Courtyard House: Drunk and tipsy, the whole courtyard exposed at the start.

As for Sha Zhu's salary?

Naturally, it was lent to the Jia family. After they repaid the money they had donated when it was found during the last search, they only had twenty or thirty yuan left.

Qin Huairu cried about being poor, and tears streamed down her face. Sha Zhu naturally lent her the money. He was now truly alone, with no one to worry about.

And when Yi Zhonghai hosted his last banquet, he had Sha Zhu borrow the meat...

Of course, he had no money to pay back, because Zhang Dabiao wanted Sha Zhu to pay back the meat, but these days meat coupons were impossible to come up with, and Sha Zhu didn't have the money to go to the pigeon market to buy more.

With the last bit of money, He Daqing forced her to buy a brand new bicycle for He Yushui, and He Daqing even gave her the bicycle ticket.

A few days ago, Sha Zhu really only had a few cents left, and he was at his wit's end.

He did want to bring this up with Yi Zhonghai, but seeing Yi Zhonghai's miserable state—being beaten every day, his leg broken by his own father, and having paid over eight thousand, almost ten thousand in compensation…

Sha Zhu was too embarrassed to ask, but he didn't have the money to pay back, which made things awkward.

"We agreed on a month, but the time hasn't come yet. Let's talk about it next month."

"Today I'm not helping them borrow money, I'm cooking for Yushui."

"Huh?" Zhang Dabiao was stunned. Sha Zhu suddenly remembered to cook for Yu Shui? Has the sun risen in the west?

"Wait a minute, Yu Shui is quite wealthy now, she's not short of money." Yeah, if you're short of money, why are you cooking for your sister? Go ask her for it, it's not a big deal.

"No, today is Rain Water, the Rain Water solar term in the 24 solar terms—"

"It's Rain Water's birthday! I'm going to make her a bowl of longevity noodles!"

"What? Today is Rain Water's birthday."

"Yes, she was born on the day of Rain Water, so she was named Rain Water."

"You only made her a bowl of noodles?"

"What's wrong? We have meat, eggs, and refined flour. These days, not many people can afford this. It's pretty good. Our family has this every year."

"You're a star at the steel mill, a level eight chef, and you only make 27.5 yuan a month. You don't even have the ingredients or money to make a bowl of noodles?" (Sha Zhu hasn't been promoted yet, and the canteen manager is deducting money from his wages for various reasons because he's foul-mouthed and often takes leave.)

"Zhang Dabiao, you can't hit someone in the face! I only came to you because I had no other choice!" Sha Zhu's face turned dark red with anger, but he didn't dare to make a move, so he could only resort to shamelessness.

"Just tell me if you'll lend it to me or not?"

Sha Zhu's shameless behavior made Zhang Dabiao laugh in anger. "You're so poor, what's there to be arrogant about?"

"Alright, alright, I'll put it on your tab. What will you do when you get paid next month?"

"Let's...we'll see how it goes?" Sha Zhu looked up at the sky at a 45-degree angle, but his shifty eyes betrayed his guilty conscience.

Zhang Dabiao was speechless, pointing at Sha Zhu.

When people are speechless, they really are speechless!

You deserve to be treated like a blood bank for the rest of your life.

I gave him half a tube of noodles, an egg, and two ounces of cured meat, so he wouldn't use it to help others.

You might say that Sha Zhu doesn't care about He Yushui, but he bought her a bicycle, made up for the 2400 yuan he owed her, gave her a house, and even made longevity noodles for her every year on her birthday.

You say he cares? He's lent out all his family's rations, can't even guarantee his living expenses from rainwater harvesting, and yet he keeps saying "I'm the only one who needs to eat, the whole family isn't hungry"...

This guy is a real talent.

Sha Zhu went back inside to make noodles, while Zhang Dabiao called over Qin Jingru, the maid who was cleaning the courtyard.

"How long will it take you to clean this up by yourself? Never mind, we can get the young people in the yard to finish it in half a day. Give them some food and they'll get to work."

Qin Jingru looked unhappy: "But that would be such a waste of food. I have nothing else to do anyway, so I can do it myself."

Qin Jingru's only complaint about Zhang Dabiao was that he was too wasteful of food. Why didn't he just eat the food himself? Why did he have to treat everyone?

Zhang Dabiao waved his hand dismissively: "Alright, how long would that take? People who don't know better would think I'm abusing child laborers in such a big place."

"Never mind the other courtyards for now. It's Yushui's birthday today, and you're staying at her place. Shouldn't you show your appreciation?"

Qin Jingru tilted her head and thought for a moment, then said, "How about I make her a bowl of longevity noodles?"

Zhang Dabiao was speechless. "You guys only eat longevity noodles on your birthdays, right?"

"or……"

"Shall I teach you how to make a birthday cake?"

------------

Let's do it! We're just killing time anyway, might as well have some fun.

I went back to my apartment and looked up a recipe for how to make a cake using flour, eggs, sugar, and milk—the kind that's steamed in a steamer. Then I copied it down on a piece of paper and brought some other ingredients with me.

It's a bit troublesome, but it's still manageable.

Qin Jingru was in charge of making the cake, while Zhang Dabiao was in charge of getting the cream, chocolate, fruit candles, and so on.

You can find cake flour in the store, or you can use 4 parts all-purpose flour to 1 part cornstarch, the kind used for thickening sauces in cooking, to make cake flour.

Then, prepare the starter dough with eggs, make the custard paste, make the meringue, mix them together, and steam.

Because it was all done by hand, the maid Qin Jingru's hair was flying everywhere from her busy work, but she was very happy doing it and strictly followed the requirements in Zhang Dabiao's "secret manual". In order to do this, since there was no clock, Zhang Dabiao specially brought an hourglass from his "little nest" so that Qin Jingru could keep track of the time.

He himself had to prepare the butter.

This guy, who lives alone, doesn't have any of these things in his fridge, but he does have caterpillar bread. He's been getting a new batch every day lately, and besides eating a few, he still has 10 left.

So Zhang Dabiao scooped out all the cream, hoping it would be enough to cover the inside.

As for decorating the cakes, that was a bit of a challenge for Zhang Dabiao, but he did his best.

Then there were a few pieces of Russian chocolate in the refrigerator, the big kind.

Take it out, smash it into pieces, and then sprinkle it on later. There's no time to melt it down and then shape it now.

Is there a small bag of Oreos left?

smash!

Add some white sugar and grind it into icing, and your blood sugar will skyrocket and the sweetness will be off the charts!

He picked out a few Sunshine Roses, cut them in half, and that was all the fruit he had in his little nest. Zhang Dabiao rarely bought fruit.

However, I received some almonds when I went to Qinjiatun to buy supplies last time, and I sliced ​​them!

Finally, I chose two thin colored candles, number 1 and number 7—perfect!

How do you write "Happy Birthday"?

Zhang Dabiao thought for a moment, "Using ketchup to write... will do?" So he found a bunch of those small packets of ketchup, squeezed them into a bowl, and used a spoon to write. He figured he'd make do with that.

This is a bit salty, will it cause any other flavors to mix?

Who cares, let's just have fun.

After everything was ready, Zhang Dabiao left his "little den," and the entire courtyard was filled with two special fragrances.

One is the longevity noodles cooked by Sha Zhu, and the other is the cake steamed by Qin Jingru.

The noodles were made quickly, and as soon as they were done, Sha Zhu brought them over to Yu Shui. Qin Huai Ru wanted to borrow some noodles, saying that she wanted to eat the noodles her Uncle Sha made again.

But Sha Zhu was very determined this time; he wouldn't give it to anyone, not even if the King of Heaven himself came!

Then Qin Huairu set her sights on what was in Qin Jingru's steamer, but Qin Jingru didn't even open the door for her.

Not only that, but Yuan Yi-ma, now Yu Shui's godmother, knew it was her birthday today and prepared a plate of dumplings for her.

Rainwater was eaten at home —

I was so touched.

But after a while, Qin Jingru and Zhang Dabiao arrived with a large cake.