Chapter 26 – Girls are trouble

“Can you hear me, Brother Shen Yu?”

Su Zhifu’s silly voice came over Shen Yu’s mobile phone, excited and thrilled to receive her gift.

To experiment with the watch, she ran a long way, hid in the toilet on the first floor, and whispered with the door closed.

It’s so easy for children to be happy. At first they were crying like little cats, but now they are happy like silly roe deer.

“Audible.”

“I can hear you too yeah!”

“Okay, okay, if you play any more, you’ll run out of battery, and if you run out of battery, you can’t call me, so come down.”

“Bye-bye!”

Su Zhifu pressed the button and thumped down from the first floor with his watch.

Shen Yu is sweeping the weeds from the yard into a pile with a broom. I must say that Puffs is still quite fast at pulling weeds and seems to have done a lot of farming during his two months in the country.

“I want to get to school quickly now and call you!”

Su Zhifu was so excited to be able to call her brother Shen Yu while other children were crying at school.

“Don’t call me if there’s nothing wrong.” Shen Yu said as he knocked her on the head.

“What about when I miss you?”

Su Zhifu wondered if she only wanted to call Shen Yu’s brother, not her mother, who would scold her for not studying properly.

“You can just cry.”

“I’m not going to cry!”

“Who just cried so loudly?”

“I won’t cry later anyway.”

Shen Yu went back inside to get her the charging cable and told her, “See these compartments, if it’s down to the last one, you need to charge it.”

“Mmmmmm!”

“If you get lost or bullied, you call me.”

“So you’ll come over to me?” Su Zhifu asked, cocking her little head.

“I’m not going to get to you.”

“Then why am I calling you back!”

“I’ll tell you not to cry.”

“Hmm.”

After taking Su Zhifu home, Shen Yu went back to his lab on the ground floor to continue working on his AI algorithm.

He was a little curious to know where Bai Xiaomeng was when he didn’t come over to take a nap in his arms.

Bai Xiaomeng is reading a book in Asaba Rika’s room.

The Matsushima editors were pressing for the manuscript, so Asaba Rika drew it up in the afternoon when he had no classes.

In the afternoon, the sky rained.

The rain was not too heavy, and the droplets fell on the dry courtyard soil, slapping into a shower of broken flowers, which turned into wet vapour blowing in Shen Yu’s face when the wind blew.

He was sitting at his computer, writing and calculating with a draft, not paying attention to the rain outside.

Asaba Rika, who was drawing on the first floor, noticed and put down his brush, ran to the window of his room and looked at it curiously, then ran to the balcony and put away all the clothes that had dried.

Shen Yu’s clothes were also collected, the drying rack was removed and his clothes were folded properly.

Seeing that the door to his room was open, Asaba Rika took a curious peek from the doorway

Shen Yu’s room is nothing special, even much less than her room when she first moved in, with a simple wardrobe, computer desk, a laptop and a small bookshelf, and nothing else.

Even the walls were clean and white, unlike her, and she was going to buy a poster of Bakugan Girl to hang up.

“Are all boys’ rooms like this?”

Asaba Rika muttered, but it was in keeping with Shen Yu’s character, I guess, and it wouldn’t be like him to post a bikini-clad beauty in his room.

After placing the folded clothes on his bed, Rika rushed out.

Two people, one on the ground floor and one on the second, are quiet with each other, doing their own business at hand.

The rain was falling in the sky and gradually it too stopped, the clouds drifted away and the sun had turned into a slanting light, the small puddles in the courtyard refracted the light like a mirror shattered on the ground.

Before I knew it it was five o’clock in the afternoon.

Asaba Rika saves the sketches she drew today, stands up and stretches, her soft body pulled away in a delicate curve, like a small peach tree full of life.

She ran to the window to look at the world after the rain, the evening sunset was more glorious than ever, with large swathes of evening sun staining the sky.

“What’s for dinner?”

Asaba Rika pondered and thumped downstairs again to find Shen Yu.

Shen Yu is still sitting in front of his computer, crackling his keyboard and writing on a piece of paper with a pen, and he seems to be in this state for the past few hours.

If Asaba Rika hadn’t come to him, he would have forgotten that there was a teenage girl at home and would have stayed in this state until 7 or 8 pm, when his stomach started to protest and he would have ordered a takeaway to eat.

“Shen, Yu, Jun”

Asaba Rika hides in the doorway of the ground floor hall and gives him a small shout.

Shen Yu didn’t hear it.

“Shen, Yu, Jun!”

Shen Yu heard it, looked back, saw it was her, and turned back to his writing.

“What for.”

“What are we having for dinner?”

“Order takeaway, or if you want to eat something else on your own, you can go out on your own and don’t go far if you don’t know your way around.”

“Oh.”

Asaba Rika is still unwilling to give up, she is the most thick-skinned girl Shen Yu has ever seen, she cannot be beaten or scolded away.

Bai Xiaomeng also came running down the stairs, got into Shen Yu’s arms, yawned, and arched him again to make a comfortable nest and start sleeping.

Seeing Asaba Rika coming to her side, Shen Yu looked up at her and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I, I want to find something to do.” Asaba Rika said coyly.

“The weeds are still out there, so go and pull them.” Shen Yu instructed.

“That’s what Puffs do!”

Asaba Rika rolled her eyes, Shen Yu always looked down on her, thinking she could do nothing but the same work as Puffs, when she knew a lot, as she had told him yesterday at the teahouse.

“So what do you want to do?”

Shen Yu finally stopped working, knowing that if he didn’t make Rika’s arrangements clear, she would be like a cowlick that he couldn’t shake off.

“I want to cook!”

Asaba Rika blurted out and continued, ” Shen Yu, can I cook for dinner? I usually cook at home, and I’m quite good at it! I’ll cook and then we’ll both eat together.”

“What’s for dinner? Sashimi? Sushi?” Shen Yu frowned, he didn’t really like it.

“No, we don’t eat sashimi and sushi every day, well, it’s just the usual stir-fry, I want to learn Chinese food but I’m not too familiar with it, so today I want to make grilled pork and curry with rice.” Asaba Rika explained.

Japanese people prefer home-cooked dishes to the big Chinese dishes, which are mostly cooked, grilled or steamed, with a lighter taste and more emphasis on the flavour of the dish itself.

For Asaba Rika, whose life plan is to marry a good husband and stay at home as a good wife and mother, cooking is also an essential skill in addition to the tea ceremony.

Shen Yu is still sceptical about her cooking skills, after spending a few days with Rika, who in his mind is a half-witted young woman like Puffs.

Shen Yu didn’t want to spoil her fun by looking at her with such enthusiasm, as she didn’t care what she ate anyway, as long as it was cooked.

“Fine, then you can go and cook.”

Shen Yu finished his sentence and continued to write and draw, crackling his keyboard.

The young girl beside him stood still and never moved a step, so Shen Yu had to stop and ask her, “Is there anything else?”

” Shen Yu ”

“Can you go grocery shopping with me?”

Hands cupped to her chest, her tone cautious, her eyes wide with anticipation.

“I didn’t.”

“Okay, just once! Once!”

She struggled to stretch one of her fingers, which were beautifully slender, with glistening, healthy nails and full, inviting bellies.

Shen Yu could not say no and his weaknesses were pinpointed by Rika.

“Let’s go.”

Shen Yu put down his pen and Asaba Rika happily went upstairs to get his shopping bag.

Alas, girls are trouble.

Will never waste time going grocery shopping with her again!