Oh no! I've only been a freshman and I've already been targeted by a mean upperclassman.

Chapter 193 Take good care of my daughter!

"dad!"

Li Mohan: "I'll drink water."

He stood at the balcony door and drank the water.

The phone lit up again.

[Yan Xi: He didn't drink it. He poured the water into the flowerpot. I saw it from the kitchen window.]

Li Chen: "..."

[Li Chen: That succulent probably won't survive past the second day of the Lunar New Year.]

[Yan Xi: I've already asked your mom to move the flowerpots to the kitchen windowsill.]

Li Chen glanced at the balcony.

The flowerpot is gone.

Li Mohan stood in front of the empty flower stand, the cup in his hand hanging in mid-air.

"Where's my money?"

Shen Ruolan's voice came from the kitchen. "I moved it. It'll die if you water it again."

Li Mohan put down the water glass and walked back to the sofa.

sit down.

Hands resting on knees. Nowhere to put them.

Li Chen realized for the first time that his father's indecisiveness during the Chinese New Year was exactly the same as his own absent-mindedness in class.

I had nowhere to put my hands.

Yan Xi came out of the kitchen, carrying two plates of pastries. She placed one plate in front of Li Mohan and the other in front of Li Chen.

"Peanut brittle. Your mom just fried it. Your dad's batch was five degrees colder, so it'll be a bit crispier."

Li Mohan picked up a piece and took a bite. He didn't say anything. But his hands were no longer at a loss.

Yan Xi sat down next to Li Chen. She reached out her little finger and hooked it around his.

Li Chen didn't look down, but his fingers tightened.

Outside the window, the sky over Beijing was grayish-white, without snow.

But the living room was very warm, and the aroma of peanut brittle wafted over from Li Mohan's side.

The phone vibrated again. Li Chen glanced at it.

It's not group 302.

It's Yan Zhen.

It was sent to him.

[Yan Zhen: Li Chen.]

Li Chen's fingers paused slightly.

He and Yan Zhen exchanged WeChat contacts.

At the "Tingtaoxuan" teahouse that time.

But we've never had a private chat.

[Yan Zhen: Take good care of my daughter.]

Four seconds later.

[Yan Zhen: I'll only say this once.]

Li Chen looked at the two messages.

He didn't show it to Yan Xi.

He thought for three seconds and replied.

[Li Chen: Yes, Happy New Year, Uncle.]

One minute, two minutes passed, and there was no reply.

Li Chen put down his phone.

Yan Xi's little finger was still hooked around his.

He gripped it tighter.

At 2 PM on the second day of the Lunar New Year, Li Chen squatted on the kitchen floor with three sea bass laid out in front of him.

Live.

He left home at six o'clock this morning and went to the seafood market on the East Fourth Ring Road in Beijing, which Yan Xi had mentioned the day before yesterday, saying that "the clarity of the fish eyes is a level higher than other stores." He queued for forty minutes.

When choosing fish, he followed his grandfather's method: lift the gills to check the color, press the spine to test the elasticity, and smell the abdominal cavity to judge freshness. He bought the three best ones.

"Why did you buy three?" Yan Xi leaned against the kitchen door frame, holding a glass of honey water in her hand.

"Do one as a practice exercise. Do two tomorrow."

"You're nervous."

"no."

"You've changed how you roll up your sleeves twice since you left home at six o'clock, first the left side was higher than the right, then you adjusted them so both sides were even. You tend to adjust your sleeves when you're nervous."

Li Chen glanced at his sleeve.

Both sides are level.

He did indeed adjust it just now.

"Your grandpa is coming tomorrow. You're worried you'll mess up the fish."

Li Chen stood up and put the fish into the basin. "It's not that I'm afraid I'll mess it up. It's that I'm afraid you'll mess it up."

Yan Xi paused her cup near her lips for a moment.

"I'll teach you, you do it." Li Chen washed his hands. "Are you nervous?"

"I'm not nervous."

"You did two sets of jabs this morning, one more than yesterday. You only add extra punches when you need to release stress."

Yan Xi took a sip of the honey water. She didn't object.

Li Chen took out ginger and scallions from the refrigerator. "Use this one to practice first. You clean the fish."

"I didn't kill anyone."

"I'll teach you."

Yan Xi put down her cup and walked over.

Li Chen handed her the apron, and Yan Xi took it and tied it herself.

This time the method is correct—wrap it around first and then tie it.

"You changed your driving style."

"Your mother taught you that."

Li Chen paused for a moment.

Yan Xi learned how to tie an apron from Shen Ruolan at some point yesterday that he didn't know about. He missed this information.

"When?"

"Last night when you were washing the dishes, she came to the guest room to teach me. She even taught me how to sharpen a knife."

"My mom doesn't know how to sharpen knives."

"She said she watched your grandfather grind for thirty years, and although she had never done it herself, she remembered the angle very clearly."

Li Chen picked up the kitchen knife and examined the blade under the sidelight; it had indeed been sharpened.

The angle isn't perfect, but it's usable.

He handed the knife to Yan Xi, the handle facing forward.

"First, remove the scales. Scrape from the tail towards the head. Apply even pressure. Don't use too much force, or you'll break the skin."

Yan Xi took the knife.

The way she held the knife had an architectural precision to it.

The five fingers are evenly distributed, like holding a compass.

"You don't hold a knife like you would a compass. Press your index finger on the back of the blade and hook your thumb on the side of the handle." Li Chen reached out and adjusted her finger position.

Just like his grandfather instructed him on the angle of his punches—not a demonstration, but a direct demonstration.

Yan Xi's fingers subtly adjusted their position under his hand.

"This distribution of force overlaps with the hand positions in ballet, with the angle between the thumb and forefinger being about 120 degrees, similar to the force distribution principle of the toes when on pointe."

"When you're processing fish, can you please not analyze the forces acting on them?"

"cannot."

Yan Xi swung her knife. The first scale flew out and hit Li Chen's face.

"……direction."

"I know."

The second surgery was much better.

Scales fell into the basin in large pieces.

Yan Xi's learning curve is as steep as it was when she was in the pottery workshop—she's unfamiliar with things for the first three seconds, finds the pattern in the fourth, and starts optimizing in the fifth.

Remove the scales, gut, and internal organs, then wash thoroughly.

Yan Xi remained expressionless throughout, but Li Chen noticed that her breathing rate increased from fourteen to sixteen breaths per minute while she was removing her internal organs.

"You think it's fishy."

"no."

"Your breathing has quickened."

Yan Xi flipped the fish over. "I'm calculating the volume of the abdominal cavity and the proportion of internal organs."

"You're making excuses for not breathing."

Yan Xi's hands didn't stop moving. "Do you want to continue teaching?"

Li Chen shut up.

After processing the fish, the next step is to cut it.

Yan Xi made three cuts on each side of the fish, with even depth and consistent spacing.

"The distance between the cuts you made is 2.5 centimeters," Li Chen said.

"What are the standards?"

"There's no standard. But my grandfather's habit was 2.3."