The Game of Life

“Xiaohang, have you seen others make Fortune… Ro… Shafu Roast Chicken before?” Xia Mushi asked.

“I have. I saw my dad and Uncle Adrien make it before,” Zhang Guanghang replied.

“Then let’s see if you remember, how is it made?” Xia Mushi went straight to the point. It was really hard to create something out of nothing, and he needed some reference information to make up the dish.

“I don’t quite remember,” Zhang Guanghang shook his head, “It seems like the chicken was fried, and then… then the beef broth was boiled down, and then… then I can’t remember.”

Zhang Guanghang didn’t notice Xia Mushi’s true intention, thinking that Xia Mushi just wanted to test him.

Xia Mushi stopped talking, silently walking forward; his expression was that of deep thought, pondering over what kind of strange method it was to fry chicken and then boil it down with beef broth. The pair, one tall and one short, one old and one young, holding hands, made their way to the bustling vegetable market, resembling a large gathering place.

Jiang Feng had seen larger vegetable markets and ones with more variety, but this was his first time seeing one as chaotic as a return to roadside stalls with both comprehensive variety and size.

The crowd was not only housewives but also middle-aged men who were clearly chefs and some people who clearly had no experience in buying groceries, all of them picking through the stalls, bargaining, with various voices rising and falling in a cacophony that made a bustling marketplace. With such a scale, no wonder Xia Mushi personally came to browse; without some skills, one would indeed have a hard time buying good vegetables here.

“Grand-père, Plectropomus leopardus!” Zhang Guanghang pointed to an East Star Garoupa swimming in a tank.

Xia Mushi glanced at the East Star Garoupa indifferently and answered, “That’s an East Star Garoupa.”

“East Star Garoupa.” Zhang Guanghang repeated, beginning today’s Chinese food ingredient lesson.

“Grand-père, matsutake.”

“Ah, matsutake, we’re not buying that today.”

“Grand-père, mérou!”

“That is the grouper, eh, Grouper.” Xia Mushi was immediately drawn to the grouper, and after negotiating with the vendor, he successfully acquired the two groupers, one big and one small, from the basin.

“Is this your grandson? What kind of mixed blood, American?” The vendor, who was new here, didn’t recognize Xia Mushi.

“My apprentice, he’s French,” Xia Mushi said.

“Taking a foreigner as an apprentice, you’re really something. But where is France, next to America?” The vendor inquired further, eyes fixed on Zhang Guanghang. Although foreigners could occasionally be seen on the main roads, this was his first time seeing a foreign child.

Xia Mushi thought, how would I know where France is, and said, “Probably.”

In such a bustling market with high customer traffic, high density, and people brushing against each other’s shoulders and bumping into heels if not careful, the combination of Xia Mushi and Zhang Guanghang, a Sino-French old-young duo, undoubtedly attracted a lot of attention.

Xia Mushi led Zhang Guanghang quickly around the market. Apart from the groupers, he didn’t find any ingredients that caught his eye. Like other restaurants, Fen Garden had its regular suppliers, and Xia Mushi insisted on strolling through the market every day purely to pass time and get some exercise—it was basically a walk.

“Grand-père, la crevette.” Zhang Guanghang gently tugged at Xia Mushi’s sleeve, pointing to the live shrimp in a basin in front of a vendor selling seafood.

“Want to eat shrimp?” Xia Mushi asked.

Zhang Guanghang nodded.

“What else do you want to eat? It’s your birthday today, you choose the dishes, and as long as your master knows how, I will make it for you,” Xia Mushi said with rare generosity and good humor, “How about Ten Thousand Fortune Meat? Today, your master will show off a bit and make you Imperial Palace Ten Thousand Fortune Meat.”

“I’ll have it,” Zhang Guanghang nodded, “and also candied hawthorn.”

“I know, I know, I won’t forget your candied hawthorns. I’ll buy some for you when we head back, and that Shafu…whatever chicken, you go ahead and pick out the ingredients for that chicken dish first. We’ll come back for the shrimp later,” Xia Mushi pressed his brow, feeling a headache coming on. He hadn’t yet figured out how to prepare that chicken dish, “Later in the evening, I’ll take you to Tailor Zhao to have some new clothes made. You’re growing too fast; the clothes we made last month are already too short.”

Listening to Xia Mushi’s grumbling and complaining, Zhang Guanghang gave him a big smile and loudly said, “Grand-père, je t’aime!”

“Keep your voice down; I’m not so old that I can’t hear you. Your words just now…ah, forget it. Next month, when you go back, talk to your mom. Don’t just get tutors for math and English… Do you study English? You should also get a Chinese tutor to brush up on your Chinese. I have to guess what you mean when you mix Chinese with French, and I can’t figure it out. I’m too old for this foreign torment,” Xia Mushi led Zhang Guanghang to buy the ingredients for Shafu Roast Chicken.

Jiang Feng was still standing beside the shrimp vendor’s stall, looking at the flower lobsters on the stall next to it. Because of the ingredients and the difficulty of the cooking technique, Jiang Feng had never tried the steamed lobster with soup, and had never even seen a flower lobster before.

Now that he finally saw one alive, despite it being in his memory, Jiang Feng couldn’t help but take a longer look.

“That grandfather and grandson seemed really close just now,” a scholarly looking middle-aged man with glasses remarked to the vendor while selecting shrimp.

“Grandfather and grandson? That kid isn’t his grandson; he’s the apprentice he took on last year. Master Xia is a chef, the one who runs Fen Garden. You know Fen Garden, right? It’s that private restaurant two alleyways forward from here,” the shrimp vendor clearly knew Xia Mushi well and was aware that Zhang Guanghang was his apprentice from last year.

“Apprentice?” The middle-aged man was taken aback, “But that boy just said ‘grandfather, I love you’.”

This time, it was Jiang Feng and the vendor’s turn to be startled.

“You understand French? You must have heard wrong, that child is his apprentice, not his grandson,” the vendor said.

“How could I have heard wrong? The boy said ‘Grand-père,’ which means grandfather, in French, each word only has one…”

Jiang Feng had wanted to stay and listen to the middle-aged man’s explanation, but an invisible wall of air slammed into his back, knocking him to the ground.

When he looked up, Zhang Guanghang and Xia Mushi had already walked away. Jiang Feng had to quickly get up and run forward. If he were hit by the wall of air while still on the ground, it would be no different from being tied to a chair and whipped.

Jiang Feng hadn’t experienced the sensation of being whipped by the wall of air in a long time.

Running to catch up with Zhang Guanghang’s pace, by the time Jiang Feng got behind them, Xia Mushi was still talking about the topic he mentioned earlier, where Zhang Guanghang would occasionally insert a French phrase into his Chinese sentences.

“I keep hearing something about ‘long something père,’ what does that mean?” Xia Mushi asked.

“grand-père?”

“Yes, yes, that’s it, what does this ‘piece’ mean?”

Zhang Guanghang paused for a moment, and then answered, “Master.”

“Hmm?”

“It means master,” Zhang Guanghang stated firmly.

“In the future, just call me master in a way I can understand. How am I supposed to know you’re calling me when you use that ‘piece’ term?” Xia Mushi released Zhang Guanghang’s hand, “Okay, go and pick the vegetables. Point out to the vendor what you want to buy. If you don’t know the name, don’t speak French. I’m going ahead to get a couple of pieces of Wuhua meat. I just saw that the meat at that stall looks fresh, probably slaughtered this morning. If there’s an issue, just call for me loudly.”

After that, Xia Mushi headed to the meat stall in the front.

Zhang Guanghang reluctantly nodded his head and puffed his cheeks like a pufferfish.

For such a blatant deception of his master, Jiang Feng could only observe that Old Sir Xia had suffered from a cultural disadvantage.

And it was a very sweet and happy disadvantage at that.