I Ran Away With His Child novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: The Fifth Bowl
Before dawn on the morning of the twenty-third, Xu Zhengyuan stood in the staff canteen of his own river terminal.
He held a burned pan, and a cook watched him from the doorway.
The cook was sixty, in a hairnet, and had been up since three.
He had agreed to lend the stove for one hour and not to ask who it was for.
"The oil's too hot," he said.
"I know that now."
"You were told on the first one."
"I was told on the first three," said Xu.
He scraped the black scallions into the bin and set the pan down on the cold ring.
On the steel counter in front of him stood four ruined bowls in a row.
Two had noodles that fell apart, and one had a broth that was thin and grey.
The fourth he had not looked at since he tipped it.
Beside the bowls lay a sheet of squared exercise paper in a five-year-old's careful capitals.
The teacher had put it in his hand at the school gate on Monday, with a face of stone.
REQUIREMENTS FOR PROPOSAL, it said at the top, and underneath it ran a numbered list.
One. Baba must cook the bowl himself. Nobody else's hands.
Two. It must be plain, with scallion oil. It is not allowed to be fancy.
Three. Not more than twenty yuan on the present. Papa will check.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of I Ran Away With His Child are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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