Chapter 47: Chicken Stew with Mushrooms
The next day, when Lu Weiyi woke up, he saw express delivery packages scattered all over the living room. Gu Qingji was wrapped in a bed sheet, lying on a pile of clothes, sleeping soundly. The weather in July and August wasn’t cold. Li Zhuang was lying boldly on the sofa, one leg still resting on the expensive coffee table.
Gu Qingyue came out of the kitchen and hadn’t even had time to tell him to be quiet when he saw the person walk past Li Zhuang without changing his expression and give him a hard kick.
Li Zhuang suddenly leaped up, his whole body tense and alert like a cheetah ready to pounce and bite, his sharp gaze making Gu Qingyue’s heart skip a beat for a moment.
Li Zhuang reacted for a moment, relaxed his body, and returned to his usual nonchalant demeanor. He rubbed his face and looked at Lu Weiyi, who was gulping down water by the window. “Little friend, did you sneak attack me?”
“You were blocking the way,” Lu Weiyi finished drinking water and drew a stroke on the wall where they were marking the time.
It was another new day, but Zhuang Mingxu still hadn’t arrived. Lu Weiyi pursed his lips, his thoughts unreadable.
“Yo, come, come, let me measure to see if our little young master gained weight overnight,” Li Zhuang said, walking towards Lu Weiyi with a threatening posture.
Lu Weiyi moved away from the window in a few steps, standing a little further away from him, and glared at him. “Go away.”
“Mm-hmm, I’ll go away,” Li Zhuang said, still walking straight towards the window, but a few steps away, he suddenly turned and darted towards Lu Weiyi.
Lu Weiyi instinctively startled and quickly dodged backward, circling half the dining table. Seeing Li Zhuang still pretending to chase him, he said disdainfully, “Aren’t you childish?”
Who knew that Li Zhuang would suddenly change his steps and directly sit down on a dining chair, take a bowl of rice, and look up as if he didn’t know what Lu Weiyi was talking about, asking in confusion, “Huh? Childish about what?”
This made Lu Weiyi not know what to say. He glared fiercely at Li Zhuang and said gruffly, “Nothing!”
Their bickering made everyone wake up, and they gradually came out to prepare for breakfast.
Lin Yimu, who was serving food, knew that Li Zhuang was deliberately diverting Lu Weiyi’s attention and was happy to see it happen. “Young Master, there’s chicken stew with mushrooms, come and have a taste.”
Lu Weiyi’s attention was immediately diverted. “Did Big Brother Mu make it?” In their previous life, Lin Yimu had died on the way to the Capital, and Lu Weiyi hadn’t eaten his cooking for a long time.
In fact, Lin Yimu was a rough man, and his cooking wasn’t particularly delicious. What Lu Weiyi missed more was the feeling of Lin Yimu holding a cookbook, frowning and fumbling around, putting his heart into it during the days when no one in the Ji family cared about his meals or even secretly deducted his food. This affection was infused into every not-so-delicious dish, and over time, it had become increasingly delicious.
“Mm, it was stewed last night, reheating it might make the taste a bit off,” Lin Yimu said, putting a chicken leg on Lu Weiyi’s plate. “Young Master, try it quickly.”
Lu Weiyi took a big bite, narrowed his eyes, it was this flavor.
“I really didn’t expect Brother Lin to know how to cook. This chicken soup is comparable to that of a big hotel,” Gu Qingyue had cooked noodles in the chicken soup early in the morning, added a few green vegetables and poached eggs, a big bowl for each person, paired with chicken stew with mushrooms, it was rich and delicious.
“You and Lu were asleep last night, we already tasted it, it was really amazing,” When Lin Yimu finished cooking last night, they were still outside unpacking express deliveries. Antonio immediately made a bowl, and the few of them shared it in a few bites. In the end, they simply made a bowl for each person and stewed another pot.
Dean had been eating bread and biscuits for a long time, and last night’s meal was simply heavenly. He ate with gusto, and Antonio was happy, giving thumbs-up in praise.
“Mm, delicious, yummy, great!” Dean thought of the words he knew and blurted them out.
“There’s still one chicken left. If you like, we can make it again at noon,” Lin Yimu looked at the group. “I thought about it, our supplies are indeed likely to attract envy. It’s best to leave more people at home to be safer. How about our young master stays at home? His skills are not bad, and his marksmanship is good. If there’s really an accident, escaping definitely won’t be a problem.”
“Okay,” Having seen him rescue two people with no fighting ability from a group of bullies, Antonio felt that Lu Weiyi’s skills were definitely not a problem. Although he felt Dean had exaggerated a lot when describing it, from the first time he met Lu Weiyi, he felt that this person should know something, or definitely had some trump cards that no one knew about.
“My brother won’t go today either,” Gu Qingji, who rarely spoke, offered initiative.
Gu Qingyue obviously didn’t know about this decision and looked at him in confusion. “Why am I not going?”
“You’re too tired, rest for an afternoon and go tomorrow.” Before the apocalypse, Gu Qingyue was just a simple office worker. With such a large consumption of energy recently, there were obvious dark circles under his eyes. Gu Qingji was a little worried that his body wouldn’t be able to handle it. Nowadays, it’s not like usual, there are no hospitals waiting to treat people, everything has to be done carefully by oneself.
“I’m not tired, there’s nothing much to do every day…”
“Alright, stop arguing. Let’s go to the nearby mall to look for some clothes and daily necessities. I only have two or three sets of clothes left, and I have nothing to change into,” Li Zhuang finally decided on the afternoon’s itinerary. “Whoever is tired can take the opportunity to rest for an afternoon.”
It wasn’t easy to relax for a day in the apocalypse. Gu Qingyue and Lin Yimu, the only two with some cooking skills, worked together to fry a table full of dishes for everyone.
Lu Weiyi had never lacked food from the beginning, so he naturally wasn’t vigilant. With one chopstick, and then looking up, the entire plate of food was gone. The men at the table wielded their chopsticks so fast they seemed to fly. Even Dean ate with greasy lips, occasionally hissing “delicious.” At this moment, if he didn’t look at their faces, Lu Weiyi felt that the people in front of him were simply a bunch of bandits.
After the whirlwind of eating, the group quickly divided the work.
Although they said Gu Qingyue should rest, in the end, he didn’t stay, which made Gu Qingji’s face darken, and he slammed the door and went out.
“Sorry, he’s just worried about me. See you downstairs,” Gu Qingyue apologized to the group. Antonio waved his hand, indicating that he didn’t mind, and Gu Qingyue then chased after him.
“Qingji, wait for me!” Gu Qingyue chased out of the stairwell, only seeing Gu Qingji’s figure going down the stairs, and hearing his footsteps seemed to get faster.
“Gu Qingji!” Gu Qingyue called his full name. Gu Qingji downstairs clearly paused, and his footsteps slowed down.
Gu Qingyue caught up in a few steps, seeing that his face was still dark, knowing that he was worried about him, Gu Qingyue explained, “Lu Weiyi will be leaving soon, and no one can say for sure whether Antonio will leave with him. These people are all very capable. Following them to find supplies is definitely much safer than the two of us going out alone. Let’s find more to store while they are still here. When they leave, I’ll rest well for a few days.”
“I know,” How could Gu Qingji not understand what he was thinking? It was precisely because he understood that he was even more angry, angry at his own incompetence.
Gu Qingji and Gu Qingyue were not biological brothers; they were from blended families. But they hadn’t lived together for long before their parents died in a car accident. Gu Qingyue, as the older brother, had worked hard to support both of them through university.
Gu Qingji had finally become famous and could earn a lot of money when the apocalypse arrived.
He hadn’t enjoyed any of it yet and had to work himself to the bone again. Gu Qingji felt extremely sorry for him. “Brother, I will work hard,” he thought, hard enough so that whenever you want to rest, you can rest, and you won’t have to consider so much even when you’re being dragged down.
Gu Qingji hugged Gu Qingyue tightly, burying his head in his shoulder. “Just wait a little longer.”
“Okay, okay,” Gu Qingyue patted his back to comfort him.
When they regrouped, Gu Qingji had already composed himself, showing no signs of his earlier tantrum. However, when they went out again, he seemed several degrees fiercer, like a little wolfhound baring its teeth, making Li Zhuang and the others suspect that Gu Qingyue had secretly given him some kind of stimulant.
When the group returned that evening, many people had gathered downstairs, watching them carry things upstairs as if it were a show. After they had finished, the people downstairs still hadn’t dispersed, and they could even hear the sound of people walking back and forth on the stairs. If this continued, something was bound to happen. Li Zhuang went to find Fang Ke without eating dinner.
No one knew what was said, but in any case, the people downstairs did disperse. However, Lu Weiyi was still left behind.
Lu Weiyi didn’t have a sense of scarcity of supplies. In his mind, as long as he found Zhuang Mingxu, everything would be fine. So, when Lin Yimu didn’t let him go out, he stayed at home to strengthen his abilities.
Dean was looking through the clothes unpacked from the express deliveries, separating the wearable from the unwearable, busy like a diligent little bee. He occasionally learned a few new colloquial phrases from Lu Weiyi, repeating them in a low murmur.
“Someone’s coming,” Lu Weiyi, who had been closing his eyes as if sleeping, suddenly spoke.
“What?” Just as Dean turned his head, he heard someone knocking on the door outside in the stairwell. He immediately became alert and looked at Lu Weiyi. “Lu?”
The elevator could no longer be used, and the only passageway, the stairwell door, had been locked from the inside before they left. At this moment, an old woman was holding a child and banging on the stairwell door – it was the unreasonable old woman from upstairs. After her son turned into a zombie, the old woman, who had been constantly shouting not to kill him, had swiftly killed him the moment he lunged at her.
Lu Weiyi’s mental power had been lingering around the surrounding floors. When the group entered the building door, he had already “seen” them the first time. Seeing them sneaking upstairs, he thought they had bad intentions towards the woman of that household. He was losing interest and about to withdraw his mental power when he heard them discussing having the old woman carry the child here to gain sympathy.
Sympathy…
In the apocalypse, humanity was gone, who still had such a thing as sympathy?
“Is anyone home? Is there anyone? Help!” The old woman banged on the door forcefully while shouting with a voice comparable to street curse.
Dean could only understand that someone was asking for help and looked at Lu Weiyi.
“Ignore them,” Lu Weiyi didn’t want to bother with them. The stairwell door had a small lock on the inside, and no matter how hard she banged, she couldn’t open it.
“Oh,” Dean was already Lu Weiyi’s fanboy, whatever he said was what he did.
Not getting a response from outside, the old woman started cursing directly. However, the two people inside, Dean couldn’t understand, and Lu Weiyi didn’t care at all. After a short while, the old woman went back with the child.
I wonder if the old woman is bitten or if they adopt that child later on