Extra 8 – Cooking
On the fifth day of the New Year, Meng Ou arrived at her home right on time to pick her up and take her back to Changrui.
Xiang You had clearly only brought a small suitcase when she came, yet when she left, she had quite a few large and small bags in tow. Even her parents helped carry them out, filling half the trunk.
“I didn’t want to bring this much stuff either.” Xiang You pulled a long face as she looked at him. “My parents insisted that I take all of it.”
“It’s fine. They’re just looking out for you.” Meng Ou helped take the things from them one trip after another, arranging them neatly in the trunk.
“There’s some for you, too, Xiao Meng.” Her mother squeezed forward and began introducing everything one by one. “There are two portions of everything in this bag, one for you. Sausages, egg dumplings, lotus-root cakes, things like that. They’re all already cooked. Just heat them up and you can eat them.”
“What a coincidence.” Meng Ou froze for a moment, then smiled and pointed to the other side of the trunk. “My mom also made me bring quite a bit of cooked food. She said to give you half when we get back.”
“Ah…” Standing in front of her parents, Xiang You felt somewhat embarrassed. “Um… thank Auntie for me when you get back.”
“Sure. Then I’ll thank Uncle and Auntie in person.” Meng Ou turned to Xiang You’s parents and gave a slight nod. “Thank you, Uncle and Auntie, for thinking of me. I’ll make sure to enjoy it when I get home.”
Actually, back when the two of them were together, whenever Meng Ou’s mother sent him things, she would always send along a portion for Xiang You as well.
Most of the time, it was food. One winter, she even knitted Meng Ou a scarf, and knitted Xiang You one in the same design but a different color.
Xiang You had kept that scarf to this day. Whether it was after their breakup or when she met her third boyfriend, she had never thought of throwing it away.
Although she had never worn it again after they broke up, Xiang You always felt that it was a mother’s kindness. Whatever her relationship with Meng Ou might be, it should not be casually mistreated.
Of course, gifts like these had stopped coming after they broke up.
Time had passed, things had changed, and suddenly, one had been placed in her hands again.
As though nothing had ever changed at all.
Carrying a trunk full of good intentions, the two of them set off together.
Xiang You held a small cone-shaped paper tube in her hand, happily munching on the peanuts inside.
They had just been fried by Meng Ou’s mother before he left.
“My mom improved the flavor a little this year. She told me to ask what you think,” Meng Ou said.
Xiang You chewed so loudly that the peanuts crackled in her mouth, nodding vigorously. “They’re really good. The old ones were good, and the new ones are good too. Different kinds of good!”
“You’re really giving me face.” Meng Ou laughed and nodded. “I’ll tell her when we get back. She’ll be over the moon.”
“I’m telling the truth.” Xiang You picked up a peanut and held it to his lips. “They really smell so good fresh out of the fryer.”
Busy driving, Meng Ou quickly lowered his head and snatched the peanut from her fingertips.
It was only that the peanut was so small that when he snatched it away, it was almost as though he had kissed her fingertip along with it. Xiang You pulled her hand back and blinked several times rapidly at the air.
“When I went home that day, my parents really gave me hell.” Meng Ou smiled bitterly.
“Huh? Why?” Concerned, Xiang You straightened her back a little more.
“They said I didn’t understand etiquette. Who gives an odd number of gifts? And giving only one box of pastries was too stingy. Anyway, they scolded me for ages, rattling on and on.” Thinking of that day, a bitter look still spread across Meng Ou’s face.
“They’re that particular about it…?” Xiang You shrank her shoulders, secretly glad that she had not been the one visiting that day. Otherwise, she was afraid she would have made mistakes too.
“Yeah. To make up for it, they… Damn it!” Meng Ou slapped the steering wheel.
“Ah? What now?” Meng Ou’s sudden alarm startled Xiang You too.
“They had me bring a box of white strawberries and a tin of Da Hong Pao as return gifts. But just now, I was so focused on getting to eat all the good stuff Auntie gave me that I completely forgot about it.” Meng Ou sighed. “Do you think it would be appropriate to turn around and go back now?”
Human relationships and social etiquette were such a hassle.
That was Xiang You’s first thought.
If she and Meng Ou formed a little household of their own someday, would they have to handle all these things themselves? Just thinking about it gave her a headache...
No, wait. How had she suddenly thought that far ahead?
This kind of leaping train of thought really was fatal.
But at the thought of strawberries, Xiang You, who was still eating peanuts, grew greedy again. “What are white strawberries?”
“They’re just... white strawberries? I gave them the name ‘anemic strawberries,’ and my mom scolded me again.” Meng Ou fell into thought. “I really feel like the whole point of this trip home was just for me to get scolded.”
“Then can we secretly keep them for ourselves?” Xiang You squeezed her eyes at him mischievously. “I’ll say lots and lots of nice things about you in front of my parents later!”
Meng Ou watched her mischievous little expression from the corner of his eye, the corners of his mouth never dropping.
“Then they’re specifically for you. My parents asked me what Uncle and Auntie liked. I said I wasn’t really sure, and got lectured for quite a while again. In the end, they decided that bringing some food could never go wrong.”
“You poor thing.” Xiang You held another peanut to his lips. “I’ll give you a peanut to comfort you.”
The car was waiting at a red light. Meng Ou lowered his eyes and took the peanut from her fingers, lightly biting her fingertip along with it.
Xiang You abruptly pulled her hand back. “What are you doing!”
“Taking it out on you a little,” Meng Ou said, perfectly justified.
“Who does that—”
Xiang You reached out to hit him, but he caught her hand in midair. He lowered his head and gave it another light bite, then tossed her hand back to her. “Stop moving around. We’re about to start driving. It’s dangerous.”
Safety-first Xiang You was so frightened that she did not dare move around anymore. Then she looked up...
There were still thirty seconds left on the red light!
What a scoundrel! What a liar!
Xiang You looked at the small handful of peanuts still remaining in her hand.
He was not getting a single one anymore!
The road back was not as congested as the way there, but they were still stopping and going frequently. By the time they arrived downstairs at Xiang You’s home, it was already getting dark.
The two of them ran up and down twice before finally carrying everything into the house.
At the doorway, Meng Ou tossed his car keys once in his hand. “Then I’ll head back first?”
“Um, wait.” Xiang You called him back. “Don’t I still owe you several hundred meals? Does eating at home count as one?”
Meng Ou laughed at that and very naturally stepped into the entryway. “It counts. Of course it counts.”
Xiang You rummaged through the shoe cabinet and found an old pair of plush slippers for him. “Change into these.”
Only when she set them on the floor did she notice the little cat heads on the tops of the slippers. They had been squashed in the cabinet for too long, and the fur was no longer fluffy.
“You kept these?” Meng Ou asked.
“They could still be worn... so I kept them.”
When they broke up, she had indeed thrown away a lot of things belonging to couples. But as a pragmatist, she had still kept quite a few things.
Although she had not used many of them again, she could not bear to throw them away either. She had never expected that, after being put away here and there for so long, they would actually end up coming in handy here.
“I kept mine too, but all the little dog heads have fallen off.”
Meng Ou lowered his head and put on the slippers. They were obviously quite a bit too small for him, with part of his heels sticking out, making him look rather pitiful.
“What ‘dog heads’? That sounds so awful...” Xiang You muttered under her breath. “Why do the things that end up in your hands always get treated so miserably?”
“That’s because I wear them every day.” Meng Ou lifted his foot and gave it two little shakes. “If you wore them every day, you’d also...”
The air instantly froze.
The two of them lowered their heads and watched helplessly as a little cat head rolled off the slipper, silently coming to rest on the floor.
Meng Ou’s foot was still suspended in midair. Only after quite a while did he carefully lower it.
“I knew I shouldn’t have given them to you!” Xiang You crouched down, picked up the pitiful little cat head, and looked up at him with considerable resentment.
“It’s over...” Meng Ou let out a long sigh. “How about you twist my head off and put it on instead? Would that make amends to it?”
“That’s not entirely impossible.” Xiang You held it up and measured it against him. “Then put it on your neck. It’s way cuter than you.”
“Come on, come on.” Meng Ou raised his neck high, his Adam’s apple pushing the skin taut until it was almost translucent, a faintly suggestive flush spreading around it.
Xiang You grabbed the hem of his clothes and stood up, then curiously curled her finger and rubbed his Adam’s apple.
Beneath the skin, which was much more delicate than elsewhere, it felt somewhat uneven to the touch, and when she pressed down, it was a little hard...
“Mm!” Meng Ou frowned in pain and grabbed her wrist. “Before you press me to death, how about considering getting a marriage certificate with me?”
“W-What!” What kind of scene was he suddenly singing now? Xiang You hurriedly tried to let go, but he had her locked in place and she could not pull away.
“That way, if I die, you can still inherit something from me. Otherwise, you’ll have killed someone for nothing.”
How did he manage to say things like that so casually?
“Is it really that dangerous? I didn’t mean to...” Xiang You shrank her head back.
“I did.”
“Did what?” Why did this man always talk in riddles?
But Meng Ou did not answer again. He shuffled off toward the kitchen in the slippers that now had only one little cat head left.
“What do you want to eat tonight?”
Xiang You hurried after him, the little cat head still clutched in her hand. “Is Chef Meng going to cook personally?”
“Chef Xiang can wield the knife too, if she wants.” Meng Ou looked around the kitchen. “Where’s the apron?”
“We don’t have one. Maybe because Chef Xiang almost never cooks...” Xiang You answered weakly.
“Then who gave you the title of ‘Chef’?” Meng Ou very naturally pinched her cheek. “Did you bribe them?”
Xiang You blinked. “Wasn’t it you who gave me the title?”
“Fine. You didn’t bribe them. You just brainwashed the entire judging panel.”
“I did not—” The contestant was very much dissatisfied.
“Then why is there nothing but you in the judge’s head?”
Xiang You froze for a moment, then laughed and hit him repeatedly. “That’s so cheesy, Meng Ou!”
The two of them laughed and horsed around in the kitchen for quite a while before finally getting down to cooking.
More precisely, Meng Ou was the head chef, while Xiang You stood to the side watching, while also providing companionship and conversation.
Compared with the so-called “heroically sacrificing oneself” style of cooking he had displayed when they lived together before, Meng Ou now seemed much more practiced.
Stir-frying, tossing the wok, and even the way he shook his wrist when sprinkling seasonings, which Xiang You seriously suspected was just him putting on airs, all looked quite convincing.
Although, limited by the ingredients they had, most of what they did was simply heating up the semi-prepared foods they had brought from home.
The two sat around the table, each holding a bowl of rice. Facing a table full of sumptuous dishes, neither hurried to pick up their chopsticks. Instead, they looked at each other.
“You said you were treating me. So how come I’m the one cooking?” Meng Ou said.
This time Xiang You did not manage to come up with a retort. She simply gave two little “hehe” laughs.
She suddenly felt that the scene before her was beautiful.
Inside on this winter day, beneath the warm yellow light, together with the person she loved, tasting the food he had just cooked.
It was actually the most ordinary scene imaginable. But sometimes, the more ordinary and comforting something was, the more precious it became.
“Meng Ou.” She called his name.
Perhaps there was something unusually serious in her tone, because Meng Ou also shed his earlier frivolity and answered seriously.
“Mm...”
“My mom said that a home always needs someone who knows how to cook. I don’t know how to cook, so she told me I have to find someone who does.”
She lowered her eyes and spoke slowly, one word after another. When she finished the last word, she raised her eyes and looked at him.
Beneath the warm yellow glow, Meng Ou smiled at her very gently.
“My mom told me I had to learn how to cook properly, so that in the future, even if her daughter-in-law doesn’t know how to cook, she can still have delicious food to eat every day.”
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