The Game of Life - Chapter 446
Chapter 446: Chapter 444 Waiting for the Lantern Festival (Part 4)
When Ji Xue returned home with the lunchbox, there was still only Ji Xia in the house, and an empty plate on the table indicated that Ji Xia must have heated and eaten the steamed buns by herself.
Ji Xia was watching the news on CCTV-1 after nine o’clock, and on the coffee table lay a copy of “Little Princess”.
Seeing Ji Xue back, Ji Xia turned her head happily, her sleepy eyes suddenly wide open, “Sister, where did you go to play? Why are you back so late? I was about to fall asleep.”
“I went to a classmate’s house and stayed a bit too long. I’m sorry, Xiaxia, for leaving you at home alone for so long,” apologized Ji Xue as the first thing she did after returning was to empty the food from the lunchbox into a plate and heat it up in the microwave, then she washed the lunchbox in the kitchen.
Ji Xia stopped watching TV and eagerly ran to the kitchen door, popping her little head out to watch Ji Xue wash the lunchbox.
Ji Xue asked, “Have Mom and Dad not come back yet?”
“Mom came back earlier, picked up some clothes, then went out again. She said Dad has to stay in the hospital for the next couple of days, so she can’t come back to stay,” explained Ji Xia, pointing to the plate on the dining table, “Mom left 50 yuan under the plate.”
The 50 yuan was naturally the living expenses for Ji Xia and Ji Xue for the next few days.
Ji Xue nodded her head, “Xiaxia, what did you eat tonight?”
“I ate four candies and the half a steamed bun left from this morning,” said Ji Xia.
“You must be hungry, Xiaxia. I brought food back for you, and it’s still heating up in the microwave,” said Ji Xue as she turned off the water and shook the lunchbox in her hand, “You can’t eat too much candy, no more than six pieces a day, otherwise, Xiaxia will get cavities, and it will hurt a lot.”
After scaring Ji Xia, the food in the microwave was ready, and the sisters sat down at the dining table to divide the meal.
Although it was leftover scraps, with Tan Weizhou’s cooking skills, even the scraps were extremely delicious, and Ji Xia highly praised the meal.
“It’s even better than what Dad cooks!”
Having been busy all day, Ji Xue was tired, and Ji Xia had been sleepy for a while. After eating and washing up, the two sisters each went back to their rooms to sleep.
Jiang Feng could only sit on the sofa in the living room and spend the long night in a daze.
In the following days, Ji Xue’s daily routine involved buying vegetable buns and steamed buns from the baozi shop downstairs in the morning, waking Ji Xia up, going to work at the Tan Family Small Restaurant, getting off work, packing food to take home, and then starting a new day.
On the first day, Tan Lin’s wife lingered in the kitchen for a while, watching Ji Xue to see if she had any intention of learning by stealth. But it only lasted for one day; from the second day on, Tan Lin’s wife didn’t frequent the kitchen much.
Despite saying he didn’t trust her, Tan Lin himself was reluctant to come to the restaurant, and his wife naturally didn’t like watching others in the kitchen since she preferred to be lazy and cut corners—a visit to the kitchen meant she’d inevitably have some work to do.
Over the next few days, Jiang Feng also figured out the personnel structure of the Tan Family Small Restaurant.
Tan Lin, aside from mealtimes, was practically an external staff who would not appear at the Tan Family Small Restaurant, the same went for Tan Rui. Tan Lin’s wife was only seen in the restaurant but did no actual work, merely supervising. Tan Weizhou was the sole chef, Ji Xue and Tan Wenwen were both helpers, one paid and one unpaid, and in some respects, Tan Wenwen was truly the most pitiable person in the Tan Family Small Restaurant.
In the initial days, whenever Tan Wenwen found a chance, she would slip out, knowing that getting caught would only result in a scolding, as her parents would not actually hit her.
After Tan Wenwen got to know Ji Xue better, she realized that every time she slipped away, all the work ended up on Ji Xue. Not just the kitchen work, but even serving dishes, cleaning, and tidying chairs and tables, which were jobs her mother usually did—if her mom didn’t feel like it, these tasks also fell to Ji Xue.
Since then, Tan Wenwen reduced her escape attempts significantly; after all, working allowed her to chat with Ji Xue, and sometimes sneaking out to play wasn’t any more interesting than talking to Ji Xue.
By the fifth day of Ji Xue’s job at the Tan Family Small Restaurant, the day before Lantern Festival, Tan Wenwen had already started to confide in Ji Xue about anything and everything.
Of course, Tan Wenwen mostly complained to Ji Xue about how biased her parents were toward her.
On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Lantern Festival day, during the lunch break, Tan Lin inexplicably insisted on taking his wife and son shopping, leaving only Tan Wenwen and Ji Xue in the shop. Unable to run back home to watch TV, Tan Wenwen had no choice but to sit at the front desk with Ji Xue, complaining about her parents’ favoritism, cracking her mother’s sunflower seeds as if finishing them all would be revenge on her mother.
So, she not only cracked them herself but also urged Ji Xue to join in the more, the better, hoping that her mother would have no seeds to crack that evening.
“My mom, really, isn’t the Lantern Festival supposed to be a holiday? Why do we still have to open the restaurant? She doesn’t even do the work and dumps it all on us. Wouldn’t it be nice to just stay home and watch TV?” Tan Wenwen was very dissatisfied with the fact that she couldn’t stay home to watch TV on the Lantern Festival, being dragged to the restaurant to work instead.
Ji Xue was cracking sunflower seeds, listening to Tan Wenwen complain.
“Ji Xue, how is your family spending the Lantern Festival tonight?” Tan Wenwen asked.
“My mom has to take care of my dad in the hospital, so it’s just me and my little sister. I’m planning to buy her some chocolate from the supermarket on my way home tonight,” Ji Xue said, her mouth working like an invisible seed-cracking machine, continuously popping seeds in and spitting shells out.
Tan Wenwen nodded: “So your sister likes chocolate, huh? My brother loves that stuff too. I prefer chips, but my mom always remembers to buy chocolate for my brother and forgets my chips.”
The truth was, Tan Lin and his wife had never shortchanged Tan Wenwen in terms of food and clothing; it was just that they couldn’t treat their children exactly the same, which caused Tan Wenwen’s grievances. For instance, on weekends and during school breaks, Tan Wenwen had to help in the restaurant washing dishes, cutting vegetables, and doing odd jobs. In contrast, Tan Rui only needed to stay home and happily eat, drink, play, watch TV, and occasionally visit aquariums, zoos, and amusement parks—places Tan Lin often forgot to take his daughter to.
“I remember you telling me your family also runs a restaurant. Does your dad make you help out regularly?” Tan Wenwen asked.
“I used to go sometimes. My dad would teach me to cook. My sister also wanted to go, but she’s too young, and my mom wouldn’t let her,” Ji Xue said.
“That’s nice,” Tan Wenwen said with a look of envy. “My grandpa used to want to teach me to cook, but my dad wouldn’t allow it.”
“Why not?” Ji Xue didn’t understand.
“He’s afraid if I learn the skills, they’ll become someone else’s when I get married. Seriously, he wouldn’t learn either,” Tan Wenwen griped about her own father mercilessly, “He doesn’t learn, and he won’t let grandpa teach anyone else. What kind of logic is that?”
Ji Xue continued to crack sunflower seeds.
When Tan Weizhou cooked pot-roast chicken in the back kitchen, he never avoided anyone, just as Ji Xue never avoided anyone while cooking pot-roast chicken in Taifeng Building. This dish couldn’t simply be learned by watching from the side.
Unless the master taught you hand by hand, you couldn’t even learn a third of it by sneaking glances.
So Jiang Feng found the strict guarding by Tan Lin and his wife to be quite laughable. They must have had no culinary common sense or no interest in the steps their own father took to cook the pot-roast chicken if they thought Ji Xue could learn to cook it just by looking.
“But Ji Xue, you’re actually pretty amazing,” Tan Wenwen said.
“Oh?”
“At first, our restaurant also hired chefs. We tried several who wished to apprentice under my grandpa, but he didn’t like any of them; he even refused to accept the vegetables they chopped. Later, my parents feared they would steal the trade secrets and stopped hiring chefs, opting for general helpers instead,” Tan Wenwen explained. “My grandpa really liked the way you chopped vegetables, though. He even smiled when he saw you chopping beef yesterday.”
Ji Xue could only nod and continue cracking sunflower seeds.
As Tan Wenwen talked, she let out a sigh, “It’s a pity you’re only here during the winter break. Once school starts, I’ll have to come back to washing dishes after class. My mom definitely won’t want to wash dishes and will leave them all for me to do after school.”
Finally, Ji Xue surfaced from her sea of seed cracking, stopping her hand motions, and said, “I’ll be here after school starts, too.”
“After school starts, too?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re dropping out of school?”
“I’m not going anymore.”
“That’s great! After school starts, I’ll come back after class to help you, and I’ll bother you to wash the dishes before I get there. I hate washing dishes the most,” Tan Wenwen said with a chuckle, still just a ninth-grade student unable to grasp the concept of dropping out.
If it weren’t for the fact that not attending school meant working at home, Tan Wenwen would actually quite like the option of not going to school.
Ji Xue managed a faint smile at Tan Wenwen.
