NOVPUB
Chapter 19: Chapter 19: Can You Cook?
Li Nuanchun felt an unease in her heart, greatly worried that Si Chen would come back and have a fight with his wife. Her gloom was so apparent that she didn’t even manage a smile while she was cooking.
"Where have you been all morning?" Chen Yanmei entered the kitchen with a bowl of vegetables and noticed the long face Li Nuanchun was pulling, casually asking, "Did you have a fight with your man or something? You look as long-faced as a cucumber."
"I wouldn’t be this worried if we really had a fight." Li Nuanchun had been feeling suffocated, eager to vent her feelings she shared the morning’s events. "Dr. Si’s wife may seem pretty and clever but she’s a frivolous spender. Not even a bank at home could put up with that kind of spending! She goes through two to three hundred yuan in an outing, just a fan alone costs a hundred and fifty yuan. As for coal briquettes that everyone else uses, she prefers to burn whatever is more expensive."
Having finally managed to prepare lunch while her child was asleep, Chen Yanmei initially just wanted to do some idle gossip. But upon hearing that it was about Si Chen’s couple, her eyebrows immediately raised and upon hearing that Tong Yao spent two to three hundred yuan in a single outing, her hand which was peeling a potato suddenly froze.
"What? Did Si Chen’s wife really spend two or three hundred on an outing?"
"Am I capable of lying?" Li Chunnuan frowned even more in worry. "I was the one who took her out, what if Dr. Si blames me for not stopping her."
"Seems like they’re big city people, must want everything they see, huh?" Chen Yanmei sneered with schadenfreude, wishing that the couple would get into a fight. "I told you so, Dr. Si’s wife is ill-mannered, she isn’t wife material. They told me she is from the countryside, not to mention her skinny and boyish looks, I have no idea what Dr. Si saw in her."
"You’ve got that wrong, Tong Yao’s looks are not bad at all, dare I say...."
Li Nuanchun’s words were interrupted by the sound of a child crying from Chen Yanmei’s house.
"Aw! My precious boy is awake." Chen Yanmei put aside her work and hurried back to her house, not even paying any attention to what Li Chunnuan had said.
Distracted, Li Nuanchun cooked a pot of noodles. At lunchtime, Dai Liwen came home from work and seeing the noodles on the table casually remarked, "Noodles again?" Pulling up his pants, he sat down, removed his glasses and began slurping a mouthful.
"I was late because I went to buy things with Dr. Si’s wife, so I just cooked something quick." Li Nuanchun felt guilty fearing her husband’s blame if she revealed what had happened. But after some thought, she decided it would be better to let him know, "Liwen, I wanted to discuss something with you, I hope you won’t be mad."
"What is it that seems so serious?" Dai Liwen continued to slurp his noodles not really paying attention. He found his wife to be a bit of a worrywart, dramatizing unimportant issues. He assumed that she was just spreading some juicy gossip.
"Dr. Si asked me to take his wife shopping, who would’ve known she would be so reckless with money, buying everything she sets her eyes on." Li Nuanchun notable worry was mirrored in the decrease in the volume of her voice as she continued speaking, "She spent around two hundred yuan on this outing."
"What?" Dai Liwen, who was rather nonchalant till now, stopped in his tracks as he turned to look at Li Nuanchun, "Aren’t you more than forty? If she is reckless at spending money, shouldn’t you have stopped her? Si Chen borrowed some money from Si Jun in the morning, and it was all spent before noon—no man would let such a thing go without a quarrel."
Dai Liwen, who usually comes across as gentle and rarely loses his cool had never raised his voice at Li Nuanchun which left her stammering out of fear, "I-I tried to stop her but she didn’t listen!" Had she known Tong Yao was this impulsive, she would have refused to get involved. 𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑝𝘶𝘣.𝑐𝘰𝘮
"If those two have a fight, I am going to hold you responsible."
Dai Liwen picked up his glasses seemingly ready to visit Si Chen but was promptly stopped by Li Nuanchun.
"What are you going to do? They aren’t necessarily going to fight. Finish your meal first before going to check on them."
Upon reflection, Dai Liwen agreed. Si Chen didn’t seem like a hot-headed person and considering that the couple had just gotten married, a fight wasn’t guaranteed. Going over there right now might seem too intentional. It would be better to finish his meal now and later, casually, check on them.
Thinking so, he settled back down to finish his meal.
...
When Si Chen came back after takeaway meal from the canteen, the room was empty with just the door ajar. Puzzled about where Tong Yao could have gone, he heard some noise from the nearby kitchen. On reaching the kitchen, he found Tong Yao wiping the kitchen counter. Apparently, she had been working for a while, having already broken into a sweat with hair clinging to her face and a few smudges of soot on her nose. She looked like a kitten.
All morning he had been waiting for her to go and get bandaged up and was wondering if she had forgotten. Turned out she had been busy cleaning up the kitchen all this while.
Noticing someone was at the door, Tong Yao turned her head casually to see Si Chen standing there with two boxes of food in his hand, her eyes sparkled with happiness right away, "You’re back? Perfect timing, I am hungry."
Maybe because they had spent the night together, they had become a bit more familiar. This time, Tong Yao was much more relaxed around him. She could treat him as a roommate for now. He seems pretty decent anyway, and won’t take advantage of the situation. Maybe, they could develop feelings if they stayed together for a while.
After washing her hands, Tong Yao went out of the kitchen without noticing the curiosity in Si Chen’s eyes, her attention entirely on the food boxes.
Both of them returned to the room, and while Tong Yao turned on the fan, Si Chen proceeded to open the food boxes for her. She didn’t hesitate and started eating right away. She had injured her left arm and couldn’t lift the lunch box, so she had to eat standing, bent over the table.
Tightening his lips a bit, Si Chen said calmly, "I’ll go borrow a chair."
Tong Yao, who had swallowed the food in her mouth, waved her hand indicating she didn’t want it, "No need. People here love to talk. If I borrowed a chair, they would say that I am being too demanding."
Earlier, while she was using the bathroom, she had heard a ton of gossip about herself. They would either call her ugly or lazy and never anything good. She wasn’t surprised. Where there are women, there would be gossip.
Upon hearing Tong Yao, Si Chen paused, watching her enjoy her food, he too started to feel hungry and began eating as well.
"Don’t get food from the canteen tomorrow. I cleaned the kitchen today and will do a little grocery shopping in the afternoon. I’ll cook from tomorrow." Tong Yao’s cooking skills were not extraordinary but could definitely handle making a simple home-cooked meal. After eating canteen food for long you start to crave a hearty, homemade meal.
Si Chen who was savoring his meal suddenly paused, then asked, "You can cook?"
Tong Yao nodded and said, "It’s nothing spectacular but it’s edible." She didn’t want to sing her praises just yet. She could save that for a surprise.
