The next day.Zhang Ye"s Studio made an announcement: Effective immediately, due to family reasons, Teacher Zhang Ye will be halting all business activities for a period of three months. We seek your kind understanding.
Interviews? They were turned down!
Projects? They were turned down!
Advertis.e.m.e.nts? They were turned down!
All activities were stopped!
Zhang Ye had always worked in this way. If he wanted to do something, he would take it to the extreme. Otherwise, he would not do it at all!
This news created a buzz.
The reporters were naturally well-informed of what had happened.
"Zhang Ye halts all business activities!"
"The latest update: Zhang Ye"s wife suffers a leg fracture!"
"Zhang Ye"s wife injured in an accidental fall!"
"Teacher Zhang to turn into a househusband?"
On Weibo.
"This came out of the blue?"
"I hope it"s nothing serious!"
"I think it"s not serious, just a regular fracture."
"I"m glad to hear that."
"Get well soon."
"Teacher Zhang, good one. You should be at home accompanying your wife at this time."
"Right, don"t worry about your job (fighting) for now and just take good care of your wife."
"Right, you can work (fight) at any other time."
"The parentheses in the previous posts made me lol."
"Every time Face-smacking Zhang takes a leave of absence from work, his popularity soars. Meanwhile, other people experience a drop in their popularity when they go on a break from work. To a celebrity, being in the limelight is the source of their life. But this increase in popularity is exactly what makes Teacher Zhang an oddity of the industry. So I really can"t help but laugh whenever I see him say that he"ll be taking a break from work."
Back at home.
His friends started ringing him. Although a fracture wasn"t too serious, it wasn"t trivial either.
Zhang Xia asked in concern: "Is she alright?"
Zhang Ye laughed and said: "It"s not that bad."
Zhang Xia said: "Speak up if you need any help."
Zhang Ye said: "Sure, Grandma Zhang, I"m currently learning how to cook."
Zhang Xia said: "Hur hur, that"s great. You can make use of these few months for some spiritual cultivation to curb that fiery temper of yours."
Zhang Ye smiled. "Forget about my temper. What I need to get in order first is to make sure my wife gets taken care of. I"ve never realized how difficult it is since I"ve never done it before. When I went to the market to buy groceries this morning, I was at a complete loss. I don"t even know what a Gibel carp looks like. In fact, I got it wrong even though I was buying the ingredients off of the shopping list. It was only then that I understood how difficult it was for my wife to do all of that. I"ve really not done enough as a husband."
Zhang Xia laughed, then sighed: "In the entire world, only your wife has the ability to subdue you."
It was almost noon.
Wu Zeqing was still busy working in the bedroom. Although she had applied to recuperate at home for the next few months, a lot of work at the SARFT still required her attention. She was a government official, after all, so she couldn"t possibly just willfully drop everything like Zhang Ye and stop working when she wanted. She still had to handle a lot of work from home.
Zhang Ye was making lunch downstairs.
This is soy sauce.
Then what is this?
He had a taste. Oh, this is salt.
He cooked the rice while checking recipes on his phone.
Right at this time, a call came in. This time, it was from Yao Jiancai.
Yao Jiancai asked: "I just heard about your wife. How is she? Is she alright?"
Zhang Ye said: "She"s not too bad. It"s just that she requires more effort to get around."
Yao Jiancai said: "Did you drop all your work?"
Zhang Ye laughed and said: "Don"t talk to me about work. Talk to me about cooking."
"Whoa." Yao Jiancai was amused. "Are you for real, kid? Talk about cooking?"
Zhang Ye chuckled and said: "By the way, is Sister-in-law around you now? Hand the phone to her. I want to ask her how to make silver carp soup. There are too many different ways of cooking it that I found on the Internet. A simple soup like that has more than a dozen different ways of preparing it. Everyone comes up with their own different styles, so I don"t know whose recipe I should follow. I"ve had the silver carp soup that Sister-in-law made and found to be really tasty."
Yao Jiancai couldn"t be more amused. "OK, OK, I"ll get her to the phone."
The person on the other end of the line changed. "h.e.l.lo, Little Zhang?"
"Hi, Sister-in-law, I"d like to learn your recipe."
He managed to stew the soup.
Next, he wanted to prepare some pork trotters.
Who knows how to cook pig"s feet?
Zhang Ye thought for a while before calling Spring Garden"s Li Xiaoxian.
"Xiaoxian, how should pork trotters be prepared?"
"What?"
"Pork trotters. Didn"t Sister Dong and Amy always used to say that the braised pork trotters that you made were good?"
"Ah, you"re cooking?"
"Yes."
"Pfft, I"m recording for a TV show at the moment."
"What are you recording? Teach me first."
"OK, OK, OK—Director, sorry, please excuse me for five minutes."
After a busy hour.
The dishes were done.
The soup was finished stewing as well.
Zhang Ye shouted upstairs, "Old Wu, it"s time to eat." Then he went up to help his wife down. "Slowly, watch your step."
Wu Zeqing smiled. "What did you cook? It smells so good."
Zhang Ye said proudly, "A delicious meal, of course."
Wu Zeqing said, "I"m really hungry."
He wasn"t very good at taking care of people. Just going down the stairs was taking them a very long time. The staircase was too narrow for him to support and help her down, but if he gave her a piggyback ride, he was afraid that he would accidentally touch her ankle. And with Zhang Ye"s quick temper, he decided to lift Old Wu by her waist. Then he took large strides down the staircase to the lower floor.
Old Wu quickly said, "I can walk on my own."
Zhang Ye insisted, "There"s no need to."
His mother opened the door with her key at this moment, just in time to see this frightening sight. She ran over as she shouted, "Stop right there! Aiyo, stop right there!"
Zhang Ye let go of Old Wu and said, "There we go!"
His mother said in a speechless manner, "Who goes down the stairs the way you did?"
Zhang Ye said confidently, "I"m strong, so I won"t fall. What are you doing here? Did you follow the aroma? There"s more than enough food, so why don"t you join us?"
"I wasn"t sure that you could take care of Zeqing by yourself, so I came to have a look. If my daughter-in-law gets hurt in any way, you can be certain that I"ll get you taken care of!" His mother harrumphed. She looked to the dining table. "What is all of this?"
Zhang Ye smiled and said, "Silver carp soup, pork trotters, and stir-fried vegetables."
His mother said, "It doesn"t look half-bad, but I wonder how it tastes."
Zhang Ye invited, "Have a taste, give it a try."
Considering everything up to now, this should be the first time that Zhang Ye had seriously whipped up a meal other than making instant noodles.
The three of them sat down and started eating.
Wu Zeqing gracefully tasted the soup. Her beautiful eyes closed as she said gently, "This is really quite nice."
His mother had a taste too. She smacked her lips and said, "It"s not too bad, although it"s nothing compared to the soup that I make. But based on your skill, it"s exceeded my expectations by a lot."
Zhang Ye rolled his eyes at her.
You don"t say! It"s just because I haven"t drawn the Culinary Skills Experience Book yet. If this bro had maxed out on that skill, I"d be whipping up the entire Manchu Han Imperial Feast for you!
Eating lunch.
Was.h.i.+ng the dishes.
Cleaning up the kitchen.
His mother might"ve spoken quite harshly of him, but she still doted on him. She said, "Alright, alright, just leave the dishes for me to do. I"ve never made you do the ch.o.r.es in all these years."
But Zhang Ye stopped her. "Don"t move. I won"t let anyone do my ch.o.r.es for me—hey, Old Wu, sit down. Who said you can stand up? You want water? I"ll get it for you, I"ll get it for you—I"m done here. Is there any laundry to be done?—Eh, where"s the detergent? Oh, found it!"
In the house, Zhang Ye was bouncing around to get all the ch.o.r.es done. Although the meal that he made wasn"t that great, although he wasted a lot of water was.h.i.+ng the dishes, although he didn"t handle the laundry too well, every task at hand was taken seriously by Zhang Ye, who put in his best effort as he performed them.
When his mother saw this, she finally put her mind at ease.
After his mother left, Wu Zeqing said, "Little Ye, stop already."
Zhang Ye came over to her with a smile. "What"s the matter?"
Old Wu reached out to wipe off the detergent foam on his wrist. "Oh, you, work hard on your own work. I only had a fracture, that"s all. Do you think that I can"t take care of myself? I"m not as delicate as you think."
Zhang Ye said, "My work now is to make sure you"re taken care of."
"You don"t have to."
Zhang Ye smiled and said, "Don"t worry, I won"t fall behind on my work."
"How"s that?"
"Didn"t I tell you? Haha, this bro has already "infiltrated" the enemy"s camp. It"s just that no one knows about it yet. Comics are much more flexible to work with since I can draw them wherever I am. It"s nice that I can finally work on them in the next few months. When the time comes to reveal the truth, I"ll gain a huge amount of popularity within Asia. This is not hindering my work, so you just worry about recuperating from your injury. There"s no need for any pretense between the two of us."
Old Wu said, "Well, alright then. I guess I"ll just have to enjoy being taken care of by my husband for the next few months."