Chapter 15 Bald Head

After arriving at the apartment, the two returned to their respective homes.

Chen Yuan took the jin of ribs and the bag of vegetables to his place.

Because his room had a small folding table, it was more convenient to eat there.

Xia Xinyu's home, on the other hand, seemed emptier.

A bed, a nightstand, a desk, that was all.

Therefore, this cute bear, as an important piece of soft furnishing, instantly made her room feel much fuller.

Should she put it on the desk, or by the bed...

After thinking for a while, Xia Xinyu finally placed the large bear doll on the desk, facing sideways to the desk lamp. This way, she could see the pink doll with the black nose whenever she looked up while doing her homework.

"Be good, now."

Gently patting the bear's hat, Xia Xinyu was full of love, treating it like her own pet, her eyes narrowed with a smile.

*Patta*, suddenly, the hat slipped off the bear's head and fell onto the desk.

"..." Looking at the patch of white where the fur was skimped on the top of the cute pink bear's head, Xia Xinyu's worldview seemed to shatter, her eyes lost their light.

Bald... bald?

Xia Xinyu quickly put the hat back on the cute bear's head, instantly boosting the doll's appearance, but...

Please, give me a pair of eyes that haven't seen a bald-headed cute bear!

No, the image in her mind wouldn't go away.

Torn, Xia Xinyu opened the drawer, took out a needle and thread, and sewed the hat firmly onto the bear's head with a similar-colored thread.

Then, she rearranged it.

I didn't see it, I didn't see it, I didn't see it...

Xia Xinyu covered her eyes with her hands, repeatedly chanting this sentence in her heart, hypnotizing herself.

"Indeed, it's very cute."

Looking at the big doll again, Xia Xinyu smiled happily.

In reality, the image of the cute bear's bald head had already been branded into her mind, impossible to erase...

However, even if it really was a bald bear, Xia Xinyu's affection for it didn't diminish.

Actually, when Chen Yuan won the first prize and gave her the bear without a second thought, she really wanted to accept it.

That natural gesture let her know that the distance between them had quietly disappeared.

When she exchanged the doll for the jin of ribs, she hadn't hesitated, but after doing so, her heart felt a little empty...

A kind of emptiness that was hard to describe.

When she was little, she saw the girl next door wearing a particularly beautiful dress. Her mother noticed her envy and said she would buy her one too.

At the time, she really wanted that dress, but she knew it was expensive, and she knew that even if it was expensive, her mother would buy it for her...

So, in the end, she told her mother that she had seen the hair clip on the girl next door's head and wanted one.

Later, she got that hair clip.

She was a little happy because the hair clip was also very pretty.

But at the same time, she felt a sense of loss because what she wanted more was the dress.

Over the years, she had grown up in love, but understanding her parents' difficulties, she was very sensible and would deliberately lower her expectations and show joy after receiving 'love.'

Today, she did the same.

She naturally, when choosing, settled for the 'next best thing' with Chen Yuan.

The difference was.

That year, she didn't get the dress.

Today, she got the doll.

"You're so cute!"

Holding the cute bear from the desk in her arms, Xia Xinyu happily rolled around on the bed.

Who could imagine that a girl who was usually so quiet at school that she rarely spoke proactively would be so crazy when she was alone at home...

………

After returning home, Chen Yuan put down his bag and prepared for tonight's dinner.

Xia Xinyu said she would go back to put something away and come over to cook later, so Chen Yuan was mainly processing the vegetables now.

Tonight's meal would be braised pork ribs, scrambled eggs with the remaining piece of sausage in the refrigerator, and lettuce leaves.

What Chen Yuan had to do now was to blanch the ribs.

"As expected of the second prize, it's all middle ribs."

The ribs from the lottery were not meaty leg ribs, but a jin of middle ribs that had been evenly cut. This portion would cost more than thirty yuan to buy.

So, the 167 yuan living expenses were only theoretically enough to eat well. Without asking his parents for some, borrowing some from friends, or robbing some from Zhou Yu, he could only look forward to this kind of unexpected... ribs.

But this wasn't a coincidence either.

Superpowers were used to fleece the sheep.

Qidian urban protagonist: Bro, you're using your superpowers in such an embarrassing way, leave the group.

Put half a pot of cold water, throw in the ribs, add green onions and ginger, sprinkle in cooking wine, wait for the pot to boil and white foam to appear, take out the ribs, wash them with clean water, and the blanching process was officially completed.

Next was to pan-fry the ribs until golden brown on both sides, add star anise, cinnamon, bay leaves, soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt... of course, this was all Chen Yuan's understanding of the process, but Xia Xinyu had said that the actual operation must be left to her.

Although having a little cook cook for him was a great blessing in life, this completely negated his year-plus of culinary studies...

*Dong dong dong*.

A knock on the door rang out, and Chen Yuan went to open it.

"You haven't started cooking yet, have you?"

As soon as she saw him, Xia Xinyu asked directly, as if afraid that he would ruin the jin of premium middle ribs.

[Yo yo yo, the chef is here, how amazing you are]

Yes, Chen Yuan heard his own inner voice.

This was the first time.

The law that superpowers cannot be used on oneself was perfectly broken by Chen Yuan's overflowing sarcasm.

Chen Yuan said, "I blanched them."

"Okay, I'll take over from here."

After Xia Xinyu came in, she skillfully put on the apron and then added oil to pan-fry the ribs.

"Help me boil a kettle of water, thank you." Xia Xinyu said to Chen Yuan without looking up.

After filling the kettle with tap water, Chen Yuan plugged it in to boil a kettle of the wonderful tool that would be used for the braised pork ribs - boiling water.

"Cook the rice, just put a small box for two people. After washing the rice, the water level should reach the second joint of your middle finger."

As a chef with a monthly salary of eight thousand, Xia Xinyu skillfully coordinated Chen Yuan, a sous chef with a monthly salary of one thousand five.

"Got it, what's next?" Chen Yuan asked after turning on the rice cooker.

"Your work is over, go rest." Xia Xinyu smiled at him, "Or, study English for half an hour?"

Are you my mom…

"Don't you need me to do anything else?" The girl also had homework to do and had to go to class tomorrow. Even if she was a little cook, Chen Yuan didn't want to put such a heavy burden on her.

"No, because it's a single stove, there's nothing that can be done at the same time. After I've stewed the ribs, I'll come over and study English with you."

After frying the ribs to almost perfect golden brown on both sides, Xia Xinyu, like a magician, grabbed a handful of ingredients, no more, no less, and at the moment the kettle ‘dinged,’ seamlessly poured the hot water into the pot. Then, she began to look for something similar to yellow rock sugar, and without even asking him, she directly found the remaining few pieces of rock sugar from a corner of the cabinet that Chen Yuan didn't even remember, threw them into the pot with a *dong dong dong* sound, covered the pot, and turned around to wash the lettuce leaves...

The things that happened in these few minutes completely collapsed Chen Yuan's cooking worldview.

No, wasn't the process of "Oh crap, oil. It's oil splashing after encountering water!", "Star anise cinnamon bay leaves... where's the cinnamon?", "It's burning, it's burning, turn off the heat first!" etc., something that everyone had to experience?

Old Mo, I'm sorry, not only can I not learn from the students of Fourth High, but I'm also crushed in cooking...

"Ah!"

Just as Chen Yuan was sitting at the small folding table preparing to open his English textbook, he suddenly heard a scream from the kitchen.

"What's wrong?!"

Xia Xinyu was the kind of girl who would be quiet even when committing suicide. Such a scream was obviously not normal, so Chen Yuan quickly rushed over.

Then, he saw Xia Xinyu standing in front of the cutting board, covering her face, crying 'woo woo'.

She wasn't crying very sadly because there was no sobbing, but it could be heard that she was crying very 'heartbreakingly'.

[Ah ah ah… woo woo…]

No, why was his inner voice crying too?

I don't know what other people think, what's the use of this superpower for me?

Come on, do something, Superpower!

Looking Xia Xinyu up and down, Chen Yuan asked, "Did you get burned?"

Xia Xinyu shook her head.

"Did you see a cockroach?"

Continued shaking her head.

"Did you get electrocuted?"

Still shaking her head.

Excluding the physically and psychologically possible situations that could be encountered in the kitchen, and with the inner voice still crying 'woo woo', Chen Yuan, as if guessing something, pulled out a few tissues, walked to Xia Xinyu, gently grabbed her wrist, and wiped away her tears, "Did you think of something? Just cry it out..."

She must have been touched by the scene and thought of her mother cooking, and a sudden wave of sadness had struck.

But how to understand the sound of "Ah!"?

*Yi yu xi*!

While Chen Yuan was wiping away her tears, Xia Xinyu, with tears in her eyes, raised her hand, pointed at the cutting board, and finally said, "The egg... is rotten."

"..."

Chen Yuan showed a puzzled expression of 'Huh?'

That's it?

He didn't understand what there was to cry about.

It was fine to throw away a rotten egg. Even if his Chen family was declining, they wouldn't cry because of a rotten egg, would they?

"Because the first three… three were good. After the fourth one was cracked open, the rotten egg liquid flowed in front of my eyes... I just watched it happen... Ah!"

After describing this heartbreaking, tear-jerking, desperate scene, Xia Xinyu turned around, squatted on the ground, covered her face, and burst into tears...