Chapter 13 – The Gift of Puffs

” Brother Shen Yu, when did you get married?”

“She’s not my wife.”

“When’s the little one coming?”

“She’s not my wife.”

“If a little baby is born, does that make me a sister?”

“She’s not my wife, and you’re not being a sister.”

“And what am I to be?”

“You you when silly.”

Shen Yu reacted and almost got caught up in the situation, this Lori was a stick in the mud and the more she explained the more unclear it became.

“You’re the one who’s silly! Big! silly! Eggs!”

Su Zhifu doesn’t believe it. If you live together, you must be the wife.

It must be Shen Yu’s brother who’s shy!

But Su Zhifu is still sad to think that Shen Yu’s brother has a wife. Will he find her more fun and stop playing with her?

Because there are very few children her age in this old alleyway, most of them are middle-aged and elderly, and she usually has no other playmates after school, so she comes over to Shen Yu’s house to play.

Shen Yu naturally has no time to play hide-and-seek with her, but she always finds her own fun in the small courtyard, either playing with Bai Xiaomeng or quietly watching Shen Yu programming and making all sorts of mechanical gadgets.

She thinks Shen Yu’s brother is probably the most powerful man in the world, he knows everything, why the sky is blue, why air conditioners blow cold air, why people don’t fall over on bicycles, why planes don’t fall down

“What do you have in this big bag?”

Shen Yu asked curiously, “Su Zhifu is a small person, but this bag is not small, it also contains a lot of things, it looks heavy, I think this Lori also took a lot of effort to carry it here.

“It’s a gift I brought you back from the country!”

Su Zhifu hurriedly opened the bag, which contained a lot of big potatoes, a broken radio, a clock that wouldn’t move, a lamp that wouldn’t light up, and a rusty computer motherboard.

Oh, and there was a small clear plastic box with a few small holes pinned in it, containing six cicadas.

“These robins are the loudest calling ones, nah, here you go.”

Su Zhifu opened the bag and took out the box with six sickly robins inside, which were still screaming.

“And this, this.”

Shen Yu asked, “Have you gone back to the countryside to collect rags?”

“I picked it up, but I always thought you’d want it, so I brought it all back.”

Su Zhifu said, “Isn’t Shen Yu’s brother going to make a robot? This lamp can be used as an eye, this radio can be used as a mouth, and this board, with all the electronics on it, must be especially useful.”

Shen Yu was so angry and amused, I didn’t realize that she had written down all the things she had casually said at the time about making a robot but not having the parts.

Shen Yu doesn’t have many friends, but it’s not because of his personality or lack of character. Those who can play well with him know that he is actually a very nice person, but he is more goal-oriented than his peers, and he is basically busy with his own work after school, so he rarely goes out with people.

Su Zhifu is only six or seven years old, and she’s a very quirky girl. Although Shen Yu often says she’s dumb, she’s not really that dumb, just moderately dumb, and full of curiosity about the world.

But there are differences too, if I may say so, it is probably Shen Yu who envies her childhood, for when he was Su Zhifu’s age, he seemed to be reading and studying and did not have the opportunity to go to the countryside for the summer like she did.

“This sweet potato is super tasty, it’s especially good for baking and can also be used to make sugar water.”

“Is that how you roast it? With a direct fire?”

Su Zhifu chattered about her time in the countryside and Asaba Rika showed great interest in listening to her talk about catching cicadas and fish with a dustpan from the stream.

“Well, it’s okay to cook it over a fire, I throw a fava in when I’m burning it and it comes out delicious.”

Su Zhifu and Asaba Rika were a bit apart at first, but as children, when they meet another child, they always play together quickly.

“Really? Then shall we give it a try!”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

Shen Yu wondered what they were talking about, but they seemed to have a good rapport, so they were really a group of people.

He put away the bag of junk Su Zhifu had brought back. The radio seemed to be working, so he took a screwdriver and other tools and dismantled the circuit board and wired it up to test the circuit.

While Shen Yu was concentrating on tinkering with the rags, the two children outside had reached an understanding and went out the door holding hands.

Shen Yu : “?”

A big daze with a little daze, just don’t get lost!

Shen Yu didn’t bother, his attention was drawn to the broken radio, which looked to be from the ’00s to the present, and it was quite interesting to repair this old piece.

Asaba Rika and Su Zhifu didn’t go far, but together they arrived at Su Zhifu’s house, intending to bring back some charcoal to roast some sweet potatoes later on.

Su Zhifu’s house is for breakfast and snacks, and there is a lot of charcoal in the back kitchen. When she saw her daughter coming back with a young girl, Aunt Wang froze and didn’t know who it was, then she thought she looked a bit familiar, then she realized, “Hey, isn’t that the girl who was riding in Shen Yu’s passenger seat this morning?

“Mum, give me some charcoal, we’re going to barbecue at Shen Yu’s brother’s house!”

“Hello Auntie.”

Asaba Rika says hello and gives a shallow bow.

“Hello, hello, how polite! I saw you this morning, what a good looking girl!”

“She’s Shen Yu’s brother’s wife!”

“It’s not! It’s not! I’m not his wife!”

“You must be his girlfriend then?”

Girlfriend should only mean lover, right? A girlfriend should be a normal girl friend, right? So Asaba Rika nodded his head.

“I told you, it looks just like it!”

Auntie Wang enthusiastically picked up a large bag of charcoal and gave Asaba Rika a number of ingredients that could be used for barbecuing, such as meatballs and ham, and also lent her a small barbecue grill.

Asaba Rika always feels strange, did I make a mistake?

When I heard Aunt Wang complimenting your girlfriend on how handsome she is, Asaba Rika asked Shen Yu if she was talking about her, and Shen Yu confirmed it.

“Sister, let’s get back to the fire! I’ll burn the fire!”

“Mmmmmm!”

Asaba Rika didn’t bother to think about it, it must be right.

The courtyard was spacious and after finding an open space, Asaba Rika and Su Zhifu started to build a fire to burn charcoal.

Su Zhifu is seen pulling a magnifying glass out of his pocket and focusing on a piece of tissue paper in the afternoon sunlight with a look of concentration.

“Will this start a fire?”

“Yes, I can, I use it a lot for burning ants.”

Two girls, one large and one small, crouched on the ground like two fools.

The paper towel was scorched to a black spot when I looked at it with a magnifying glass, but it was far from being on fire.

Shen Yu couldn’t stand it anymore, so she got a lighter from the house and started a fire with charcoal, the two little girls cheered and Shen Yu felt like they were primitive people who had seen a fire for the first time.

The next step was to grill the ingredients, and Asaba Rika is really good at cooking, at least the meatballs and ham were cooked just right.

For the sweet potatoes, when these have finished roasting, throw them into the coals and when the coals go out, the sweet potatoes will be cooked.

“It smells so good!”

Asaba Rika, full of anticipation, waited until the potatoes were ripe, then used iron tongs to clip them out, and the aroma reached his nostrils with a hint.

The skin of the sweet potato is charred after being roasted over the coals and peeled back to reveal the golden brown flesh inside, with a nice charred flavour.

Shen Yu’s radio was also repaired and sound began to come out of the rag.

” Shen Yu Brother you fixed it!”

“Si Pot!!!”

Asaba Rika and Su Zhifu were eating baked sweet potatoes, making their mouths and hands look like two little flower cats, and were amazed to see that Shen Yu had fixed the broken radio.

Shen Yu tuned the channel and a dry voice came out of the speakers, “Barely lying in your school’s bare playground looking at the stars, the lights in the classroom still on and you haven’t left.”

Jay Chou’s “Waiting for Your Class to End” is playing, which is quite appropriate.

Tomorrow, it’s time to start school.