Congee hot pot originated in Yuecheng, and is mostly made with fruit juice, vegetable juice, and chicken broth, but the restaurant they are dining at tonight has its own unique style.
There's no beef, which is a popular choice, nor is there any relatively luxurious seafood. The soup base is just one type: a whole duck that has been simmered with various spices in advance, plus a white porridge that has been stewed until very soft.
Once Xue Jing realized that his presumptuous speculations were quite different from reality, he lost the desire to speak. He remained silent like a mute, not only lacking the motivation to speak, but also feeling that he had lost his appetite for dinner in the past ten minutes.
Especially after placing an order, Ha Yue's phone suddenly rang, and she started to busy herself with her phone, frequently replying to messages.
The thought that she might be talking to Lou Zhiyun, or another man in her fishpond management team, made him regret his decision that afternoon even more.
We shouldn't have eaten together, we shouldn't have seen each other again, and adding "shouldn't" to "shouldn't" makes it "absolutely wrong."
Perhaps Ha Yue and Lou Zhiyun are a good match, so what kind of unexpected obstacle is he?
At least Lou Zhiyun knew she had a small shop; everything he knew was probably fake.
After we sat facing each other and drank a glass of water, a short while later, the waiter brought a copper pot and placed it into the gas stove in the center of the table.
With a slight stench of hydrogen sulfide, the sudden heat from the ignition swept across Xue Jing's eyelashes like a shockwave. He rubbed his itchy lashes, then opened his eyes again to see the blue flames beneath the pot blazing fiercely.
To avoid burning the bottom of the pot, Ha Yue finally put down her phone and picked up a large stainless steel spoon to slowly stir the rice porridge in the pot.
She was just chatting with Aunt Siqin to inquire about her mother's diet and mood tonight. She had specifically reminded her that Zhao Chunni had been in a bad mood lately, and hoped that the neighbor would be understanding if the two of them had a falling out.
But there's a limit to understanding. She knew that having the neighbor stay with her mother indefinitely wasn't a long-term solution, and she needed to come up with a practical one. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after, but certainly not today.
Suppressing her negative emotions tightly, Ha Yue still treated Xue Jing with the same warm and welcoming demeanor as a friendly old classmate. "Did you catch a cold when you went back that day? You probably had a cough. The barbecue was too spicy, so after thinking about it, I decided to eat something light. This place is a well-established brand in Suicheng. Although it's not as authentic as the one run by the Shunde boss near the entrance of Jida University, the taste is still pretty good."
"Duck meat nourishes yin and clears heat; you can try some in a bit."
Since it was already cooked, within minutes, layers of milky white and translucent waves rolled out of the pot.
The aroma of rice mingles with the fragrance of meat, and the steam is filled with a rich and mellow flavor.
Ha Yue first served Xue Jing a bowl, sprinkling only chopped green onions and no cilantro, because Xue Jing doesn't eat cilantro.
Not only does he not eat cilantro, Xue Jing also dislikes all the ginger shreds, chili seeds, garlic cloves and peppercorns that are used as garnishes in food. If he accidentally puts them in his mouth, his whole face will scrunch up like a snowflake.
Therefore, he always ate slowly and deliberately, never in a hurried or wolfing-down manner.
In the past, Ha Yue had harshly mocked him for his spoiled nature, saying that if he were in the old society, he would definitely be a playboy.
They are not particular about the finest food, nor about the finest preparation; they are lazy and do not know the difference between the five grains.
He was picky because he had never truly experienced hunger.
But today, Ha Yue not only carefully skimmed the foam off the broth in the pot for him, but also gently told him when she placed the steaming white porridge on his side, "The duck was cooked with ginger water."
The implication is that he can drink it without worry, without the risk of accidentally swallowing ginger slices.
"Thanks."
With a flicker of his eyes, Xue Jing uttered only this one sentence before finding it difficult to meet Ha Yue's gaze again.
There seemed to be something different between them, yet nothing at all; this familiar sense of strangeness made his attention wander too much.
A lump rose in his throat, and faced with Ha Yue's relaxed and effortless attitude, he found it difficult to ask anything, whether he could or couldn't.
It was the same before; the progress of their relationship was entirely controlled by Ha Yue.
His opinion doesn't count at the beginning or the end.
The warm rice porridge soothed her heart, liver, and lungs, and her stiff body gradually warmed up. Only after the waiter poured mushroom broth into the copper pot did Ha Yue begin to talk about the purpose of her dinner invitation while waiting for the water to boil and the vegetables to be cooked.
She didn't mind Xue Jing's taciturn nature. After putting down her spoon, she looked directly at him with a graceful demeanor, her bright eyes and gleaming teeth revealing her heart full of relief and gratitude for his keeping his appointment tonight.
"I thought you wouldn't agree to have dinner with me before you left, but I'm so glad you came."
"Really?" Xue Jing also looked up, and his heart skipped a beat under the other person's bright gaze. He hesitated, wondering if he should also say that he was happy too, out of politeness.
However, Ha Yue didn't need his agreement and quickly continued the conversation.
"Yes." Ha Yue nodded readily, then solemnly apologized to him, "Although I thought that so much time had passed and you probably wouldn't care anymore, since we have the opportunity to meet, I still want to apologize to you."
"When we broke up, I said a lot of cruel things to you, most of which were against my will. Our breakup was entirely my fault, not because of your work, nor because of whether you planned to continue writing after graduation."
Where should a bad woman begin her self-reflection to be appropriate?
Couples in love can freely explore each other's past and future, throwing tantrums and making a scene everywhere. But when talking to an ex-partner, starting with their personal life story can come across as self-pitying. So why not start with the very first lie they told each other?
"As you saw on Monday, the driver who drove you was my childhood neighbor. I grew up in Suicheng, and before I went to university, I had never been to any other province."
"It's the kind of country bumpkin that everyone used to talk about when we were in school."
Seeing Xue Jing's slightly unwell expression, Ha Yue felt no embarrassment as expected. She simply smiled apologetically at him and said, "But don't misunderstand, this isn't a lie deliberately fabricated to target you. It's just that once you start faking your family's financial situation to others, it's very difficult to explain it to anyone else."
Zhao Chunni did not exaggerate in her description of Ha Yue's college application process.
In the college entrance examination that year, Ha Yue achieved the top score in science in Suicheng with absolutely outstanding results. This should have been a joyous occasion for the candidates and their families to celebrate together, but the smiles on the mother and daughter's faces were more easily spoiled than leftover food left overnight in the sweltering heat.
After checking their scores, before noon, the two of them got into a heated argument at the dinner table over their differences in filling out college applications.
Zhao Chunni chose the Air Force Engineering University of the People's Liberation Army, which is less than 600 kilometers away from Suicheng. She had carefully read the admission brochure and believed that military universities were the most suitable for families like hers.
Firstly, her room and board are free during her time at the school, which can reduce the pressure of supporting her education. Secondly, as soon as she enters the school, she can obtain military status, and she won't even need to apply for jobs herself in the future.
Furthermore, the Air Force Engineering University is predominantly male, making female students highly sought after; she could achieve both career success and marriage upon graduation.
She even chose the majors that girls could apply for for her daughter: Communication Engineering and Command Automation Engineering are both very good options, and she will definitely work in a relatively safe ground unit in the future.
But Ha Yue refused to comply. She had no intention of going to military school or getting married after graduation. At that time, she was rebellious and believed that her mother's arrangement was tantamount to depriving her of her freedom for the next few decades.
The goal was simply to quickly monetize her value.
So later she pretended to agree with her mother's opinion, but when applying for college, she secretly filled in the early admission program for foreign students at Jida Foreign Language School.
Because of this, Zhao Chunni gave her the cold shoulder until the day she left home.
Ha Yue, who had just turned nineteen, carried her suitcase and queued to buy a ticket. She endured two days of hard seats on the old-fashioned green train before finally arriving in Jicheng.
She got carsick halfway through the journey and couldn't eat anything. As soon as she smelled someone in the same carriage making instant noodles with hot water, she ran to the toilet between the carriages to vomit.
After finally getting off the train and onto the bus, she wandered around like a lost soul, spending half a day traveling through the vast city of Jizhou before finally arriving at the campus.
After completing the enrollment procedures, Ha Yue thought she could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The moment she pushed open the door to her girls' dormitory, her self-esteem was utterly crushed to dust.
Almost all the girls in the dormitory arrived in Jicheng a week in advance, accompanied by their parents. Even the two roommates whose homes are in Jicheng officially moved into the dormitory yesterday.
No one was on time for the start of the school year, except for Ha Yue, who was all alone and inexperienced in the ways of the world.
Over the past week, the seven girls had collectively discussed the name Ha Yue had posted on the dormitory door, so as soon as they saw her in person, they excitedly asked her those questions.
"Hey, Ha Yue, where are you from?"
What were your college entrance exam scores?
What do your parents do for a living?
Do you have a boyfriend back in your hometown?
"By the way, are you from an ethnic minority? People from remote areas already have lower cutoff scores, and then there are special bonus points for the college entrance exam? You're really getting a huge advantage!"
"I heard that you start school late where you're from. We're all eighteen, are you older than all of us?"
In fact, these are all very common information exchanges. Twenty-six-year-old Ha Yue believes that her roommates' chatter back then was not malicious.
Everyone just wanted to get to know her quickly, break down the barriers of time, and most importantly, create a "small group" ranking chart based on age, from oldest to youngest.
But nineteen-year-old Ha Yue became unusually sensitive to these issues, and lies would come out of her mouth almost without a draft.
“My family is from Jicheng, but my father is a businessman, and our family often travels all over the country.”
Because her family was busy with their business, no one could take her to school, so she had to delay starting school for a year.
It was precisely because her family was busy with their business and had some extra money that Ha Yue was able to transfer to a remote area with a relatively lower cutoff score before the college entrance examination, thus gaining the privilege of receiving extra points for being an ethnic minority.
This is the beginning of the lie; the subsequent snowballing details are merely the basic steps to flesh out the character.
Faced with the choice between being envied and discriminated against, Ha Yue chose the former in two seconds, but spent four years paying the price for her vanity.
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