CH 126

Chapter 126: Making Zongzi

It’s that time of year again for the Dragon Boat Festival. Zhou Mushi doesn’t really like holidays. Chinese people associate holidays with reunion, but he’s used to being alone during lively times. Even though he’s with his family now and they are all together, once someone sinks into a certain mood it’s hard to change.

He doesn’t really value holidays such as the Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Tomb Sweeping Festival, and the like. He’s not really interested in the food of these festivals either.

Except for dumplings, he can eat them for two or three meals in a row, but not more than that.

As for sweet foods like Tangyuan, Zongzi, Mooncakes, he has no interest at all.

But now things are different. With Jin Yang, he can live day by day, and these days can also be considered a good life.

Today, Jin Yang may have been tired from work and came home feeling exhausted, saying he needed to nap for a while. He fell asleep very quickly.

Zhou Mushi prepared the ingredients in advance. He washed the glutinous rice clean and soaked it in cold water before going to work in the morning.

He opened his phone and found the method for making Zongzi early on.

▷ Wash the bamboo leaves clean and blanch them with boiling water for later use. The sweet bean paste, honey dates, and cotton thread should also be prepared in advance.

▷ Take one or two bamboo leaves, depending on their size. Fold out a triangle, put in a spoonful of glutinous rice, and then add sweet bean paste or honey dates.

▷ Add another spoonful of glutinous rice and press it down with your hands. Fold the bamboo leaves from top to bottom to form a triangle, tie it tightly with cotton thread, and wrap the zongzi.

He made them carefully and meticulously, not caring about speed or appearance, slowly and steadily wrapping each zongzi, only hoping that they wouldn’t leak rice, even if it was considered a success.

Zhou Mushi had never done this before, and the zongzi he made were all crooked and did not look good, but they were still edible.

Put the zongzi into a pressure cooker with enough water to cover them, cover the pot, and cook for a few hours.

When the zongzi are cooked, put them in cold water to cool down. This will improve their texture.

Jin Yang was not sleeping well. He had been having frequent nightmares lately, in which he ran desperately towards a bright place and reached out his hand, only to be easily caught by the darkness chasing him from behind. An unformed demon emerged from a dark and damp corner, grabbed his neck, and slowly tightened its grip. He struggled hard but couldn’t break free.

Gradually, he stopped moving.

Jin Yang seemed to experience that suffocating feeling himself, but also like an observer watching himself being strangled to death.

His soul and body seemed to be detached, on one hand, enduring the increasingly thin air, and on the other hand, powerless and shouting, roaring, struggling in his dreams. He watched helplessly as the shadow in the darkness discarded his body like garbage at his feet and walked towards him, revealing a sinister grin and looking down at him with contemptuous laughter.

The dark shadow was like a demon from hell, constantly making creepy laughter, stepping on his body and constantly mocking him, telling him not to delude himself into thinking he could get love, as he was not worthy of love.

Jin Yang watched helplessly as his body was crushed into pieces of flesh and bone by that dark shadow. He pounced on it but could not grasp even a bit of the shadow. No matter how hard he tried, he just fell down from the air, except for hurting himself. There was no harm to that dark shadow. He whispered, asking why, but the dark shadow still watched him coldly, laughing like a clown, “Do you want to know why? Sorry, you will have to wait until your next life.”

As the dark shadow spoke, it suddenly rose infinitely, scanning around until it finally saw a fresh and tender person in the corner behind Jin Yang. Its smile became even more rampant, and it swiftly pounced towards the corner.

Jin Yang stiffly turned his neck, rubbed his eyes twice, and saw clearly the person behind him, Zhou Mushi. Only then did he cry out in alarm.

“No…don’t…don’t!”

Jin Yang jumped up from the bed without opening his sore eyes. Although the weather was somewhat gloomy and the temperature dropped sharply today, he was sweating all over.

Zhou Mushi, wearing home clothes, walked over. For a moment, Jin Yang couldn’t distinguish between what was a dream and what was reality. As soon as Zhou Mushi sat down, he quickly hugged him in his arms.

Jin Yang used too much force in this hug, making Zhou Mushi feel a little painful.

“What happened? Did you have a nightmare?”

Even though it was sudden, Zhou Mushi still relaxed his body and carefully comforted his lover.

Holding this warm body, Jin Yang gradually woke up. He didn’t dare to tell Zhou Mushi about the dream, only saying, “Just now, in my dream, we were strangers to each other.”

“Just that?” Zhou Mushi didn’t know whether he should laugh at him or not. He was a grown man, but he was so excited about a common dream that he seemed scared.

“I made some zongzi, my first time wrapping them. I don’t know if they taste good. Are you hungry? When should we eat?”

Zhou Mushi spoke in a gentle voice. As long as he confirmed his relationship with Jin Yang, he always wanted to open up his softest and most vulnerable side to Jin Yang without reservation.

“What filling did you use?”

“I know you don’t eat salty zongzi, so I made ones with dates and red beans.”

“Okay, let’s go eat together.”

“But can you let go of me first? We can’t just hold onto each other like this and teleport to the dining table, can we?”

After cuddling for a while, the two finally let go of each other and sat together at the dining table, holding hands.

Zhou Mushi made a pot of zongzi, a total of eight, which were quite large. With their combined weight, they had enough for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow.

The zongzi tasted even better than he imagined. He wasn’t fond of the sticky sweet glutinous rice, but with his beloved person accompanying him, Zhou Mushi found some delicious taste in the zongzi.

“I think that in the future, when it’s time to eat mooncakes during the Lantern Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, we can make some ourselves. We can buy them outside if we need to, but it’s not as fun. Next time we make mooncakes, let’s do it together.”

Jin Yang replied, “Okay.”

Zhou Mushi was delighted as he ate the zongzi he had wrapped himself. “By the way, what filling do you like in mooncakes? Do you prefer Cantonese or Suzhou-style? I think egg yolk mooncakes are okay…”