An important sign that summer is about to end is that by Saturday morning, the food delivery platforms have eased up on their promotions.
Lin Song parked his car in the underground garage. Before turning off the engine, he glanced at the time on the display: ten past five. Still enough time to make dinner.
“Fingerprint error!”
The sharp alert from the smart lock startled Lin Song. Every time he opened the door, he was very careful to cover the sensor completely with his thumb. Could it be that his hands were too dirty after moving cardboard boxes all day?
As he wiped his thumb on his pants, he realized he had been using his left thumb. His right hand was holding a package he had just picked up from the local Cainiao Post station on his way back.
Lin Song switched the package to his left hand and tried again with his right thumb. This time, the lock didn’t give him any trouble. After entering, he wiped the soles of his shoes on the doormat—a special mat Xiao Lin had bought for him, which declared this the “Artist’s Entrance.”
Lin Song opened the package. It contained the replacement brush heads for his electric shoe polisher that he had bought last week. The original Philips device came with three heads, but the two bristle brushes had already aged and cracked, leaving only a single sponge head. Lin Song worried that this last one would soon break too, turning the perfectly good electric polisher into a useless piece of junk. It would be a shame to throw it away.
So, he had searched on Taobao for over ten minutes, but unfortunately, he couldn’t find any original replacement heads. He then found his previous transaction record and asked the seller if they sold replacement parts. The seller said they only sold the main device and that if he needed parts, he could call the 400 hotline for Philips small appliances customer service.
Before making the call, Lin Song, not giving up, searched Taobao again for another ten minutes, but still found nothing suitable. He finally gave up on solving the problem himself and contacted Philips’ after-sales service.
The young man on the phone expertly recorded Lin Song’s contact information and arranged to send him three brush heads, cash on delivery. Lin Song would have to pay thirty yuan for the parts, plus the delivery fee. Compared to letting the electric polisher become e-waste, he was willing to pay all related costs.
There were still some green beans and broccoli left over from yesterday in the fridge. He would make some scrambled eggs with tomato, and with a scallion pancake and half a box of small steamed buns, it would be more than enough for dinner.
For this dish, the tomatoes must be peeled. The method of scalding them in boiling water for five minutes is both troublesome and time-consuming. Lin Song always peeled them like an apple, slick and easy.
To fry the eggs, the oil temperature must be high. Lin Song kept a temperature gun in the kitchen specifically for this purpose. He insisted the oil reach over 220°C (428°F). As long as the temperature was high enough, even casually scrambled eggs would be a culinary masterpiece.
He scooped out the golden-brown eggs, leaving a thin layer of oil in the wok.
He cut the peeled tomatoes into checkerboard-sized pieces in a bowl. Using the residual oil, he stir-fried the tomatoes, added a spoonful of coarse black pepper, and covered the wok to simmer on low heat for two minutes. Lin Song pressed the timer stuck to his fridge, and its bright LCD screen began to count down. After two minutes, it would sound with a brilliant chime.
He poured the eggs back in with the stewed tomatoes, added several generous spoonfuls of sugar, and drizzled in the last bit of egg wash from the bowl. He turned the heat to high to reduce the sauce. Lin Song couldn’t help but admire his work silently: there was no scrambled egg with tomato more perfect than this.
He was out of small cans of beer; only the large cans of Budweiser were left in the fridge. The extra 200ml or so was immense pressure for Lin Song. He often felt he was running out of steam halfway through.
Of course, he could just pour the rest out, but he didn’t have a habit of wasting things. He could save it for cooking, but the dishes that require beer are usually heavy, rich ones he rarely makes. So, when faced with a large can of beer, there was often only one outcome: he would force himself to sit at the dining table, scrolling through his phone, and finish it sip by sip.
Lin Song crushed the empty can and tossed it into a bag dedicated to water bottles and aluminum cans. He sorted them specifically to make it easier for the recycling collectors.
After gathering the dishes in the sink, Lin Song began to fantasize. If he were to abandon this sink full of dishes today and deal with them tomorrow before cooking, what would the outcome be? He stood by the sink for a full forty-five seconds, his mind vividly painting the consequences, which could only be summarized in two words: “unthinkable.”
The turnaround section of the G-sharp harmonic minor piece. The fingering in the sheet music was marked incorrectly; 2-3-1 was marked as 2-1-2-3-4.
After an hour of practice, repeatedly switching between F-sharp and F-double-sharp, Lin Song realized that he had misread the music. In the measure that turned back downward after hitting the highest note, the F was supposed to remain a double-sharp. Therefore, the correct fingering was indeed 2-1-2-3-4, not 2-3-1.
Whenever he bought watermelon, Lin Song always chose the half with the stem still attached. He held the unfounded yet stubborn belief that the half with the stem was sweeter.
The half-watermelon in the fridge had been there for three days. Now, all that was left was a thick rind.