zhu Yanshu was not happy, so she picked holes in Yang Yucan’s account book, and soon realized that two amounts were not right. Zhu Yanshu put down her notebook and said, “Big sister, I think you should learn the abacus. At least don’t make any mistakes in the accounts or in the math in the future. Otherwise, what can you do if you are so sloppy in your own life in the future.”

Hearing this, Yang Yu Yan immediately stretched her head with interest, wanting to hear the clip of Yang Yu Cicada being scolded.

Zhu Yan Shu glared at her, “You want to learn? Then you follow suit!”

As a result, Yang Yuyan was given one more lesson: the abacus.

She really hasn’t learned it!

Zhu Yanshu, on the other hand, had learned from school, but didn’t dare to let anyone know that she knew how to use an abacus. She asked Zhang Ma to bring out two abacuses, one for each of Yang Yucan and Yang Yuyan.

Zhu Yanshu, like a new jailer, sat across from her two daughters and asked them to take out a pen and paper, “I’ll say the formula once, and you’ll write it down and memorize it! From now on, you will practice the recitation fifty times a day, got it?”

Yang Yuyan, pen in hand, still felt that the world was a marvelous place. She had to memorize Russian poetry in the morning, and now she’s learning the abacus?

Su Chunjun had no sympathy, and after breakfast he had to go to work, and before he left, he encouraged Yang Yuyan to study hard and listen well.

“After memorizing the mnemonic you still have to go to school, you can also tell Professor Dai and everyone that you’ve started learning the abacus. I remember that Prof. Dai knows how to prepare an abacus.” He said.

Yang Yuyan was shocked, “Professor Dai knows how to plan an abacus?!” How could something so tacky still be related to Professor Dai?

Su Chunjun laughed, “Professor Dai not only knows how to play it, he even lets us all play it. He said it’s enlightenment, it can exercise the brain, improve reaction speed, promote memory, and memorize things faster.”

Saying it like that, it seemed to make sense!

Yang Yuyan was instantly in the jar.

Su Chunjun and Zhu Jail Head saluted with their jaws and turned to float away.