Chapter Thirty-Seven: Cooking Porridge
Jiang Chuan had changed into clean pajamas and was leaning against the bar counter with his back to me, drinking water. Hearing the sound, he turned around, and water droplets slid down his damp hair and dripped into his eyes, stinging him as he closed them.
"Why aren't you drying your hair? Don't you want to get better?" Lin Yu unconsciously tugged at the hem of his shirt and leaned against the door, asking with a hint of reproach.
Jiang Chuan raised his arm, which was wrapped tightly in plastic wrap. "It was too tight, it took me ages to unwrap it." He smiled innocently.
Lin Yu stared at him across the counter for a moment, then sighed softly and walked towards him. She rolled up her overly long sleeves, revealing her slender forearm, pulled a pair of scissors from the knife rack, grabbed Jiang Chuan's arm, and precisely cut into the gap in the plastic wrap.
With one slash, the plastic film split in two. After confirming that the gauze was still dry and clean, she neatly inserted the scissors back into place.
Jiang Chuan looked at Lin Yu up close. Her hair, which was about 80% dry, was tucked behind her ears and draped over her shoulders, revealing a faint widow's peak on her forehead.
She pursed her lips, her brows furrowed, her expression serious, enveloped in her oversized white shirt, like a doctor performing a delicate operation.
However, the same scent of shower gel intertwined and mingled in the air as the two breathed closely together, adding a subtle and romantic touch to the tense surgery. After a while, Jiang Chuan looked at the white whorl on Lin Yu's head and spoke softly.
"The clothes suit you well."
"You just got a call." Lin Yu ignored Jiang Chuan's words and lowered his eyes to rummage through the medicine box for an unopened thermometer.
The electronic monitor beeped softly on Jiang Chuan's forehead. She looked down at the red number "38.4℃" and frowned. "Shall I get you an ice pack and a towel?"
Jiang Chuan turned around, took out an ice pack from the refrigerator, and handed it to Lin Yu with practiced ease. Lin Yu casually picked up the phone on the table, tapped the screen with his finger, and his pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.
"You certainly know how to order people around." Lin Yu didn't argue with the patient, tearing open the packaging without noticing Jiang Chuan's unusual behavior. His gaze swept over the phone, now face down on the table, and he raised an eyebrow, asking, "Should I leave?"
"It wasn't an important call." Jiang Chuan lowered his head to cooperate with Lin Yu, his bangs falling to cover the lingering emotions in his eyes.
Lin Yu nodded, feeling his burning body temperature through the cool gel. "You should rest first, I still have some work to do." She still needed to organize the plan they had finalized over dinner into a PowerPoint presentation.
Thinking of this, Lin Yu withdrew his hand, packed up his medicine box, took out his notebook from the bag hanging in the entryway, and sat cross-legged on the carpet in the living room.
"I'll let you use my living room. Call me anytime if you feel uncomfortable."
Jiang Chuan leaned against the bar, silently finishing his water glass. He watched Lin Yu, who was huddled by the coffee table, intently working. After a long silence, he slammed his glass against the edge of the table. He went over and pulled a blanket over her legs. "Be careful not to catch a cold."
Lin Yu belatedly looked up, only to see Jiang Chuan's back as he walked towards the master bedroom.
......
At exactly twelve o'clock, Lin Yu finally finished his work, closed his laptop, and stood up, rubbing his sore neck.
A dim, warm light shone through the crack in the master bedroom door, but even through the heavy door panel, Jiang Chuan's cold, hard voice could not be concealed. "...Regarding intellectual property ownership, have the people in the institute follow up to the end. Don't just look at the surface documents; check the licensing chain and the non-compete agreements the inventors signed when they left the company."
A sudden pause, followed by Jiang Chuan's suppressed cough. "Don't make me teach you how to do it. This isn't your first day on the job. Use your brain."
His voice was hoarse and low, his tone tense, completely unlike his casual manner when chatting with Lin Yu. "The legal department has given us a preliminary list. Go and coordinate with their people to review it. Get me a first draft by next Friday."
There was another pause, probably from the person on the other end of the phone trying to explain, which Jiang Chuan interrupted impatiently. "I don't care how many other things you have on your plate, this due diligence is the highest priority. Giving you resources is to help you solve problems, not to report difficulties."
"If you can't handle it all, leave the contract review to Xiao Chen. Don't try to do everything yourself. If you like manual labor so much, you should switch careers and go work at the fish market."
He's working way too hard; even when he was almost fainting from illness, he still made sure to finish his work first. It's true what they say, people who work hard for themselves never relax, even in their dreams. Even scolding his subordinates sounds like he's cheering himself on.
Lin Yu was relieved that she didn't work for his company and didn't have to get involved in this tense and stressful situation. She paused for a moment in front of his door, then turned and went back to the second bedroom, closing the door behind her.
Lin Yu slept very restlessly that night.
Perhaps it was because she wasn't used to the bed, or perhaps for some other reason, she tossed and turned on the soft mattress, wrestling fiercely with Jiang Chuan's blanket for half the night, until she finally fell asleep when she heard the clear chirping of birds outside the window.
But her sleep was light, and she was plagued by nightmares filled with blurry fragments of shouting and killing, making it hard for her to breathe. She didn't sleep long before she suddenly woke up with a start, her forehead beaded with sweat.
She reached under her pillow and saw her phone screen light up in the dim room; it was just past six. It was Saturday, but she was wide awake, and lying down again would be pointless. So she got up and tiptoed to open the door.
Jiang Chuan's bedroom door was tightly closed, and the entire house was as quiet as a giant tomb. The clothes he had washed last night were neatly folded on the back of the sofa. The dried fabrics were fluffy and warm, exuding the same faint scent of white pine that he wore.
Lin Yu put away her clothes, washed up quickly, and went straight to the open kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door, where several cans of beer and mineral water were neatly arranged, and two eggs with questionable dates lay in the side door compartment. Other than that, there was nothing else.
Lin Yu's cooking skills are average, barely enough to fill an empty stomach, but cooking porridge isn't a technical skill, and it's a last resort when ingredients are scarce.
Jiang Chuan's kitchen was fully equipped, but everything looked brand new, as if it had just been unpacked. She pulled out a clay pot, lifted the lid, and sure enough, found an untorn certificate of conformity label inside.
She sighed, scrubbed the pot twice carefully, and then rummaged through the depths of the wall cabinet to find an unopened bag of rice. She thought to herself, this is probably the most decent meal she can make for a patient.
Lin Yu poured half a bowl of new rice into the clay pot with clean water, rinsed it carefully twice, sifted out the fine chaff, and kept rinsing until the rice water was clear. Then he placed the clay pot on the stove and turned on the gas knob.
The glazed surface was baked by the blue flames shooting out of the stove, and the temperature inside the pot continued to rise. Bubbles rose sporadically from the bottom of the pot, gradually forming dense bubbles. Steam pushed open the gap in the pot lid, and the sweet taste of starch decomposition spread in the air.
Lin Yu turned down the heat, turned on the range hood, lifted the pot lid, and stirred the rice in a fixed direction with a wooden spoon. The rice grains lost their pure white color and bloomed like mutton fat jade, each stirring producing a thick, creamy texture.
Jiang Chuan pushed open the door, and the steam from the rice porridge floated in the air. The clothes on the sofa had already been tidied up.
Lin Yu stood with her back to him in front of the kitchen counter, wearing the same white shirt from last night, the cuffs casually rolled up to her elbows, her loosely tied hair with a few stray strands hanging down, swaying gently as she stirred the clay pot.
The roar of the range hood drowned out his footsteps. Jiang Chuan stopped behind her, startling Lin Yu. She turned around abruptly, her wooden spoon clattering against the edge of the pot.
Jiang Chuan watched her frantically put out the fire, not forgetting to sprinkle some dried shrimp into the pot. "Why are you walking so quietly?" Lin Yu pushed the bowl of rice porridge across the bar counter, looking at him reproachfully.
Jiang Chuan leaned against the refrigerator door and took a swig of ice water. In the morning light, the weariness in his eyes faded, and his voice regained its usual crispness. "What's the rush?" he asked, pointing to the condiment bottle beside him. "You got caught drugging me?"
"Hmm!" Lin Yu sat down at the bar, stirring the rice in his bowl, the porcelain spoon clinking against the rim. "The kind that will obey my every command after drinking it."
"There's no need to go to such lengths." Jiang Chuan looked at Lin Yu and smiled meaningfully.
Lin Yu lifted her eyelids and glanced at him. "Looks like the fever's gone. Your healing ability is truly amazing." Then her gaze fell on his bandaged forearm. "How are you? Does the wound still hurt?"
Jiang Chuan shook his head and sat down opposite her, his sleeve brushing against the gauze. "It feels good to be cared for."
The words were spoken in a neutral tone, neither too warm nor too cold, like a feather, drifting lightly between the two. The sky, washed clean by the downpour, was exceptionally clear, and sunlight streamed in through the French windows, washing away all traces of last night's intimacy.
"I also bear some responsibility." Lin Yu scooped a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, squinting as he savored the fruits of his labor. "Feel free to make any requests."
Jiang Chuan smiled faintly. "Then I'll have to think about it carefully!"
He lowered his head, scooped up a spoonful of white porridge, and put it in his mouth. The moment the grains of rice touched his tongue, Jiang Chuan's smile suddenly froze, and his hand holding the porcelain spoon trembled almost imperceptibly.
The rice porridge glided across his tongue like a lukewarm cloud, and as he swallowed it, tiny electric currents seemed to surge through his throat. He chewed slowly, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, as if trying to swallow some surging emotion along with the porridge.
The peppercorns clung to his numb taste buds, and a strange, stinging pain shot through his nerves to the top of his head. Jiang Chuan coughed twice from the sudden stimulation.
"Is it spicy?" Lin Yu quickly pulled out two tissues and handed them over. "I was worried you'd be sick and have no taste in your mouth, so I added a little pepper and dried shrimp."
Jiang Chuan frowned slightly, shook his head in confusion, and said in a hoarse voice, "Could you get me some sugar and salt, please?"
Lin Yu pushed the condiment bottle to his side, watching as he scooped out two large spoonfuls of white sugar and poured them into the bowl. The porcelain spoon stirred the sugar at the bottom of the bowl a few times, and the sugar quickly dissolved into the thick, white rice paste.
Jiang Chuan scooped up a spoonful of porridge, hesitated for a moment with his hand hovering in mid-air, then lowered his head to hold the spoonful of sweet porridge in his mouth, chewing and swallowing with unusual seriousness, his Adam's apple slowly bobbing up and down, as if confirming something.
After a while, Lin Yu watched as he silently picked up the salt shaker and mechanically repeated the action he had just performed, and an eerie atmosphere silently spread between the two of them.
After an unknown amount of time, he finally gently placed the porcelain spoon back on the edge of the bowl, stared at the remaining half bowl of rice porridge without saying a word, and fell into a long silence.
With the addition of various seasonings, the plain congee has become unpalatable. The spiciness of pepper tears open Jiangchuan's chaotic sensory world, and with fragmented memories, it crashes open the tightly closed door of his heart.
The sense of taste he had lost because of that phone call was now being revived in such a forceful way, rushing back to his side with overwhelming force.
The wall that had stood between him and the world collapsed with a roar, like spring floods overflowing a cracked riverbed. Jiang Chuan felt the salty rainwater washing over his mouth again and again, carrying the damp scent of his memories.
"Stop eating." Lin Yu reached out to take the bowl away, but the next moment his wrist was tightly gripped.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
