The sound of frying oil came from the small kitchen, while He Yu and Xie Xue sat at the small and somewhat greasy dining room table.
Xie Xue had cleared his melancholy and smiled quite easily while waiting for his older brother to finish the meal.
He Yu was also smiling superficially, but inside he was blanking his eyes.
The sliding door of the kitchen decorated with adhesive posters opened and first a pungent and familiar aroma of rice came out, then Xie Qingcheng came out, already with the apron removed, the shirt still fitted and the pants straight. Although he was cold in nature, he was a good older brother. Since his parents had died soon, he was the head of the family and had grown up taking care of the younger generation, so his culinary skills were very good.
When Xie Xue saw his brother with his sleeves half rolled up, carrying a tray and putting it on the humble coffee table, he let out a cry and got up happily to help his brother leave the tray on the table and take the cutlery.
"It smells very good. Brother, you are so handsome, you are so handsome. I love you so much, I love you so much, let's go! I'm starving."
Xie Qingcheng was angry: "Girls shouldn't say those words. It's not appropriate. Go, wash your hands first."
And he said to He Yu again, "You too."
He Yu hadn't eaten fried rice like that in a long time.
Xie Qingcheng's fried rice was fluffy and golden, and to do so you had to use a particular rice - He Yu had once observed Xie Qingcheng preparing this, his sister's favorite food, on the stove as a child, and he knew that a good fried rice had to be made with rice overnight, neither too wet nor too Before adding the rice to the wok, it is passed through a large bowl of beaten egg so that each piece of rice is evenly covered with a golden color.
When the hot oil reaches the appropriate temperature, two fresh eggs are quickly thrown into the frying pan, stirring them to undo them, and they are quickly removed. Add the lard and pour the egg-covered rice into the frying pan to sauté it over high heat.
But this is not the real fried rice of Yangzhou, Xie Qingcheng has adapted it to the taste of Xie Xue and has never put green beans on it. But that doesn't stop it from being delicious. The three dishes of steamed fried rice are golden and shine in the light, with ham cut into small pieces, and tender shrimp sprinkled with green onions on top, all of tempting color and flavor.
He Yu ate his food, but he was calculating his movements in his heart.
He didn't really know what to do, Xie Xue had been talking and laughing at the table, but since Xie Qingcheng was here, most of his laughter was directed at his brother. And while the two brothers chatted freely together, he was a little unable to intervene because he had not spent time with these two for so long, which made him a non-existent backdrop in their conversation.
The backdrop was unhappy, and I had to think of a way to get rid of Xie Qingcheng.
"Do you want more?"
As he abstracted himself, the fragrant fried rice had already been eaten to the bottom by himself in silence, He Yu returned to his heart and politely told Xie Qingcheng that he was looking at him: "No thanks, it is not necessary."
"Brother, I want more, you can give me more!"
Xie Qingcheng took Xie Xue's plate and left, Xie Xue bit his chopsticks and said to He Yu: "My brother's cuisine is much better than yours, and it's especially delicious, don't you really want another dish?"
He Yu smiled: "You are the only one who is going to break the balance, so don't drag me with you."
"Hey! What are you saying?! You hate me."
"You were the first to say that my kitchen was not as good as yours..."
The two were arguing when Xie Qingcheng's voice came from the kitchen: "Xie Xue, what are you doing by putting a bucket of water here?"
"Oh." Xie Xue immediately stopped playing with He Yu, as if she wasn't the one who was joking with him a moment ago, and said with a serious face: "The school said that the water in the bedroom will be cut tomorrow, so I took out a bucket of water to store it, but the kitchen is too small, so to get it out of the way I had
"And what would you do if I hadn't paid attention when opening the door and it falls?"
The idiot said, "Oh, brother, don't worry, it will be fine."
He Yu, who was fond of pulling the braids of the girls he liked, heard the conversation between the two, and his beautiful and innocent almond eyes went to the kitchen, and suddenly he came up with a very bad and harmful idea ......
The three of them had dinner, and Xie Qingcheng didn't like to clean, so He Yu, as a seemingly friendly, reliable and excellent boy, naturally took the initiative to take care of washing the dishes and brushing the pots.
"Do you want to help?" Xie Xue asked.
"I'll call you later if I need you." He Yu said with an ironic smile, turned around and went to the kitchen, closing the door behind him.
His smile disappeared as soon as the door was closed.
He began to meditate on the angle carefully, first he moved the bucket of water that rested above the closet a little outwards, to a position where if the door opened it would be enough to knock it down.
Then, calmly, he took the hair dryer that Xie Xue had placed on the second shelf of the five-drawer closet, put it in the sink without blinking an eye and unscrewed the faucet.
"Wow..."
The high-end hair dryer that Xie Xue had bought with half a month's salary was thus turned into a lot of useless junk by his unquestionable young teacher He.
Very good.
He Yu calmly dried the hair dryer and put it back in the closet.
The preparatory work was finished.
He looked through the door at the girl who laughed at Xie Qingcheng, turned around to pull up the sleeves of her white shirt, quietly opened the tap and began to pour detergent and scrub the dishes.
He was a good man! A good young man!
However, I suppose that bad deeds always carry remuneration.
Just when He Yu had finished preparing his entire plan and had just shaken the water out of his hands, he was about to let the heroine in so that she would have the "casual" accident he had planned. When he suddenly heard steps out of the kitchen. Immediately, He Yu turned around and saw the tall and straight figure of a man reflected outside the frosted glass.
He Yu's apricot eyes widened and before he could stop him, he heard Xie Qingcheng say from the outside: "He Yu, I'm going to go in to wash my hands."
"Wait..."
As soon as the word "wait" came out of his mouth, he heard a dull noise, and the cube that He Yu had deliberately rested on the edge of the five-drawer closet swayed, and then...
"PLAF!"
The bucket full of water, water that, according to He Yu's plan, should have fallen on Xie Xue's head, fell directly on Xie Qingcheng's handsome face.
Shit!
Not a single fucking wasted drop!
He Yu: "......"
Xie Qingcheng: "......"
The water splashed, turning the room into a disaster, and the meritorious bucket rolled back and forth around Qingcheng Xie, from his head to his wet shoes, finally rolling slowly, as if he were an old man walking, outside the living room, stopping satisfied in front of Xie Xue's shoes, who had rushed to enter when he heard the roar.
Xie Xue witnessed everything from the outside and trembled with fear.
What's more......
Everything was over! Finished shit!
Xie Xue watched her older brother, soaked to the bone, slowly turn his head towards her. His face, already white, looked even whiter than jade and dark eyebrows under the washing of a large bucket of heavenly rain. His wet hair in front of his forehead dripped thick drops of water. The water was sliding down his forehead and his eyes widened due to disbelief, and unconsciously, he narrowed his eyes for a moment before paying attention again.
"Xie Xue!!!"
Xie Xue was startled and shrugged with fear.
Xie Qingcheng shook his dripping hair from his forehead, furious: "I told you not to put the bucket in the five-drawer closet!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Xie Xue shuddered and ran in, took a mop and a tissue, gave his brother the handkerchief while he went to the dresser to look for the hair dryer, "Brother, I didn't expect him to fall ...... obviously it was fine when he went in and out ...... It drys your hair first, don't catch a cold."
He Yu blinked with his warm apricot eyes from behind.
Xie Xue pulled Xie Qingcheng into the living room and, without knowing anything, took the hair dryer that had been soaked by He Yu until it was useless. He connected to the electrical outlet and pressed the switch.
Nothing.
"Hey?"
I press again.
Nothing yet.
"......"
I press repeatedly.
"...... Brother." Xie Xue looked at his brother's gloomy face, almost feeling that he was about to die, and said in a trembling voice: "The hair dryer, the hair dryer seems to have broken down ......"
Xie Qingchen looked at her with her cold peach-colored eyes: "Is this the hair dryer you told me before you bought for four thousand yuan?"
Xie Xue almost fell to his knees.
How could he have had such bad luck?
At first, Xie Qingcheng didn't understand why her sister had bought a hair dryer more expensive than an ordinary TV, and scolded her at that time. She repeatedly explained to him how good this machine was, how she could take care of her hair, and most importantly, that the quality was so good that it would not spoil for about twenty years.
"I swear I'll use this dryer for 20 years! Or you can cut off my head because of the IQ tax."
With the words still resonating in his ears at that time, Xie Xue only felt a shiver in his neck under the chilling gaze of Xie Qingcheng, and he could not help but take a step back and raise his hand to cover his neck.
I didn't know what to do when he glimpsed He Yu wiping his hands and leaving the kitchen like a dog that hasn't done anything wrong. Hey Yu, do me a favor, will you? My hair dryer is broken! Who would have said it would be so bad? Do you have a change of clothes in your bedroom? Do you have a hair dryer? Can you bring it to my brother so that it can be changed? Thank you."
"......"
Acting so politely in front of his brother again.
He Yu smiled and cooperated: "Teacher Xie, but it's too far away."
He turned his gaze to Xie Qingcheng.
Xie Qingcheng was lying on the sofa, with his severely defined jaw still dripping, his casual gray shirt was completely wet, the fabric so glued to his skin that you could see the contour of his weakly fluid chest, and his waist thin. At this moment he was leaning to the side, his eyes torn, his thin lips slightly gathered, his face looking at Xie Xue with a gloomy expression, as if he were ready to apply euthanasia to this defeated sister with all justice.
He Yu looked at him and felt a slight headache.
In his original plan, the person who ended up soaked to the bone and desperate to follow him to his bedroom to dry his hair had to be Xie Xue.
How did he end up being Xie Qingcheng?
He was a heterosexual man and hated doctors, so he didn't like the idea of receiving Xie Qingcheng in his bedroom.
But he couldn't do anything, the damage was already done, Xie Qingcheng was in a mess and Xie Xue had asked him for help, so he could only sigh softly and get close to Xie Qingcheng, telling the gloomy-looking doctor sitting on the couch.
"You're soaked, so don't look at people like that. Dr. Xie, come back with me to change your clothes..." My bedroom is not far from here, it's only ten minutes away. Come on."\n
.
He was just an old man.\n
But looking at him, He Yu was a little distracted.\n
He recalled that in his eyes, Xie Qingcheng was a childhood nightmare. He was always afraid of him and still had to see him, he had to humble himself in front of him and lose his manners.
Xie Qingchen had seen him go crazy, and he had also fought frantically with him while adjusting his fastening straps, and shouting at him like a crazy beast. Xie Qingcheng looked at him quietly at that moment, approaching him under the lamp without shade, he could feel the cold aroma of the disinfectant, and then the needle went through his skin ......\n
At that moment he felt that Xie Qingcheng was very tall.\n
And it felt very cold.\n
Such a powerful force that he could not resist, and that it is like a cloud over it. He seemed not to be able to get rid of this nightmare for the rest of his life.\n\n
But, to his surprise, after a few years without seeing him, who admired whom, who looked over the shoulder at whom, everything had fallen the other way around.\n
And he looked at him with his eyes slightly down...\n
What happened?\n
Looking at it now, it doesn't seem as scary as before.\n
Maybe it's because many people have false impressions of the things they saw as children, impressions made by the brain over the years, but that are not reality. For example, when he was a child, he saw soap operas that seemed incredibly long to him, but when he saw them again, he saw that they only lasted about 20 episodes, or the shepherd dogs he feared as a child, which he believed were larger than a tall horse, but when he saw old photos, he saw that the animal only reached the knees of an adult.
Perhaps this was the psychological difference I felt towards Xie Qingcheng.\n
His gaze stopped for a long time, enough for Xie Qingcheng to realize it.\n
Xie Qingcheng turned around and looked at him coldly: "What are you looking at?"\n
He Yu remained silent for a moment: "I see if my clothes fit you."
"......"
"Indeed, it's too big." He Yu said: "Xie Qingcheng, I remember that you used to be very tall."\n
Xie Qingcheng said coldly: "I don't think I have to use my height and my constitution to strut."
Then he turned around and dried his hair again, but his face was a little ugly before turning his head.
At that moment He Yu realized that his childhood nightmare was nothing more than an ordinary man, even a little thin. His own white t-shirt was too big, and the pale skin that could be seen under the neckline was like a torrent of water falling from a snowy mountain, filling the shadows of his clothes.\n
It was strange, how could I be so afraid of him back then?\n
Without realizing it, Xie Qingcheng had already finished drying her hair. Heterosexual men are not very good at grooming, he looked in the mirror very carefree, then left the dryer, turned to He Yu and said: "I'm leaving first. His clothes will be returned to him tomorrow."\n
"There is no need to return it. I'm not used to wearing clothes worn by others. You can throw it away after using it, it's old."\n
Having said that, Xie Qingcheng no longer insisted and stirred up the tip of his hair, which was still a little wet, and said: "Okay, then I'll leave first."\n
"Aren't you coming with me to Xie Xue's house again?"\n
"No." Xie Qingcheng said, "I have something else to do tonight."\n
"Writing a job?"\n
Xie Qingcheng didn't have a social habit of hiding his personal affairs, or maybe he didn't care, so he put on the clock, fastened the closure and looked at He Yu: "I have a blind date."\n
He Yu, who had only been chatting casually with him, did not react at first. He was still somewhat distracted, and he even secretly rejoiced that Xie Qingcheng had finally had the wisdom to leave, but after a few seconds, the two words ended up entering his ear, turning around his brain, and they came out for the other.
He Yu was a little surprised, turned his head quickly and opened his apricot eyes.
Wasn't Xie Qingcheng married?\n
How do you go on blind dates?\n
How come Xie Xue hadn't mentioned it to him?\n
He flickered, retaining a thread of idea in the chaos of thoughts that had come to him.
He looked at Xie Qingcheng, whose half of his face was indifferent, one half in the light and one in the shadow. He hesitated for a moment and asked timidly:
"Are you... divorced?"
The author has something to say.\nSmall theater.\nXie Xue: He Yu, let's play a game, everyone tells a lie. I'll go first, I don't like fried rice.
He Yu: I like men.
At that time, Dr. Xie was indifferent and listens to He Yu's speech. He took a displeasure look and walked away.
He felt that He Yu's red lips and white teeth were quite beautiful, as expected.
Damn, heterosexuals cannot accept homosexuality.
[This theater is a joke, the real fact is that both Xie Qingcheng and He Yu know that they are heterosexual and homophobic.]
Translator's note:
I usually don't make notes because I finish and publish it, but today I want to make one.
In the first chapter I made the mistake of believing that Professor Xie was a man, because I had read that the protagonist's name was Xie. Then I was reading that I was a woman and I said "nah, I must be wrong."
There is something else. Xie Qingchen's eyes are "peach flower", which is a rather attractive eye format. And those of He Yu are apricot (that is, a shade of brown, but so light that it becomes a kind of orange/honey)
It's quite funny, because those types of eyes have been used by several meatbun characters over time.
Peach blossom eyes were held by Shi Mei, Hua Bin'nan and Murong Lian.
Apricot eyes have been held by JiangXi and Jiang Fuli. And also Xue Meng.