After finishing the ice cream, the older sister started getting ready to cook. Brother-in-law and Mom Fu worked at the same factory, though in different workshops, and brother-in-law had stayed at that same factory ever since, never changing jobs.
Fu Ying no longer felt dizzy, so she went over to help hold her little nephew, watching her sister stir-fry dishes through the open kitchen door.
Strangely enough, Fu Ying and her younger brother had always loved the dishes their sister cooked. Even when using the exact same methods, the food cooked at home tasted best when the sister made it. It was no exaggeration to say that even when her sister simply fried a sunny-side-up egg, it smelled the most fragrant.
Yet Mom Fu had always scolded her and her brother, saying that the sister was already married with a home of her own and couldn't keep going over to her house to eat. Back then, Fu Ying hadn't understood: she was their older sister, so why couldn't they eat together? Why did people draw a line between the sister's house and their own family's house?
Her sister was quick and deft, swiftly stir-frying a plate of sliced potatoes, a dish of carrots with pork, and some stir-fried lettuce. She brought the dishes over to the table under the tree and said to Fu Ying, "Just eat here with us today, don't go back."
Simple as they looked, the dishes smelled so intensely fragrant that Fu Ying's mouth was practically watering. She could even recreate this aroma in her dreams—this dream was truly something else!
As she hesitated between going home and staying, before she could even say a word, a burst of scolding reached her ears.
Riding an old-fashioned bicycle, Mom wearing her blue work uniform happened to pass by, muttering angrily as she ranted:
"Fu Ying, why are you at your sister's place? I have to work overtime on Saturdays, just for half an hour! Have you cooked the rice? I won't have time to eat later!"
Sure enough, Mom Fu in her younger days possessed top-tier scolding power. Fu Ying hurriedly answered, "Dad is cooking it already, I was just helping my sister hold Wang Ruixuan."
"Mom, Fu Ying ate over at my place, she's not going back to eat today," hearing the commotion, the sister immediately came out and called out to Mom Fu.
"No way, how can you let her eat at your place every single day? Make her go home to eat, she still has to wash the dishes!" Mom Fu glared at Fu Ying. Her eldest daughter's family wasn't well-off either; she stayed home full-time to take care of three children, relying solely on her husband's salary. And the husband wasn't the kind of generous, carefree person who wouldn't mind—if they ate a meal at his place, he would just end up giving them dirty looks again later.
Glared at, Fu Ying had no choice but to hand her little nephew back to her sister and obediently follow right behind Mom Fu toward home.
"Sister, I'm heading home!"
The eldest daughter of the Fu Family was named Fu Yu. Having given birth to the third child just two months ago, she knew Mom Fu didn't want to add to her burden, nor did she want her own husband to start nagging when he got back. She could only watch her younger sister leave.
Two minutes later, Fu Yu's husband also returned. The two children crowded around calling for him, and the family began to eat.
Following her mother back, she recalled that every home they had ever lived in was rented, moving from one place to another as long as the rent was cheap. Fu Ying knew which "home" this particular time was, though she didn't quite know how to describe it—it was a "home" that had left a very deep impression on her. Two identical buildings, with the landlord being a lonely elderly person who lived right next door. The two households shared a water faucet; the landlord said water fees wouldn't be charged by the meter, but by the head count, and Mom had argued forcefully that she and her younger brother were quite small, so they should only count as one person.
Sure enough, after turning the corner, a stove was set up at the doorway, running on a gas cylinder. Going to the gas station to refill it oneself could save three yuan. Dad was out there reheating food—yes, reheating food, not cooking it fresh. The family didn't have any healthy habits about avoiding leftovers; the reality was as long as there was food to eat, nobody cared if it was from yesterday or a previous meal.
On the table sat a plate of cured pork, which looked like it had been stir-fried yesterday or the day before. Having been reheated over and over, the slices of meat were almost as hard as crackling. There was a large bowl of pickled cabbage soup, made by boiling pickled cabbage and soybeans together in a rice cooker beforehand; every time they ate, they would scoop out a portion to reheat, and that counted as a dish. There were also mung bean sprouts that Dad was dishing out, which looked like less than a full plate—those must have been from noon.
"Where is Fu Zhe?" Mom Fu asked Fu Ying while picking up a bowl.
Fu Ying froze. How could a dream possibly have prior context? How was she supposed to know where her brother had gone?
"I don't know." Fu Ying took the bowl and began dishing out rice, still thinking to herself that during this period her younger brother was quite mischievous and seemed to have a lot of friends. The friends he hung out with around this time were probably the ones who later got into fights with him and caused him to drop out of school.