BXBX NOVEL Chapter 645: A Matter of Great Prestige
In a sudden moment of realization, Su Li slapped his thigh, filled with regret. “Why didn’t I greet him? I could have made a new friend today!” he lamented.
However, regret was of no use now. Su Li picked up Su Le and followed his elder brother into the house.
This incident served as a lesson for Su Li. He made a silent promise to himself to be more proactive in the future, so as not to miss out on meeting new people. Even if he were to be rejected, it wouldn’t matter. He was a young man, and he should be brave enough to face such situations. The next time he saw the young boy, he would be the first to greet him.
After their first dinner in the new house, their mother issued a strict order for them to either watch television in the living room or play on their own. They could even read, but they were not to disturb her. She wanted to enjoy her time alone in the small kitchen. Thus, after the brothers brought Su Le in, they obediently watched television in the living room.
In the kitchen, Gu Zi leisurely washed the dishes before starting to prepare the evening’s dessert. The weather had been quite cold recently, and it was common for people to catch a cold or cough. Therefore, she planned to make a pot of longan and brown sugar mixed dessert soup. After the family had finished drinking it, they would brush their teeth and go to bed.
She cleaned the dried longan, cashew nuts, red beans, and red dates she had bought that day and put them into the inner pot of the rice cooker. She added five small bowls of water and an appropriate amount of brown sugar, then turned on the rice cooker. It was very convenient; all she had to do was wait for the warming dessert to be ready.
Why did their house have a rice cooker? When Gu Zi first discovered this appliance, she was quite surprised. She also felt a sense of nostalgia. She had seen this type of old-fashioned rice cooker when she was a child. At that time, rice cookers had already been widely used for a long time and were not exclusive to wealthy families.
She learned from Su Shen that he had ordered people to purchase all the available appliances on the market to make her housework easier. In addition to the old-fashioned rice cooker, there was also an old-fashioned electric stove that she could see out of the corner of her eye. The main body of the electric stove was a large round plate, with some spring-like heating wires in the middle. Once electrified, they would turn red and could be used for cooking and heating.
However, Gu Zi knew that this appliance had a significant drawback: its power consumption was very high. If she used it for cooking every time, the monthly electricity bill would be terrifying. Although the Su family was not short of money and Gu Zi herself had a lot of money, she believed that money should not be wasted and should only be spent where necessary.
Therefore, she had already decided on the use of this electric stove. She would use it when she was in a hurry, but at other times, she would use the traditional wood-burning stove. The kitchen was indeed equipped with an old-fashioned wood-burning stove, which could also use coal. Currently, both wood-burning stoves had a large iron pot on them.
Su Shen must have prepared in advance. The first time she entered the kitchen, she found a lot of good dry firewood and ten boxes of coal behind the wood-burning stove. With many things that could be powered by electricity in the future, this firewood and coal would last for a long time.
Of course, in addition to these, the new house also had two air conditioners and a washing machine. The air conditioners were mainly placed in the living room. However, when the summer heat became unbearable, they could be moved to the kitchen or upstairs to the bedrooms. She and Su Shen would use one, and the two brothers would use the other. When it was too hot, the brothers could share a room.
Gu Zi couldn’t help but think of the appearance of the two air conditioners. The design of air conditioners in this era was quite different from those in the future. The air conditioners of this era were not large, and at first glance, they didn’t look like air conditioners at all. They looked like a machine with several rows of air outlets, and there was even a handle on top, which made them quite user-friendly.
As for the washing machine, it was now placed in the attic on the third floor. Since the third floor was close to the top floor, a laundry area could be set up on the top floor, where the sunlight and wind were the best. It would be more convenient to take the clothes from the attic to dry.
However, the fact that Su Shen had bought a washing machine for the house was something Gu Zi had never expected. After all, material goods were still scarce in this era. Even though the country had opened up, washing machines were still in short supply. Not only were they expensive, but they were also very hard to get.
At this time, if a family had a washing machine, even if the washing machine was very simple and was a single-cylinder pulsator washing machine that required manual water change, it was still a matter of great prestige. It was something to boast about for a long time.