After 2:00 PM, guests arrived one after another, and the guesthouse suddenly became lively.
Every moment, someone was looking for an electrical outlet, or asking Zhou Ming which mountain nearby offered the best sunrise view.
Lin Yuzhou was standing at the entrance welcoming guests. Just as he finished giving directions to a college student, he turned around and found a girl in a white sun-protective hoodie charging straight at him.
The girl looked to be in her early twenties, carrying a backpack and clutching a phone with Lin Yuzhou’s idol group logo on the case.
“Lin Yuzhou! I’m your fan! I voted for you starting from the very first round of your talent show, every single round!”
The girl’s voice was trembling, her face flushed red. “I—I’m Liang Siyue, I came here specially to see you!”
Lin Yuzhou was pushed back half a step by this rush of enthusiasm, but quickly adjusted into a standard idol smile, the tips of his ears slightly red. “Thank you, thank you. Did you come alone?”
“Yes! I was originally traveling in a neighboring city, but I changed my tickets on short notice to try my luck, never expecting I’d run into you right as I arrived!”
“That’s perfect, I’ll help you check in.” Lin Yuzhou took her backpack and led her toward the front desk.
“Teacher Lu is managing the front desk today. I’ll have her pick a nice room for you later—that one on the second floor has the biggest window, push it open and you can see the entire bamboo grove.”
Liang Siyue’s smile froze for a split second, so fast it was almost imperceptible. Then she curved the corners of her mouth again and nodded.
Lu Yufei had just finished checking in a sketching girl and handed back her ID card when her peripheral vision caught Lin Yuzhou leading a girl in white over.
“Teacher Lu, this is my fan, she came all the way from out of town,” Lin Yuzhou set Liang Siyue’s backpack against the edge of the front desk. “Help her pick a nice room, that one on the second floor by the bamboo grove.”
Lu Yufei nodded and looked up at the new guest. The girl was standing next to Lin Yuzhou, the smile on her face vanishing the instant their eyes met.
Lu Yufei didn’t recognize this face, but inexplicably felt it looked a bit familiar. Not thinking much of it, she went through the routine and said, “Please give me your ID card.”
Liang Siyue pulled her ID card out of her wallet and placed it on the counter. Without even looking at Lu Yufei, she turned to Lin Yuzhou and said, “Brother, go ahead and get busy if you have things to do, I can manage by myself.”
Lin Yuzhou smiled and said, “It’s fine, you’re the first fan to come here, I definitely need to host you properly. I’ll go get you a drink, what would you like?”
“Anything is fine, thank you, brother!” Liang Siyue beamed sweetly at Lin Yuzhou, her face immediately dropping the moment she looked at Lu Yufei. Then she lowered her head and began tapping frantically on her phone.
For a moment, nobody spoke at the front desk, save for the clicking sound of her fingers tapping the screen.
Lu Yufei was verifying the information and hadn’t finished typing in the room number yet when Liang Siyue blurted out without looking up, “Are you always this slow?” Her tone was extremely impatient, a complete 180-degree turn from just moments ago.
Lin Yuzhou walked over with two bottles of yogurt, handing one to Liang Siyue and placing the other in front of Lu Yufei. Looking somewhat embarrassed, he glanced at Lu Yufei and tried to smooth things over: “The production crew’s system might be lagging—”
“It’s fine.” Lu Yufei didn’t elaborate. Pushing the room card across, she said in a flat tone, “This is your room card, third room on the right on the second floor.”
Liang Siyue took the room card, flashed a quick smile at Lin Yuzhou, “Thanks for helping me pick the room, brother!” As she turned around, she gave Lu Yufei a sidelong glare, but didn’t say anything further. Stashing the room card into her pocket, she walked off.
Lin Yuzhou hurried after her to help carry her bag, taking a couple of steps before turning back to mouth an “I’m sorry” gesture at Lu Yufei.
Leaning back against the front desk chair, Lu Yufei picked up the bottle of yogurt and took a sip. It was cool and quite refreshing.
She looked down at her belly and gave it a gentle pat. Whatever—plenty of people online cursed her anyway, running into one in person wasn’t that strange.
The guesthouse was busier than expected. That afternoon, two more batches of guests checked in, with luggage being lugged in and out and footsteps echoing through the hallway in waves.
Zhou Ming ran back and forth between the front desk and the kitchen, Lin Yuzhou and Song Yiran sweated profusely moving supplies in the courtyard, and Meng Xiaoxuan and Qiao Qiao pushed the linen cart from one end of the hallway to the other. Passing the front desk, Qiao Qiao even had Lu Yufei help her film a couple of clips for her “Guesthouse Work Diary.”
Lu Yufei’s fixed post was front desk registration, but guests didn’t arrive constantly, so once check-ins wrapped up, she had free time.
Stepping out from behind the counter, she wanted to find something to do. Otherwise, when the variety show aired and everyone else was running around busy while she sat alone at the front desk drinking water, the public perception of her—already poor—would likely get even worse.
Walking out to the courtyard, she bent down intending to help stack folding chairs, but Lin Yuzhou rushed over and snatched them away. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it, Sis, you go rest.” Turning into the hallway to help Meng Xiaoxuan push the linen cart, Meng Xiaoxuan hurriedly pulled the cart back toward herself. “Sis, this is a bit heavy, really, I’ve got it.”
With no other options left, she took a turn toward the kitchen. Surely nobody would stop her in the kitchen.
Inside the kitchen, Su Wan was standing at the counter prepping ingredients.
Wearing a black apron, her hair casually twisted up at the back with a wooden hairpin, she had shredded potatoes neatly lined up on the cutting board.
The claypot on the stove was bubbling and emitting steam, filling the entire kitchen with the aroma of spare rib soup.
Hearing footsteps, Su Wan looked up without pausing the knife in her hand.
“Teacher Lu? Why did you come over, isn’t the front desk busy?”
“There are no guests right now.” Standing at the doorway, Lu Yufei poked half her body inside. “Is there anything I can do?”
Hesitating for a moment, Su Wan’s gaze swept over her belly, her lips parting slightly before closing again.
Tilting her head in thought, she put down her kitchen knife and fished a few heads of garlic out of a mesh bag underneath the counter, placing them next to the cutting board.
“You can peel the garlic for me.” Her voice was soft and gentle. She then turned around to fetch a small plastic stool from the corner of the kitchen, placing it against the wall on the side of the counter.
It was neither too close nor too far from the stove—safe from oil splatters, yet catching the cross breeze blowing in from the window.
“Sit down to peel.”
Sitting down on the small stool, Lu Yufei broke the garlic apart clove by clove, peeling away the thin skins and placing the clean cloves into a bowl.
Su Wan glanced over in her direction, curved the corners of her mouth without a word, and continued cutting her potato shreds.
Accompanied by a string of “It’s so hot, it’s so hot, it’s so hot…”, Qiao Qiao barged in.
Making a beeline for the refrigerator, she yanked the door open, fished out a can of iced cola, popped the pull tab with a snap, and tilted her head back to take a large gulp, letting out a satisfied sigh.
Lu Yufei’s eyes shifted away from the garlic cloves, her gaze gluing itself onto the cola can and watching the condensation droplets slide down the surface.
Unconsciously, she swallowed. Ever since transmigrating, Fu Qing had kept such a tight watch on her that she hadn’t tasted a single sip of iced cola.
Noticing her gaze, Qiao Qiao shook the cola can in her hand. “Want some?”
“…Can I drink that?”
Qiao Qiao’s expression looked as if she’d heard a baffling question. “If you want to drink it, just drink it, there’s more in the fridge—”
“You can’t drink it.” Su Wan’s voice drifted lazily from the stove area; she was still chopping vegetables and didn’t even raise her head.
With puppy-dog eyes, Lu Yufei gazed longingly at the can of cola, her line of sight tracking the water droplets sliding down the container. Su Wan lowered her gaze to look at her.
Perhaps Lu Yufei’s look of yearning was simply too desperate. Unable to bear it any longer, she put down her kitchen knife, picked up a cup from the counter, and handed it to Qiao Qiao, a hint of helpless resignation in her tone: “Just pour a tiny, tiny bit for her to taste.”
Accepting the cup, Qiao Qiao carefully poured a thin layer at the bottom of the cup, just enough to cover the base.
Handing it over to Lu Yufei, she warned, “Drink it slowly, don’t make Teacher Su regret this.”
Accepting the cup, Lu Yufei took a tiny sip. The cola burst across the tip of her tongue with a fine froth of bubbles—icy cold, sweet, and carrying the stimulating kick of caffeine.
Closing her eyes, she let out an almost imperceptible sigh.
“Is it good?” Qiao Qiao leaned in to ask.
“…Can I have a little more?” Setting the cup down, she licked her lips.
“Sure, I’ll add just a little bit more—” Qiao Qiao picked up the cola can. Just as she tilted the bottle, a hand stained with scallion and ginger scent reached in from the side and blocked the bottle opening.
“I said a tiny bit means a tiny bit.” Su Wan’s tone was flat.
“Just add a tiny, tiny bit more…” Lu Yufei murmured softly.
“No.”
Feeling guilty, Qiao Qiao pulled the cola can back and took a step back. “Alright, alright, no more, no more.”
Turning around, she fished a few more cans of cola out of the fridge. “Um… I’m going to go give Xiaoxuan and Song Yiran some refreshment too, they must be roasting out there moving linens.”
With that, she greased the soles of her feet and slipped away at top speed, not even managing to close the fridge door behind her.
Reaching out, Su Wan closed the fridge door and shook her head with a smile.
Holding that pitifully small amount of cola at the bottom of the cup, Lu Yufei was hesitating over whether to down it in one gulp when the light at the kitchen entrance was suddenly blocked.
Standing in the doorway with flour smudged on his apron and an empty teapot in his left hand was Zhou Ming.
Placing the teapot down by the sink, he spotted Lu Yufei sitting on the small stool. He froze for a second, then his eyebrows slowly drew together in a frown.
“Teacher Lu, why are you doing chores here? The kitchen floor is slippery, what if you slip or bump into something… Aish, you young people…” Striding in, he spotted the black liquid in her cup.
“…Who poured her cola?”
“It’s fine, just a tiny bit,” Lu Yufei said.
“A tiny bit won’t do either, your situation—” Pausing, he put on an expression that said forget it, scolding is useless, took the small cup away from her, and turned around to pour a cup of warm water, placing it on the counter beside her. “Drink this.”
The claypot bubbled away on the stove, Su Wan leaned against the counter chopping vegetables, Zhou Ming turned on the fire to stir-fry dishes, and someone outside yelled that dinner was ready, with Qiao Qiao’s voice the loudest of all.
Cupping the warm water in her hands, Lu Yufei suddenly thought that this kind of life wasn’t bad either.