TSDT - 44

It was already ten o’clock when they arrived at Dongming Jiayuan.

Jiang Ying had spent the day visiting the detention center and the prosecutor’s office and was exhausted by now, constantly covering her mouth to yawn as she followed behind Meng Jingshu.

Meng Jingshu carried the luggage into the room. Jiang Ying resisted the urge to collapse onto the bed right there and then, forcing herself to find clothes and prepare for a shower.

Unexpectedly, he came over and embraced her from behind, resting his head on her shoulder, saying, “I’m a little hungry.”

He had mainly gone to the evening engagement to show his face. Once he had fulfilled his social obligation, he excused himself by saying he had an urgent matter, and they wouldn’t force him to stay. So he hadn’t eaten much and rushed to the airport, wanting to return early to see her.

He tilted his head slightly.

“The food on the plane wasn’t good.”

Jiang Ying’s ears tingled.

Her whole body tingled.

Damn it.

He was being clingy.

She blinked: “Let me see what’s in the kitchen; I’ll make you something?”

He nodded against her earlobe.

Meng Jingshu hadn’t lived here for a while, and the housekeeper only came to clean regularly, so the refrigerator was naturally empty, with only a few eggs left. Jiang Ying checked the date on the label; it was less than a month old, still edible.

There was some rice and noodles in the cupboard. She said, “I can only make you egg noodles.”

Meng Jingshu nodded again. He was probably tired too, leaning lazily against her, looking unwilling to think.

After saying it herself, Jiang Ying felt it sounded pitifully monotonous.

She remembered she had some fruit in her luggage; she had brought it along to avoid it spoiling from being left too long.

“I also brought some cherry tomatoes. I can peel them and add some vinegar and sugar for the soup base...” When it came to cooking, she always liked to put a little thought into it. “Then, instead of cracking the egg into the soup, I’ll fry it. How about that?”

Meng Jingshu nodded frequently.

After entering the door, Meng Jingshu stuck to Jiang Ying’s back like Velcro. When she cooked, he would stand behind her, encircling her slender waist, his chin resting on the top of her head—the height was just right. He would also engage in idle chatter with her from time to time, his vocal cords buzzing softly above her head.

“Why are you boiling water?”

Jiang Ying gently made a cross incision on the small cherry tomatoes: “To blanch them, so they’re easier to peel.”

After being blanched, the skin of the tomatoes, where cut, indeed curled outwards and peeled off with a couple of tugs. She cut the small fruits into two halves and stir-fried them with oil.

He asked again, “Can fruit really be eaten like this?”

Jiang Ying said, “I haven’t tried it either, but theoretically, yes.”

After a minute or two, the cherry tomatoes began to soften. Jiang Ying poured boiling water into the pot to simmer them.

“When did you start learning to cook?”

“Probably... when I was little?”

“How little?”

Jiang Ying yawned silently again: “...Elementary school, I guess. My parents said I loved messing around in the kitchen when I was very young. Back then, the stove in our house was very high, and I was still short, so I’d move a chair over, stand on it, and stir-fry. Afterwards, my parents told me that the pot was bigger than me, and they were really worried I’d sprain my ankle and fall in.”

Meng Jingshu chuckled softly: “Cute.”

He leaned in from the side, wanting to kiss her.

Jiang Ying, suppressing a laugh, dodged and hit his hand. “Don’t mess around, go get the noodles.”

The soup in the pot was bubbling, the cherry tomatoes had burst open, and the broth had turned an inviting color. She added some seasoning, and the aroma immediately increased exponentially.

Meng Jingshu truly felt his stomach beginning to rumble.

Jiang Ying took the noodles he handed her, pulled out a suitable amount, and put them into the pot. After a few tens of seconds, they began to soften, and she used a pair of chopsticks to stir them.

Meng Jingshu remembered something, picked up his phone, and quietly took a few photos of her from behind, sending them to his grandmother.

“My girlfriend is making me supper.”

His grandmother slept early, so Meng Jingshu didn’t expect a reply from her.

Even though she was right beside him, he couldn’t help but zoom in on the photos in the chat window. Her slender, fair fingers, placed together with the chopsticks and the steaming pot, looked so beautiful.

________________________________________

Fair fingers.

He suddenly paused, turning to look at Jiang Ying’s hand.

There was truly nothing there, unlike his.

Jiang Ying lit the fire on another frying pan, added oil, and held an egg in her hand, waiting for the oil to heat up.

Suddenly, she heard him call her from behind: “Jiang Ying.”

His voice was inexplicably cold, and Jiang Ying frowned slightly: “Hmm?”

“Where’s the ring?”

“It’s in my bag,” she cracked the eggshell, and it sizzled as it hit the pan.

“Why did you take it off?”

The displeasure in his tone grated on Jiang Ying’s nerves. She turned the heat under the frying egg to the lowest setting, and the crackling sounds gradually became more cautious.

“Because it’s inconvenient, of course.”

“How inconvenient? Inconvenient for others to see?” he pressed, step by step.

“I went to the detention center to meet with clients today. In that kind of setting, wearing a diamond ring, do you think it’s convenient?” She also turned cold, impatience creeping into her voice.

It wasn’t a serious matter initially, but his awful attitude escalated the conflict.

“You were at the detention center all day? Is it that hard to put it back on after you’re done?”

Jiang Ying inhaled, turning the heat under the noodles to the lowest setting as well, the bubbling sound barely audible.

She turned to face him, arms crossed over her chest: “What do you mean by this?”

Meng Jingshu also stared at her: “Do you remember what you said to Director Hong at The One back then?”

At that time, he had just officially broken up with Fu Xuan. Hong Binyu had tried to chat up Jiang Ying at the bar, and he had disrupted it. Hong Binyu’s words implied his disloyalty. Jiang Ying was annoyed at being implicated, and seeing the faded ring mark on Hong Binyu’s ring finger, she retorted.

That was ages ago, and Jiang Ying had been dead drunk that night. She couldn’t remember, let alone understand his convoluted meaning.

She frowned: “What did I say? Weren’t you right there? What could I have said to him? I do remember you chatting animatedly with a hot girl you’d just met, didn’t you even exchange contact information?”

She scoffed: “Why didn’t you just go out with her that night?”

Meng Jingshu’s expression froze: “Do you know what you’re saying?”

Jiang Ying turned her head away, not looking at him. She knew she shouldn’t bring up such irrelevant old scores, but she couldn’t apologize at a time like this.

She took a few deep breaths, lowered her voice, and tried to remain calm: “So, what do you mean by being so hot and cold?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he also tried to calm down and explain to her,

“That day, at my friend’s proposal ceremony, many people brought female companions, but I didn’t. There were quite a few...” He wanted to say that attending banquets alone made one susceptible to unwanted attention and left one weary of dealing with it. That’s why he decided to buy the ring on the spot, so that people would know he was taken, avoiding many unnecessary troubles. He hoped she would also value the meaning of the ring.

But Jiang Ying interrupted him somewhat agitatedly: “Are you blaming me? Blaming me for having to work and not accompanying you to your friend’s important event?”

Her heart sank as if a stone was weighing it down.

“Do you think I’m someone who can’t distinguish right from wrong?” his voice was hoarse.

Jiang Ying said, “I don’t know.”

“What does ‘I don’t know’ mean?!”

“It means what it says.”

Meng Jingshu was completely enraged. He pulled apart her crossed arms, forcing her to abandon that subconscious defensive posture.

“You say I’m hot and cold, but what about you? What do you take me for?” He squeezed her hand tightly. “You can’t stay at home, preferring to rush to such a faraway place late at night, and you couldn’t even tell me? If I had returned even later, would I not have known where you went? Would I have been inexplicably locked out again?!”

Jiang Ying tried to pull her hand away, but failed. Instead, he gripped it even tighter, painfully.

She was furious as well: “How was I supposed to know you came back early! You weren’t even here, what good would it do to tell you? If I had gone to Huang Yanfei’s, I definitely would have told you after settling in; how could you not know? Besides, you have the key; who could stop you from entering? Can’t you be reasonable?!”

“You’ve never been reasonable with me.”

His gaze stung Jiang Ying.

She suddenly felt utterly exhausted: “Fine, no more arguing. Anyway, arguing makes no sense, it’s all just senseless bickering. I’m very tired, let’s just get some rest, okay?”

When one side stopped firing on the battlefield, the other naturally couldn’t continue fighting. She had surrendered first, but he felt he was the one who had lost. After the smoke of battle cleared, there was only devastation.

The things on the stove were also a mess. After arguing for so long, no one paid attention to the pots, and even with the lowest heat, the food was ruined.

Meng Jingshu let go of her hand.

Jiang Ying turned to clean up the mess.

The eggs were burnt, and the noodles were clumpy.

“Order takeout, it’s inedible,” she said in a low voice, then went to get the trash can to clean up.

Meng Jingshu stopped her, stubbornly saying, “It’s edible.”

Jiang Ying was impatient: “It’s disgusting.”

“I’ll eat it.”

Jiang Ying closed her eyes and dropped the trash can to the floor.

“Whatever you want.”