“I need some air.”
Her heart jolted, suddenly thumping as if a mischievous child had slammed down on a piano key.
A person who wouldn’t break a promise wouldn’t break it no matter what, right?
After a long pause, Lan Yan finally heard her own voice, which sounded a bit fuzzy: “…I was playing cards just now and didn’t notice my phone. Are you hungry? I’ll… I’ll go to the kitchen and cook something for you.”
“You’re going to cook?”
“…Sure.”
“No.” Liang Jingchuan chuckled. “Then I’ll have no choice but to risk my life to keep you company.”
“I’ll poison you again,” Lan Yan warned fiercely.
Liang Jingchuan let out a soft hum of laughter.
Did she know that her fierce look was really adorable?
Lan Yan stood up and saw that Liang Jingchuan was still sitting there, unsure if it was due to fatigue or something else, so she reached out, grabbed his arm where his hand rested on the piano keys, and tugged lightly.
They passed through the noisy crowd toward the kitchen without alerting anyone.
The kitchen in the Yu Residence was no less grand than the rest of the mansion. It was spacious and fully equipped, with an L-shaped counter, a Western-style island counter, all sorts of appliances for steaming, baking, and cooking, and even a separate food storage room.
As soon as they entered, the servant in charge of the kitchen followed them in and asked if they needed anything to eat.
Lan Yan explained that they were just borrowing the kitchen, and the servant nodded and left, telling her to call if anything was needed.
Lan Yan opened the built-in double-door refrigerator and turned to ask Liang Jingchuan, “What do you want to eat?”
“I still get to order?” Liang Jingchuan smiled. “Don’t you only know how to make tomato egg noodles?”
“…Don’t act like you know me so well.”
“I can claim first place.”
Lan Yan’s lips curved slightly. She took out a tomato and two eggs, closed the fridge door, and walked to the sink.
On the tiled wall right next to the counter, several brass rods of varying lengths were staggered and nailed in place, with most of the cookware hanging on them. The cutting boards were separated for raw and cooked foods. The servants here had given her a detailed introduction the previous times she had borrowed the kitchen.
Lan Yan stretched out her arm to grab a cutting board, but someone beat her to it.
Her arm brushed lightly against his rolled-up sleeve.
Lan Yan let her arm drop. Her gaze followed.
The cutting board was placed on the counter, and Liang Jingchuan asked, “Which knife?”
There were so many knives that a kitchen novice like her had no idea where to start. The previous times, Zhou Wenshu had basically done all the cooking, while she only handled things like peeling garlic.
She raised her hand and pointed at one casually.
“You sure? That one looks like it’s for chopping bones.”
“…”
Liang Jingchuan took down a vegetable knife. “Forget it, let me do it.”
Something familiar made Lan Yan pause for a moment.
“Then I’ll beat the eggs.”
“Don’t knock the shells in again.”
At that point, Lan Yan was certain that Liang Jingchuan had thought of the same thing:
In the winter of Liang Jingchuan’s sophomore year, his grandfather passed away. Because he had a final exam the next day—an important required course for his major—Liang Xiaoxia didn’t make him stay up all night to keep vigil.
Lan Junwen asked Lan Yan to go home with Liang Jingchuan and quietly instructed her to be a bit more patient with him over the next few days.
At the time, the slight sense of rejection that arose in her heart upon hearing those words couldn’t overcome the pity she felt when she saw Liang Jingchuan’s reddened eyes.
From the funeral home back to the house, Liang Jingchuan didn’t say a word.
Lan Yan suffered from severe insomnia. When she got up to use the bathroom, she was startled because she hadn’t expected anyone in the dining room.
The lights were off, and he sat in the darkness with a glass beside him. It was as if he had gotten up for water but had suddenly been struck by grief, losing the ability to move.
She understood that feeling all too well.
Lan Yan turned on the living room light, and Liang Jingchuan slowly turned his head. Normally, he would never fail to hide his vulnerability because he didn’t want her to mock him.
At that moment, his figure looked so lonely, his eyes bloodshot, his eye sockets damp, and his pale face streaked with tears.
He turned back without any expression, lowering his head and hiding his eyes in the shadows, making them impossible to see.
Lan Yan stood there for a while before speaking: “Will missing the exam affect your GPA? If not, you could just skip it.”
She figured it was a terrible opener because Liang Jingchuan didn’t react. Of course, her tone might have still been quite stiff at the time.
After another moment, she asked again: “Do you want something to eat? …I saw you didn’t have lunch or dinner.”
Liang Jingchuan still didn’t respond.
Lan Yan ignored him, went to the bathroom, and then headed to the kitchen.
There were tomatoes and eggs in the fridge, and hanging noodles in the cabinet.
She rolled up her sleeves, washed the cutting board and knife. She placed the cleaned tomatoes on the cutting board, located the center line, hesitated as she prepared to cut, and heard footsteps behind her.
She glanced back. The boy in the black sweater was silent and gloomy, like a pale ghost.
His hands, which could complete a quick sketch in one minute, were clumsy with a tomato. After several cuts, some slices were thick, others thin.
The figure who had been standing behind her finally stepped forward to her side.
In an instant, he reached out toward the knife handle in her hand.
She realized and handed over the knife, stepping aside.
She grabbed a large bowl and clumsily cracked two eggs. The boy glanced at her hands, and a bit of emotion finally appeared in his previously vacant eyes, as if he was speechless about her actions.
Soon, the tomatoes were cut. The boy took a plate to hold them, then reached out to her again and took over the eggs.
He stirred them twice with chopsticks, paused, suddenly leaned down to look closer, then picked something out with the chopsticks.
He fished out a piece of eggshell.
“…” She was mortified.
He stirred the egg mixture evenly, added the bowl, then fetched some green onions and two cloves of garlic, chopped them and set aside.
Then he rinsed the pot, heated it, stir-fried the eggs and set them aside; stir-fried minced garlic and green onions, added the tomatoes, flipped until juicy, and poured in cold water.
Once the water boiled, he added soy sauce, oyster sauce, and other seasonings, threw in a handful of noodles, cooked them, added the stir-fried eggs from earlier, and finally sprinkled green onions before serving.
Lan Yan watched silently from the side.
How could cooking noodles involve so many steps and techniques?
He served two bowls of noodles and carried them to the dining room.
She wasn’t actually hungry, but at a time like that, it wouldn’t do not to eat a little with him.
They sat across from each other without speaking.
When grieving the loss of a loved one, people often felt varying degrees of guilt about eating. She figured Liang Jingchuan felt the same.
Several times, she saw him pause with his chopsticks, only resuming under some inner resolve to put the noodles in his mouth.
She couldn’t remember the taste of those noodles that night because the air was filled only with bitterness and a shared sense of sorrow.
After eating, she took his bowl and told the boy to rest while she cleaned the kitchen.
By the time she finished washing the dishes, his room door was already closed. She turned off the lights, returned to her room, and lay awake until four a.m. before falling asleep.
The next morning when she woke up, his room was empty, and there was a sticky note under a water glass in the dining room: Went to take the exam. Thanks.
From that day on, Lan Yan’s targeting of Liang Jingchuan was reduced to minor things like slamming the iron gate shut to stop him from tailing her—harmless little actions—while most of it turned into verbal sparring.
And now, their relationship had advanced beyond “peaceful coexistence.”
To the point where alarm bells rang constantly in her mind every moment.
Lan Yan picked up the eggs, cracked them against the bowl’s edge, separated them, and let the liquid flow into the bowl.
Liang Jingchuan glanced over. “Your technique’s gotten so skilled. Have you been practicing in secret?”
“Sometimes I fry eggs for myself in the morning.”
“Besides frying eggs, what else have you learned?”
“…Nothing. Isn’t frying eggs enough?” Her tone was perfectly righteous.
Liang Jingchuan laughed.
“Have you learned to cook?” Lan Yan asked.
With Lan Junwen around, they rarely needed to cook, but judging by Liang Jingchuan’s noodle-cooking technique, he certainly knew how.
“A little. I can’t go to restaurants with Mom every day.”
“Back then, didn’t Auntie mention sending you abroad? I thought you learned cooking for studying overseas.”
Liang Jingchuan lowered his gaze. “Never planned to go abroad.”
“Why? With your grades, going overseas would be easy, and your family can afford it.”
“What do you think?”
A ridiculous guess flashed through her mind, but Lan Yan dismissed it without dwelling.
She just lowered her head to beat the eggs and didn’t speak for a moment.
Liang Jingchuan didn’t explain either.
After going through the same process as back then, two bowls of noodles were ready.
They didn’t go out. They pulled up two bar stools and ate at the kitchen island.
Years later, Lan Yan finally tasted the flavor of those noodles from that night.
“Delicious,” she said indistinctly.
Liang Jingchuan immediately straightened up, tilted his head, and turned his ear toward her. “I think I heard someone praising me. Not a hallucination, right?”
“…Do you have to be so annoying?”
Liang Jingchuan’s lips curved up.
They ate in silence for a while before Liang Jingchuan suddenly said, “Actually, right before my grandfather passed, my mom was preparing to separate from Uncle.”
Lan Yan was stunned. “Why? …Because I was always targeting you?”
“No. Because my mom felt that it wasn’t fair for you to be the only unhappy one in the whole family.”
Lan Yan lowered her gaze.
“But later, didn’t you give her a scarf? You said it was black, fine for wearing during mourning. And during New Year, you made rice cakes with her, even if she half-forced you.”
Lan Yan silently picked at her noodles, paused just before putting them in her mouth. “…I’ve never blamed Auntie.”
“She knows. But she really likes Uncle, so some things required her to be selfish.”
Earlier during the mahjong break, Lan Yan had eaten some snacks and wasn’t very hungry, but now she felt even less like eating.
Liang Jingchuan looked at her and smiled. “Are you starting to dislike me again?”
Whenever Lan Yan sensed kindness from Liang Xiaoxia that she couldn’t reciprocate, and felt a sense of “betrayal” tormenting her, she would vent that awkwardness on him.
He understood everything.
She knew he understood everything.
Lan Yan set down her chopsticks.
“Not eating?”
“I’m full from anger,” Lan Yan said deliberately.
She glanced at Liang Jingchuan’s bowl—it was already empty.
The noodles weren’t cooked in large quantity, just a small bowl each, and he hadn’t eaten dinner, so it was far from enough.
Lan Yan looked at her own bowl, which still had two-thirds left, and hesitated.
But Liang Jingchuan directly reached over, took her bowl, and said, “Wasting food.”
“…I’ve eaten from it,” she said quickly.
“So?” His questioning tone carried a hint of amusement.
Lan Yan pressed her lips together.
Some indefinable, unresolved emotion wove through her heart like a spider’s web. She avoided looking at Liang Jingchuan and just stared at the lattice window across the island.
Tree shadows swayed in the night.
Liang Jingchuan always ate unhurriedly, without making much noise even with noodles.
After some time, she heard the sound of chopsticks placed on the porcelain bowl and turned her head. Only broth remained.
Liang Jingchuan left the island, bowl and chopsticks in hand, and went to the sink.
As water rushed, Lan Yan also got down from the bar stool and walked to his side.
His shirt sleeves were rolled up higher, his fingers covered in dish soap foam.
How could someone make doing chores look so refined and elegant?
Lan Yan grabbed a rag and went to wipe the stove and counter nearby.
The two worked together to restore the kitchen.
As they left the kitchen, Lan Yan asked, “Did you bring a suitcase? Where did you put it?”
“At your room door.”
“Wait here, then. I’ll go say hi to Yu Jingzhi and ask him to lend another guest room.”
Liang Jingchuan nodded.
The living room was too noisy; even talking was difficult, and the music made her head throb. Lan Yan fished the key to her room from her pocket and handed it to Liang Jingchuan. “Go wait in my room.”
Liang Jingchuan took it.
Back in the game room, Lan Yan’s seat had been taken by the young man named Ding Yue, who didn’t know when he had arrived.
When Ding Yue saw her enter, he immediately wanted to give up the seat, but Lan Yan asked him to continue and explained her purpose to Yu Jingzhi.
With his older brother absent, Yu Jingzhi was in charge of the Yu Residence. He called the housekeeper, who immediately arranged a guest room and had a servant do a quick clean.
Lan Yan made plans with Liang Manxi to play together later, left the game room, and headed to her own room.
The side building was separated by an oil painting gallery. As she passed through, the noise from the living room gradually faded.
Corridors on both sides were lit by double-headed glass wall lamps, with brass bases featuring oak leaf patterned castings.
Liang Jingchuan stood right at the door of her room, leaning against the wall beside the wall lamp.
His figure was strikingly elegant, like a touch of lingering blank space amid the ornate Victorian flourish.
Lan Yan stopped at the door. “Why didn’t you go in and wait?”
“Mm.” Liang Jingchuan smiled faintly.
An impeccable sense of boundaries.
Lan Yan took the key back from his hand and pointed toward the staircase ahead. “Your room is on the second floor. It’s still being cleaned.”
“Okay.”
She inserted the key, opened the door, and said softly, “Come in and wait.”
The switch for the electric mosquito repellent liquid had been left on all day and night, filling the air with a minty fragrance.
Lan Yan checked the time. It was almost one in the morning.
“What time do you leave in the morning?”
“Six.”
“If you’re already tired, you can rest in my room. They might take a while to finish cleaning.”
“It’s fine. I can sleep on the plane.”
There was a leather changing stool at the foot of the bed. Lan Yan pointed to it. “…Sit.”
For convenience, she and Zhou Wenshu always kept a dozen bottles of drinking water in the room. They were stacked against the wall. She walked over, took one, and handed it to him.
He had already sat down on the stool. He took the water but didn’t drink it, just set it beside him.
Lan Yan didn’t know where to position herself. Standing opposite him felt awkward, and sitting in the chair by the vanity was too far for talking.
In the end, she sat down beside him, with that bottle of water between them.
To be honest, sitting side by side felt strange too.
She propped her hands at her sides, lowered her head, stretched her legs forward, and crossed them.
She appeared bored, but in truth, she couldn’t dispel the subtle atmosphere.
His gaze naturally drifted to her feet: silver-strapped sandals, distinct ankle bones, pale insteps with clearly visible blue veins.
Her gray suspender skirt split at the knees and draped down, revealing slender calves that were perfectly proportioned.
He looked for only an instant before dropping his gaze to the intricate pattern on the carpet by her feet.
After the afternoon meeting, he had rushed straight here, travel-weary and physically fatigued, yet his mind was exceptionally exhilarated, capturing every detail without fail.
Her breathing, the slight rise and fall of her chest with each breath, the scent of her hair—jasmine mingled with the mint.
Liang Jingchuan leaned forward slightly, propping his elbows on his knees.
Lan Yan turned to him. “Are you tired?”
“…Mm.”
“Why don’t you go take a shower and sleep? I’ll head upstairs…”
Her movement to stand was halted as he suddenly gripped her wrist.
Her voice cut off abruptly.
His hand felt slightly cool, the grip loose. It slid down and rested on the back of her hand.
She curled her fingers instinctively, then slowly straightened them.
The motion arched the back of her hand slightly—impossible to miss.
In the next instant, his hand glided along the back of hers toward her fingertips, slipped into the gap between her fingers and the leather stool, and clasped the first segments of her fingers.
No further movement.
The room fell quiet, yet it felt like undercurrents surging beneath.
Her heart raced to some extreme speed, teetering on the brink of stopping, only to pound on relentlessly, threatening to burst from her chest and give out.
Fear surged suddenly. Could a heart really beat this fast, this loudly? Then realization hit—this was the first time she felt so close to suffocation. Just from holding hands.
Fear came last.
Would he hear it?
Was he feeling the same?
She couldn’t turn to check. She didn’t even dare blink… only focused on making her breaths lighter, slower, over and over.
Sweat beaded at her fingertips. She sensed his hand was no longer cool but scorching hot—or maybe it was hers. She couldn’t tell.
“Yanyan.” His voice came out low and hoarse.
Her eardrums buzzed like roaring tides, muffling his words.
“Talk to me.
“I need some air.”
…How could she talk? She couldn’t make a sound.
She needed air too.