79 Chapter Seventy-Eight

◎The deepest affection in Fengtan. ◎

She replied: Meow meow.

The reply came quickly from the other end: Meow meow meow meow, meow.

Li Yingqiao was taken aback and replied: ?

D321: Waiting for you to come home, hurry.

***

It snowed in Little Painting Town without any warning.

It's earlier than usual, only early December. But snow in the south is just a flurry of activity; the snowflakes are as fine as grains of salt, quickly melting into the footprints of pedestrians, leaving no trace of the heavy snow.

As Li Yingqiao stepped inside, salt grains began to fall from outside, the rain pattering against the window, as if to simmer the broth of a year's worth of life, and then cover it up.

In previous years, she always felt that time went by too fast and achievements came too slowly. Winter was her least favorite season because expenses always doubled and she was particularly greedy.

But this year is different, because this year I can eat hot pot with Yu Jinyang.

However, upon meeting someone, they greeted each other with, "Hello, are you off work?"

Li Yingqiao stood at the door, her hands in the pockets of her camel-colored coat, suppressing a laugh and remaining silent.

Tang Xiang was looking around for extra chairs when she passed by and saw her son acting up. She punched him from behind and said, "Go get Qiaoqiao some slippers."

Yu Jinyang had actually been holding it in his hand for a while. With his broad shoulders and sturdy back, he blocked the doorway, determined to tease her. He stood firmly against the door frame, holding up his slippers and looking down at her with a smile, saying, "Why didn't you say hi to me?"

She remembered how she used to tease him on WeChat, and realized she couldn't give him any openings.

"You're not good, don't be so mean." Li Yingqiao glared at him, then stepped on his instep and went inside barefoot.

The dishes had been heated several times, and the fish maw chicken was finally turned off the heat. When the lid was lifted, steam was rising from the pot, filling the restaurant with a misty atmosphere.

As soon as the food was served, Yu Jinyang revealed a well-known secret. Yu Renjie picked up a piece of fish maw chicken that he had painstakingly stewed for two hours and said expressionlessly, "I know, is there anyone in this little painting city who doesn't know it? It doesn't sound as fresh as my fish maw chicken."

Ice Cream Cone is usually well-behaved, but she's a bit distracted when it comes to eating. She used to need to be fed, and if she wasn't fed, she wouldn't eat. Even if she wasn't eating, she would still try to make her presence known at the dinner table, asking with great curiosity about the adult world, "Brother, are boyfriends and girlfriends like Mom and Dad?"

One of the older brothers casually took a large chicken leg from Yu Renjie's bowl, put it in his sister's bowl, glanced at Li Yingqiao, and said, "Not yet, it still needs a stamp. Once it's stamped, it'll be done."

“Just get the stamp done,” Yu Renjie said in a high-pitched voice, mimicking his tone with a smirk. “To be honest, you’re not nearly as handsome as your dad was back then, but you’re more confident than him.”

Yu Jinyang didn't even lift his eyelids. "How can you be as confident as me? I'm the most affectionate person in Fengtan."

Li Yingqiao almost choked on her food, coughing violently from the choking.

Yu Jinyang hadn't expected this to hit a nerve with her. Li Yingqiao had always been able to laugh for ages at the slightest thing. Half a day after he finished telling a joke, she would suddenly start laughing, and while laughing, she liked to pinch him.

He pulled out a tissue and handed it to him: "Is that funny? I should have told you sooner."

Back then, Tang Xiang brought him to her home, then abandoned him to return to Hainan. Yu Renjie cried, made a scene, and even threatened suicide, finally gritting his teeth and saying: "Tang Xiang, you will definitely regret this."

Tang Xiang asked him what he regretted.

Yu Renjie said firmly, "You will never meet someone as handsome as me who also loves you as much. Anyone more handsome than me isn't as affectionate, and anyone more affectionate than me isn't as handsome. Do you dare to bet with me?"

Tang Xiang and her son Yu Jinyang have kept the same WeChat nickname for Yu Renjie all these years: "The Deepest Affection in Fengtan".

Li Yingqiao burst out laughing.

As Yu Renjie and Tang Xiang left, Yu Renjie inexplicably put on a scarf in the entryway and retorted, "How dare you. You've only ever had Crystal Love jelly since you were a kid, you only eat half-and-half hot pot, and you only use your grandfather's old tissues to wipe your butt. Tell me, isn't that deep affection?"

Tang Xiang couldn't stand it anymore and said perfunctorily, "Alright, alright, you're first, he's second. Without you two 'deeply affectionate brothers' protecting us, the people of Fengtan would be extinct like dinosaurs, okay?"

The ice cream cone immediately concluded: the dinosaurs went extinct because they weren't affectionate enough.

After they left, Li Yingqiao laughed so hard she fell off the table and landed on her bottom on the floor. Finally, she lay on Yu Jinyang's lap, unable to calm herself down, and could only pinch his thigh hard, yelling, "Are you crazy? Are you crazy?!"

Yu Jinyang lazily stretched out his legs and leaned back in his chair, letting her laugh and pinch him. At the same time, he was afraid that she would hit her head on the table, so he had to use his hand to protect her head. He said in a teasing tone, "Have you laughed enough? Come out and play for a while."

In return, Yu Jinyang received a heavy blow to his thigh. He suddenly felt a sharp pain; the pinch had really hurt. Leaning back in his chair, he tilted his head back and hissed as he gasped for breath. "You, Li Yingqiao, is this how you treat me when I come back?"

He bent down to pick the person up from the ground, but Li Yingqiao turned around and crawled out from the other side of the round table, only to be blocked by someone against the wine cabinet next to the dining table.

Their eyes met, and the room suddenly fell silent. The previous liveliness was gone, leaving only the two of them. After they stopped talking, they could still hear salt particles tapping on the window.

Yu Jinyang looked down at her quietly, his gaze sweeping from top to bottom. With his parents present, he hadn't dared to be too bold.

Li Yingqiao was dressed in all black, a black turtleneck neatly wrapped around her neck, supporting her sharp chin. He didn't even look down, leaning against the wine cabinet door and blurting out, "Why have you lost weight?"

Yu Jinyang has also lost weight. Li Yingqiao was about to say something when she realized that he had already said it first, and saying anything more would seem like a perfunctory response.

She noticed he had lost a lot of weight as soon as she entered. His eyebrows were sharply defined, and his lips seemed thinner, giving him a sharp, clean look. His bone structure and heroic features were more prominent, making him appear more mature and aloof. His hair seemed to have been cut on set, and it looked quite different from when they met again at the barbershop. Apparently, that haircut had really made him look much worse.

She suddenly remembered what Gao Dian had told her: a few years ago he was devastatingly handsome, and after starting university, his life was incredibly exciting; one girl even jumped off a slow, green train for him—

Li Yingqiao touched her cheek. "It's alright." She then reached out her hand so he could hug her and feel it for himself. "I'm not that light."

Yu Jinyang didn't hug her. He silently turned around and started tidying up the dishes, then threw them into the stainless steel sink.

The sink was gushing with water, and the dishes and chopsticks were being washed and scattered.

There was a moment of frozen silence in the room; the sound of water had been turned off at some point, and there was no other sound.

In the dim and quiet space, there were only the soft rustling sounds of clothes rubbing together and the occasional, intermittent kisses that couldn't be suppressed between taking off clothes.

The sound was unprecedented, heavy and dense, as if it wanted to swallow the other person up.

Li Yingqiao seemed to have never experienced Yu Jinyang being so assertive.

[Author's Note]

It's not my truck, it's just that I'm afraid it will get locked. I need to figure out how to drive it properly.

That's all for today. I'll take a break tomorrow, and the next update will be the day after tomorrow. I'll try my best to update on time.

Currently, it's three shifts a day and one day off, but we'll adjust it later depending on the situation.

This one's a red envelope too. [Pity][Pity][Pity]