Courtyard House: Passing through the Silly Pillar, Activating the Blessed Cave Heaven

76

When I came back at noon, I found the door locked. I thought Dad had gone out to buy groceries.

"After I settled Yushui down to sleep, I saw this letter on the table..." He Yuzhu wiped his face with his hand, his voice trembling with tears, and said, "Yushui is so young, what will become of her?"

"I did see your father carrying a bundle and leaving this morning..." Yi Zhonghai shook the letter in his hand. "Baoding is such a big place, there's no way to find him even if you wanted to."

The most pressing issue right now is who will take care of things after the rains.

"You're an apprentice at Fengzeyuan, and you usually finish work so late. You can't possibly bring a child to work with you, can you?"

"I want to go to the steel rolling mill and take my father's place!" He Yuzhu suddenly raised his head and said with a determined look in his eyes, "Second Uncle, could you give me a ride to work tomorrow? I want to ask the manager about the situation."

"Okay, I'll come and wake you up tomorrow morning." Yi Zhonghai nodded. "You go back first and take good care of Yushui."

After He Yuzhu walked away, the second aunt peeked out from the inner room and said, "That He Daqing, he's really gone mad! He doesn't even want his own flesh and blood, running off to raise someone else's child..."

"I think He Daqing was blinded by a woman, which is why he did such a foolish thing."

Hurry up and make lunch. I need to go talk to Liu Haizhong in the backyard about this later.

The three of us are the supervisors appointed by the neighborhood committee. Now, one of the older men, He Daqing, has run away without a word. I wonder if Director Wang knows about this.

Yi Zhonghai sat in his chair, pondering how to handle the matter.

The old man in charge of the courtyard house suddenly ran away. This is no small matter and we need to report it to the neighborhood office immediately.

If He Daqing slipped away without informing the subdistrict office, and I don't report it in time, it will be difficult to explain when the subdistrict office investigates.

After leaving Yi Zhonghai's house, He Yuzhu returned to his own room. He first went to the inner room to check on Yushui, who was still fast asleep, and then turned around and went into the kitchen to prepare lunch.

He opened the cupboard, checked the ingredients inside, and found that only a few eggs and half a bag of potatoes remained.

He Yuzhu didn't feel sad about He Daqing's departure; on the contrary, he felt relieved.

As a time traveler, he didn't have much affection for this cheap father to begin with.

In recent years, he had been learning Shandong cuisine from Wu Baotian and hadn't spent much time with He Daqing, so he didn't feel any discomfort when they suddenly separated.

The only thing that worried him was Yu Shui. After all, Yu Shui was raised by He Daqing, and suddenly losing his father's company would definitely be a big blow to him.

He Yuzhu pondered in his heart how to tell his sister about this in a way that would make her feel better.

He decided to make lo mein for lunch, with eggs and potatoes as the topping.

He lifted the flour jar, weighed the flour bag inside, and estimated that there were only about five pounds of flour left.

He Yuzhu, carrying a bag of flour, slipped into the blessed land and walked to the flour vat in the corner of the Wuji Hall. He lifted the wooden board and used a ladle to put some of the previously ground flour into the bag.

After packing up most of the food, he went to the back hill to collect dozens of eggs and a dried roast chicken before returning to the kitchen.

He poured the flour into the flour jar, scooped out three large ladles of flour into a basin, sprinkled some salt, added water and kneaded it into a smooth dough, then covered it and let it rise.

While the dough was rising, He Yuzhu cleaned the iron pot, poured in half a pot of water, lit a fire, and began peeling the potatoes.