Chapter 152: Lao Chen, I Came to Show Off!

"Xiao'an! If you steal another can of soda from the fridge, there'll never be soda in it again!"

Yu Xueqing shook the fox, listening to the sloshing sound inside its belly, then checked the fridge and found two cans of soda missing.

Yu Xueqing was stunned—she'd always known Xiao'an was highly intelligent, but she never imagined it could open the fridge and pop soda cans.

An Sheng, dangling by his tail, paws flailing in midair, looked utterly exasperated and protested:

"I didn't steal soda. How can you call a fox's actions 'stealing'? I just drank a few sips to celebrate coming home."

"Aqing, really, let me explain—your impression that I drink a lot is because each can is only 330 milliliters. But if you switched them all to 2-liter bottles… ugh…"

Aqing clamped the fox's snout shut, cutting off its nonsense.

"I'm not listening. The vet says all pets need low salt and low sugar. Each 100 milliliters of soda has 7 grams of sugar—that's 47 grams from two cans!"

"And there's caffeine too!"

Yu Xueqing pinched the fox's mouth and activated her animal telepathy.

An Sheng suddenly saw cartoon images flash into his mind, drawn in the style of Crayon Shin-chan.

A white fox secretly opened the fridge and guzzled ice-cold soda.

Then, in a bizarrely drawn scene, Yu Xueqing spotted it, grabbed the white fox by the waist, spanked its butt, and carried it off to Pet Paradise for a gastric wash.

It wasn't really a gastric wash—just a machine that looked like a vacuum cleaner, sucking the fox's rear end, then clamping onto its mouth and violently sucking out all the ice soda it had swallowed.

After the first still-frame cartoon ended,

a second one appeared: a soda can icon floated above the white fox's head, then the fox tugged at Yu Xueqing's sleeve.

Yu Xueqing handed the fox a soda; the fox took one sip, then returned it to her.

In the cartoon, Yu Xueqing saw the fox had drunk only 100 milliliters—she cheered and rewarded it with a chicken leg.

"Stop it, stop it! Can't I just confess to the crime scene?"

Seeing the cartoon's endoscope inserted through the fox's rear and then directly shoved into its throat, An Sheng winced in agony, obediently dropped to the ground, and demonstrated to Aqing and Mo Yiqing exactly how he stole the soda and disposed of the cans.

The fox pried open the fridge door, planted its front paws on a shelf, stuck its head out, grabbed a can of ice soda, and sprinted up to the second floor of the house.

Yu Xueqing and Mo Yiqing followed closely, curious how the fox opened the cans.

"Ying ying ying."

An Sheng wedged the soda can between the door seal and the wall, tapped it with his paw, and explained his soda-drinking technique to Aqing.

"Puh—"

As the fox's paw tugged, the pull-tab popped open the can, spilling soda. The fox shook the can, and ice soda sprayed out in a jet.

"."

Yu Xueqing and Mo Yiqing stared at the fox, dumbfounded, as it performed the crow-and-pitcher trick.

"Aqing… you should enroll Xiao'an in college. Don't waste its time studying for the postgraduate exam," Mo Yiqing said, snapping out of his shock.

"Xiao'an really does love soda," Yu Xueqing sighed.

Yet,

the two, still recovering from their shock, hadn't noticed the fox, who had been crouching by the door, had quietly slipped out through the wall.

When An Sheng reached the stairs, his sneaky expression vanished—he wore a look of righteous confidence and called out to the two inside:

"Aqing, I'm going out shopping. Leave the door open for me tonight!"

With that, the fox stood upright, leapt onto the stair railing, and slid down backward.

Yu Xueqing stepped outside and saw a giant white furball lying on the railing, waving at her.

Yu Xueqing & Mo Yiqing: "."

Yu Xueqing looked at the scene, both annoyed and amused.

"Fine! You've maxed out the emotional value—take me straight to Xiao'an's stash spot. I'm going to grab a whole litter of foxes from the fox zone."

Mo Yiqing laughed so hard he doubled over, slapping Aqing's back.

………………

"Just messing around and running off—so satisfying."

An Sheng, having escaped home smoothly, leapt over the courtyard wall and landed on the road, grinning triumphantly.

On the road, he glanced left toward Lai Fu's house, then right toward Su Qiyuan's.

After a moment's thought, between chasing after blessings and mooching free meals, he decided to first handle his business with Lao Chen.

"Alright! I'll deliver the good news to Lao Chen, then deal with the tea leaves I just picked."

An Sheng paused, as if remembering something, grinned, and hurried toward Lao Chen's house.

He wondered what expression Lao Chen would make when he saw An Sheng's third tail.

He only held back because he feared scaring Aqing—if not, he'd have shown off his tail anyway.

An Sheng arrived at Lao Chen's house.

Lao Chen sat in the courtyard, where dozens of square meters of concrete were covered with drying green tea leaves.

An older man, slightly older than Lao Chen, led three young men who had taken off their shoes and were using spiked rakes to turn over the green leaves.

As they walked among the leaves, they moved carefully, avoiding stepping on them.

Tea leaves harvested from tea trees become different tea types depending on processing methods.

But fundamentally, tea processing is simply about removing off-flavors, enhancing aroma, and controlling moisture content.

Take Dongding Oolong as an example: freshly picked leaves must first be withered to remove excess moisture before further processing.

Of course, with summer heat in Xia Dong, withering doesn't take long—usually just half an hour. If left too long, the leaves turn yellow and dry out.

"Charcoal roasting? Forget it. Even if you could control reabsorption to concentrate flavor, you wouldn't have time to fire it properly in under a week. Stick with light aroma."

The old man, crouching in the courtyard, studied the leaves for a long while, then shook his head and gave his verdict to Lao Chen.

"So… that's why I thought of you. We're family—everyone knows your skill."

Lao Chen grinned and offered cigarettes, urging the tea master to find a way to salvage the leaves with technique.

"What way? Just toss these tender leaves into the field as compost—that's the best use." The old man scolded Lao Chen.

He'd just returned from a trip and hadn't even rested—now Lao Chen dumped this mess on him.

Leaves from young tea plants have high moisture content; even after processing, the flavor remains bland.

Of course, the first steeping is fine.

"Bland" here refers to what inevitably happens in the second and third steepings.

It's also one of the judging criteria in tea competitions: observing the liquor color and taste after steeping.

Charcoal roasting might still salvage something, but Dongding Oolong's light aroma is meant to highlight the tea's natural freshness and crispness.

Now that the raw material is flawed, even if the old man could stir up sparks with his hands, he still found these leaves a headache.

"Ying ying?"

A fox's whimper came—Lao Chen, mid-conversation with the tea master, froze and turned to see the fox peering nervously at his front gate.

"Huh? Self-arrived fox? Good omen!" The tea master exclaimed upon seeing the fox.

(End of Chapter)