Don't get married if you're reborn.

Chapter 355 Only She Didn't Know
After noon, Grandma closed the noodle shop door panel by panel.

Then, they went to the kitchen to prepare the ingredients, and Zeng Wenjie's mother, Han Yu, also helped.

Xiao Mu's family truly loves her, and knowing it was her birthday today, they prepared a lot of delicious food.

"Mom, are you making eight big bowls again?" Han Yu couldn't help but ask.

"Yes! Little Mu likes to eat eight big bowls of food," Grandma said with a smile.

Making this dish is the hardest part, requiring preparations to begin very early in the morning; however, Grandma never complained.

Zeng Wenjie wandered around the kitchen for a while, and when he went back to find Mu Qingyang, he found her touching the fireworks and firecrackers placed against the wall.

Zeng Wenjie was taken aback, then laughed and said, "I was saying the firecrackers we set up yesterday were in the wrong place. So you got up in the middle of the night to check?"

Mu Qingyang blushed and said, "No, that's nonsense, a frame-up!"

Zeng Wenjie said, "Don't deny it, I was like that when I was a kid. I would buy firecrackers and keep them at home, but I couldn't wait until New Year's Eve to set them off. I couldn't help but get up in the middle of the night to check and touch them, as if I was afraid that someone would steal them."

Mu Qingyang snorted and said, "Zeng Wenjie is such a child, I would never do that!"

Then, she reluctantly hugged the fireworks and touched them one last time before putting them down.

“Come on, I’ll take you to the riverbank to set off some firecrackers,” Zeng Wenjie said.

"Didn't they say we could only set off on New Year's Eve?" Mu Qingyang asked, taken aback.

“Hey, that’s because we were poor back then. We bought some fireworks to save for the New Year, but we couldn’t afford to set them off early. Now that we have money, we can set them off whenever we want!” Zeng Wenjie said domineeringly, waving his hand.

Mu Qingyang immediately perked up and said, "Then I'll put this out!"

Zeng Wenjie simply picked up a bag and led her across the street to the riverbank.

The weather was quite nice today; I even saw people washing bed sheets by the river.

"However, you're dressed so beautifully today, so be careful not to let the artillery fire burn your clothes," Zeng Wenjie said with a smile.

"I know!" Mu Qingyang replied, sticking the firecracker into the crack in the rock.

Zeng Wenjie took out two cigarettes, put them in his mouth and lit them. He smoked one himself and gave the other to Mu Qingyang to light firecrackers.

Mu Qingyang carefully squatted down, leaned forward, and pinched the filter to put the cigarette butt to the fuse.

After lighting it, she quickly ran to Zeng Wenjie's side, and then the firecracker shot into the sky and exploded.

Zeng Wenjie also grabbed some firecrackers from the bag to set off for fun.

Then, Mu Qingyang began to understand why Zeng Wenjie liked frying cow dung and his grandfather's water cup when he was a child.

Because after setting off a few firecrackers, she would also look for bottles and jars by the river, light the firecrackers, stuff them inside, and run away, waiting for them to explode, which was quite interesting.

"Don't blow up the glass bottle." Zeng Wenjie kicked away a broken small glass bottle. Blowing up this thing could easily cause injury.

Mu Qingyang pointed forward, his eyes sparkling, and said, "There's cow dung!"

Zeng Wenjie was both amused and exasperated, saying, "You don't want to come home covered in cow dung and be laughed at, do you?"

Mu Qingyang thought for a moment, his face turned pale, and he shook his head repeatedly.

Then Zeng Wenjie grinned maliciously and said, "Hehehe, I want to blow this up for fun. You better run away first."

"..."

Mu Qingyang was speechless. Just yesterday he had sworn that he would not do such things.

However, she obediently walked away and watched from afar as Zeng Wenjie shoved the most powerful "Thunderbolt" into cow dung.

After lighting the cigarette butt, Zeng Wenjie quickly fled the scene.

Mu Qingyang felt that this was not safe enough, so he simply hid behind a large rock.

As the firecracker exploded, the scene...

Mu Qingyang could already imagine how pathetic Zeng Wenjie must have been as a child!

"Looking at it this way, you really deserved a beating when you were a kid," Mu Qingyang said, looking at the messy riverbank ahead.

“There are even more deserving ones,” Zeng Wenjie said.

"Tell me about it," Mu Qingyang said in surprise.

Zeng Wenjie recounted how he used to take Niu Bai to a mahjong parlor to steal mahjong tiles when he was a child, and then the mahjong parlor owner chased after them all the way.

Seeing that he was about to be caught, he threw two mahjong tiles on the ground, forcing the shopkeeper to stop and pick them up. In the end, he ran for five or six miles before finally throwing away all the stolen mahjong tiles.

After returning home, both brothers were severely beaten by their parents.

Shi Jing suffered the worst; he was hung up so that his toes barely touched the ground, enduring immense pain.

Zeng Wenjie fared no better, his grandfather beat his hands with bamboo strips until they were bloody and mangled. If his grandmother hadn't arrived in time to save him, the consequences would have been even worse.

Mu Qingyang listened with great interest, and then thought that Zeng Wenjie was indeed quite deserving of a beating.

After setting off firecrackers all afternoon, when Zeng Wenjie returned home, he heard Hu Guohua and Shi Jing screaming and yelling.

The two brothers took over Zeng Wenjie's room and played the Little Tyrant game console with the "Red Fortress" cartridge inserted.

"Oh, you're here too!" Mu Qingyang greeted the two of them immediately upon seeing them.

"Hey, Xiao Mu, you look really good today," Hu Guohua said.

"Hello, landlady," Shi Jing greeted.

Mu Qingyang was taken aback, her face slightly flushed. What the heck was "boss lady"? It felt so awkward!

Zeng Wenjie said to the two of them, "My grandfather just asked to see you about something."

"Oh!" The two brothers put down the controller.

Zeng Wenjie immediately beckoned Mu Qingyang to sit down and said, "It's our turn to play."

Hu Guohua then realized he had been tricked and cursed, "You're really becoming more and more inhuman! I finally get to come to your house to play, and you're trying to take my game console?"

Shi Jing nodded vigorously and said, "Don't bring him iced cola anymore."

Zeng Wenjie laughed and said, "How about this, one life per person, Xiao Mu and I will play first, whoever dies goes down."

"Kuoyi!"

The two brothers were then calmed down and sat down to watch.

After Zeng Wenjie and Mu Qingyang were both killed in action, the controller changed hands.

"It's all your fault for being so bad!" Mu Qingyang couldn't help but gently pat Zeng Wenjie's shoulder.

"Trying to shift the blame, huh? I carried the whole game, how can you blame me for being bad!" Zeng Wenjie said irritably.

Zeng Wenjie and Mu Qingyang didn't have time to help either, as their grandparents had arrived and they needed to go out to greet and entertain them.

When my grandfather saw Mu Qingyang, he greeted him directly in Russian.

Then, Mu Qingyang responded in fluent Russian.

Immediately, she turned to Zeng Wenjie and smiled smugly.

"You're quite the actor."

Zeng Wenjie chuckled inwardly. Little Mu acted as if he had made extraordinary progress in Russian after only a few days of learning from his grandfather. If he didn't know the truth about him, he would have almost believed him.

Not long after, Grandma called out that dinner was ready.

The meal was plentiful, consisting of twelve dishes in total.

Zeng Wenjie took two bottles of wine out of the car, opened them, and prepared to have some during the meal.

No one brought up the topic of birthdays during the meal, as if they had reached a tacit understanding beforehand.

But in reality, Zeng Wenjie had already secretly intervened, making everyone pretend they knew nothing.

Faced with the kind-hearted girl, Xiao Mu, her family and friends also held the greatest goodwill and were willing to follow Zeng Wenjie's arrangements.

"Oh my, eight big bowls! Xiao Mu, you've got quite the prestige!" Hu Guohua exclaimed upon seeing the main dishes.

Mu Qingyang was taken aback. Today was his grandmother's birthday. What did it have to do with her face?
Grandma said to Mu Qingyang, "Eat up. Grandma doesn't know how to cook, so don't mind if it's not good."

"I love my grandma's cooking the most!"

Mu Qingyang quickly responded and then took the chopsticks from his grandmother with both hands.

Grandma's cooking may not look as fancy as the dishes in high-end restaurants in big cities, but the taste is impeccable.

Anyway, Mu Qingyang felt that the dishes in those big restaurants weren't necessarily much better than what his grandmother cooked.

(End of this chapter)