"Gan Qing ah, are there any more ice-cream?"

"Nope." Gan Qing rolled her eyes, flipping the sign at the entrance of Changsheng Zhai from "Closed" to "Open" as she spoke. "Fourth Master, here I am sauteing and boiling and frying for you but meanwhile, you aren't even leaving space in your stomach and ate all the snacks I made for myself the moment you came in the door."

Fourth Master smacked his lips and said very smugly, "I've loved eating this since I was a child. The moment the little push-cart passed my front door, I couldn't keep still anymore. A lot of people laughed at me when I was younger, saying that I was a grown man and still fighting the kids for the snacks. The ones sold outside don't taste as rich as yours."

Gan Qing muttered crossly, "Of course."

Her ice-cream was made by first breaking tea leaves into tiny pieces with a rolling pin and mixing them into a cream, milk and egg yolk mixture. Then, the mixture was put over low heat until the fragrance of the tea was completely extracted. After cooling down, it was filtered and added with a little bit of sugar syrup, then put in the freezer overnight. The next day, it would be churned and then frozen again. It was something she made for herself, so she made it patiently. The ingredients were also of good quality. She had used four different types of tea leaves altogether but before she could find out which one tasted the best, Fourth Master had swooped in.

Fourth Master's voice was frank and bright. He was a retiree with plenty of time on his hands. Because of the demolition, he became a landlord and from then on, led a happy life. He was a regular at Changsheng Zhai. In the early years, this venerable old man had crossed paths with the old Alliance Leader Yu and he was also the one who renovated the shopfront. In his entire life, all the bad habits he had were due to his mouth—it was greedy and ill-behaved; he loved to eat, and loved to gossip.

It was not business hours yet and the customers who had made reservations had yet to arrive. There was no one in the restaurant. Fourth Master leaned over and asked, "Hey, let me tell you. The girl from that time has left."

"What girl?" Gan Qing asked.

"Go on pretending!" Fourth Master sprawled on the bar counter, saliva dripping as he watched Gan Qing cook. "That time, when you drove the girl to the hospital in the middle of the night, weren't you doing it for someone to see?"

Gan Qing was making beef braised in red wine. The meat was nearly done. When the customers with reservations were here, she could add the fresh vegetables, let them come to a boil and plate the dish. The so-called "private kitchen" was basically her cooking whatever she wanted to. There was no distinction between Chinese or western styles. If one had the ability to blend the styles together, the food would be good even if it was a chimera. Regardless of whether it was the French-style wine braised meat or the Chinese-style claypot braised meat, where they diverged in tartness and saltiness were minor details; the key flavour was the effort taken to simmer them for a long time. In this era where even needing ten minutes for food to be ready was deemed not quick enough, the dish had to let the diners be able to taste the flavour of calm and leisure in their mouths.

Gan Qing turned the meat over with a wooden ladle and let out a nonchalant oh. "Her? The girl who sent food to the old lady? The old lady passed away before daybreak."

"Exactly!" Fourth Master said. "If you ask me, she should have run away much earlier on. A good girl like her, she still has a long life ahead of her. Couldn't she do something and earn a living? If she stayed with that shady gang of human scum, wouldn't her life be ruined? The boss of that gang is surnamed Wang. He's just a rascally local ruffian who bullies the weak and is afraid of the strong. When he heard that you drove her there, he thought that the girl had the backing of the alliance leader and didn't even dare let out a fart anymore. He's even worried that he's offended you two now and plans to run away in these two days."

Gan Qing smiled but didn't say anything. Why else would the old lady insist on having the girl buy their sanxian tofu pot before she passed away? Of course it wasn't because she had a craving and couldn't bear to leave without tasting the dish!

The old lady might have always been quiet and unnoticeable but when she walked the streets and the alleys, her eyes and ears had been very sharp.

Fourth Master scrunched his nose, breathing in the smell of alcohol permeating the space, then continued to say, "But coming back to the point, these foreign flavours might be something new, but that's all they are. You're happy when you eat them but you don't think of them after you're done. Only something that you ate when you were young but couldn't eat very often would follow you for your entire life. When I was your age, I had nothing. During Lunar New Year, the production team distributed meat. I brought it home and my mum would render lard from the fatty meat. The cracklings after the lard was rendered… oh my goodness…"

"Go home and 'oh my goodness' all you want there," Gan Qing said. "The market talks about 'burning calories' every day. I won't be able to sell greasy and high-fat food."

"Your generation can't do it. When you were young, you didn't lack food or clothes, and your life is missing that flavour of 'longing.'" Fourth Master let out a hmph and was just about to launch into a long opinion piece when there was a sudden clamour from outside.

A customer with a reservation and Yu Lanchuan happened to push the door open and enter at that moment, bringing with them the ruckus from beyond the door. The customer was holding the door open, still stretching his neck out to look. The piercing sounds of shouting and cursing came from the other side of the road, the voices so agitated that the words couldn't be heard clearly.

Speaking of which, it was an interesting thing—the shouting made by every living creature when they were losing their heads sounded just like dogs barking. Male voices sounded like large dogs, females voices like chihuahuas. Gan Qing put the lid on the pot. "All this barking and howling, what is the noise about?"

"It's about the demolition. They can't sort out how to divide the wealth." Yu Lanchuan came in, shrouded in the outside chill. He passed through the front hall to go to the little courtyard at the back where they lived. He changed his clothes and washed his hands before coming out to the front, placing fresh flowers on the tables for the customers as he passed. Then, he opened the fridge and looked at Gan Qing in shock. "Four bowls of ice-cream, you finished them all on your own?"

Gan Qing, "..."

Fourth Master pretended that nothing had happened and slipped away.

Yu Lanchuan didn't feel that it was appropriate to fight for ice-cream with his wife in public so he only put on a poker face and furtively pinched Gan Qing on her waist. He thought, Go on and eat, let me see you eat until your waist is a meter wide!

At the same time, he secretly planned to buy himself a fridge with a lock.

"Five siblings in the family," The customer who had gone out to watch the excitement came back and told them. "Because of their dad's house, they're going at each other like dogs!"

The customers who had made reservations were all very punctual and arrived one after another. They joined the chatter. "The old man is already ninety-two, his wife had passed away long ago. He usually lives on his own. His eldest son is retired and comes by every day to cook three meals for him, clean the house and do anything else that requires doing… But actually, cooking and cleaning are just his excuses to hoodwink others. The old man's legs aren't very well and he spends the whole day curled up in his bed. The bed sheet is already smelly but he doesn't change it. The other siblings have complained about it since early on but if you want to complain, then you should do something yourself!"

"The demolition this time will net them three homes. That's not enough to be shared among five families. The eldest one is saying that he has contributed by taking care of the old man so he's taking one; the youngest daughter is saying that the reason why they're getting three is because she didn't change her household registration, otherwise they could count themselves lucky to even get two, so she's taking one too. Of course they would start arguing."

"Hey! They're fighting! They're fighting! Why are they even bringing out the old man?"

The shopfront of Changsheng Zhai had full length windows. Gan Qing looked up and saw a few middle-aged men and women tangled in a mess on the opposite side of the road. Someone had brought their old father out on a stretcher and put him on display by the roadside, letting the busybodies passing by look their fill.

An elderly man over ninety years old, no matter how tall and powerful he had been in his youth, or how courageous and strong he had been, when he reached this stage of life, all that was left was a wizened little lump. He sat on the stretcher, lonely and solitary, like he had nothing at all to do with the ruckus right beside him. In any case, even though their mouths kept saying "Let Dad say something fair," no one was listening to him.

The old man was bored out of his mind. When he looked up, he saw the busy and bustling Changsheng Zhai. He raised a trembling arm and pointed at the shop, opening his mouth and saying something. With Gan Qing's exceptional eyesight, she could make out the words from his lips.

The old man said, "I'm hungry. I want to eat."

But no one paid him any heed. He repeated those words on his own a few times, then dropped his arm in disconsolation. He hunched his shoulder, smacked his lips and stared right at the shopfront of Changsheng Zhai without saying anything anymore.

Gan Qing stared blankly. She dropped the vegetables she had cut just now into the pot of beef and her thoughts were temporarily shushed by the little pot with its myriad of flavours inside.

Early next morning, while Gan Qing was mulling over the menu for the day, Yu Lanchuan was next to her churning the ice-cream and also eating it at the same time when he suddenly rose and went to open the door. "May I know who you are looking for?"

Gan Qing looked up and saw the old man that had been paraded through the streets yesterday had actually tottered over with his walking stick, giving her a scare. His family was probably busy arguing and screaming about lawsuits. They likely didn't have the time to bother with the old man and didn't even know that he had escaped.

"Please come on in… Oh my god, did you cross the road yourself?" Gan Qing said hurriedly. "Darling leader, contact his family."

The "darling leader" frowned at her. "Who are you calling?"

The old man laughed. He only had a few teeth left in his mouth holding down the fort while looking like they would fall out at any time. For every step he took, he had to first test the ground with this walking stick for a long time before he gathered enough strength and courage for that step. Their hearts were in their throats just from watching him.

Yu Lanchuan helped him sit down. The old man fumbled out a cloth money pouch from his pocket. There were notes and coins inside, about a hundred yuan in total.

"I'll have…" The old man stretched out a hand and mumbled, "half a pound of rolling donkey."

As he made calls to ask around to find a way to contact the old man's family members, Yu Lanchuan said, "Grandpa, we're not a sweets shop. We don't have rolling donkeys and we're also not open for business yet."

The old man had a kindly smile on his face. He looked at Yu Lanchuan in puzzlement and repeated, "Give me half a pound, half a pound of rolling donkey."

His mental faculties seemed to have deteriorated. All he knew was that restaurants sold food, and that food could be bought with money.

Yu Lanchuan said, "Ai, I already said that we're not-"

Gan Qing called out to stop him, waving her hands at him. She added a few brushstrokes onto the menu of the day to add the item "Rolling Donkey" and hung it outside.

Rolling donkey was a kind of dessert from the northern part of the country, made from glutinous rice, red bean paste and yellow soybean powder. She had ready-made yellow soybean powder and it only needed to be dry-fried for a while in the wok. The glutinous rice flour only needed to be steamed. The main thing was the red bean paste. There was ready-made red bean paste in the kitchen but after Gan Qing took it out for a look, she put it back again quietly and unobtrusively.

She turned her head to look at the old man hunched over the table. Then, she asked, as though to herself, "Grandpa, was the bean paste you ate when you were young made on the spot?"

Who knew if the old man hadn't heard her or if he hadn't understood her; he beamed at her and didn't answer.

Gan Qing took out a large pot and boiled some red beans. She also gave the old man a quickly put together small bowl of soup noodles. The old man could no longer understand what was spoken to him but he seemed to know what she was doing. He accepted the bowl in high spirits and waited patiently, getting his whole face dirty as he ate. Then, he leaned against the cushion in a corner and fell asleep.

His family members never came.

In Gan Qing's memories, making red bean paste was something that seemed to always take place during lazy afternoons. The weather was always not very good, there was either rain or snow, and she couldn't go outside. The tiny red beans were simmered over low heat, the thick steam and the aroma of the beans permeating the entire house. When the beans were cooked until they were falling apart, sugar was added and slowly simmered together until the sugar and the beans were inseparable. The bean paste would then be taken out and sieved. At this step, the adults would purposely not scrape the pot clean; that was the gremlin kids' favourite task. Using a small scoop, they would scrape all the remaining bean paste in the pot and on the ladle and eat them. When they were done, the pot would be so clean it didn't need to be scrubbed.

Today, this glorious and arduous task fell on the shoulders of Yu Lanchuan and the old man. While Gan Qing sieved the bean paste and dry-fried the yellow soybean powder, one of them hugged the pot while the other held the ladle, no elegance in their postures, like bears hugging a bee hive and munching on it. Especially the prim and proper Little Master Yu—wearing a stern-looking black turtleneck, he "cleaned" the sides of the pot without leaving a single spot untouched. He was so serious, and more meticulous than if he were to do embroidery.

"It's too sweet," Yu Lanchuan noticed her gaze and commented. Then, he stuck another large spoonful into his mouth and declared, "Makes my throat feel parched."

Gan Qing, "..."

"What is that face you're making?" Yu Lanchuan held up the spoon and made as though to smack her. Gan Qing was just about to dodge when the spoon landed very gently at the edge of her mouth, feeding her. She felt rather overwhelmed by this indulgence and quickly opened her mouth, but Yu Lanchuan withdrew his hand in a swift movement and stuffed the spoon into his own mouth, then smugly showed her the pot that looked like it had been licked clean.

"My apologies. I finished it first as a mark of respect."

Gan Qing, "..." She just knew that this jerk wasn't capable of doing anything nice.

Rolling donkey was made by coating steamed glutinous rice with yellow soybean powder and putting a layer of fresh red bean paste on it. Roll it up and cut it while it's warm, then sprinkle powdered sugar and yellow soybean powder over it.

"I guess he'll probably be full from one bowl of noodles," Gan Qing said softly to Yu Lanchuan. "Give him two pieces, just a taste is enough. Glutinous rice is hard on the digestion for the elderly."

The old man took the sweets in great delight. In his murky eyes, there was a childlike light. "Ro—lling donkey!"

He mumbled those words, dragging the sound out, then opened his mouth and bit off half in one go.

"Please don't make yourself choke!" Gan Qing was a little nervous looking at him. This old man was worth a few million right now and he even had a pack of "supremely evil" descendants behind him. If anything happened to him because of something he ate at the restaurant, they couldn't afford the compensation.

The old man turned his head around. His mouth was stuffed full with the glutinous rice and red bean paste roll, and he couldn't open it. He gave her a vague smile. "It's good, it's good."

"...All right," Gan Qing said.

When someone gave compliments, the one who wielded the ladle would always feel gratified.

Suddenly, the old man's mouth stopped moving. He looked thoughtfully at Gan Qing for a while, like he was recalling something. Chewing on half a rolling donkey, he slowly, slowly lowered his head.

Yu Lanchuan didn't know what was going on with him and went over to half-kneel beside the old man. He held his breath and asked, "What's the matter?"

The old man couldn't speak clearly in the first place; with something in his mouth, his words were even more unclear. He muttered and repeated it three times, and Yu Lanchuan finally understood what he was saying.

He said, "I miss my mum."

The old man's family never showed up. Apparently, they were all preparing to fight in court and were too busy for anything else. Yu Lanchuan had no choice but to get a neighbourhood police to come and take the old man away.

Gan Qing saw them off at the door. She turned her head to look at the "Changsheng Zhai" signboard above the door that seemed to contain a special kind of charm. Yu Lanchuan was the one who wrote it. This "ice cube with a heart of fire" hadn't discussed it with her and had just quietly got it done himself.

Perhaps it was because the quality of things became richer later on and there were too many snacks that sweetened the mouth, that was why the leftover red bean paste was no longer a rare treat; or perhaps it was because she had grown up and there were too many things in the world that could make her infatuated and exclaim in admiration, so staying beside her old shifu and spending most of the day to cook a pot of red bean paste was too boring. Now that she thought of it, Gan Qing remembered that she had stopped scraping red bean paste after she turned eight.

Perhaps people had to grow old before they understood how precious "boring" was.

Fourth Master was wrong. Their generation had tasted everything under the sun but their hearts still had that flavour of "longing" that they could never obtain.

Gan Qing sighed soundlessly. She turned around and immediately, a small wooden spoon was stuffed into her mouth without any warning. The rich taste of red bean paste swiftly spread over her tongue.

"You look like you're about to cry from how much you want to eat this." Like nothing had happened, Yu Lanchuan reached out to press down on her head, then walked away. "I left some for you, you're hopeless!"

— END OF EXTRAS —