Chapter 30 Picking vegetables in the field
Walking along the narrow stone path behind the house, the afterglow of the setting sun dyed the fields a warm orange-gold color.
Tomato vines twined around the bamboo trellis, hanging with clusters of plump fruits in red, yellow, green, and purplish-red.
The long, purple eggplants glistened with an oily sheen beneath their broad leaves, while the emerald green cucumber vines climbed freely, their tips adorned with delicate yellow blossoms.
The air here is completely different from the cold, mechanical smell in the laboratory; it's filled with the fresh scent of earth and plants.
Huo Nanchen took a worn-out straw hat from the tool shed by the field and handed it to her.
"Put it on, the sun is still very strong."
"No need," she said softly. "It's very comfortable to sunbathe like this."
She casually tied her loose hair into a low bun, tilted her head slightly, and let the warm sunlight fall on her fair face, feeling the warmth brought by the sunset.
Huo Nanchen didn't insist any further and put on the straw hat himself. The wide brim of the hat cast a shadow on his face, revealing only his well-defined, perfectly curved jawline.
He picked up a small bamboo basket from the side and began walking between the ridges of the field.
"Did you plant all of these?" Lin Xili couldn't help but ask.
Huo Nanchen paused in his cucumber-picking motion, then picked a cucumber with its flower and thorns still attached and placed it in his bamboo basket.
“Grandma grew them.” He straightened up. “The old lady said it’s good for your health to exercise. In this small town, everyone grows their own vegetables.”
It turns out that Grandma Huo not only loves growing flowers, but also loves growing vegetables.
"What do you want to eat?" he suddenly turned around and asked, looking at her.
Lin Xili was suddenly taken aback.
What do you want to eat?
In the Lin family, the dishes on the dining table are always prepared according to the preferences of the parents, brother, and sister.
No one ever asked her: Lin Xili, what do you want to eat?
Even if she mentioned what she wanted to eat, her mother would never take it to heart.
Looking at the vibrant greenery before her, she felt momentarily lost and bewildered.
"I... am fine with anything."
Huo Nanchen glanced at her quietly, seeing through the unease behind her "anything is fine".
"Then let's pick some cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and two eggplants." He made the decision for her.
"Okay." Lin Xili nodded.
She took a deep breath and, mimicking him, walked to the tomato vines laden with purplish-red fruit.
She reached out to pick the bunch of yellow eggplants in front of her. However, the moment her fingertips touched the fruit, she was pricked by the fine hairs on the vine and pulled back.
She had never done these things before; the vegetables she knew were either on dinner plates or on supermarket shelves.
Looking at her own fair and slender hands, and then at the downy hairs on the vines, she was at a loss as to how to begin.
Just as she was at a loss, a hand reached out from her side and grabbed her wrist, which was hanging in mid-air, without any warning.
His broad palm, with calloused fingertips, covered her wrist, and a surge of heat instantly ignited from her wrist, coursing through her limbs and bones.
Lin Xili's body froze instantly.
He took her hand and led her closer to the cluster of yellow fruit.
“From here.” His deep voice sounded in her ear, with a hint of warm breath, “Pinch the stem a little above it and twist gently.”
His palm then covered the back of her hand, gently applying pressure to her hand.
With a soft "snap," a bunch of plump, yellow cherry tomatoes landed perfectly in her palm.
Lin Xili lowered her head, looking at the beautiful yellow stain in her palm, and her heart began to pound uncontrollably.
That steady, powerful heartbeat, one beat after another, was completely different from the panicked palpitations brought on by hyperthyroidism.
"Did you get it?" He released his hand and took a half step back, creating an excessively intimate distance between them.
The warmth that enveloped her vanished abruptly, and a barely perceptible sense of loss swept through Lin Xili's heart.
“…Hmm.” She placed the bunch of tomatoes into the bamboo basket, trying to make her voice sound calm and even.
She started trying it herself, but at first she either squeezed too hard and squeezed out the juice, or she didn't find the right spot and pulled off a large section of vine. But gradually, she found the knack, and her movements became a little more skillful.
She would occasionally look up and steal a glance at Huo Nanchen not far away.
He was bending down to pick eggplants, and the setting sun cast a soft golden glow on his profile.
Sweat trickled down his long neck and soaked into his dark cotton T-shirt.
It was clearly ordinary rural labor, but the way he did it exuded an indescribable air of nobility.
This person seems to have never been born to be in this rural field.
She thought of Grandma Huo's manner of speaking and her character, and perhaps Grandma Huo had taught him too well.
Such a man, impeccable in both looks and manners, is unable to find a partner for a long time because of his rural background. He agrees to her method of marriage to appease his elders.
For some reason, she felt a pang of sadness for him.
"You've picked enough." Huo Nanchen walked up to her with a half-full bamboo basket. "Go back now."
"Okay, sure." Lin Xili followed silently behind him, without saying a word the whole way.
Back in the small building, Huo Nanchen placed the bamboo basket next to the tap under the eaves. He first picked out the bunches of cherry tomatoes one by one, filled a basin with clean water, and carefully washed them.
He washed them very carefully, rubbing each one between his fingers, rinsing them with clean water, draining them, and finally putting them into the same small, round bamboo basket he had used before.
"Have something to eat first." He handed the bamboo basket to Lin Xili. "Dinner won't be ready for a while."
Lin Xili took the chair but didn't eat it immediately. Instead, she walked to the rocking chair under the eaves and sat down.
The courtyard was quiet, with only the sounds of Huo Nanchen chopping vegetables and stirring the pan coming from the kitchen as he prepared dinner.
Lin Xili picked up a purple tomato and put it in her mouth. With a gentle bite, the sweet juice burst in her mouth, carrying a unique taste of sunshine and earth.
The taste was so authentic; it was unlike any fruit she had ever eaten before.
She ate them one after another, as if trying to etch this real and vivid feeling firmly into her memory.
She watched the busy figure in the kitchen.
He was very tall, and even in the spacious kitchen of the farmhouse, he appeared upright.
He rolled up his sleeves, revealing his strong, well-defined forearms, and methodically processed the vegetables he had just brought back from the field.
Dinner was simple: stir-fried cucumber with tofu, garlic-flavored lettuce, and braised eggplant with pork.
The rice was freshly harvested and steamed to perfection, with each grain distinct and fragrant.
After the meal, Huo Nanchen didn't let her do anything and cleaned up the dishes himself.
Lin Xili sat back down in the rocking chair under the eaves, watching the last bit of daylight in the courtyard being swallowed by the night, and the stars lighting up one by one.
The summer night breeze carries the coolness of the fields, dispelling the daytime heat.
With the neighbor's dog barking twice and the distant croaking of frogs, everything was so quiet it felt unreal.
Lin Xili hugged her knees, rested her chin on them, and stared unfocusedly at the distant night sky.
That laboratory, those instruments—it was in his way that he left a window for her ideals.
This vegetable garden, this dinner—it was in his way that he pulled her back from the suspended mid-air to the real world.
At that moment, she suddenly realized, what did it matter whether he came from the countryside or not?
She has plenty of money and doesn't have to worry about the daily necessities of life. How many men in this world can be like him, who incorporate a sense of responsibility and respect into every aspect of their daily lives?
The sound of water in the kitchen stopped.
Huo Nanchen wiped his hands and came out. Without turning on the light, he sat down on another bamboo chair next to Lin Xili.
In the darkness, his outline was indistinct, only the crisp scent of ambergris wafted into her nose on the evening breeze.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
"What do you want to learn tomorrow?" he suddenly asked.
Lin Xili was stunned for a moment, and her heart trembled slightly.
"Learn...what?"
"Picking vegetables: Today I learned how to pick tomatoes, tomorrow I can learn how to pick cucumbers or eggplants. Occasional gardening can relieve stress and calm the mind."
De-stress and calm down.
Lin Xili recalled his words of advice before she drank the iodine water: "If you have a tendency to depression, you should keep a cheerful mood."
She suddenly turned her head, and in the dim starlight, his expression remained indifferent, as if he were simply treating her as a patient who needed a doctor's intervention for treatment.
It turns out that he was using this most simple and unpretentious method to guide her step by step out of the shadows in her mind.
She opened her mouth, but her throat felt blocked and dry, and she could only manage to squeeze out one word: "Okay."
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