Chapter 261

Starting from the third day in the countryside, Yan Zhusheng and Xu Youyu gradually adapted to life here.

In the morning, you could wake early for a jog, or sleep until you naturally woke up.

In the afternoon, you could play mahjong with Lin Xiuhong, or go fishing with Li Luo, and occasionally run into Li Guohong and Ying Zhicheng.

At night, Li Luo took them to the fish pond to set off fireworks.

When bored, they'd go to the neighbor's uncle's house to borrow the pool table, and Li Luo taught the three of them how to play step by step.

Xu Youyu, with her shock-absorbing assist device, was clearly the fastest learner.

Ying Chanxi, for some reason, had become as clumsy as Yan Zhusheng—she just couldn't learn, and Li Luo had to keep teaching her.

On the nights of the fifth and sixth, perhaps thanks to Ying Chanxi's mastery of the Iron Chain Technique, Yan Zhusheng no longer sneaked into Li Luo's room.

Xu Youyu, occupied with writing, also didn't come to bother him every day.

After several days of continuous play and fun, time finally crept toward the seventh.

After one more night, they would return to the city tomorrow.

There were only three or four days left before Fuyi Middle School reopened.

"Feels like time flew by."

Beside the pool table on the first floor of the neighbor's house, Xu Youyu bent low, gently pressing her chest against the table, then thrust her cue straight out, striking the white ball's rear to send the number three ball flying.

Unfortunately, it was off-target and didn't go in.

"We're leaving tomorrow," Xu Youyu sighed, feeling unexpectedly wistful—she found the days here quite enjoyable.

It was definitely better than spending the entire New Year lying at home, getting nagged by her mom.

Ying Chanxi glanced at Xu Youyu, then at Yan Zhusheng, pursed her lips, and silently wondered what she was thinking.

"Just one more game, then we'll go back and help my mom make dumplings," Li Luo said, leaning on his cue and nodding toward Yan Zhusheng. "Tonight we'll have dumplings and Tang Yuan."

Yan Zhusheng walked to the pool table, peering left and right, then turned to look at Li Luo.

"Hit this one," Li Luo pointed to the number ten ball. "It's directly in line."

"I can't aim well," Yan Zhusheng blinked, her meaning clear.

Li Luo had no choice but to release his cue, step beside Yan Zhusheng, and press her back down: "Left hand like this, brace the cue. Keep your right elbow level with the cue—don't tilt it. Yes."

Li Luo guided her grip step by step, but Yan Zhusheng still couldn't hold it steady—finally, Li Luo took her hand and helped her strike the shot.

The number ten ball rolled cleanly into the pocket.

Yan Zhusheng looked at the table, then at Li Luo.

Li Luo immediately looked exasperated: "I'll teach you this one last time. Now do it yourself."

"Oh."

They played pool until past three in the afternoon, when Lin Xiuhong came to call them.

Li Luo led the three girls back to the neighbor's house and followed Lin Xiuhong into the kitchen.

Lin Xiuhong had already prepared two kinds of dumpling fillings and smiled: "This one is pork and chive filling; this other bowl is three-delicacy filling."

"Li Luo, help me roll the dough balls. I'll roll the wrappers. You three, make the dumplings."

"Have you ever made dumplings before?"

Ying Chanxi nodded—she had made dumplings with Lin Xiuhong many times during past New Years and was experienced.

Yan Zhusheng and Xu Youyu both shook their heads—they had never tried.

So Lin Xiuhong pinched off two small dough balls from the prepared dough, rolled them flat into palm-sized discs with a rolling pin, then scooped a spoonful of filling from the bowl and placed it in the center of each disc, leaning close to show Yan Zhusheng and Xu Youyu.

"Like this—dip your fingers in water, pinch the edges, and slowly pinch them together, inch by inch."

Lin Xiuhong demonstrated slowly for them.

Meanwhile, Li Luo tore off a large chunk of dough, rolled it into a long rope, then pinched off small balls one by one with his thumb and placed them on the cutting board.

After finishing her demonstration, Lin Xiuhong picked up the rolling pin and rolled each of Li Luo's dough balls into wrappers, handing them to Yan Zhusheng and Xu Youyu: "Here, try it yourselves."

Although Xu Youyu had never made dumplings herself, she had seen her grandmother make them during past New Years—she hadn't eaten pork dumplings, but she'd seen pigs run.

After a few attempts, she gradually grasped the technique.

Yan Zhusheng, however, was genuinely awkward at this.

Though she could barely close the edges, the dumplings looked nothing like dumplings—strange, misshapen, bizarre—everyone couldn't help laughing.

Yan Zhusheng looked at Li Luo with an innocent expression—this time, she wasn't pretending; in her memory, she had never tasted dumplings in this life.

Let alone made them.

"It's fine," Li Luo chuckled. "They just look odd. Once boiled, they all taste the same. Yours are unique—you'll recognize them at a glance when they're cooked."

With roles clearly divided, the five crowded into the kitchen—one pinched dough, one rolled wrappers, three made dumplings.

The Li family was large; even though Li Luo's second aunt and Chen Lu had left early yesterday to return to work, there were still seventeen or eighteen people here.

Even with store-bought Tang Yuan ready, they still needed to make about two hundred dumplings for tonight's boil.

Li Luo and Lin Xiuhong rolled wrappers quickly—by the time they finished rolling the entire dough batch, dozens of dumplings remained unmade on the board.

So Li Luo and Lin Xiuhong joined the dumpling-making team and finished just before six in the evening.

After completing the task, Lin Xiuhong gazed at the sea of dumplings before her, her face filled with satisfaction.

She looked around—at Ying Chanxi, at Yan Zhusheng, at Xu Youyu—all three wore the scarves she had given them, and a complicated thought stirred in her heart—she was truly torn.

She found them all endearing.

Ying Chanxi had grown up under her care since childhood; after Ying Chanxi's mother passed away and Ying Zhicheng became absorbed in work, Lin Xiuhong had practically raised her.

Calling her half a mother wasn't an exaggeration.

Many times, Lin Xiuhong treated Ying Chanxi as her own daughter.

And over these past few days, she had grown fond of Yan Zhusheng and Xu Youyu as well.

Yan Zhusheng appeared sweet and quiet, with a simple, naive personality, speaking frankly and innocently, singing beautifully—she was utterly lovable.

Xu Youyu, by contrast, was playful and cheerful, her words and actions leaving others feeling as if bathed in spring breeze; apart from her bad habit of always sleeping in, there was nothing to criticize, and her figure clearly looked well-nourished.

Lin Xiuhong then turned her gaze to Li Luo beside her, unable to help but sigh inwardly, wondering what kind of dog's luck this guy had in his past life to have met three such lovely and outstanding girls.

But since the kids were only in high school, Lin Xiuhong didn't truly worry about Li Luo—she simply liked the three girls very much, imagining beautiful scenes of the future, which gave rise to such a sigh.

The future is hard to predict.

Worrying about these things now is useless.

Thinking of this, Lin Xiuhong waved her hand and said to them: "Wash your hands and wait outside; I'll call you when dinner's ready."

After washing his hands, Li Luo stretched and walked out of the kitchen into the living room, plopping down onto the sofa.

Xu Youyu followed right after him, sighing contentedly: "Got new material again—I'll write it into the book tomorrow."

"You really do use anything you come across," Li Luo laughed.

He had read Xu Youyu's latest chapters over the past two days.

Unlike Li Luo, who had over two hundred thousand words in reserve.

Xu Youyu's ten-thousand-word reserve had been exhausted on the third day of the lunar new year; everything since then had been written and published on the spot.

Then Li Luo realized that Xu Youyu truly wrote whatever came to mind.

She had just reached a subplot where the female lead accompanies the male lead back to his hometown for the New Year.

In the past, she would have casually written two or three chapters before jumping back to the main plot.

But over these past few days, she had written seven or eight chapters set in the male lead's hometown, describing them in exquisite, delightful detail.

The key was that it was authentic and rich in detail, with a touch of spice—she even radically altered many elements, including the male and female leads secretly doing something improper in the hallway.

It was simply Li Luo being pinned against a wall, yet she turned it into an epic battle, leaving Li Luo stunned.

Readers delighted in these steamy scenes as a break from the main plot, and Xu Youyu's book's performance rose steadily with them.

With Li Luo's help in promoting her, "Literary Era" had already entered the elite tier.

Now, nearly two months later, her average subscription count had rapidly climbed to the 5,000 threshold.

As her word count neared nine hundred thousand and was about to surpass one million, "Literary Era"'s reputation finally began spreading among readers.

Coupled with even more refined and substantial daily details than in her previous life, this reputation climbed another level.

In Li Luo's memory, "Literary Era" had originally only begun to gain traction after surpassing one million words, when the volume was sufficient.

By mid-2015, it had barely crossed the elite threshold.

Afterward, due to its greater length, even as more readers came, its performance gains stabilized within that range.

Only by mid-2016, as the novel neared completion, did its average subscription count finally break past ten thousand.

But the current situation was utterly different from her previous life.

Under Li Luo's influence, Xu Youyu not only wrote better, but her performance far surpassed her previous life's levels at this same stage.

It was barely March 2015, yet she had already broken past 5,000 average subscriptions—perhaps this year, breaking the ten-thousand threshold was just around the corner.

But the two only exchanged a few casual words; when Yan Zhusheng and Ying Chanxi finished washing their hands and came out, they both fell silent in unison.

After eating dumplings and Tang Yuan for dinner and playing mahjong with Lin Xiuhong for the last time this year, it was already ten at night.

Lin Xiuhong yawned and headed upstairs first.

Li Luo followed behind, but when he reached the third floor, he realized that besides Xu Youyu, Ying Chanxi and Yan Zhusheng were also following.

"Why are you two following? Aren't you going back?"

"It's the last day," Ying Chanxi bit her lip. "How about… staying up to watch a movie?"

Yan Zhusheng nodded: "Watch a movie."

Li Luo twitched his lips, then turned his gaze to Xu Youyu.

Xu Youyu looked back at him, then smiled sweetly and leaned close to his ear, whispering: "I've already sent my leave request."

Li Luo stared blankly, sighed: "Fine, fine—come in. Four of you can't watch a movie properly. Let's just play cards instead."

"Zhusheng, go downstairs and get the playing cards, and grab some snacks and sunflower seeds from the coffee table."

"Xixi, go to the kitchen and wash some fruit and bring it up."

"Senior, come with me—we'll tidy up the room."

After assigning their tasks,

the three girls' faces lit up with smiles, and they immediately sprang into action.

One went for the cards, another washed fruit.

Xu Youyu followed Li Luo as he took a bamboo mat from a cabinet and laid it on the floor beside the bed, then asked curiously: "What are you doing?"

"This single bed's too cramped for four people—I'll lay a floor mat here, that should work."

Saying this, Li Luo walked into Xu Youyu's bedroom, grabbed her mattress, bedding, and pillow, and placed them directly onto the laid-out bamboo mat.

Watching the floor bed completed, Li Luo clapped his hands in satisfaction and chuckled: "Since you three probably aren't going back tonight, I might as well make up the beds first."

Xu Youyu watched this scene, couldn't help but laugh, then gave him a sultry smile: "So tonight, Young Master, which one of us will you choose to keep you company?"

"... Definitely not you."

"That's truly heart-wrenching for your humble servant~ Young Master must compensate me."

"Hey… wait…"

"It's fine—they haven't come up yet. Just a moment."