Simon still hadn't realized why he was in this rural area called Happy Farm District.
He thought it was just a simple visit. Young descendants, out of filial piety, came to visit lonely, empty-nest elders, so they could experience a little warmth of family affection in their desolate twilight years, and so on. Usually, such scenes would be very moving; the old men and women would show an ember-like fervent enthusiasm, often scalding the children until they shrieked and grew chubby.
Sun Hui made a lunch, very plentiful, with four dishes and one soup, but it was hard to say how plentiful it actually was. Great-Grandfather's house didn't have a home robot, and his mother's cooking skills were only around the baseline level for a housewife.
The so-called plentiful was actually just an abundance of raw ingredients. For a farming family, everything they ate was picked from the fields. Although the grain in the new farm districts was theoretically public, as the old saying goes: 'Can a donkey starve in a mill?' Given the old man's appetite, what he ate in a year was less than the yield reduction from a minor pest infestation. Moreover, the agricultural market was in the nearby town, and prices were bewilderingly cheap.
Of the four dishes, classics like stir-fried tomatoes with eggs were a must. Cheese potato stew with beef brisket was, of course, a winter delicacy, and sweet and sour pork ribs were also quite good, along with vermicelli noodles stewed with cabbage. Paired with a bowl of evergreen chicken egg soup, it was already overly luxurious for lunch, even to the point of being suspected of waste—though leftovers for dinner would also be good.
Simon thought that he might have to stay for a few days this time. He wondered what delicious dishes his mother would make tonight?
The atmosphere at the dinner table was subdued. Sun Hui diligently served Lu Xuefeng food. The old man didn't say a word, burying his head in his rice, with an astonishing momentum. Simon watched, his blood boiling, shouting in his heart that he wanted to eat seven or eight bowls of rice... Of course, that was impossible. Sun Hui's quota for him was two bowls; eating one more bite was a fantasy.
"Grandpa, eat slowly, don't choke."
Simon picked up a piece of potato, gently blew on it at his mouth, watching the rice-colored molten cheese slowly drip, pulling out a long, thin strand. He immediately felt a little impatient. He turned his gaze to his mother, seeing that she cared deeply for Lu Xuefeng, which was a quality expected of an excellent citizen with a Social Credit Level 3.
So, since the children had good conditions and were filial, why didn't they bring the old man to live in the city?
If he couldn't figure it out, he wouldn't think about it.
It had been five years since he arrived at the end of the century, and it was the first time Simon had seen someone eat more unattractively than himself, and it was his own Great-Grandfather. The old man already had a sour expression, and when he opened his mouth to reveal his uneven, chipped, yellow teeth, he looked even more hideous, like a demonic cultist who ate children.
Moreover, his chewing movements were quite distinctive. He often used his left molars to grind, and when his masseter muscles tensed, they would push out the loose skin on his cheeks, as if he had a small mouse or a small pebble stuffed in his mouth, puffing in and out. Those grayish-black age spots also rose and fell, like moldy yellow steamed buns.
His gaze rarely moved; when picking up food, he stared at the tip of his chopsticks, and when eating, he stared at the rice bowl in his hand. Although his back was not straight, that unapproachable, stern uprightness was clearly visible.
Perhaps the Lao Lu family's annoying habit of being pretentious was inherited from this old fellow.
Because Lu Xuefeng didn't speak, the dinner table atmosphere was particularly stiff. Simon secretly observed his mother's expression; she seemed to be smiling a little reluctantly.
After dinner, the granddaughter-in-law dutifully went to wash the dishes. Simon sat on the wooden sofa in the living room, examining the furnishings inside the house.
An old person's house was definitely retro; at least, Simon had never seen an elderly person who made their home fashionable and trendy. This didn't mean they were necessarily stubborn, but rather that a decline in information reception capabilities led to outdated aesthetics and a misunderstanding of trends.
Asking an older generation to design interior decoration would inevitably lead to disastrous results, likely veering into post-modern rural retro psychedelic electronic style, or, in plain terms: utterly useless.
Things like hand soap next to the toilet, a small chandelier in front of the TV, a'Sunrise in the East' wallpaper, humanoid wardrobe stickers, impressionistic mosaic tiles... such things would make one's scalp fly off.
However, Lu Xuefeng's home furnishings were still acceptable; old-fashioned, but in the style of the early 21st century.
In terms of interior design, this was after all a trend, with a strong feedback effect on the sense of era, allowing one to immediately discern the social background of its design.
Simon still remembered the interior design style of the late 20th century: green painted walls, red mesh covers over appliances, a piece of glass on the desk with many photos tucked underneath, and a bulky semiconductor radio on the corner of the desk.
In the early 21st century, European-style home furnishings became popular. The earliest origins of the blend of Chinese and Western styles could be traced back to the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic. In Simon's opinion, Chinese interior designers, after years of studying Western styles, still hadn't grasped the essence, and the houses they created always had an awkward, mismatched feel.
By the fourth year of the 2030s, the design concepts of light luxury, minimalism, and nature suddenly exploded. At that time, the middle class began to pursue Nordic-style interior decoration. This was, in part, related to the rise of holographic projection technology at the time, as sufficient space was needed for an immersive experience, so decorative items that took up space were omitted. To ensure normal color perception for projections, wall, floor, and ceiling paints also had to be as simple as possible, with black and white being preferred.
The interior design trend of the 2040s was called future minimalism. Building on the 2030s, as intelligent machines entered countless homes, a sense of technology and design became highly sought after. To provide learning and growth areas for intelligent machines that were not yet strong in logical thinking, every item in the home had a dedicated storage place. At that time, a good design plan was worth over a hundred million, precisely because it could save a lot of time spent repeatedly searching for things.
The 2050s were an unremarkable decade. By the mid-2060s, the nation's Dyson Sphere project in space was initially completed, and energy became extremely abundant, leading to the emergence of many extremely energy-intensive products. At that time, interior design was a blossoming, galloping spectacle, with even miraculous fairytale-like floating houses. Although these were eventually deemed illegal structures and forcibly demolished, it showed the madness of people at the time.
The 2070s were cyberpunk. Every city had its unique style. Jiangzhe City, where Simon lived, was wealthy, so every high-rise was covered with projected glass curtain walls. By day, it was a 'beautiful city like a mirror lake,' and by night, it was like 'diamonds reflecting moonlight,' not to mention the full-city projection screens during festivals, visible even from space.
Great-Grandfather's house was from the 2030s, but after all, the house area in the farm district was limited, so while minimalism was present, light luxury was not.
It was quite authentic.
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