Zou Yue got out of the bathroom and walked closer to his window. It was directly facing the window of his new neighbours. 'I hope this new neighbour is cool... or else it will lead to a lot of trouble,'
The attic stairs were located right on top of his room. And from this window, this stranger can look inside. He did not like this idea at all, but now that he was invested in this place, he had no option but to go along with it.
He dried his hair off and walked out to the table. His mother had prepared all of his favourite dishes. Braised meat, chicken fry and for dessert she had brought his favourite rose cake. "Thank you for the meal,"
"Oh, tomorrow we shall have the ice cream mochi your master sent to us.. They taste so good," she whispered excitedly with a wide smile.
"Wait, why don't we have it now. I will go place it in the freezer it will be in the right temperature when we eat," she ran to the kitchen wither chopsticks still in hand.
Zou Yue chuckled. "If I had known she would enjoy it so much I would have bought more."
In fact, he was thinking of ordering a bulk order of this brand of mochi for his mum. She seemed to like it a lot.
His father nudged him, bringing him out of his deep thought. "Don't even think of it."
"What? I didn't think of it,"
"You were thinking of it. It was clearly written on your face," he whispered softly, placing a chicken leg on his bowl. "Eat,"
"Hmm... I was thinking it might be nice to gift mum.. She might enjoy it..." he mumbled, chewing on the tender piece of fried chicken.
"We have no space up there to store anything. And already your mother is questioning me about your purchases..." Zou Wei nudged him once more.
Zou Yue pouted. "I did not buy much,"
"You brought a whole set of arrows." He glanced at him wide eyed. "She is getting sacred that you might be into weird hobbies,"
Zou Yue exaggeratedly gasped. "It's for survival!!!."
"I know that and you know that but she doesn't." His father shut his wide open mouth with a piece of braised meat.
Zou Yue chewed on it with a small pout. "Shall we tell her?"
"Let's open the news up ten days before 'the day'" his father nodded at him.
Zou Yue accepted this plan. His mother was known to get anxious. He did not want to stress her out with the impeding news.
"I like what you've done to the pond," he nodded in the direction. The garden was filled with herbs and other edible greens. The pond, on the other hand, was flourishing with white lotuses and pink lotuses poking their head out shyly. "Did you add prawn on the cleaning tank?"
His father gave him a disgusted look. "That tank is for filtering, not for fish farming. If you put prawns in there, they will make the water even funkier. I chemically process it. Oh, by the way, I brought all those chemicals too. It's up there. Storing it in a cold storage is overkill, but I don't know where to keep it."
"It's okay. We still have our storage unit. You can store it there. I still have to buy some medicines.."
"What medicines!!" his mother ran to him and gently touched his forehead. "Are you sick? Why do you need medicines," she glanced at her son and then at her husband. "Are you both hiding anything from me?"
"N—nothing mom. We were just talking about.... about medicine prices...." he nudged his father.
Zou Wei awkwardly coughed. "Do you have ginseng soup?"
Zou Yue glanced at him with a constrained smile. "What my dad wants to say is that the climate is changing we might need some cold medicines..."
All of a sudden, His mother's eyes started to tear up.
"Mum! What's wrong?" he gently caressed her trembling shoulders.
"Baby... Yue baby." She hugged him tightly. "Are you terminally ill? Is that why you went to Japan? To get it treated." She looked up at him with tears dripping down her flushed cheeks.
"Huh!!! No!"
Zou Wei rushed to his wife and comforted her. "Darling, he went to Japan for sword training. I'm telling you the truth,"
"Lies!!! But you both keep whispering and... now you were talking about buying medicines!!"
His father sighed loudly. "How did you even come to that conclusion?"
His mother wiped her tears. "I watched a drama..."
"Drama is not real life, mum. I am not sick," he patiently comforted his mother. After a long time she calmed down by that time, the dinner had gone cold.