Chapter 18: The Cyan Five-Fingered Handprint

Li Xiangru had just returned home from work. As she was washing her hands to prepare dinner, she heard a commotion at the door.

Walking out of the kitchen, she saw her son tossing his muddy shoes around without tidying them up. Just as she was about to lecture him, she noticed a young girl carrying a basket standing behind him.

"Oh, Huihui, you're here!" Li Xiangru greeted her with a beaming smile, warmly inviting her inside.

"Auntie Li, sorry for the intrusion."

"Oh, it's no intrusion at all! Come in, come in, sit down. You must be thirsty after being busy all morning. I'll pour you some sweet water."

Leng Hui entered the house carrying her basket.

Li Xiangru noticed the herbs in the basket. "Oh, these Qingming greens are so tender."

"Mom, Leng Hui and I spent the whole morning picking these. Hurry and take them to the kitchen to prep them. I want jiao-ba for lunch—one with cured meat filling and one with egg filling."

Receiving the meaningful look from her son, Li Xiangru stood up immediately. "Alright, I'll show off my skills at lunch. Huihui, you'll stay here for lunch, okay?"

Once Li Xiangru took the basket into the kitchen, Leng Hui took a sip of the sweet water and began studying Jiang Jingtao.

Jiang Jingtao felt uneasy under her gaze and shrank back guiltily. "Why are you staring at me like that? Did you only just realize how handsome I am today?"

He had never met someone so narcissistic.

Leng Hui withdrew her gaze and said, "You lied to me today."

"I lied to you?" Jiang Jingtao scratched his head. "What did I lie about?"

Leng Hui glanced toward the kitchen and said with certainty, "You didn't clear it with your mother in advance today, and your mother didn't invite me to your house for lunch."

Jiang Jingtao pursed his lips. This was the problem with smart women—they were hard to deceive and hard to fool.

"Everything I said this morning was the truth. If you don't believe me, there's nothing I can do."

Leng Hui didn't argue. Whether she believed him or not was her own business; she was simply genuinely craving the cured meat jiao-ba he had described.

The two fell into a momentary silence. Not wanting to sit there awkwardly, Jiang Jingtao stood up and turned on the radio.

Sure enough, Leng Hui's attention was quickly captured by the radio. This was her first time seeing such an old-fashioned semiconductor radio; she had only read brief mentions of them in books before.

"Do you like listening to the radio?" Jiang Jingtao began to boast again. "My dad had someone bring this semiconductor radio back from Shanghai."

"Did you know that radios are divided into semiconductor and vacuum tube radios? Between the two, the former is smaller, lighter, more energy-efficient, and most importantly, more durable. Compared to the other, semiconductor radios are more popular."

After examining it in her hands for a moment, Leng Hui placed the radio back on the table and said pointedly, "But you didn't mention that vacuum tube radios have a warmer, more distinctive sound quality."

"..." Jiang Jingtao gritted his teeth.

As expected, showing off leads to trouble.

Smart women weren't cute at all.

He had intended to act impressive and show off his vast knowledge, but the result was... hard to describe.

Sitting in the courtyard sorting the Qingming greens, Li Xiangru was dying of curiosity about how her son usually interacted with girls.

She worked with her ears pricked toward the house. Hearing her son getting shut down by the girl, the corners of her mouth curled upward.

When Jiang Yulin returned from work, he saw his wife grimacing as soon as he entered the courtyard. He parked his bicycle and crouched beside her, asking, "What are you laughing at?"

Li Xiangru gathered the sorted greens, which were enough for lunch, and gave her husband a sidelong glance. "Nothing. Just wash your hands and come to the kitchen to help me mince the meat."

"Mince meat?" Jiang Yulin was startled, then began rolling up his sleeves. "What delicious thing are you planning to make for lunch?"

"You'll know when it's ready."

At the Jiang house, Leng Hui not only ate Qingming jiao-ba for the first time but also learned how to wrap them.

Although her jiao-ba were not aesthetically pleasing, at least they didn't burst when boiled.

Before she left, Li Xiangru even packed a portion in a lunch box for Leng Hui's mother, telling her to take it to the hospital for Tang Lin to try.

"Auntie Li is a good person."

In the hospital ward, Leng Hui remarked as she watched Tang Lin eat with great relish.

Couldn't she see the relatives in the neighboring beds swallowing their saliva?

This proved that meat-filled Qingming jiao-ba were a rare delicacy even in this era.

Tang Lin couldn't help but laugh. "A little bit of food is enough to win you over?"

Leng Hui chuckled. In short, Li Xiangru was the first person in this world who was willing to share precious food with her.

Leng Hui had a good impression of her.

After Tang Lin finished two and rinsed her mouth, Leng Hui looked at the man sitting by the adjacent bed and asked Tang Lin, "Why is it a different person today? Did the auntie go back?"

At that moment, the man in the next bed turned around. Tang Lin gave him a smile and replied, "The auntie said there's a lot going on at home and she needs to go back to take care of things, so she left the hospital duties to her son. This is her eldest son."

Leng Hui looked at the man and nodded. As the patient's husband, he was the most suitable person to provide care.

The eldest son was a man of few words, and Leng Hui didn't like chatting too much with strangers, especially since Tang Lin was a patient.

The warmth from the previous day vanished from the ward, replaced by a sudden silence.

Such an environment was actually quite suitable for a patient's recovery.

In the evening, Leng Hui went to the canteen to get a portion of nutritious porridge. The mother and daughter had a very satisfying meal paired with the Qingming jiao-ba.

Because there was now a male relative in the ward, Leng Hui took the opportunity to help Tang Lin wipe her body while he was away at the canteen for dinner.

She went to the bathroom to take a quick shower herself, returning to the ward just after eight.

There were no entertainment activities in the hospital; being a bedside companion meant following the hospital's schedule.

The man in the next bed only came out of the ward with a washbasin after everyone else had lay down in their clothes to rest; he was likely going to wash up.

Leng Hui was drifting in and out of sleep when she heard someone enter the ward. Her consciousness sharpened slightly, and a moment later, she heard the couple in the next bed whispering to each other.

The vigilance cultivated during the apocalypse made her instinctively pay more attention, and she woke up further.

The dim yellow light illuminated the entire ward; one could see people, but it wasn't very bright.

Leng Hui opened her eyes and looked toward the adjacent bed, only to see the man's bare torso and a greenish handprint on his shoulder.

It was a very clear five-fingered print, as if a hand had been slapped against him with fingers spread wide.

Leng Hui sat up, and the couple in the next bed looked over at the sound.

Leng Hui's eyes met their terrified gazes.

"What happened?" Leng Hui was curious. How much strength would it take to leave such a clear bruise in the shape of a handprint?

As soon as Leng Hui spoke, the couple seemed to find an outlet for their fear.

The woman lying in the bed spoke first. "My husband went out to wash up just now. The bathrooms on this floor were occupied, so he ran to the very last bathroom on the first floor. Then, something slapped him, and he ended up like this."

"Huh?"

Leng Hui didn't quite understand. The bruise on the auntie's son's shoulder clearly looked like it was made by a person—how could it be "something"?