Baldy also followed behind Lu Chenzhou as they sat down, asking, “So, what’s the situation between the two of you?”

Was he too old to know the newest trends anymore? He always felt that the world was moving too quickly! 

Even after they had allegedly separated, the two of them still acted so naturally towards each other; one had said that he was hungry, and the other, just like a dutiful wife, had immediately run off to cook something. But on the other hand, if they weren’t separated, then it was way too unusual for Lu Chenzhou to not react even after seeing a strange man sleeping at his partner’s house!

Lu Chenzhou’s patience with Baldy was clearly limited to before he entered the doorway, because he didn’t deign to respond to him now. Instead, Lu Chenzhou lowered his head and started to play ‘Extreme Racing’—an app that he’d become obsessed with recently, a particularly childish and boring kids’ game about little flying cars. What’s more, Lu Chenzhou’s skills were particularly horrid. Ten times out of ten, he’d crash his car against a cliff. Despite his having played it for over half a month, Lu Chenzhou still hadn’t gotten past a single checkpoint.

This time was no different. Baldy had just sat down and was about to say something when he saw Lu Chenzhou’s car smash down with a big “Bang!” sign filling the screen—he had crashed into a roadblock. The crash destroyed the car entirely and instantly killed the driver, only leaving a bunch of glass shards and blood spurting out from within the car.

Baldy’s eyes twitched, and he pretended that he hadn’t seen anything. He earnestly urged Lu Chenzhou, saying, “Don’t play this game, alright? Even if it doesn’t lower your intelligence, it’s very damaging to your image… Anyway, tell me what you plan on doing about that man. Do you want to chop him up or smash him to pieces with a hammer? I’d be very happy to lend you a hand.

“That’s the guy we met that day near the river, isn’t it? F*ck, then he must have gotten together with her before the two of you broke up! Are you really going to let him off just like that?"

“I don’t think that you should eat anything that she cooks. With her skills as a doctor, who knows if she’ll add something else inside?”

……

He spoke until his mouth became parched and his tongue dry, but Lu Chenzhou impassively continued to play his game. Baldy couldn’t help but grumble, “Say something, won’t you?”

Lu Chenzhou didn’t even raise his head as he replied, “Oh.”

What a particularly gloomy man. 

Baldy was unable to incite a response from him, so he decided to switch to a different tactic. “Do you know what I saw when I first came in? They were…” He extended his hand to within Lu Chenzhou’s range of vision, and made a particularly vulgar hand gesture as he noisily sucked in air with his mouth. “It was nearly too unbearable to look at! I even took a picture. Do you want to see?”

He assumed that Lu Chenzhou would ignore him just like before, but right as he finished speaking, Lu Chenzhou’s car once again crashed viciously into an obstacle. The charred metal of the wreckage rolled off into the horizon, somersaulting through the air until it finally landed heavily on the ground.

Lu Chenzhou mashed furiously at a button, turning the car to scrap instantly.

Only after this did Baldy realize that all of Lu Chenzhou’s actions in the game were violent. His back covered in a layer of cold sweat, Baldy quickly became submissive, saying, “...don’t accelerate when you’re turning a curve; don’t rush it; do it slowly. Actually, there must be something wrong in the settings of this broken game. Wouldn’t it be better if the roads were straight? How stupid must the creator be to make so many curved paths, cliffs, and obstacles…”

When Lu Chenzhou looked over at him, he immediately flashed a gentle smile at him. “Let me ask you something, why are you eating here?”

Lu Chenzhou lowered his head again and coolly replied, “I’m hungry.” His reason was just this simple.

“......Oh.”

He was somewhat dazed, because he could smell a wonderful scent, and then he realized very lamentably that he too was hungry.

Very, very hungry!

Last night, Lu Chenzhou had abruptly left him in the restaurant halfway through, and then he had to leave because he had something to do. He had even slept late last night and was busy the whole day today, accidentally skipping lunch on top of that. In the afternoon, Xu Po and the rest had booked a place and insisted that he and Lu Chenzhou make up for their missed gathering. To meet up with everyone, he had gone to find Lu Chenzhou right after work, so he hadn’t eaten anything decent for the whole day.

As he kept thinking about food, he got hungrier; as he kept sniffing at the air, he got even hungrier. By this point, his stomach was almost inflamed with desire.

Baldy pounded the table. “I’m hungry too!”

The two of them cried out pitifully for food, and Cheng Xi didn’t disappoint them, preparing a sumptuous dinner: a big plate of dumplings, a dish full of beef jerky, a bowl of meatballs, and a pan of fried eggs.

Baldy was salivating just from looking at it, but he still disdainfully said, “There aren’t any vegetables here.”

Cheng Xi turned around and unceremoniously took out two big leeks from the kitchen. “This is green. Do you want it?”

Baldy had no response to Cheng Xi’s quip. 

A hint of a smile flashed across Lu Chenzhou’s eyes. He put down his phone, picked up the chopsticks and bowl that Cheng Xi had set out for him, and began to eat slowly.

Baldy tried his best not to stare at those leeks. He was very suspicious that Lu Chenzhou had said something to Cheng Xi—how else could she have known that that very thing she had taken out was what he’d most hated and despised?

“Take it, take it away.” He really couldn’t stand it anymore.

“You won’t eat it?” Cheng Xi put on an innocent look, and then continued selling it enthusiastically. “It helps prevent cancer.”

Baldy turned his face around, vowing not to give in.

Cheng Xi couldn’t help but laugh upon seeing his antics. After she’d teased him sufficiently, she finally put the leeks away, took out another dish of steamed dumplings with one hand and a bowl of soup with the other, a very simple dish made with ham and tofu, random leftovers from the fridge.

The smell was quite mixed, but as soon as Cheng Xi put in a bit of the red chili oil that her mother had made, it instantly smelled appetizing.

When Baldy confirmed that she hadn’t put any leeks inside, he finally approved of the meal. “It’s good now.”

Cheng Xi laughed. Seeing that the two of them were having a good time, she went to the living room to check up on Lin Fan. He was sleeping soundly, his breathing calm and his posture relaxed.

She didn’t wake him up. Instead, she returned to the dining room, poured herself a bowl of soup, and started eating together with them.

Baldy ate until he was perspiring all over his body—a thin sheen of sweat adorned his shiny head. Cheng Xi found his appearance surprisingly funny. She asked casually, “Is it tasty?”

Perfectly satisfied with the meal, Baldy forgot all about his annoyance towards her and praised her generously. “It’s great! Especially this beef jerky, ah, it’s super tasty! The meatballs aren’t too bad either. It’s only the dumplings that don’t have a great consistency—you probably left it in the fridge for too long.”

Cheng Xi smiled mysteriously. “No, I just added a little something to them.”

While the two were talking earlier, Baldy hadn’t spoken softly, so she’d overheard the sentence where Baldy was talking about how he was afraid that she would add something to their food.

Baldy didn’t feel a single hint of embarrassment at getting caught saying something behind her back. Instead, his only response was to laugh slyly, pick up a dumpling, and stuff it into his mouth. Then he turned around to look at Lu Chenzhou and blamed him shamelessly, “Who said that? Was it you, Zhou? How could you doubt Dr. Cheng like that? She helps the dying and heals the injured. She’s a veritable angel in white, a miraculous healer! How could she do something as despicable as messing with our food? Even suspecting her is profane, alright?”

Lu Chenzhou finished the last drop of soup in his bowl and wiped his mouth, completely ignoring Baldy.

Cheng Xi, on the other hand, was quite impressed. “You’re very difficult to deal with.”

Baldy clasped his hands together modestly. “I’m just a normal person.”

Cheng Xi was amused enough by his expression to start laughing. She dropped the topic, turned to Lu Chenzhou, and asked, “Did you really come find me for no reason?”

Lu Chenzhou was already starting to stack up his dirty plates; he couldn’t bear even a bit of messiness on the table. When he heard her question, he coolly replied, “He wanted to call you over and play mahjong with us.” His slender fingers pointed at Baldy.

Cheng Xi made an “Oh” sound, and then said, “Sorry, I can’t go. I have a meeting at the hospital at 7:30.”

Lu Chenzhou grunted, not saying anything else.

Baldy speared a steamed dumpling with his chopsticks, and then looked askance at Lu Chenzhou. “No? Just like that?” 

Tonight, Xu Po and the others had raised the stakes; if they managed to bring Cheng Xi over, then just based on her luck alone, they’d probably win a full casket’s worth of money, right?

But Lu Chenzhou was going to leave her here just because of some meeting?

Lu Chenzhou thought for a moment before saying, “Let’s have some tea.”

“……” Baldy couldn’t even think of a response.

Lu Chenzhou had already moved on. “Do you have any?”

His tone didn’t seem to have changed, but Cheng Xi could hear a bit of impatience in its undertones. He was really saying, “Don’t you know how to do anything? I even had to speak up and ask.” She found it somewhat funny, so she really did get up to brew tea for the two of them. Fortunately, she had a couple satchels of high-quality tea leaves that some friends and patients had gifted her, as well as a very nice tea set. It was another patient’s gift, the glaze the color of the sky after a heavy rain. Because she rarely drank tea, she had always treated it as a piece of art to be displayed on her cabinet.

She hadn’t planned on using it for this occasion, but Baldy spotted it instantly, knocking his chopsticks together and pointing at that tea set as he said, “Use that tea set, it’s good!”

He had surprisingly good eyes, but Cheng Xi didn’t mind. She put the set in her hands down and went for the one Baldy pointed out.

Lu Chenzhou glanced at it, but when his eyes landed on it, his body immediately stilled. Touching the exquisite tea set, Cheng Xi’s slender and white fingers looked staggeringly beautiful, like a ray of light shining through the grey fog and haze against the blue backdrop of a saturated sky after a spring rain.

Lu Chenzhou immediately recalled the visceral feel of that hand; it was warm, exquisite, and just like a piece of top-quality jade, it even left a calming scent afterwards. 

Without any warning, he…… got an erection.

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