Xie Chong knew he was in the wrong but refused to admit it, deliberately putting on a fierce tone: "What are you yelling about?!"
Mu Wen's gaze shifted to behind him, and she asked, "What's that behind you? You're not hiding some weapon to use against me, are you? Let me tell you, if it really comes to a fight, you might not even win against me!"
Mu Wen was someone who had caught lambs out on the pasture!
The disobedient little lamb ran all over the pen, and Mu Wen followed the adults to catch it. Back then, she was still a tiny little thing—she lunged forward to cut off the lamb's escape route, then hoisted it up.
The little lamb bleated angrily, and her face, smudged with black mud, broke into a delighted grin.
"I'll beat you to death!" Xie Chong took two steps back, then gestured with his chin toward the cabinet door: "Hurry up and fix it! Stop dawdling!" He quickly tucked his hands in front of him and dodged away.
Mu Wen got up from his bed and, taking advantage of his turned back, deliberately sat down on it twice more: How could his mattress be this comfortable? Mu Wen had never slept on a good mattress in her life, and now she could feel how different it was from her own.
Mr. Xie really lived too well.
She went to examine the handle—it wasn't Xie Chong's fault; the furniture factory hadn't driven the screws in properly. This kind of work was child's play for Mu Wen. She had been industrious since she was young—she could cook by the age of seven or eight, and by her teens, she could handle all sorts of chores around the house.
She deftly fixed the handle and carefully checked the other handles as well. Worried that something else in Xie Chong's home might have issues, she proactively offered to do a full inspection of his place.
Xie Chong followed behind her, watching her fiddle with all those things.
She knew how to do everything. She understood everything. Xie Chong had never met anyone like her, with such incredible hands-on ability.
His phone rang, and he stepped aside to take the call.
Mu Wen overheard him say:
"I'm home alone, what's up?"
"I'm fine, but I just can't be bothered to go out."
"That's it then!"
Xie Chong hated when people pried into his personal affairs. He didn't want to lay his life bare before anyone. But those words sounded strange to Mu Wen's ears.
If someone asked her what she was doing, she would definitely say: "I'm at a client's house fixing furniture!" If she were Xie Chong, she would say: "I've got something going on—my cabinet door broke, and I'm fixing it." She would tell the truth.
She thought: Maybe this is exactly what makes people different from one another.
Mu Wen didn't interrupt him, nor did she bring it up for discussion. After inspecting all the furniture, she patted her chest and assured him: "I've checked everything—your money was absolutely well spent! The quality of all this furniture is excellent."
For clients who signed full-package contracts, the company would place all furniture orders with the same factory for production, and the quality requirements were very high.
"And I just did a full quality inspection on your furniture too. Let me put it this way—within three years, as long as nobody deliberately damages it, nothing will go wrong!"
Mu Wen felt this trip was well worth it. Someone like Xie Chong had so many demands—she was really afraid that today something here would break, tomorrow something there would break. The company promised a 10-year warranty for full-package clients, and she dreaded him causing her trouble when she was especially busy!
But now it was fine—she'd inspected everything and had a clear picture in her head.
Xie Chong asked her: "Does my home look nice? Did you see those kitchen utensils and tableware? Pretty, aren't they?"
"Pretty, very pretty." Mu Wen praised him sincerely, then remembered she needed Xie Chong to sign something for her.
She pulled a file folder out of her canvas bag and took out a repair form, filling it out carefully.
Xie Chong hadn't expected this from her: she was actually doing what the other technicians did—pulling out a repair form, filling it in, and asking him to sign.
Seeing that Xie Chong refused to sign, Mu Wen spoke to him in a gentle, coaxing tone: "Mr. Xie, look, this is part of my job. But today is the weekend—technically, a designer shouldn't have to do this kind of work. But to ensure your quality of life, I still came over in person."
Xie Chong remained unmoved.
She continued: "Please don't think I'm being calculating. I just want my boss to see how dedicated I am to my work. And for this repair, I can apply for overtime pay…"
Xie Chong stopped teasing her. He took the paper and signed it, asking as he wrote: "Are all your furniture orders sent to a factory in Hebei?"
"It's not far from Beijing, anyway—it's our own factory." Mu Wen didn't dare tell Xie Chong that furniture production was outsourced to a furniture factory, just as she didn't dare tell him that Liu Gong was also just one of their outsourced construction teams, and that Liu Gong normally took on work from many other companies as well.
Every industry has its own insider secrets. She didn't understand Xie Chong's work, and she couldn't lay her own livelihood bare for him to see.
And these were things Mu Wen had gradually come to understand after starting her formal job. She made a point of learning the ropes. Sometimes at night, when she had nothing to do at home, she would sketch out workflow diagrams on paper—she found it fascinating. She would also occasionally daydream: What if I started my own company? How would I go about it?
She didn't have the ability to start a company right now.
She had no money, no connections, and she didn't understand the ins and outs of it all. She was still just a "draftsperson" at the moment—she needed plenty of time to learn.
"Keeping secrets from me, huh?" Xie Chong scoffed. "I'm looking for a factory to produce a batch of wooden photo frames, checking if any factory has the capability for mold-making production."
"Our furniture factory handles big orders—where would we find time for your little photo frames?" Mu Wen winked at him, deliberately trying to provoke him. When Xie Chong raised his hand as if to smack her, she dodged symbolically.
The furniture was repaired, so she couldn't linger any longer. As much as she loved Xie Chong's home, it was time for her to leave.
She headed toward the door and was about to change into her slippers when Xie Chong asked, "How do you usually handle lunch on weekends?"
"I cook for myself."
"You can cook?" he asked.
"Can't you?" Mu Wen shot back. "Cooking—isn't it just something anyone with hands can do?"
Xie Chong wished he could strangle her.
When he was studying abroad, all his classmates from China could cook, but he happened to be terrible at it. He hated the smell of cooking oil. Chinese restaurants overseas didn't taste the same as back home, but at least they beat burgers and fries. He ate out for every meal, ordering multiple dishes each time and taking the leftovers home to eat later.
During his time abroad, while his classmates were studying hairstyling and cooking skills, he was studying how to make money.
His first real business venture was something like a purchasing agent.
Jiang Wu wanted to eat chocolate, so he planned to buy a little of each kind. But he got carried away and ended up hauling back an entire crate of chocolate. Jiang Wu couldn't eat that much, so he resold it at a markup.
"Being a middleman is this fun?" He'd found his joy.
The day after selling the chocolate, he applied to register a trading company, and that's how the business began.
His parents had no objections.
They thought their son had a clear head and was decisive—since he had the idea to do business, they'd let him go for it. Initially, they didn't expect him to accomplish much; they figured he'd gain some experience, take a few losses, and broaden his horizons.
Until three months later, when he sold a batch of dressing mirrors worth $300,000 from China to England. Only then did they realize: their son wasn't just playing around. He actually had the ability to succeed.
"I can't cook. I don't like cooking," Xie Chong said. "You say you have hands—let's see if what you make is actually any good. You're not just bragging, are you?"
Mu Wen was naturally competitive by nature. Hearing him say that, every hair on her body stood up in defiance: "What makes you think I'm bragging? Just you wait—if it's good, you owe me an apology!"
"If it's good, I'll call you grandma."
"Who wants you calling me grandma?"
A sudden surge of competitive spirit enveloped them. In that case, they'd go shopping for ingredients and come back for an all-out culinary showdown.
Xie Chong had to handle a remote meeting, which conveniently let him dodge the grocery shopping trip. Mu Wen held out her hand to him: "Then give me money, and I'll go buy."
"You're not going to spend a single cent of your own money, are you?" Xie Chong said as he pulled out his wallet, took out five hundred yuan, and handed it to Mu Wen. When he asked if it was enough, she said, "With this much, I could buy half a supermarket~" Whenever she went to the supermarket herself, she bought so little that it totaled no more than ten or twenty yuan. She didn't like hoarding things, afraid of waste—she always bought just enough for the current meal, so naturally she never spent much.
Mu Wen happily took the money and headed to the urban warehouse store.
She absolutely loved grocery shopping.
How could there be such a fun place as a supermarket in this world? The supermarket had everything. Sometimes she'd stand in front of the shelves, studying the instructions on strange products, and find it all fascinating.
Now she had a new hobby: falling in love with grocery shopping without spending her own money.
If only every trip to the supermarket didn't require spending her own money—how wonderful would that be? She weaved happily through the aisles, her mental recipe list automatically generating the corresponding ingredients. Just then, she received a message from Xie Chong: "My house has nothing, including oil and salt."
"What do you have at your place?" Mu Wen replied.
"I have the world's most beautiful tableware."
"But you don't even eat."
"I like looking at it. What's wrong with that? Got a problem?"
Mu Wen curled her lips: Was this the eccentric taste of the rich? Liking flashy, impractical things and taking pride in them.
She bought all those things for Xie Chong.
She stood there carefully comparing prices, ingredients, and capacities just as she would when buying for herself—even though it was Xie Chong's money, she didn't want to waste it.
When she walked out of the supermarket, she was carrying two enormous shopping bags in each hand. That didn't faze her—she lugged them herself to the bus stop, took the bus to near Xie Chong's place, and carried them from the bus stop all the way to his door.
When Xie Chong saw Mu Wen, her T-shirt was already soaked through.
In such hot weather, she'd carried all those bags from the supermarket and taken the bus back. Xie Chong didn't understand and asked, "Why didn't you take a taxi? Did you run out of money?"
Mu Wen placed the remaining thirty-five yuan on the table: "I had enough, but I didn't want to take a taxi. No need for that."
She looked like she'd been roasted by the August sun. Even standing a meter away from her, Xie Chong could still feel the heat radiating off her entire body. And her palms had two deep red marks where the heavy shopping bags had cut into them.
"You really enjoy suffering, don't you?" Xie Chong was clearly displeased. "I gave you money. Take a cab back. Wouldn't it be better to suffer less?" He looked more serious than she'd ever seen him.
"But I didn't feel like I was suffering!" Mu Wen answered him earnestly. "I thought it was fun! Really—shopping at the supermarket was fun, waiting for the bus was fun, riding the bus was fun… Maybe I got a little hot along the way, but I didn't feel miserable…"
Mu Wen had no idea why Xie Chong was being so serious.
Xie Chong had never lived a single day of hardship—or more precisely, he'd never lived a single day as an ordinary person. In this world, the vast majority of people lived like that: shopping at supermarkets, squeezing onto buses, going home to cook for themselves, haggling over every cent and penny.
But she didn't explain further to Xie Chong, because at that moment he handed her a tub of Häagen-Dazs.
Mu Wen had only eaten Häagen-Dazs once. It was back in school when her teacher took them to an event, and afterward the organizers treated them to a buffet where each person could get one small scoop of Häagen-Dazs.
The popsicles she ate most in summer were cream pops and snowman pops, and at the little supermarket in her hometown, there were also those green-tongue popsicles. Soft and green, eating one was like licking a long "tongue." They weren't that tasty, but kids thought they were delicious, swinging them around and playing with them while eating.
Xie Chong silently pried open the ice cream lid and handed it to her. "Eat!"
"Then I'll really eat it?" she asked politely, earning a fierce glare from him.
Mu Wen immediately scooped a small bite into her mouth. A thread of sweetness and coolness spread across her tongue, and her eyes squinted happily into crescents.
"So good," she said.
"Get more yourself if it's not enough," Xie Chong said. "Can you handle the cooking demo by yourself later? I have a meeting."
"I can! Let me use your luxury kitchen!"
During the renovation, he'd installed two cooking stations—a Western kitchen and a Chinese kitchen—on opposite sides of the space. His kitchen was so large that Mu Wen could dance inside it.
Her mother, Ge Yunqing, had been trapped in a bun shop her whole life, forever dreaming of owning a huge kitchen. Not the kind of open-air kitchen with the sky as the ceiling and the earth as the floor like in the pastoral regions, but a truly modern, bright, clean, and spacious kitchen.
This kitchen—Xie Chong already had it.
Mu Wen slid the kitchen's sliding door shut and locked herself inside.
Although Xie Chong had already shown off his luxury cookware and tableware to her, she still admired them all over again. She genuinely marveled at Xie Chong's aesthetic sense—those porcelain pieces were so clean and translucent, every pattern handcrafted. How much money did all this cost? she wondered.
Then she got to work.
She didn't make anything fancy for Xie Chong—she planned to make dumplings. Mu Wen's skill with dough was learned from her mother: dumplings, buns, flatbreads, steamed buns, noodles… These things that ran through her life were the greatest, best comfort she'd had through countless days and nights of studying and working away from home.
Xie Chong was connecting to an international meeting and losing his temper at someone. A batch of items he'd picked out in Jingdezhen was facing delayed production because some reckless young man surnamed Chen, who'd come out of nowhere, had offered the factory a higher price and cut in line.
Xie Chong demanded immediate fulfillment of the production contract, or he'd sue them into bankruptcy. "Don't mess with me," he said.
Xie Chong had his own principles in business. He valued trustworthiness himself, and when he encountered petty people who went back on their word, he fought them to the end. Those who snatched deals halfway through, he'd fight them too. His legal team was very busy—suing this person today, that person tomorrow, claiming they were going to clean up the market.
While still on the meeting, he picked up his cup to get some water. Passing by the kitchen, he saw Mu Wen inside, chopping dumpling filling with a clatter. She held a knife in each hand, alternating in a rhythmic fall on the cutting board, her body swaying slightly with the motion.
Was she humming a tune? Did people really hum while cooking? She looked so happy.
She was a real pro at making dumplings.
Just like my grandmother.
Is my grandmother reincarnated?
Xie Chong nearly dropped to his knees before Mu Wen's back.
He just stood there watching for a while. His mother didn't like to cook, and his father was even lazier. His memories of the kitchen were tied to his grandmothers on both sides. He found it novel—a girl just past twenty, humming in the kitchen.
Mu Wen had no idea about any of this. She was focused on one thing: showing Xie Chong her cooking skills and curing him of that condescending, look-down-on-people attitude of his. She was competitive—if she was going to do something, she'd do it perfectly. She wanted to see Xie Chong's eyes pop wide open because it was "too delicious," and have him weep and beg her to make it again.
She made him lamb-and-carrot dumplings with scallions, stewed a pot of lamb chops, stir-fried some beef, smashed cucumbers, and tossed baby spinach. All home-style dishes.
By the time the food was almost ready, Xie Chong had finally finished his meeting. He walked into the kitchen and spoke to Mu Wen with a tone of great respect: "You're just like my grandmother."
Mu Wen raised the big ladle as if to hit him. "Are you out of your mind? What nonsense do you keep spouting? Is this how you talk to your grandmother?"
Xie Chong laughed. "My grandmother used to make dumplings for me."
"Then go find your grandmother."
"She's dead," Xie Chong said. "My maternal grandmother could make them too, but not very well. She's dead too."
"…" Mu Wen asked, "So how did you eat when you were little? Were your parents really busy?"
"When I was learning horseback riding, I'd mooch meals at the club. There was a family there who were incredibly kind—they always made extra portions for me. I loved their cooking."
This should have been a beautiful story, because Mu Wen saw a barely contained emotion flickering in Xie Chong's eyes.
She really wanted to hear that story.
But Xie Chong was distracted by the dumplings. He reached out and grabbed one, scalding himself—he winced, hopped around in place, and blew hot air toward the ceiling. Mu Wen couldn't help but roll her eyes. Then she heard Xie Chong ask, "How many did you make?"
"Forty."
"Do you know how much two normal, healthy adults can eat?" Xie Chong began to nitpick. "You made too few."
"You don't eat vegetables, right?"
"I do."
"Then shut up."
The two bickered as they set the table, then sat down across from each other. Xie Chong said, "Dumplings with liquor, the more you drink, the richer you get," and went to his liquor cabinet to retrieve a bottle of Moutai.
Mu Wen had never drunk Moutai before and insisted on having a sip. He poured her a small shot glass. She tilted her head back, downed it with a "zir" sound, and even let out an elder-style "hah" of satisfaction.
Xie Chong held his forehead and laughed out loud.
Neither of them felt anything was out of place—in this big city, two young people just sat down and shared a meal together. At least, that's what Xie Chong thought.
He ate with great relish.
Mu Wen hadn't been bragging: she really could cook.
He even considered paying her to come cook for him whenever she had time—after all, he had no one to cook for him, and she needed the money.
But the thought was immediately suppressed, because he caught the look in Mu Wen's eyes before she could look away.
It was a look Xie Chong had seen in many women's eyes before:
Admiration.