Imagine the world

Chapter 4 Dream and Reality

Many children have asked adults - where do I come from? "I picked it up from the rubbish heap" is always one of the answers for adults.For Huazhenxing, this is the standard answer.

Contrary to the dream, in reality, there have always been various conflicts on the Black Desolate Continent. In the country of a few miles, the tribal conflict 15 years ago was the worst riot in history, resulting in the death of tens of thousands of people. Cities further south spread to Port Fiso, where corpses were once everywhere.

At that time, in the streets filled with gunpowder smoke and stray bullets flying, Yang Tehong heard crying from a trash can on the side of the road. He rescued a baby from it. This child is Huazhenxing.

Yang Tehong is very special, which makes it difficult to evaluate.He is very shrewd in business and even cares about everything. He likes to settle everything clearly. He is never willing to give benefits that should not be given, and he is unwilling to do things that are not good for him.

But on the other hand, he never does things that harm others and benefit himself, and he doesn't take advantage of things that shouldn't be taken advantage of.Even if it is a great benefit, as long as it is not what he should take, Old Man Yang will not even lift his eyelids.

For example, if there is no one at home and a lot of cash can be taken away quietly without being discovered, then 90.00% of the people here will take it.If there is one person in Fiso who can't do that, then this person must be old man Yang.

Old man Yang is not generous enough, and he is almost never involved in the matter of righteousness and wealth, but it is not enough to say that he is a stingy person. His personality is very easy-going, and he does not care about many things.

It's quite contradictory to say, a person who likes to care about business, gives Hua Zhenxing the impression that he "doesn't care", it always feels strange, but in the old man Yang, he got a perfect unity.

There are often expired foods in grocery stores. In fact, many food packages have a shelf life with allowances, and the ones that have just expired are not inedible. People here don’t care, but Old Man Yang never gives alms to beggars.

There are many beggars in Fesuogang. They are not professional beggars, but they are used to asking for money and things.Whenever there are foreigners or foreigners who are reasonably clean and tidy on the street, no matter what they are doing, there will always be a group of children around to ask for money, and some adults will also ask for it. was stolen.

If the well-dressed local bigwigs appeared on the street, people would gather around and ask for money, and the crowd was often blasted away by the entourages beside the bigwigs.It doesn't matter if you don't or not. If you want to get it, you will earn it. This is the most simple concept of the locals.

Old man Yang has lived here for many years, but he never gives anything.Old man Yang never sells expired items, he will let Huazhenhang take them out and throw them away.

Old man Yang asked Hua Zhenxing to throw things away, quietly, and in different places each time, just like being a thief.These things will definitely not be wasted, and they will be picked up in a blink of an eye.But old man Yang doesn't care, as long as he doesn't have anything to do with his own grocery store.

Hua Zhenxing had no objection to Old Man Yang's approach. He knew too well what the port of Fesso was.

Last year, a star who had already immigrated overseas was interviewed and recalled his childhood experiences.He was born in Fesuo Port. He remembers that when he was a teenager, he opened a local burger shop. A kind-hearted female clerk often quietly gave the leftover burgers from the day's sale to these hungry children in the middle of the night. At night he was always waiting at the back door of some burger joint...

Many years have passed, and the former child has grown into an international superstar. He hopes to find that kind woman and repay her.After the news was broadcast, it caused a great sensation. Someone immediately claimed that she was the female clerk, but it was revealed that she was an impostor.

After all, the star did not find a benefactor, and the burger shop has been closed for nearly ten years. Huazhenxing witnessed the whole process with his own eyes.

At the time, Huazhenxing was only five or six years old, and he had already remembered things, while the country of Jili was gradually recovering from the turmoil a few years ago, and the social order ushered in a rare period of stability.The economy has grown rapidly from the trough, and many countries and institutions have come to invest, aid construction and do business here, and many overseas people have poured into the port of Fesso.

Just a short distance from the grocery store opened a Jinnaimen fast food restaurant.It is a franchised store of a global chain and has unified requirements for the management of the food it sells. The hamburgers made the day before will not be sold overnight and will be thrown away as garbage.

In many places overseas, such garbage will be timely and specially sorted, but it is difficult to do so in the port of Fesso.There was a female clerk who gave the leftover burgers to the surrounding children. The star was one of them. He was soon picked up by scouts and brought to the youth training camp of the overseas club. It is not clear what happened later.

Those kids couldn't afford the burgers in the store, and some kids also took home the burgers given by the female clerk... After that, more and more kids waited at the back door in the middle of the night, and there were not enough burgers, and of course some people couldn't get them .The kind female clerk will explain with apology, the burgers are sold on the same day, and the business in the store is too good today...

So I don't know since when, there have always been some idle adults and children harassing customers in and outside the store.At that time, the social environment of Fesso port was relatively stable, but only in relative terms.The troublemakers are all locals, and the police rarely pay attention to this kind of thing. I'm afraid they can't manage it.

Some people don't have complex moral logic in their minds, and they often only think about the most direct cause and effect of interests. If the burgers in the store can't be sold, wouldn't the day be left?The more they have left, the more they can get... Half a year later, this fast food restaurant was closed... Many years have passed, and the female clerk has long since disappeared.

This kind of thing may not happen in other places, but in Feiso Port, Huazhenhang is not surprised at all.

Hua Zhenxing also asked old man Yang why he wanted to save himself in the first place?Old Man Yang is a man who never asks for trouble, and Phosso Harbor is a dangerous and chaotic place.As long as it doesn't involve the old man Yang himself, he will hardly intervene, and he will go around when he encounters any trouble. Why would he pick up a child from the trash can despite the hail of bullets?

The old man Yang took a sip of wine and picked up his chopsticks to eat a few small dishes. Then he said slowly: "It's not a disadvantage to support you, you have to look long-term, otherwise where can you find a smart and capable guy like you... Have you ever heard of a child bride?"

Hua Zhenxing had really heard of a child bride. It was said to be a matter of the old Dongguo society. He could not laugh or cry: "If your old man has a daughter who doesn't want to marry, it is understandable to accept me as a child bride."

Old man Yang glared at him: "What nonsense? That's called squatting in the door! The written title is entourage, and I have never heard of it being raised since I was a child... I'm just making an analogy. Live, my old man also enjoys life.”

This is true. As long as Hua Zhenxing was able to do anything at a young age, old man Yang would let him learn almost everything.Hua Zhenxing never went to school to study, but old man Yang obtained a complete set of textbooks and various teaching supplementary materials for Dongguo primary and secondary schools in the 90s and [-]s, which are said to be the most solid in terms of basic education.

Huazhenxing’s literacy was taught by old man Yang himself. Most of his enlightenment books when he was a child were various recipes, including many printed and bound books, which were rich in pictures and texts. Poor Huazhenxing at that time always thought it was a comic book.

One of the reasons why Old Man Yang is actually not stingy is that he understands the enjoyment of life very well. You can tell by looking at the recipes he has collected. The focus is on the major cuisines of Dongguo.Regarding the issue of eating, it can be sublimated from the most basic physiological needs to the most noble self-transcendence. Old man Yang considers himself a noble person.

Old man Yang has a long way to go, and Feiso Port is another cargo distribution center. He can always get all kinds of ingredients and seasonings from all over the world, especially from the East.It's not enough to want to open a restaurant, but it's more than enough for him and Hua Zhenxing to enjoy themselves.Since the age of ten, Huazhenxing has shouldered the heavy responsibility of cooking.

When he was 12 years old, old man Yang made a joke: "Now that you go to Dongguo, you can also be judged as a special first-class chef, and your cooking level is finally barely qualified."

Huazhenxing didn't know what the special level was, so he checked it online.He would have used the computer in Old Man Yang's shop to surf the Internet for a long time. Since then, he has owned the first smartphone of his own, and has a formal salary every month. Old Man Yang used to give some pocket money occasionally. money.

Tong Yang's buddy is also a buddy. Old man Yang not only manages food and lodging, but also pays wages.Huazhenxing, who has read recipes as comic books since he was a child, has a foundation of extensive and profound Donggu cuisine, not to mention places like Fesuogang, even the so-called various delicacies in the entire black continent are in his eyes. Pig food is about the same.

But Huazhenhang does not discriminate against pig food, and he can endure hardship very well.The recipes that Old Man Yang asked him to read were not all from Dongguo, some of them may have been written by the old man himself, even hand-painted books, which contained all kinds of materials.

The above not only introduces what can and cannot be eaten, but also what special functions they have, how to deal with them, and what occasions they can be used in.

Old man Yang also took Huazhenxing to the field many times, and taught him to identify, obtain and process various materials on the spot.Hua Zhenxing probably didn't know it himself. By the time he was a teenager, he had almost become a field survival expert and an expert on flora and fauna.

The most irritating thing is that old man Yang not only asked Hua Zhenxing to read the recipe as a comic book, but also let him cook with the Dan stove all the time.It is the kind of very simple Dan stove, with a hearth below and a semi-circular or square pot on the top. There are nine pots in total, with different shapes, and I don’t know what materials they are made of.These nine pots are used for frying, frying, cooking, frying, steaming, boiling, stewing, and stewing.

As long as you pay attention to the heat and the method of frying things in the Dan furnace, although it is difficult, it is not impossible, but how to steam things?Huazhenxing will find materials and process grates by himself.Some pots come with very heavy lids, and some require Huazhenxing to find materials to make a suitable new lid.

Although the Dan stove is clumsy and difficult to operate, it is still very high compared to simple cooking utensils such as earthen pots and earthen stoves used by local residents.As for the higher-end modern cookware, Huazhenxing was also out of touch when he was a child.

He has always regarded these alchemy stoves as pots and stoves!It wasn't until he was 13 years old that he had the opportunity to go to the workers' dormitory of the Dongguo-aided construction project, and saw those really useful modern cooking utensils. After trying it, he realized that cooking with his own pots and stoves was hell in comparison. difficulty.Then he searched the Internet with pictures and realized that those were not pots and stoves at all, but ancient Dan stoves from the Eastern Kingdom.

Those nine pill furnaces are antiques from the Eastern Kingdom collected by Yang Tehong, and this old man is too bad!

Hua Zhenxing was raised by old man Yang, but their relationship did not feel like a father and son, or even a grandson.The name of Hua Zhenxing was taken by the old man Yang, and he didn't have his surname Yang. As for why he was surnamed Hua, he was a Chinese from the East Kingdom.In fact, people from many countries in the East look similar, and it is not clear why the old man Yang thought at a glance that the baby was a Chinese...

Thinking of this, Hua Zhenxing suddenly realized that there was something wrong with his state. He didn't go home in the middle of the night, and actually leaned against the wall of the alley to recall the past.The contrast between the dream and reality had a great impact on him, and he was inexplicably dazed.

Looking up again, there is not a single cloud in the sky, and the stars are very bright, as if giving an illusion that as long as you stand on the roof and reach out, you can pick one off. This is indeed where he lived since he was a child.

In the same way, as long as you know the exact location, you can judge the time through the starry sky... It is now around three in the morning.There was wind, and the intermittent whining sound in the distance was like the growling of a wild dog on the grassland, and when it blew close, it was like the thorns on the porcupine's body rubbing.

Huazhenxing heard a movement not far away again, and there was a faint smell of urine in the wind. Someone passed by in the middle of the night and was looking for a corner for convenience.Immediately afterwards, he heard a gunshot, the echo was a little vague, it should be very far away.

It was time to go home, Hua Zhenxing stood up and moved his hands and feet, his somewhat stiff body gradually became soft and flexible, and then quietly left along the wall.

(End of this chapter)