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Ch18 - Xiao Ming’s Daily Life
Yu Tuisi ate a bit of bread to cushion his stomach and Chen Sufeng carried him to the child’s bed on time. He had to do the task of taking a nap.
Chen Sufeng returned to the table and found everyone scattered in a circle around the table. They were afraid that if they glanced at the table, they wouldn’t be able to control their physiological reactions.
“This bowl of slop…” Chen Sufeng almost expressed what was in his heart. He stopped in time and hurriedly coughed to cover it up. “What should we do about eating?”
Jiang Fang gently volunteered. “I’ll make something.”
He went to the kitchen and chose a few ingredients that were prone to going bad. “Stuffed eggplant, mapo tofu, shredded potatoes, shrimp seaweed soup and a side of rice?”
Seeing that everyone had no objections, Jiang Fang nodded to Nan Zhou and motioned for him to help in the kitchen. He also glanced at the table that looked like a collection of dishes from the periodic table and told Nan Zhou, “Bring in the pot and empty it.”
The kitchen door closed, smoothly isolating the stagnant atmosphere. In the midst of the silence, the sound of washing gave off an indescribable warmth. Today, Nan Zhou had done everything he could for the meal so he was a bit frustrated with the results. Nan Zhou said, “In fact, I always cook for my family.”
Jiang Fang, “……”
He pondered on his words for a moment. “Family affection is great.”
Nan Zhou added, “They will eat whatever I cook.”
Jiang Fang stopped washing the pot and glanced at him. “Are you homesick?”
Nan Zhou shook his head. There was no special nostalgia in his eyes.
Jiang Fang suddenly opened his mouth. “The chicken wing, let me taste a bit.”
Nan Zhou was taken aback. He wanted to hand this person a pair of chopsticks but found that Jiang Fang’s hands were soaked in water. The fingers in the sink were dripping water. Thus, Nan Zhou naturally picked up a green chicken wing and delivered it to the other person’s mouth.
Jiang Fang calmly accepted the feeding. Very good, it was cooked.
“Next time, don’t add too much sugar. It isn’t easy to clean the pot.” Jiang Fang paused before imitating Li Yinhang, calling out to Nan Zhou with a smile. “…Brother Nan.”
Nan Zhou frowned slightly and corrected him. “You are older than me. You can’t call me brother.”
Jiang Fang looked a bit surprised. “Miss Li calls you this way.”
Nan Zhou was extraordinarily stubborn when it came to some details. “No, you are older than me.”
Jiang Fang wiped the new plate he took from the dish rack, his eyes full of a subtle light. “Then why don’t you call me that?”
“Hmm.” Nan Zhou responded obediently before calling out coldly, “Brother Fang.”
Jiang Fang hummed in reply, the corners of his mouth raised a bit. “Brother Fang will make a cake for you.”
Nan Zhou’s eyes that had been as quiet as an ancient well abruptly lit up. “Can you make it here?”
Jiang Fang opened the refrigerator and examined the ingredients one by one. “It’s fine as long as there is a pot. Don’t you know?”
“I told you that I’m not good at cooking.”
Jiang Fang looked at him intently with a smile. “I know.”
If I didn’t know, I wouldn’t let you draw the simplest 2 of Hearts. If I didn’t know, I might have to wait a long time before I have a reason to let you eat another meal I cooked.
Jiang Fang adjusted his breathing and opened the pressure cooker on the side.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Jiang Fang looked back at Nan Zhou. “Someone used the pressure cooker not long ago?”
“It’s possible.”
Nan Zhou added, “In addition, touch the pot.”
Jiang Fang probed his finger into the pot. The pot was very clean but the subtle feel on the inner wall couldn’t deceive people. It was unspeakably and disgustingly slippery. Jiang Fang raised his finger and carefully examined it in the sunlight. The north-south kitchen was flooded with sunlight that made people drowsy in the afternoon. Jiang Fang’s fingers glowed with a faint glaze in the bright sunlight.
It was oil.
A woman whose traces had been erased from the house. A pressure cooker with delicate oil.
Jiang Fang quickly took a few pieces of paper towels and wiped off the residue on his fingers.
Nan Zhou patted him on the back. “Do you want to confirm it first or do you want to confirm it after you finish cooking?”
“Let’s confirm it first.”
Nan Zhou simply replied, “Okay.”
He asked again, “Are you thinking the same thing as me?”
Jiang Fang and Nan Zhou gazed at each other for a few seconds before blurting out words at the same time.
Nan Zhou said, “Bathroom drain.”
Jiang Fang said, “Water charge.”
Nan Zhou, “……”
Jiang Fang, “……”
In the silence, Jiang Fang lowered his head and laughed loudly. “Hah, it is a bit short of a tacit understanding.”
Nan Zhou looked at the arc of this person’s mouth in a slightly curious manner. The lip line looked so perfect when Jiang Fang was smiling that Nan Zhou had the urge to poke it.
Jiang Fang and Nan Zhou came out of the kitchen at the same time and the people sitting or standing in the living room couldn’t react for a while. The fitness trainer and Chen Sufeng weren’t there. The former had gone to watch the sleeping Yu Tuisi. It was because Shen Jie wasn’t reassured about the young man Chen Sufeng. She was afraid he would be careless and not notice any clues. The latter was previously persuaded by Yu Tuisi and went to the master bedroom to take a shower.
Shen Jie murmured, “The food…”
Jiang Fang waved his hand at her, signaling for her to not be impatient. Then he walked to Li Yinhang and asked, “Is there a water bill in the home?”
Li Yinhang didn’t understand but her reaction could always keep up. “I didn’t find it.”
Jiang Fang wondered, “Is there any place in the house that you haven’t looked at?”
Li Yinhang shook her head. One morning was enough time for them to search all over the small apartment that was 100 square meters.
The thin monkey was upset that the result of their search was repeatedly questioned and interrupted in an unconvinced manner, “If you want to find it then do it yourself. In any case, there are no areas left to search except under the floor and behind the wallpaper…”
Nan Zhou had already been heading toward the bathroom of the master bedroom. Hearing these words, he clicked his tongue and quickly turned back. He picked up the locked box that he had temporarily placed on a corner of the dining table.
The thin monkey, “……”
Nan Zhou had always been holding the box so they forgot about its existence. This was a blind spot in their thinking. Yet in his opinion, it was useless for Nan Zhou to take this box.
“We haven’t found the key yet…”
He hadn’t finished speaking when Nan Zhou gripped the box tightly with one hand. He exerted force and squeezed like it was a walnut.
Crack.
In full view of everyone, the wooden box collapsed. Nan Zhou’s other hand held the brass lid hanging precariously from the other half of the box. The small lock that hadn’t been opened was broken by him and revealed the contents of the box.
A stack of tickets and bills entered everyone’s eyes.
Shen Jie sucked in a breath. She still remembered when she half-reminded and half-ridiculed Nan Zhou in the morning by saying, “This type of locked thing needs to be unlocked by a key. It is meaningless to use something to pry it open.”
Nan Zhou’s answer was simple. “I know.”
At that time, Shen Jie thought he was just being perfunctory. Now it seemed he really meant it literally.
‘I know so don’t be noisy.’
Nan Zhou didn’t care about this. He just came over to help open the box. He seemed to be eager to confirm something. After violently opening the box, he put it down and left.
Halfway through, he hurriedly turned back a second time. He picked up the lid of the box that he had casually placed on the table, grabbed the lock and easily separated the lock from the broken lid with a few pulls. He carefully placed the unopened lock in his pocket, glanced lightly at the crowd and walked to the master bedroom’s bathroom again.
The skinny monkey thought of the meaning behind this gesture and almost collapsed. “……”
Why did he make it look like someone was going to steal his lock?!
Jiang Fang moved quickly and took over the box from Nan Zhou. He placed the stack of documents in his palm, sorted them so their edges were aligned and quickly counted them.
Li Yinhang had worked in a bank and saw how her seniors manually counted banknotes. However, Jiang Fang’s actions were different from any of the experienced seniors she had seen. Jiang Fang’s hands were very special and the slenderness of his thumb was more than that of a normal adult male. He used his ring finger and middle finger to firmly clamp onto the receipt at around the thickness of one and a half knuckles. Then his thumb was used to turn the pages. His movements were as precise and swift as a money counting machine.
However, the machine didn’t have his discernment. He quickly pulled out the water bill he wanted from the middle. He extended his hand to Li Yinhang. “Mobile phone.”
Li Yinhang was numbed by the actions of the two bigshots and stared blankly. Then she heard Jiang Fang’s instructions and hurriedly handed him her mobile phone. As she was taking it out of her inventory, her hand accidentally slipped.
Before she could panic, Jiang Fang caught the falling mobile phone and didn’t forget to nod like a gentleman to Li Yinhang. “Thank you.”
There was a full signal and he used the water supply hotline number marked at the bottom of the water bill to communicate with the outside world from an apartment in the sky where the door, location and floor weren’t known at all.
“Hey.”
“Hello~~”
A melodious female voice was heard from the phone. “Is there anything~ I can do to help you~”
It was a polite and cheerful voice but there was a false texture to it. It was like a non-human insisting on pretending to be a friendly human. This voice made people get goose bumps.
Jiang Fang’s expression didn’t change at all. He gazed at the other string of numbers that represented the ‘account number’. He might not know if the person on the other end of the line was human or a ghost but he was still polite. “Hello, I would like to check my water bill this month. The account number is…”
As Jiang Fang was searching for information from the water bill, Nan Zhou didn’t bother to knock on the door and directly opened the closed door of the bathroom in the master bedroom.
Chen Sufeng who was naked, “……”
He was naked and using a washbasin to draw water, making himself an artificial shower. Half a centimeter of water had accumulated on the tiled floor and submerged his feet by half. After leaving Yu Tuisi’s side, the young air of Chen Sufeng actually receded quite a bit. His eyes were sharper and more vigilant. “What are you going to do?”
Nan Zhou half crouched down in front of him. “I’m not interested in your body.”
Chen Sufeng, “……” There was no need to be so direct.
Nan Zhou raised his head. His eyes were clear as if Chen Sufeng wearing clothes or not was no different in his eyes. He opened his mouth. “You said it this morning.”
“…What?”
He was speechless while Nan Zhou pulled up the white grate of the floor drain. The surface was clean and didn’t have anything extra stuck to it. Nan Zhou showed no disgust as he placed his fingers into the depths of the floor drain, groping back and forth for something.
A moment later, he pulled something up with his fingers. A small silver key was stuck horizontally in the floor drain pipe. Nan Zhou had been playing with the box all morning and could instantly tell that the jagged outline of the key fit perfectly with the document box crushed by him.
The key was probably accidentally lost. This was why they hadn’t found it after so long. The gap of the floor drain was relatively large and the key was relatively small. If the angle was special then it was possible for the key to slide down it. In addition, the special angle meant that when the key fell in the floor drain, it didn’t slide down directly but got stuck horizontally.
Right now, a bunch of soft and damp curly hair of a woman was wrapped around the key. The hairs on Chen Sufeng’s body stood up when he saw this bunch of hair and he couldn’t help being stunned.
The words he said when he went to wash his face this morning echoed in his ears. “The drain of the master bedroom is blocked.”
At the end of this curly hair was a small, blood-red scalp-like object attached. It swung like a pendulum with the frequency of water dripping from the ends of the hair. At the same time, Jiang Fang also got the answer he wanted.
This month, the household had already consumed 11 tons of water.
The moment Jiang Fang hung up, everyone heard the system notifications.
[Ding—]
[Congratulations to player Jiang Fang for collecting the clue ‘fingerprints under the ashtray’.]
[Congratulations to player Jiang Fang for collecting the clue ‘dust in the shoe cabinet’.]
[Congratulations to player Jiang Fang for collecting the clue ‘11 tons of water’.]
[Congratulations to player Nan Zhou for collecting the clue ‘grease in the pressure cooker’.]
[Congratulations to player Nan Zhou for collecting the clue ‘scalp in the drain’.]
[Five clues have been collected and are being synthesized into achievements.]
[Congratulations to players Jiang Fang and Nan Zhou of the ‘Cube Boat’ team for winning Xiao Ming’s Daily Life main plot reward x1. You are each rewarded with 500 experience points—]
Shen Jie’s pretty face was changing and became red and white.
…This was bad. She made a ridiculous error in judgment this time.
The author has something to say:
Brother Fang’s thousand layer scheme for chasing his wife: Seize my wife’s stomach and set it up for my wife to call me Brother.