Chapter 39: Peace of Mind

When Jiang Ning returned to the bridge, she did not see the bamboo couch set up by Liu Mingan. Her heart tightened. Just as she was about to look around, a familiar voice came from the side.

"Jiang Ning!"

It was Liu Mingan.

Jiang Ning looked in the direction of the voice and found that he was squatting by the roadside, teaching a child to write with stones.

The willow branches by the bridge swayed gently in the breeze. Liu Mingan under the tree smiled gently, looking at Jiang Ning with warmth in his eyes.

"Where have you been? Why did you take so long to come back?" Liu Mingan threw away the stone and patted the dust on his hands, and asked with a smile.

Jiang Ning did not answer, but just looked at Liu Mingan seriously, feeling inexplicably at ease. She had been scheming with Hu Laoliu in the casino and had a fatal confrontation with Monkey in the dark alley. She was nervous, as if she had returned to the time when she was still Killer N.

Now seeing Liu Mingan, seeing those clear eyes, seeing the smile on that handsome face, Jiang Ning felt like a passerby who was hungry and cold in the middle of the night, finally returning to the home with bright yellow candlelight and the smell of rice.

The child next to Liu Mingan looked about six or seven years old, and his height was just up to Liu Mingan's waist. Seeing that Liu Ming'an stopped teaching him, he also stood up, looked up at Liu Ming'an, then at Jiang Ning, and asked curiously in a childish voice: "She is your wife? Why is her face covered?"

Liu Ming'an was afraid that Jiang Ning would be angry, so he quickly covered the child's mouth, then smiled good-temperedly, patted the child on the head, and replied: "Don't talk nonsense, this is my sister, go play by yourself."

The child said "Oh" and ran away.

Jiang Ning watched Liu Ming'an approach him and asked him, "Have you sold all your calligraphy and paintings?"

Liu Ming'an nodded first, then thought for a moment and said, "Not really. When you were away, I met two like-minded friends and I gave them the last painting."

"What about your brushes and ink?"

"There," Liu Ming'an pointed to Aunt Hui's store and said, "I've left them there for now. Wait for me, I'll get them, and then we'll go eat and buy things. It's getting late."

Liu Ming'an walked into Aunt Hui's store, and Aunt Hui handed him a bundle. The two chatted briefly, and Aunt Hui kept looking at Jiang Ning.

"Who is that Aunt Hui to you?" Jiang Ning and Liu Ming'an left the bridge and walked side by side, and Jiang Ning asked casually.

"She is an elder, I guess." Liu Ming'an thought for a moment and said, "Aunt Hui is from another place. When she was young, she came to Lingshan Town with her two children. She raised her children by selling sweet-scented osmanthus cakes and doing needlework. A few years ago, her daughter married to Lingyun Town, and her son went out to do business, traveling all over the country. The mother and son were rarely together."

As they talked, they walked to a stall, which was a noodle shop run by a family. The couple was busy in the kitchen, kneading dough, pulling noodles, boiling noodles, and adding ingredients. Two elderly people outside greeted guests and cleared the table, and a ten-year-old child helped collect money.

There were seven or eight foldable small wooden tables outside the noodle shop, each with two benches, and it was almost always full. The customer slurped the steaming noodles, and when sweat broke out on his forehead, he wiped it with his sleeve without delaying his eating. The simple noodle shop was filled with the atmosphere of the city.

"This noodle shop tastes great, how about we eat here?" Liu Mingan asked Jiang Ning.

Jiang Ning was already hungry, so she naturally had no objection to the aroma.

Liu Mingan saw that the two people were paying after they finished eating, so he immediately pointed there and asked Jiang Ning to follow him over and take a seat.

As they approached the empty seats, an old man in his fifties came over to clear the bowls of noodles on the table. Seeing them, he greeted them warmly: "Are you two here for noodles? What would you like to order?" "

I want three taels of thin noodles with meat sauce," Liu Ming'an replied, and then turned to ask Jiang Ning: "What do you want to eat? There are noodles with clear soup, noodles with meat sauce, and noodles with meat soup. Noodles are divided into thin noodles, wide noodles, very wide noodles, knife-cut noodles, and covered noodles. Which one do you want to eat?"

"There are quite a lot of varieties," Jiang Ning was a little surprised, and then said to the store owner: "I want the same as him."

"Oh! Okay!" The old man nodded, then turned around and shouted to the kitchen, "Two bowls of thin noodles with meat sauce, three taels each."

After the woman in the kitchen responded, the old man quickly cleaned the table and said to them with a smile, "Please wait a moment, it will be ready in a while."

"How did you know Aunt Hui?" After the old man left, Jiang Ning continued the topic just now.

"Well...it was about three years ago," Liu Ming'an recalled carefully: "One day it rained heavily, and Aunt Hui slipped and fell to the ground while hurriedly hiding from the rain. I happened to see her and sent her home. She sprained her foot and hit her head at the same time. I saw that there was no one at her home and I couldn't just leave her alone, so I decided to do a good deed and helped her hire a doctor and stayed at her house to take care of her for two days."

"So Aunt Hui is grateful to you and lends you the door of her house to set up a stall?" Jiang Ning almost guessed the outcome.

Liu Ming'an nodded, and then heard Jiang Ning sigh: "You really have a lot of good relationships!"

Liu Ming'an smiled, not knowing what he was thinking of, with a nostalgic look in his eyes: "Because my father taught me that a good heart can be immortal; a hundred lights can illuminate a thousand miles."

Jiang Ning's eyes fell on Liu Ming'an and looked at him seriously. The young man's back was straight, but at this moment he lowered his head slightly, with a faint sadness on his face.

He seemed sad. Jiang Ning thought.

After a while, some stiff comfort rang in Liu Ming'an's ears: "You did a good job, you are the kindest person I have ever met, he will be very pleased."

Liu Ming'an was a little surprised, looked up at Jiang Ning for a while, and laughed: "Jiang Ning, you don't look like someone who would say such a thing."

Jiang Ning raised his eyebrows slightly, without commenting.

"Oh, right!" Liu Ming'an looked at Jiang Ning, and suddenly thought of something. He stood up and walked behind her, and stretched out his hand to her head.

"What are you doing?" Jiang Ning grabbed Liu Ming'an's hand and asked in confusion.

Liu Ming'an looked around and saw that no one was paying attention to this place. He lowered his head and approached Jiang Ning and whispered: "You have to take off your veil when you eat noodles later. You look like this and it will be easy to attract attention. It will be difficult to explain if you are bumped into by acquaintances. I will help you fix your hair so that it covers your face a little."

The warm breath sprayed on the side of Jiang Ning's ear. She was very uncomfortable. She frowned and wanted to move to the side, but her hair was pulled by Liu Ming'an again, so she had to give up.

Liu Mingan pulled off the headband. Since there was no comb, he could only use his hands. He inserted his ten fingers into Jiang Ning's dark hair, separated a large section of hair on each side and let it hang down to cover the cheeks, and then used the headband to braid the rest.

"Okay," Liu Mingan sat back in his original position and said to Jiang Ning, "You can take off your veil now."

Jiang Ning took off the veil she had been wearing for half a day and put it in her arms. Just then, an old woman came to the table with two bowls of fragrant meat noodles.

"Take your time, both of you." The old woman put down the bowl and said habitually.

Liu Mingan nodded to the old woman, then took out the chopsticks and handed them to Jiang Ning first: "Eat quickly, you must be hungry."

Jiang Ning took the chopsticks, picked up a few noodles and put them into her mouth.

The noodles were kneaded and pulled on the spot, and each strand was uniform in thickness, strong and smooth, and tasted very good. The meat on the noodles was well-balanced, and the sauce was rich. Mixed with the aroma of chopped green onions and chili oil, it made people salivate.

"How does it taste?" Liu Mingan asked after watching Jiang Ning take a bite.

"Not bad." Jiang Ning replied in a good mood.

After the two finished eating, Liu Ming'an shouted to the old man who was serving the guests, "Check out."

"Hey! Right away!" The old woman answered with a bowl in her hand, and then urged a child about ten years old, "Huzi, go to that table!"

A chubby boy ran to Liu Ming'an's table and said with a smile, "Sir, a total of twenty coins."

Liu Ming'an counted out the copper plate from his arms and handed it over. The child took it with both hands and put it in the big pocket of his jacket in front of him, and said sweetly, "Sir, take care, come again next time." After

the child said that, he ran away again and asked his grandmother to clean up the table.

Jiang Ning looked at the child's back and said quietly, "This child seems to be called Hu Zi."

"It should be a nickname. Many people have this nickname. What's wrong?" Liu Mingan didn't understand why Jiang Ning said this for no reason.

"Just saying it casually." Jiang Ning said.