35: Return home, old plum blossoms bloom

Pushing open the wooden door with a 'creak'.

A series of 'woof woof woof' barks immediately resounded in the courtyard.

The barking was like a conductor's baton.

As soon as it sounded, the chickens, ducks, and geese penned in the corner of the courtyard also began to crow and quack.

The small courtyard instantly became noisy.

"Squeak~~~"

Hearing the commotion outside, Yangs Mother pushed open the main door and was momentarily stunned to see Yang Dian standing at the courtyard entrance.

She rubbed her eyes, and after confirming she wasn't mistaken, a smile immediately blossomed on her face.

However, despite her smile, her words were unforgiving:

"Oh, so you still remember to come back?"

"You've been out for so long and didn't even bother to let us know you were safe. I thought you'd died outside."

Yang Dian chuckled:

"Mom, I call you every three days, and I send you messages regularly."

"How is that not letting you know I'm safe?"

As he spoke, Yang Dian took out the glass bottle containing the blue lotus seeds and shook it at He Mei:

"Oh right, Mom, I also bought something good outside."

"Put this in a pressure cooker with 3 liters of water, boil it for 3 hours, and drinking the soup afterward can regulate your stomach and intestines."

"It's very effective."

He Mei, who quickly walked over to Yang Dian, took the glass bottle from his hand with a beaming smile:

"You ungrateful little rascal, you still have some conscience, knowing to bring back a specialty for your mother when you go out to play."

As she spoke, she placed the glass bottle under the sun and looked at it:

"How do you eat this?"

"Just boil it in water?"

"Before meals, or after meals?"

Kicking away Little Yellow Dog, who was wagging its tail like a fan and pawing at his pant leg.

Yang Dian pulled his mother and walked into the house:

"Just boil it in a pressure cooker."

"It's best to eat it on an empty stomach."

As he spoke, Yang Dian looked left and right:

"Where's Dad?"

"Gone to work or gone fishing?"

Yangs Mother pursed her lips:

"Gone fishing."

"Early in the morning, before dawn, he left with his fishing rod, saying he wanted to catch a Big Black Carp for you to nourish your body."

"Look at him talking."

"With your dad's skill, it'd be good if he could even catch a small whitebait, let alone a Big Black Carp?"

"If he comes back later with a carp, he definitely bought it at the wet market!"

Walking into the house amidst Yangs Mother's grumbling.

As soon as he entered the living room, Yang Dian saw Yang Lele, wearing a dinosaur pajama, standing at the corner of the stairs.

The Tun Jin Shou saw Yang Dian standing at the door, first stunned, then rubbed her eyes hard, "Brother?"

Seeing her surprised expression, Yang Dian chuckled:

"What, you don't even recognize your own brother?"

Yang Lele opened and then closed her mouth, scurried down the stairs, and then charged forward, smashing her head into Yang Dian's chest:

"You big liar!"

"You said you'd be back at noon and told me to pick you up at the station?"

"You tricked me!"

As she spoke, she kept bumping her head against Yang Dian's chest.

After a few bumps, she felt something was off:

"Brother, did you put a steel plate in your chest? Why is it so hard?"

After saying that, she even raised her hand and gestured on Yang Dian's body:

"Also, why do I feel like you've grown taller?"

Yang Dian pinched her nose:

"Your brother is only 18, why can't he grow?"

He also poked Yang Lele's head with his thumb:

"It's you, though, you don't seem to have grown much this year, have you?"

"Dad, Mom, and I are all not short."

"How come you didn't inherit any of it, only just over one meter fifty, not even one meter fifty-five?"

"Ah~~~"

"Stinky brother!"

"I'll bite you to death!"

"Holy cow, are you a dog? You're actually biting?"

...After a while of playful fighting with Yang Lele, he went to the kitchen to boil the blue lotus seeds.

After setting the alarm, Yang Dian hadn't had a chance to talk to his family about Martial Arts.

Yang Lele, with a mysterious expression, linked her arm through Yang Dian's and led him towards her room.

"Stinky brother, come with me, I've prepared a surprise for you."

Yang Dian was a bit puzzled.

"You?"

"Prepared a surprise for me?"

"What surprise?"

"Are you going to top up 648 for me?"

As soon as she entered the room, Yang Lele paused, then cheered and scurried to the bed, picked up her phone, and opened Genshin Impact.

"Wrong guess~"

"Your punishment is to top up 648 for me!"

Yang Dian was immediately torn between laughter and tears:

"Alright, alright."

"I'll top it up for you, okay?"

"But just this once."

"Next time you want to top up a game, go work at a milk tea shop and earn money yourself."

Yang Lele immediately put on a wronged expression:

"The Universe's most invincible, best brother."

"Can you really bear for your beloved sister, whom everyone adores and flowers bloom for, to work from dawn till dusk at a milk tea shop?"

Looking at her feigned expression, Yang Dian immediately reached out and poked her head:

"Don't play pitiful with me."

"I don't fall for that!"

Yang Lele dropped her pitiful expression, hugged her phone, and smiled foolishly:

"Hehe."

"I don't care."

"Anyway, I just know this trick works on you!"

Unable to do anything about his Tun Jin Shou, Yang Dian sighed helplessly and plopped down onto her bed.

He casually picked up a dinosaur plushie from the bed and punched it twice, then looked at Yang Lele with some curiosity:

"Where's the surprise?"

Yang Lele put down her phone, walked to the door, and furtively looked outside a few times.

After confirming that Yangs Mother had gone to the courtyard to feed the chickens, she skipped to the desk, three steps at a time, and took out a transparent glass bottle from the drawer.

"Ta-da!"

"Here~ It's this!"

Looking at the plum blossom petals in the bottle, Yang Dian subconsciously stood up, walked to the window, and looked downstairs:

"The plum blossom in the backyard has bloomed?"

There was a Plum Tree in Yang Dian's backyard.

He didn't know the variety, only that it was a Plum Tree, planted by one of the Yang family's ancestors.

Its age was unknown, perhaps hundreds of years, but it had never bloomed.

As a child, Yang Dian often bet with Yang Lele whether the Plum Tree would bloom that year.

Yang Lele, who always chose that the Plum Tree would bloom, never won.

Thus, all her New Year's money ended up in Yang Dian's pocket.

'If it's the plum blossom from the Plum Tree in the backyard, it's no surprise Lele treasures it.'

'After all, this concerns the allocation of their year's pocket money.'

Just as Yang Dian was lost in thought, Yang Lele took out her phone again and sent Yang Dian a photo.

The photo showed the Plum Tree downstairs in bloom, with various colored plum blossoms adorning the entire tree.

"It's been hundreds of years without blooming."

"And when it finally blooms, it's in the middle of a hot summer day, and the flowers are all sorts of colors."

"Yang Lele!"

"You didn't find someone to Photoshop the picture to fool me, did you?"

Yang Lele shoved the glass bottle into Yang Dian's hand, placing her hands on her hips:

"Stinky brother, you don't believe me?"

"I believe, I believe."

After a perfunctory reply, Yang Dian's eyes darted around:

"Aren't there several colors of plum blossoms in the photo?"

"Why are there only purple ones in the glass bottle?"

"Take out the other plum blossoms and let me see them."