Lady

In the end, Bian Jiaping didn't eat a single bite.

Ju Hui took him back to the hotel after 10 p.m. On the way, she bought him a phone charger. After charging and turning on the phone, she glanced at the notification bar on the screen saver and asked in confusion, "...You have a lot of missed calls. Should we call them back?"

Bian Jiaping urged her to go back: "It's okay, don't worry about it."

Ju Hui held up her phone: "Really not going? It's Uncle..."

Bian Shansong called.

Bian Jiaping perked up and took it:

"Why did it take you so long to answer the phone?"

Ju Hui heard a laugh, "Hey you little rascal, still trying to turn off the TV with me." After that, Bian's father started talking about how well Ju Hui's aunt and uncle took care of her. With melon seeds, fruit, and a TV, it was as lively as during the New Year. Ju Hui stood outside the radio waves, breathing lightly, as quiet as during the New Year.

Bian Shansong asked, "Have you come to Nanchang?"

Bian Jiaping said, "No, I'm very busy."

Bian Shansong clicked his tongue and said, "Then bring Xiaohui, book plane tickets, and come to meet the elders tomorrow! Come all dressed up!"

After saying that, he hung up.

Bian Jiaping tossed his phone onto the bedside table, rested his left elbow on his knee, rubbed his forehead, and said in a low voice, "Go back to sleep."

Ju Hui and Bian Jiaping have already missed the best opportunity to go to their aunt's house. Bian Jiaping has a stomach ailment, and Ju Hui can't handle four mouths all by herself. It would be better for them to escape back to Ruobei.

As soon as Ju Hui returned to her room, she checked her return flights. Before going to bed, she bought two tickets for flights landing in Daxing the next afternoon. After the payment was successful, Sheng Qijing popped up a message asking Ju Hui: "Why did you suddenly decide to return to China?"

Ju Hui: [If I told you, would you return Tianlu to me?]

Sheng Qijing: [Tell me the truth and I'll give it to you.]

[I'm afraid of growing old alone.]

[A lie.]

Ju Hui gritted her teeth. Shouldn't she be able to decide whether to tell the truth or lie? Sheng Qijing simply didn't want to give it to her. She turned over, stuffed her phone under her pillow, and closed her eyes to sleep.

The next day, Ju Hui was woken up by a phone call from her aunt, Ju Peilan.

“Xiao Hui, did you call your uncle yesterday? He saw it, but he was busy entertaining your Uncle Bian’s family and forgot to call back… And you, you didn’t even call us when you came back to China, we had to be told by others that you were back.”

Ju Hui nodded, glancing at the time in the upper right corner: 10 a.m. "Things were complicated when I got back to China, and I haven't had a chance to tell you yet, Aunt. What did you two talk about when you met?"

"What else can we talk about? We're all parents and elders, so it's definitely you two. Yesterday, Jia Ping's mother hugged Ke Ke with tears in her eyes, envying our large family. She also wants to hold her grandson... Hey, are you and Jia Ping arriving at noon or in the afternoon today? Should I cook for you?"

"No, Jiaping and I aren't going to your house—"

"Knock knock knock".

There was a knock on the door at just the right moment.

Ju Peilan smiled and said, "If you're not going home, you're planning to eat out. Have you and Jiaping made reservations?"

Ju Hui had no time to answer. She got up, put on her shoes, and went to the door to look through the peephole. It was pitch black. The person knocking on the door deliberately pressed down on the peephole with their hand.

At 8 a.m. this morning, there was a sudden knock on her door three times. Ju Hui was woken up and before she could fully react, the aunt outside the door introduced herself as a staff member delivering breakfast, explaining that the buffet restaurant was temporarily closed this morning and asking guests not to make a wasted trip.

Ju Hui didn't open the door to get it; the food should still be outside.

She covered the microphone of the phone and asked, "Who is it?"

"I."

It is Bian Jiaping.

"Jiaping's here to pick you up!" My aunt heard me. "Oh dear, you guys go ahead with your work, we'll wait for you—"

Ju Hui sighed. The screen briefly went dark and then lit up again. With her left hand, she opened the message Sheng Qijing had sent last night, while her right hand gripped the doorknob.

Sheng Qijing: [Are you afraid that Bian Jiaping will grow old alone?]

Ju Hui hissed. It was hard to describe the feeling of always being seen through by Sheng Qijing; it was probably a sense of fearlessness and powerlessness. Ju Hui thought about it for a while, but it had been so long that she couldn't remember when Sheng Qijing had come to understand her better than Bian Jiaping.

Ju Hui was indeed afraid that Bian Jiaping would die alone, so she had to return to China.

Bian Jiaping's stomach ulcers weren't a recent development. When Jiang Yiying mentioned his recent illness, she meant that his condition had only recently become so severe that he needed hospitalization. Ju Hui had chronic gastritis since university, with constant inflammation of the mucous membranes. Bian Jiaping ignored it and continued to burn pits into the ulcers with cigarettes, seemingly enjoying the process.

She returned to China so that Bian Jiaping would no longer rely on cigarettes to relieve his sorrow, but even after all this time, Bian Jiaping still hasn't mentioned Zeng Yue once.

Ju Hui opened the door, expecting Bian Jiaping to be crying and sadly talking to her about the past.

Behind the door, two tall figures stood. Bian Jiaping stood to the left, only his silvery temples visible. Sheng Qijing took another half step forward, his sharp black suit completely dominating Ju Hui's vision. He was no longer as aggressive as he had been the night before, but rather smug, like an evil capitalist who had made a small fortune from the artist termination fees of a gallery contract.

“Xiao Hui,” Sheng Qijing raised an eyebrow and smoothed the fur off her pillow, “Get ready, we’re going to meet your parents.”

-

According to Bian Jiaping, the next step for Ju Hui should be to visit her aunt's house to see the four elders as usual, but not with him, but with Sheng Qijing, who flew in from Shanghai.

Have a meal, chat, and play dumb.

Ju Hui repeatedly refused, which was no different from making her defecate in the street in Bayi Square! But Sheng Qijing seemed to yearn for this scene, and even though he felt the urge to defecate, he held it in and flew two hours to Nanchang to find her to defecate together.

Now only she and Sheng Qijing remain in the room.

Bian Jiaping had already checked out of the hotel. He received a text message from Ju Hui about the flight he had booked, but it conflicted with the flight he had booked earlier. He had already canceled the ticket and was flying to Ruobei at noon as originally planned.

Sheng Qijing stood in front of her, glanced at his watch, and said, "It's almost noon now. I've already made a reservation at the restaurant, and Cheng Yi has already gone to Aunt Ju's house to pick them up. Xiao Hui, when you meet the elders later, I think it's best if you don't call me by my full name."

"What should I call you, senior?" Ju Hui looked up at him and patted the bed next to her. "You like me calling you that the most when you're up here."

Standing next to Sheng Qijing, Bian Jiaping finally understood that health affects a person from the inside out. Bian Jiaping had his head slightly lowered; although he stood as straight as Sheng Qijing, he always looked a bit more hunched over, as if a gust of wind could blow him over on the road.

Having shaken off the gloom of the past few days, Sheng Qijing was in high spirits and in an unusually good mood. He barged into Ju Hui's presence, and she noticed that he had a small mole on his high nose bridge, which was more noticeable when he smiled.

“Your address of ‘senior’ sounds very nice,” Sheng Qijing said with a smile, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “We should go.”

Ju Hui suddenly grabbed his hand, her entire palm pinching his thumb and forefinger. His knuckles were prominent, and the calluses on his fingertips had long since disappeared, replaced by four oval shapes worn from lifting weights on his palm, like a dog's big pink paws.

The thin indentation left by the high school knowledge on Ju Hui's middle finger has completely disappeared. Now, that spot has become the softest and tenderest piece of flesh on her palm. Rubbing it against her pink hand can make her itch from the fingertip to the tip.

“Let’s go back to Shanghai,” Ju Hui said, leading him back to the kiss in front of the loft, guiding his index finger across her cheek, chin, and lips. “Take me to see Tianlu. Tonight, we’ll keep it company.”

Ju Hui imitated him and squeezed his hand.

Sheng Qijing smiled but remained silent.

"What about the yawning kitten?"

"Then let's go to Jingdezhen, and go to Master Li's kiln to pack up the kitten and bring it back to Shanghai. Senior, I miss my vine-covered window screen..."

Sheng Qijing smiled gently. No matter how cold Ju Hui's face was usually, she was still soft to the touch. He stroked her full orbicularis oris muscle with his thumb again and again. She was more beautiful than any other person he had ever sculpted.

After a long pause, Sheng Qijing withdrew his hand, looked into her eyes, and hummed in agreement: "Let's go."

...

Sheng Qijing turned off his phone.

Ju Hui pretended not to notice and took Sheng Qijing in a taxi to her aunt Ju Peilan's apartment building—to eat mixed rice noodles. Ju Hui didn't want to come to the most dangerous enemy's residence, but this mixed rice noodle place was the best in the world.

The small shop is hidden in a residential building. Ju Hui hadn't eaten there for many years. The bright red signboard under the clothes rack had fallen to pink, and the price of pink had increased by 50 cents. Now it's 3.5 yuan a serving.

Ju Hui was really hungry. Sheng Qijing only needed a bowl of noodles and a bowl of preserved egg and meatball soup, but she added a tea egg for herself, intending to mash it up and mix it into the noodles to neutralize the oiliness.

The rice noodles are scalded in hot water, then poured into a bowl. Sesame oil, chili oil, small red chilies, chopped green onions, cilantro, peanuts, and two chopsticks are added and mixed together. Ju Hui licked her lips, inwardly thanking the owner for the generous amount of sesame oil.

Ju Hui wouldn't let Sheng Qijing get the rice noodles for her, afraid of getting them mixed up. She couldn't eat anything too spicy, but the more sesame oil, the better.

Just as Ju Hui thought her bowl of noodles was unbeatable, Sheng Qijing also returned carrying his heavy, oily bowl of noodles, perfectly garnished with peanuts and cilantro.

The boss saw that he was tall and handsome, so he added an extra ounce of powder to his makeup.

But Sheng Qijing didn't seem to like it; there was no joy in his eyes. After taking two or three bites, he put down his food and went to drink his soup.

Sheng Qijing pinched the porcelain spoon with three fingers and scooped it up spoonful by spoonful, slowly and deliberately. After a while, he didn't even drink the soup anymore. He put down the spoon and asked Ju Hui, "You haven't eaten this for so many years. Do you still want to eat it now?"

"I think about it every day!" Ju Hui felt that Sheng Qijing lacked emotional intelligence. The tables around them were crowded, and his question made all the locals in the room perk up their ears, ready to be scolded. "Besides, I've been eating this all these years. I buy instant rice noodles from Chinese supermarkets abroad and eat them in stores when I come back to China."

Sheng Qijing nodded.

Ju Hui put down her chopsticks and continued, "But if I really hadn't eaten this for many years, I probably wouldn't have brought you here today. Like that Lay's squid-flavored wavy potato chips that I used to love eating when we went to the movies, I don't buy them anymore."

"Because you haven't eaten it in so long?"

Ju Hui frowned: "The Chinese Super League won't sell them, and when they finally do, they're incredibly expensive!"

Sheng Qijing smiled, then looked down at the oil on the bowl and the red chili peppers on the pickled vegetables. It turned out that Ju Hui also missed something from back home.

Sheng Qijing scooped up a spoonful of soup: "It's a pity that potato chips lost out because of distance and price."

The preserved egg and pork patty soup is very flavorful, and it is more palatable to Sheng Qijingkou than the rice noodles. He is now used to eating a light diet with low salt and low oil, which is a necessary requirement for maintaining a low-fat diet and not becoming too muscular.

It was also a necessary requirement to maintain close contact with Ju Hui; she liked his physique.

"No, no." Ju Hui shook her head. She thought about it carefully. "It's not because of the distance or the price, it's because I don't like it enough. If I really liked potato chips, I wouldn't allow myself to go without them for a long time. I would buy them no matter how far or how expensive they were, and I would even make a special trip back to China to eat them. Like this bowl of noodles, even though mixed noodles are quite expensive in Chinese supermarkets, and instant noodles aren't chewy enough and the taste is a bit off, I'm still willing to buy them. I've bought all the major brands. Even if the noodles I buy today are super bad, I'll still buy them the next day. I won't be defeated because I've tasted the best version of it. I like it from the bottom of my heart. Sheng Qijing, do you understand? This bowl of noodles has completely captivated me!"

Ju Hui saw a dark and ambiguous emotion in Sheng Qijing's eyes, as if he pitied her and mocked her. She couldn't reason with this outsider. After slurping up two mouthfuls of noodles, she got up to leave.

Splash!

Ju Hui felt a group of people around her get up, their chairs were pulled out, she winked at them, and then they all sat down again.

Ju Hui wiped her mouth clean and didn't think much of it. Just as she stepped out the door, a female student suddenly called out to her. She had overheard their conversation and asked if it would be convenient for Ju Hui to exchange contact information. She was a local student studying at a university in the north and could only go home during the National Day holiday. She also wanted to know which brand of mixed rice noodles was the best.

Ju Hui readily agreed and took out her phone, just as a call came in.

Contact person: Aunt.

The female student said, "Please answer the phone first."

"It's okay." Ju Hui laid the phone down. "Just wait a bit, until it hangs up."

beep--

Beep beep—

"Xiao Hui!"

Ju Hui's scalp felt a little looser.

She heard Aunt Rong's voice.