Chapter 122: Contract with Sugar
In the kitchen, the atmosphere was like a powder keg.
Zhao Chen stood with his back to the door, his weathered Shiba Inu apron tied around his waist. The table in front of him was a mess.
The incredibly expensive Périgord black truffles were chopped into various sized pieces, clearly absentminded, alongside slices of ginger, scallions, and opened bottles of premium butter scattered across the table. The main item, free-range chicken, lay pathetically in the drain basket by the sink, untouched.
He held the chef's knife tightly in his hand, and the tip of the knife unconsciously scratched the chopping board, making a teeth-grinding "squeaking" sound.
He casually pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up to his forehead, revealing a pair of bloodshot eyes filled with great pain, struggle, and a hint of panic that was about to collapse!
Yu Ling's desperate face in the study, her trembling fingertips pressing on the agreement, the words "What are you going to do?"...all played in his mind like crazy! Every image was like a red-hot knife, stabbing into his heart!
It’s not that he doesn’t want to answer!
No!
He had signed this rotten contract himself! It was a trap he had dug just to get close to her! It was the core of his "playing the pig to eat the tiger" scheme! He loved her! He loved her to the bone! He loved her so much he could poke a hole in the sky for her!
But the time hadn't come for this damn "ordinary employee" to be torn off yet! His carefully planned "confession" was still going according to plan! He couldn't just use the "billionaire" persona to answer her questions now! That would be the end of it! It would scare her away!
Can……
Watching her suffer, doubt, and cry because of that broken contract...that was more painful than torturing him a hundred times!
He had just run away on instinct! Like a coward! He had left her alone to face that cold piece of paper!
A huge feeling of powerlessness and panic wrapped around him like a venomous snake! What should he do? Show his hand now? No! The time is not right yet! Keep pretending? Watch her heart break? He couldn't bear it!
"Bang!"
A muffled sound!
Zhao Chen lost control and slammed his fist down on the cold, hard marble countertop! His knuckles ached, but he couldn't suppress the torment in his heart! The truffle crumbs on the cutting board bounced up from the shock.
He scratched his hair in frustration, knocking his glasses askew. He turned around abruptly to grab a glass of water to calm himself, but his movements were so chaotic that he lost his aim and slammed his elbow into a large, open glass jar filled with snow-white frosting.
Clang! Crash—!!!
The glass jar collapsed with a crash! Like an avalanche, half the jar of fine frosting poured out like a white waterfall! It covered the pile of expensive black truffle crumbs on the countertop with incredible precision! It also coated his aching right hand, which had just hit the countertop, with a thick layer of "white glove"!
Black and white.
Expensive truffles and cheap frosting.
They blended together in an instant, becoming sticky, dirty, and turned into a horrible "disaster scene"!
Zhao Chen looked at the "truffle icing mudslide" he had created, a thousand times more devastating than a fondant cake, and then looked at his right hand, covered in icing, wearing a "white glove"...
A huge, absurd, evil fire mixed with despair and self-mockery rushed to his forehead!
"Hehe...hehe..." He laughed softly, his laughter was hoarse and sad, with a bit of the madness of being at the end of his rope.
He raised his right hand, which was covered in icing sugar, and smeared it across his face. The icing became even more even, and with the crooked glasses on his forehead and his bloodshot eyes, he looked as miserable as if he had just crawled out of the ruins of a flour mill explosion.
Truffle?
contract?
future?
Fuck him!
All he wanted now was to rush back to the study, hug the crying little woman curled up on the carpet, and tell her everything! Tell her that he loved her madly! Tell her that he had thrown the contract into the shredder and turned it into shreds! Tell her that he was not an "ordinary employee" at all, he was...
no!
The last bit of rationality was like a steel wire that held back his impending collapse! Timing! Damn timing! He had prepared for so long, he couldn't let it go to waste!
Just when Zhao Chen was about to explode from the pain and dilemma—
"puff……"
A chuckle that was suppressed but still leaked out, like heavenly music, rang out at the kitchen door.
Zhao Chen was instantly petrified! His frosted hands froze in mid-air, his face, covered in powdered sugar, was filled with shock and astonishment! His neck twisted with a creaking sound, as if it were rusted.
Yu Ling had been standing at the kitchen doorway for who knows when. Her face was still stained with tears, and her eyes and nose were red, clearly having just cried bitterly.
But now, she was covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking like sieves from trying to hold back her laughter, her eyes, washed by tears, were surprisingly bright, filled with a huge sense of absurdity and a kind of...helplessness that was almost doting?
Her eyes swept across the pile of truffles "buried alive" in icing sugar on the workbench, across Zhao Chen's "white gloves" and "Peking Opera face", and finally landed on the pair of wobbly gold-rimmed glasses on his forehead.
"Chef Zhao... Chef Zhao..." Yu Ling's voice was intermittent with a strong nasal tone and an uncontrollable smile, "You... your 'Truffle Chicken Stew'... are you planning to develop a new dessert? Or do you want to use icing sugar to pickle the truffles... into a family heirloom? To pass it down to your children and grandchildren?" A precise finishing blow.
Zhao Chen: “…………”
He looked at the bizarre scene of Yu Ling's face, the lingering tears mixed with her now radiant smile. He felt his own utter disgrace and the "kitchen tragedy" she had discovered... A huge sense of shame and a sense of ecstasy at having survived instantly consumed him! She wasn't gone! She was still here! And she was smiling?!
"I...I..." Zhao Chen opened his mouth, his frosted lips moving, but he couldn't even hold back a fart. Like a child caught stealing candy, he stood there at a loss, frosting dripping from his hair.
Yu Ling stopped smiling. She lowered her hand and walked into the kitchen, ignoring the mess of icing sugar and the pile of truffles that had "sacrificed heroically."
She walked straight to Zhao Chen, raised her little face, and looked at his handsome face covered with white powder and words like "It's over" and "Please spare me".
She reached out, not disdaining the frosting on his hands, and gently, very tenderly, took off the pair of gold-rimmed glasses that were crooked and about to fall off his forehead. She then took out a small silk handkerchief from her apron pocket (who knows when she had put it there) and carefully wiped the frosting off his face and hands.
Her movements were slow, careful, and almost reverent. Her fingertips brushed across his furrowed brow, his frosted eyelashes, and his thin lips, which were pursed into a line due to nervousness.
"That agreement..." Yu Ling said softly as she wiped it. Her voice was not loud, but every word struck Zhao Chen's heart. "...It's quite old. The paper is yellowed."
Zhao Chen's body shuddered violently! His heart almost jumped out of his throat!
Yu Ling raised her eyes, her clear gaze looking straight into his panic-stricken eyes, and the corners of her mouth slowly curled up into a very faint arc, but with a penetrating understanding and a hint of unconcealable sweetness:
"It seems... Mr. Zhao has taken it out to 'review' it quite a few times? It's almost become patinaed."
boom--!
Zhao Chen felt a surge of hot blood rushing from the soles of his feet to the top of his head! His ears were buzzing! She...she saw it! She saw the traces of the agreement being flipped through! She guessed it!
The panic of having a corner of his huge secret exposed and the shame of being completely seen through made him red from his neck to his ears in an instant!
He wanted to quibble, to cover up, but when he met Yu Ling's clear and smiling eyes that seemed to be able to tolerate all his embarrassment and secrets, all the words were stuck in his throat!
Yu Ling looked at his instantly flushed face and his ears that were about to smoke, and the smile in her eyes deepened, with complete indulgence. She wiped the gold-rimmed glasses clean and put them back on him steadily.
Then she bent down and picked up a small handful of black truffle crumbs that were not completely "tainted" by the icing sugar from the messy workbench with her fingertips.
She pinched the extremely expensive and overbearingly fragrant black crumbs and gently placed them in Zhao Chen's warm palm, which was slightly stained with icing sugar.
Her fingertips were slightly cool as they brushed across his palm.
"The contract is about to expire, Mr. Zhao." Her voice was still soft, but it carried a strange, reassuring power. Her eyes fell on the "mixture" of truffles and icing sugar in his palm:
"Are you planning to let this 'Truffle Contract' expire?"
She paused slightly, raised her eyes, and met Zhao Chen's suddenly breathless, frighteningly bright eyes filled with great expectation and disbelief. She opened her red lips slightly, and word by word, clearly and gently, threw out the answer he had dreamed of:
"…Or, add some icing sugar and make it into… a 'sweet treaty' that never expires?"
Zhao Chen stared intently at the truffle crumbs in his palm, a symbol of a cold contract, and the snow-white frosting covering them, representing a sweet future. Then he suddenly looked up at the woman before him, tears still wet, her smile as warm and brilliant as the sun tearing through the haze...
All the struggles, all the panic, all the disguises, at this moment, are reduced to ashes!
A boiling torrent with the power to destroy the world instantly broke through all the dams of his rationality!
He couldn't hold it in any longer, and suddenly stretched out his arms, fiercely and tightly holding this clever, cunning, and gentle little woman who made his heart tremble! The force was so strong that it seemed as if he wanted to crush her into pieces and embed her into his bones, never to be separated for the rest of his life!
"Lingling..." His voice was hoarse and out of tune, filled with overwhelming ecstasy and endless sobs. The hot tears finally rushed out and slammed into her neck.
"Add icing sugar... Add! Add it for a lifetime! If it's not enough... in the next life... in the next life... marinate it thoroughly! Marinate it into candied fruit!"
The overbearing aroma of truffles, the cheap sweetness of icing sugar, mixed with the salty taste of tears, filled the chaotic kitchen.
Yu Ling was nearly suffocated by him, but a smile of relief and happiness broke out on her face. She reached out and hugged his broad, icing-covered, slightly trembling back tightly.
contract?
maturity?
Fuck it.
Her "ordinary husband" gave her the most clumsy and sweetest answer with a "nuclear explosion" of frosting in the kitchen and an old agreement that had been "discussed".
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