Rebirth Aftec Death

Black Truffle Rice

Li Chishu turned off his alarm the first time it rang at 5:50 in the morning. I was sleeping soundly, and I hugged him reflexively like countless mornings before: "Sleep a little longer."

He stiffened at first and tried to struggle in my hands twice. I was still not awake, so I tightened my arms according to habit and buried my face in the back of his neck accurately: "Sleep a little longer, Li Chishu."

He was completely motionless.

After two seconds, I suddenly opened my eyes and realized what time it was. My heart was pounding.

But Li Chishu did not resist anymore. He lay quietly on the pillow. I didn't know if he fell asleep again. I could only maintain a steady breath and didn't dare to move a finger.

I opened my mouth and my lips touched the skin under Li Chishu's neck. The smell of the shower gel I brought was in my breath. This was Li Chishu's favorite brand when he was alive. Now I was holding him, who was seventeen years old, nervous like a young boy. I felt sad as if it was a lifetime ago, but fortunately it was really a lifetime ago.

I shamelessly closed my eyes and took a nap with him in my arms.

But Li Chishu was a naturally self-disciplined person. Not long after he fell asleep, he quietly took my hand from his waist and went downstairs to wash himself. I listened upstairs. There was no movement downstairs for a long time, and Li Chishu didn't come up. I was going to lift the quilt and go down to take a look, but I froze as soon as I got up.

... The body of an eighteen-year-old is indeed vigorous.

... Of course, it was also vigorous when I was thirty, but Li Chishu's physical condition at that time did not allow me to be so vigorous.

I sat on the bed to calm down for a while and then went downstairs to see. It turned out that Li Chishu had been squatting in front of the stove, holding a piece of firewood in his hand, not knowing whether to put it down or not, facing the cave entrance as if facing a great enemy.

I pinched my nose and walked over: "What are you doing?"

He looked up at me: "I wanted to make breakfast, but..."

"But I don't know how to cook." I took over the conversation and pulled Li Chishu up, "Let me do it, you go upstairs and do your homework, I'll call you when I'm done."

He walked out two steps and turned back and stopped: "Let me learn from you."

"Okay."

In fact, I didn't know how to do this when I first came here. After all, Li Chishu didn't bring up the idea of ​​eating firewood rice in his previous life, so I had no way to learn. I went back to check and learn after I came the day before yesterday. Last night, I was unfamiliar with it when I first tried it. I called my dad for advice while operating it - he is familiar with this. When he was young, he started a business with my mom and worked in the countryside for a few months.

Porridge is not very friendly to the stomach. Although I don't know if Li Chishu has these problems now, it's always better to be safe than sorry. I chose the dumplings that were left in the freezer yesterday.

Li Chishu still ate the dumplings as deliciously as the first time he tasted them, thinking about the problem while eating. After eating two bites, he asked me: "Does anyone live here permanently?"

"Yes," I said calmly, "I usually hire someone to help look after the house, clean up and so on."

He said "hmm" and asked again: "What about that motorcycle..."

"I asked Jiang Chi to borrow it for me, in case there is something urgent these two days and it is inconvenient." I pushed the remaining dumplings on the plate into his bowl, "What do you want to eat for lunch?"

Li Chishu buried his head and stuffed another one into his mouth, raised his eyes from the bowl and looked at me: "... dumplings."

"..."

After washing the dishes, I went back to the second floor with him to do homework - although my heart is the heart of a 30-year-old, I still have to carry the burden for my 18-year-old self.

But at least I have experienced a complete high school and college entrance examination, and my memory is not bad. After graduating from college, I was inspired to do the college entrance examination questions of that year with my roommate and I was able to solve the math and physics finals, but it took a few minutes longer than when I took the college entrance examination. It has been ten years since I last touched the high school textbooks, but learning is something that is ingrained in my bones. I did a few papers last week, checked the answers, and looked at the analysis. Basically, I can remember 80% to 90% of them, not to mention English, which is a subject that can be used at any time even after leaving school. As for chemistry and biology, just memorize them. Even if you have never studied them, you can learn them almost by just reading the books.

In general, Shen Baoshan is much more relaxed in learning these things than Li Chishu or myself in my previous life.

As the sun rises and it is almost lunchtime, I slowly asked Li Chishu while writing: "Do you want to eat ice cream?"

"Ice cream?" Li Chishu did not refuse me directly, but just told me to give up the idea as soon as possible, "There is no sale here."

I laughed and said nothing.

I am afraid that Li Chishu himself can't even remember his wish to eat ice cream.

It was the summer when I had just been with him for a short time. I went to an office building in the city center on a weekend to meet the partner of the next project. Li Chishu waited for me in the cafe downstairs for an entire afternoon. After I handed over the work and came out of the building, he was sitting alone outside the open-air cafe, staring at a single-story independent building not far away. He stared at me for as long as I stood behind him, without moving.

That building was not new in this commercial district. It was a national chain store of Haagen-Dazs. It was hot during the holidays. The glass door at the entrance of the store opened and closed, and the flow of people never stopped.

I pressed his shoulder from behind and asked him if he wanted to eat ice cream.

He said he just remembered the days when he worked part-time after the college entrance examination.

After graduating from the college entrance examination, Li Chishu had only been an adult for half a year. After his studies were over, he suddenly had no goals and no group. The only thing he knew he couldn't stop doing was making money. But he had very few friends. He was a loner in high school. There was almost no one he could talk to and make friends with, so he couldn't find a way or connections to work during the summer vacation. For a good student like him, if he had an elder who could inquire about many things, it would be easy for him to go to a less formal tutoring institution to be a private tutor for junior and senior high school students.

But Li Chishu was dull and not smooth. It would take more than half a month for the college entrance examination results to come out, so during that half a month, he worked as the cheapest urban labor force to distribute flyers.

It was very hot that year, with the highest temperature of nearly 39 degrees, so the hourly wage was highest from noon to 4 pm.

Li Chishu chose this time period, working in the commercial plaza where his coffee shop was located, sweating profusely every day until 6 pm under the scorching sun, with only the cheapest paper towels and a thermos cup.

I thought he wanted to tell me how eager he was when he saw Haagen-Dazs under such conditions, but he just joked to himself: "Standing at the door of Haagen-Dazs for so many days, I didn't even know that they were selling ice cream. So many people came out with boxes, I thought the boxes were all cakes."

He didn't talk about Haagen-Dazs again, but talked about another equally hot summer day on the way home with me.

The sun that summer was also so bright that it was hard to open one's eyes. For the younger and thinner Li Chishu, it was a torment that he did not want to experience again in his life.

The seven-year-old Li Chishu was stunned by the news of his father's sudden death. Before he could come to his senses, he was dragged by his mother to kneel in front of the city government square, asking the relevant departments to give them an explanation for their orphans and widows who were no different from countless poor families and could be seen from the beginning.

Li Chishu had long forgotten whether it was the city government or the city supervision bureau. Those large aluminum alloy characters were just strange symbols that made his eyes more uncomfortable every time he looked at them.

He also did not remember how long his mother led him to kneel. The only thing he remembered was the sweat drops that kept dripping from his face to the ground. He counted dozens of drops as they fell, and the sweat stains were evaporated by the scorching sun and the hot ground between the sand and stones under his knees.

Li Chishu's mouth was dry. People passing by gradually gathered around him and his mother and talked about it. His sight climbed up from the countless pairs of sandals on the ground, and finally found the faces of several of his classmates in the bustling crowd.

Some of them were led by their parents, and some walked together. They tied the same red scarf around their necks as Li Chishu, and cast curious or sympathetic eyes on him in the crowd - they were all seven-year-old children, what did they know?

Li Chishu didn't understand either, he just stared at the ice cream in their hands.

The tail of those ice creams always slowly melted into water before they could put it into their mouths, flowing along the sticks of the ice cream to their hands, and finally dripped into the ground like Li Chishu's sweat and his mother's tears, evaporated by the suffering that this summer had bred.

He kept licking his cracked lips, and all he tasted was the salty sweat flowing down from his philtrum. What did the ice cream taste like that day? Li Chishu will never know.

"What happened next?" I asked him while driving.

"What happened next?" Li Chishu recalled in a nearly silent manner, as if he was in that dry summer again, and unconsciously picked up the warm water I usually prepared for him in the car. "Later, the contractor of the land where my father fell and died lost money, and my mother also passed away. She left the money to me and told me to study hard. She said that was my only way out." I didn't eat dumplings for lunch. I made a firewood version of black truffle and shiitake mushroom bibimbap for Li Chishu. He ate it very fresh and asked me what it was.

I said: "Black truffle."

He looked at the bowl and repeated: "Black truffle..."

I asked him: "Is it delicious?"

He pondered for a while and told the truth: "I can't taste it."

"Yeah, I can't taste it either." I took a spoon and mixed the rice in the bowl again, "It was also given by my parents' business friends. I heard it was expensive, but I think it tastes just like that no matter how expensive it is."

He smiled at me with the bowl in his hand, and lowered his head to study the bowl of bibimbap.

After dinner, Li Chishu insisted on washing the dishes. I thought, "There is a grape trellis in the backyard. Go and see if there are any grapes that can be picked. If there are, pick some. If not, forget it."

Li Chishu went obediently.

I washed the dishes without stopping, went to the small dark room next to the kitchen to open the door, and took some effort to move the freezer out of the door. After everything was ready, I waited there for a long time, but there was no sign of Li Chishu.

It takes so long to pick grapes?

"Li Chishu?" I shouted as I walked and went straight to the backyard.

There was a small table under the grape trellis, which was probably used by the owner to drink tea in the afternoon. Li Chishu stood in front of the table with his back to me, and he seemed to be holding a small flag or something in his hand and waving it slowly. His back blocked a lot of my view, and I could only see a little bit.

"Li Chishu." I shouted again. "Huh?"

He seemed to have just come to his senses and turned his head in the sparse light and shadow.

The sunlight came through, and the new green on the top of the grape trellis was gentle. The tender branches covered the yellow leaves, just like his barren old years were quietly growing.

I waved to him to come over: "What are you doing?"

He put down the things in his hand, turned and walked towards me: "No... There don't seem to be any grapes here."

"Forget it if there are none." I pushed him out, "Let's go and eat ice cream."

Li Chishu was confused: "Ice cream?"

"Ice cream." I repeated, walked a few steps and suddenly stopped, turned to face him, took out a red scarf that I had bought when I came here from my pocket, put it on his neck seriously, and then quickly pulled him out.

The countryside in the afternoon was so quiet that people were calm. I asked him to stand in front of the freezer, and walked around the freezer alone, supported one hand on the freezer, and turned on the switch on the top of the freezer with the other hand, and a refreshing cool air rushed out.

Li Chishu was stunned, as if he was surprised that I had some magic.

I smiled and asked him: "Little Li Chishu, what flavor of ice cream do you want to eat?"