Chapter Fifty
Xu Li stayed at home on the weekend, and the sunlight shone through the blinds, cutting out squares of light and shadow on the floor.
She was wearing a loose cotton T-shirt, her hair casually tied in a bun, and she was sitting cross-legged on the sofa putting together a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle she had just bought—a Shiba Inu holding a red umbrella.
She was listening to soothing Bossa Nova in her headphones, and had already finished her second cup of coffee on the coffee table. The doorbell rang abruptly, and she almost dropped the "Shiba Inu left ear" she was holding.
"Who is it?" She shuffled to the door in her slippers and saw Lu Yi's overly bright smile through the peephole. He was wearing a light gray hooded sweatshirt and carrying two takeout boxes, the rims of which were still steaming.
"Why are you here?" Xu Li opened the door and smelled a familiar aroma of spicy pork ribs.
"Checking on you." Lu Yi handed her the bag and bent down to change his shoes. "And also to save someone who claims to be 'fasting and slimming down this weekend' but is probably just eating cookies."
Xu Li's ears turned slightly red after her secret was exposed. She had indeed posted a bold statement on her WeChat Moments last week, saying she would only eat salads on the weekend, but last night she couldn't resist opening a bag of cheese-flavored sandwiches.
"That was... a rehearsal." She stubbornly took the bag and walked towards the kitchen. "What did you buy?"
"Old Yang's spicy pork ribs, and the sweet osmanthus rice balls in fermented rice wine that you said you wanted to eat last time." Lu Yi took out two porcelain plates from the cupboard with practiced ease, as if he were at home.
"Where are you on the puzzle? Do you need any help?" Xu Li poured the ribs into a plate, the sauce gleaming amber under the light.
“We still need more than 400 pieces. The main problem is that the Shiba Inu’s coat color gradient is driving me crazy.” She suddenly thought of something, turned around and lightly tapped Lu Yi’s nose with the tip of her chopsticks, which were smeared with sauce. “Let’s make it clear first, you’re not allowed to point at the gaps in my spelling and laugh at me later.”
Lu Yi smiled, grabbed her wrist, turned the chopsticks around, and put a piece of rib in his mouth.
"Okay, I'll put it together with my eyes closed in a bit." The sunlight slowly crept across the puzzle box, and the Shiba Inu's red umbrella gradually became complete.
Xu Li sat cross-legged next to Lu Yi, their heads touching, occasionally bickering about who would find the "paw pad on the right front paw" first.
The sweet aroma of osmanthus-scented rice wine mingled with the peppery fragrance of pork ribs, creating a lazy, weekend-like tranquility amidst the hum of the air conditioner. By evening, only one piece of the puzzle remained.
Xu Li pinched the tiny "Shiba Inu nose" piece, suddenly feeling a little reluctant to end the puzzle. Lu Yi leaned on the back of the sofa with one hand, and with the other hand, he reached over her shoulder and gently pressed the puzzle piece into the gap.
“Alright,” he said, “now I can laugh at you.” Xu Li was about to retort when Lu Yi’s fingertips paused in her hair, picking out a puzzle piece that had somehow fallen in.
He held it up in front of her eyes and waved it, laughing like a child who had stolen candy: "Teacher Xu, you have puzzle pieces growing in your hair."
The sunset outside the window was burning brightly, and the Shiba Inu was holding a red umbrella in the puzzle. They sat side by side in the gradually darkening living room, and neither of them mentioned what they would have for dinner—after all, there was still half a plate of ribs left and a bowl of glutinous rice balls, so there was still plenty of time.
As darkness fell completely, Lu Yi turned off the main living room light, leaving only the floor lamp beside the sofa on. The warm yellow light acted like a soft filter, bathing the puzzle, the empty plate, and the two of them in the same honey-colored glow.
Xu Li stretched, her joints making a slight "crack" sound. She turned her head to look at Lu Yi—he was fiddling with the puzzle piece he had picked out of her hair, as if studying some rare fossil.
“Hey,” she nudged him lightly with her knee, “You…don’t have anything else to do tonight?” Lu Yi tossed the puzzle piece up and caught it, his eyes not looking at her: “I was going to the gym, but someone posted on their WeChat Moments about ‘fasting to get in shape,’ and I was worried she’d faint from hunger at home, so I changed my route and became a delivery driver.”
Xu Li chuckled, her voice soft in the dim light. She suddenly stood up, carefully stepping along the edge of the puzzle mat, and cautiously walked around to the TV cabinet, pulling a metal box from the bottom drawer. The lid creaked open, revealing half a box of sparklers inside.
"Leftovers from camping a few days ago," she said, squatting down and looking up at him. "Want to go to the balcony?" Lu Yi raised an eyebrow: "Didn't you say the property management doesn't allow lighting fires on the balcony?"
“The property management also said that eating durian in the elevator is not allowed, but I saw you carrying a whole durian last week.”
Xu Li shoved two sparklers into his hands. "Come on, just two. They'll go out when they're burned." The balcony tiles still held the warmth left over from the day.
A night breeze swept by, and the lights of the distant high-rises resembled a floating sea of stars. Xu Li lit a sparkler with a lighter, and tiny sparks crackled and exploded, splashing clusters of golden rain into her pupils.
“Actually…” she twisted her wrist, letting the sparks trace an arc, “while I was doing the puzzle, I was thinking about something.” Lu Yi didn’t reply, but simply touched her lightly with the burning sparkler, and the two sparks instantly intertwined into an even brighter ball.
“I was thinking,” Xu Li’s voice was soft, mixed with the sparks, “if you hadn’t come today, I might have really spent the whole day eating cookies and then staring blankly at the unfinished dog head puzzle at night.”
Lu Yi chuckled softly, sparks casting dappled shadows beneath his eyelashes: "So?" "So..." Xu Li suddenly shoved the nearly burnt-out sparkler into his free hand, turned, and ran towards the living room, "So you're responsible for finishing the rest of the sweet fermented rice balls!"
Lu Yi paused for two seconds, then smiled and followed them inside. In the living room, bathed in the soft glow of the floor lamp, the puzzle-like Shiba Inu was quietly holding an umbrella, as if it had known they would return.
Xu Li knelt before the coffee table and poured the remaining glutinous rice balls into two small bowls. The sweet aroma of fermented rice wafted through the air conditioning. She handed him one bowl, her fingertips dabbing with osmanthus honey. "Hot."
She reminded him. Lu Yi didn't take the bowl; instead, he grabbed her wrist and lowered his head to suck the honey off her fingertip. The warm touch made Xu Li's eyelashes tremble, and the rim of the bowl gently touched between them, making a "ding" sound.
“Xu Li.” His voice lowered. “Tell me in advance if you want to fast next time.” “Why?” “I can buy all the spare ribs from Old Yang’s family,” Lu Yi wiped her lower lip, which was stained with rice wine, with his thumb. “Then I’ll come and check up on you every day.”
The floor lamp's light flickered suddenly, as if someone had secretly pressed the pause button. In that moment of darkness, Xu Li heard her own heartbeat mingling with the hum of the air conditioner vent—"click," the light came back on.
She lowered her head and took a bite of the glutinous rice ball. The osmanthus honey dripped back into the bowl along the porcelain spoon, like a small, sweet period.
"Okay," she mumbled, "but bring double the small glutinous rice balls next time."
Lu Yi smiled and replied, "Yes, ma'am," but suddenly reached out and turned off the air conditioner. The room instantly became so quiet that only the sound of the sweet fermented rice balls sliding into the bottom of the bowl could be heard.
"Power outage?" Xu Li looked up and found that the entire building outside the window was dark—it was a temporary maintenance operation in the area.
"Looks like even God is forcing me to work overtime." Lu Yi took out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and the beam of light slanted onto the puzzle box, making the Shiba Inu half-lit and half-shadowed, as if it were secretly blinking. "Are you afraid of the dark?" he asked.
Xu Li shook her head, but subconsciously took half a step toward him.
Lu Yi pointed the beam of light at the ceiling, turned his phone upside down, and a soft halo of light enveloped the two of them.
"When I was a kid, whenever there was a power outage, my dad would take me to set up a tent in the living room." As he spoke, he pulled down all the sofa cushions and quickly arranged them into a crooked "foundation".
Then they pulled out Xu Li's thin blanket to use as a ceiling. "Want to try it?" Xu Li was amused and simply turned off her phone flashlight. Using the moonlight that leaked in from the window, they pushed the coffee table over to act as a "load-bearing wall".
The two huddled together in the "tent," heads touching, legs inevitably entwined. The darkness compressed the space into nothing more than breath, heartbeats, and the lingering sweetness of fermented rice.
"Little Li Zi."
"Um?"
"Actually, this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision for me."
Lu Yi's voice came muffledly from the edge of the blanket, "I passed by Lao Yang yesterday and saw that they had launched a new product - Osmanthus Fermented Rice Pudding. I wanted to bring it to you as soon as possible, but I was afraid that your 'fasting' post on WeChat Moments would embarrass me, so I bought pork ribs instead."
Xu Li nudged him with her knee: "What about pudding?"
“It’s in an insulated bag.” He pointed to the entryway. “I was planning to use it as a celebratory dessert after you finished piecing together the last piece of the dog’s nose.”
"The power's out now," Xu Li grinned like a cat that'd just stolen some cream, "Will the pudding melt?"
"meeting."
"Then hurry up and get it!" Lu Yi was about to get up when she grabbed his sleeve again: "Wait... give me the phone light first."
He handed it over, and in the halo of light, Xu Li took a marker from the coffee table drawer, drew a crooked window on the inside of the blanket, then drew a moon, and finally wrote four words—
[Open for Business] "This will be our branch from now on."
She announced.
What are you selling?
“Sell…” Xu Li bit the cap of her pen, “Sell a fasting failure recovery package: pork ribs + osmanthus dumplings + pudding, plus a jigsaw puzzle to play with.”
Lu Yi laughed out loud, the vibrations of his chest transmitted through the blanket.
“Then I’ll apply to be a long-term partner.”
"Let's skip tonight's trial period." The two crawled out of the tent and, using the light from their cell phones, carried in the pudding and the last three cans of ice-cold beer.
The pudding had already softened a bit, but it tasted even smoother and more creamy.
The fragrance of osmanthus in the fermented rice wine mingled with the bitterness of the beer malt, like a slightly tipsy summer night experiment. On his third bite, Lu Yi suddenly pulled out the "Shiba Inu nose" puzzle piece from his pocket, with a tiny sticky note on the back—[Piece 1001]
He pressed the puzzle piece into Xu Li's palm: "I'll leave a gap for you, I'll fill it in next time."
Xu Li stared at the extra puzzle piece and suddenly felt her heart beating faster than the flash of the lights before the power outage.
She didn't say anything, but simply pushed the pudding cup towards him, the cup lightly clinking against his beer can.
Like a very, very small stamp.
The power outage lasted until 1 a.m., and the property management sent a message to the residents' group: the repairs were more complicated than expected and might take all night. Lu Yi finished the last sip of his beer, crushed the can, and listened to the complaints from his neighbors in the corridor.
"What should we do?" Xu Li sat cross-legged in the tent, chin resting on her knees. "The refrigerator still has the lunchbox I'm taking to the company on Monday. If it melts, we're doomed."
"Then don't let it melt." Lu Yi got up and pulled out the innermost drawer of the freezer—five compartments of frozen dumplings, two boxes of salmon, three pieces of dark chocolate, and the lemon ice cream she had frozen last week, all neatly arranged in an insulated bag.
“Upgrade to camping,” he announced. “Let’s go to the rooftop for some fresh air and give them a boost.” The rooftop door lock had been broken for a long time and opened with a push.
After a while, Bai Chuan and Zhu Yu also arrived.
"How did you know about my family? Did Lu Yi tell you?"
"Um."
The night breeze, carrying the lingering warmth of the city, brushed against my face like warm ocean waves.
Xu Li carried an insulated bag, while Lu Yi carried beer and pudding. The two sat side by side in the shade under the water tower. In the distance, the aviation warning lights on the high-rise buildings flashed like slow-moving star trails.
“When I was little, I thought it was an alien spaceship.” Xu Li squinted.
"When I was a child, I thought the whole city was a set of building blocks with batteries." Bai Chuan put the insulated bag at his feet, and casually tore open the lid of the pudding. A layer of osmanthus honey floated on the surface of the soft pudding, like solidified moonlight.
Bai Chuan scooped up a spoonful with a small plastic spoon and held it to her lips: "Try it, it'll be even sweeter once it melts." Xu Li opened her mouth and took it in, but before the sweetness had fully dissipated, a guitar melody suddenly drifted in from the wind.
On the other side of the rooftop, a few night owl neighbors also came up to cool off, using their phone flashlights as disco balls, and playing "Yellow".
As soon as the intro started, Lu Yi suddenly knelt down on one knee. It wasn't a marriage proposal; he simply held up the puzzle piece that read "1001st piece" above his head and waved it like a glow stick.
Xu Li laughed so hard she bent over, but he carefully stuck the puzzle piece on the chest of her T-shirt, like a temporary medal.
“Now you’re part of the puzzle too,” he said. As the guitar chorus began, Xu Li’s phone vibrated—it was a work group chat; the requirements for the proposal due on Monday had been changed at the last minute.
She stared at the screen, her smile gradually fading.
Lu Yi caught a glimpse of her, snatched the phone from her palm, and stuffed it into the inner layer of the insulated bag.
"Gravity is off-limits tonight," he announced. "Including but not limited to: clients, deadlines, and calories." Xu Li paused for two seconds, then suddenly reached out, dipped her index finger in osmanthus honey, and smeared it on the tip of his nose.
“That includes you,” she retorted defiantly.
Lu Yi didn't wipe it off; he just turned his face to the side, the honey on the tip of his nose glistening in the red light of the warning light.
“Okay,” he laughed, “I’ll apply to be a non-Earthling companion tonight.” The wind grew cooler.
Lu Yi took off his hoodie and draped it over both of their shoulders—instantly transforming it into a small, tent-2.0 reeking of laundry detergent and beer.
In the darkness, they could only hear each other's breathing and heartbeats.
Xu Li felt something in the inner pocket of the hoodie with her fingertips, and took it out—
It was a tiny folded tissue with the Yang family logo drawn on it in ballpoint pen, and the words "Old Yang's logo" written next to it.
[Next New Product Preview: Osmanthus Fermented Rice Pudding Flavored Pork Ribs]
She laughed so hard her forehead trembled, her forehead resting against his collarbone.
"Lu Yi," her voice muffled inside her hoodie, "did you steal their menu?"
"Shh—" he said mysteriously, "I'm trying out a cross-industry collaboration." The guitar music stopped, and the neighbors started packing up and going downstairs.
The rooftop fell silent again, save for the occasional distant hum of a night-flying plane.
Xu Li suddenly said softly, "Actually, changing the requirements in the plan isn't that scary."
"Um?"
“At worst, I’ll just take half a day off on Monday,” she said, looking up with a bit of osmanthus honey still on her nose. “Anyway, I have the 1001st piece of the puzzle; I’ve already found the missing one.”
Lu Yi didn't speak, but simply reached out and gently wiped the honey from the tip of her nose with his thumb, then naturally rested his forehead against hers. The shadows of several people overlapped on the water tower, forming a crooked heart shape, which, illuminated by the red warning lights, resembled a beating heart.
At three in the morning, the repairs were finally completed, and the elevator was back in operation. They carried half-thawed frozen dumplings and warm beer downstairs. As they entered the house, the floor lamp in the living room suddenly turned on by itself—as if it had been waiting for them to come home.
On the puzzle mat, the Shiba Inu's red umbrella is intact, except for an extra piece made of sticky note that reads "1001st piece," which Lu Yi has stuck to the tip of the umbrella, like a small, golden lightning rod.
Xu Li stuffed the frozen dumplings into the refrigerator, then turned around and saw Lu Yi putting the "tent" cushions back in their places one by one. She suddenly said, "The trial period is over."
"Um?"
"The partnership agreement is in effect." She held up her little finger. "Pinky promise. The one who breaches the agreement... will have to run ten kilometers as punishment, plus treat the other party to a year's supply of their new pudding."
Lu Yi smiled and said, "Okay."
"Hey! The dumpling is going to fall!"
“You won’t fall,” he strode towards the sofa. “Article one of the contract: the weekend fasting plan is permanently abolished; late-night snacks take priority.” Xu Li exclaimed in surprise, but as she landed on the sofa cushions, she heard him add very softly:
"The second piece, the missing piece of the puzzle." In the halo of the floor lamp, the Shiba Inu held a red umbrella in the puzzle, like a silent witness to this late-night covenant.
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