If Ming Zhifei learns to cook better food, will he find life a little more interesting?
“Zhifei, what’s your favorite food?” Jianzhen asked before placing the order.
“Anything is fine. I’m not picky,” Ming Zhifei answered reflexively.
Typical. He doesn’t even know what he likes. Jianzhen tried again: “Then today, do you want stir-fried clams, sautéed snails, or lamb chops?”
“Sautéed snails? You know how to make those?” It had been years since Ming Zhifei had eaten them. Back in his hometown, there was a street where a family ran a stall every night. His parents had taken him once while they were out for drinks with friends. In his memory, that was the only place in the world that made them correctly.
After the city was redeveloped, that street vanished. As time passed, he’d started to wonder if he’d dreamed the whole thing. His parents were so serious; would they really have taken him along to a drinking session? But he remembered the taste—sucking the snail out, the spice, the regret that he might never taste it again.
“Heh, there isn’t a dish I don’t know how to make,” Jianzhen said with a smirk. Noticing the look on Ming Zhifei’s face, he added, “They have some beautiful, clean snails available, tails already clipped. We’re having sautéed snails today.”
“That’s a dish for a real chef,” Ming Zhifei said, only then realizing how high a pedestal he’d placed those snails on.
“Thanks for the compliment. I’ll be teaching you today. You’re the ‘Chef’s student’ now, so study hard. Don’t embarrass me.”
“But isn’t it too hard?” Ming Zhifei looked pained. He’d botched fried eggs; how could he manage a “high-level” dish like snails?
“Zhifei, do you think this is a state banquet dish?” Jianzhen laughed. “In my hometown, every household makes these. It’s home cooking.”
“It’s not hard? No one in my family ever made them. After I left for school, I never saw them on a menu again.”
“Maybe the snails disappeared from your area. For a while, the water quality wasn’t great, and some places only have invasive apple snails, which you can’t eat.” Jianzhen mused. “When people stopped farming, the snails became rare.”
“Apple snails are dangerous. Parasites,” Ming Zhifei noted clinically.
Jianzhen laughed. “I know. Look, these are real pond snails.”
He held out his phone to show the picture. As Ming Zhifei reached for it, Jianzhen gave him a sudden, playful tug. Caught off balance, Ming Zhifei stumbled and landed right in Jianzhen’s lap on the sofa.
Ming Zhifei’s first instinct was panic—he didn’t want to hurt Jianzhen’s injured leg. But as he tried to scramble up, Jianzhen’s arms locked around his waist, pinning him in place.
Holding Ming Zhifei against him, Jianzhen rested his head on the man’s shoulder and whispered into his ear, “Zhifei, look at the picture. Don’t the snails look beautiful?”
“Ah… they’re quite large,” Ming Zhifei replied, flinching away from the hot breath on his ear, still struggling to rise. “Yang Jianzhen, let go. I’m going to hurt your leg.”
“Can we stay like this if it doesn’t hurt my injury? This way we can both see the phone and pick the dishes together.”
Yang Jianzhen said this so reasonably that Ming Zhifei wondered if he was overreacting by thinking the situation was strange.
“Is it just to look at the phone together? Then I can just sit next to you.”
“That makes it hard for both of us to see clearly. Also, weren’t you going to call me ‘Jianzhen’? Why did it go back to Yang Jianzhen?”
“Because I’m not used to it… Can I not change it?” Ming Zhifei had never called someone by just their given name; even with his ex-wife, he only used her surname.
Yang Jianzhen was creating one situation after another. Ming Zhifei felt his brain couldn’t keep up and didn’t know which one to handle first. The result of his mental “crash” was that he neither successfully got up from Yang Jianzhen’s lap, nor figured out why Yang Jianzhen insisted on being called by his name without the surname.
“Of course you have to change it. Don’t we have a life-and-death bond? You admitted that, right?”
“Well, yes…” But what does that have to do with this?
“Zhifei, look, should we buy one or two portions of snails?”
“One? Two?” Ming Zhifei was forced to focus on the screen Yang Jianzhen was pointing at. It said one portion was 500g. Just how many snails were in half a kilogram?
While thinking about this, Ming Zhifei felt something was wrong underneath where he was sitting. He felt strange. Yang Jianzhen spoke again: “Let’s just buy one portion today. Our pot is too small for two, so they might not cook well. Cooking a large batch is harder than a small one.”
“Is that so? Okay, you decide.” After Ming Zhifei answered, he felt something hard pressing against him, making him uncomfortable. Wondering what he was sitting on, he reached down slightly to feel it.
The moment he touched it, he heard Yang Jianzhen’s voice in his ear: “Zhifei, are you trying to help me with that right now?”
Ming Zhifei stood up stiffly. Yang Jianzhen didn’t try to hold him back anymore; he just looked at him with a smile.
They were clearly discussing groceries, so why was he like this? Ming Zhifei’s mind went completely blank. He took a step back, tripped over the coffee table, and almost fell. Luckily, Yang Jianzhen caught his hand in time.
“Be careful. You don’t want to get injured too. What would we do with two disabled people in the house?” Yang Jianzhen said playfully, as if nothing had happened.
Ming Zhifei’s ears and head were buzzing. When he was pulled back onto Yang Jianzhen’s lap, he was so confused by the bizarre situation that he didn’t even have time to resist.
Yang Jianzhen put the phone in Ming Zhifei’s hand and said casually: “Zhifei, the snails are in the cart. Now buy some chili peppers and some purple perilla. Oh, we’re out of garlic and ginger, buy a bit of each.”
“Yang Jianzhen, you…” Ming Zhifei held the phone, his hand trembling slightly.
“Jianzhen.”
“…” Ming Zhifei was so flustered he didn’t know how to react. He could only mechanically follow instructions and tap the screen.
Yang Jianzhen’s arm was around his waist, his head rested on his shoulder, and his chest was pressed against his back. Ming Zhifei could feel that his breathing was uneven.
This is really weird. Ming Zhifei finally found the right word. This wasn’t normal daily life at all, was it? Or was this just how young people were? But he wasn’t like this when he was in his twenties.
“Jianzhen, I’ve finished the shopping cart. Can you let me go now?” Ming Zhifei felt like he was sitting on needles—no, it was more like sitting on a red-hot iron rod.
“We only bought snails, we haven’t bought the other dishes yet.” Yang Jianzhen’s voice sounded completely unchanged.
“Jianzhen… I mean, don’t you need to go handle that?” Ming Zhifei finally couldn’t help but remind him.
“Handle what?”
“…” Ming Zhifei really couldn’t say such embarrassing words. He had to force open the arms wrapped around his waist and quickly move at least five meters away from him.
“Oh, are you talking about that?” Yang Jianzhen pretended to suddenly realize, smiling as he said, “It poked you, right? I’m sorry.”
Was this something you could just apologize for so casually? Ming Zhifei’s brain crashed again.
“It hasn’t been listening to me lately, and I can’t control it. I’ll apologize to you on its behalf.” Seeing Ming Zhifei’s confused “what is he even saying” expression, Yang Jianzhen almost choked from holding back his laughter.
“Do… Do you need to see a doctor?” Ming Zhifei managed to squeeze out a response.
“That shouldn’t be necessary. It’s just been too long. I’ve always been quite strong in that area,” Yang Jianzhen said seriously.
Seeing Ming Zhifei’s “so that’s why” expression of understanding, Yang Jianzhen couldn’t hold it anymore. He turned his head and laughed, then straightened his face and asked, “Zhifei, don’t you have this kind of trouble?”
“This kind of trouble?” Ming Zhifei repeated like a parrot, taking a long time to realize what he meant. He shook his head and said, “No.”
Ming Zhifei didn’t know how it was for other men. He only knew he had almost no libido and felt very forced when doing “the deed.” Thinking about it now, was he actually not a normal man, and someone like Yang Jianzhen was?
For all these years, as a gynecologist, his attitude toward patients was strictly professional. Although he avoided physical exams for safety, he had seen countless organs during various surgeries. He felt he had no other thoughts; he just treated them like any other organ in the body.
If he were as sensitive as Yang Jianzhen, could he even be a gynecologist?
“Really? No reaction to your ex-wife either?”
Yang Jianzhen’s topic was making Ming Zhifei feel like he was being investigated, which made him a bit uncomfortable. He had never discussed such private topics with anyone—but was it true that male friends discussed these things deeply, and he just never had the chance because he had no close friends?
During his eight years of university, he left early and returned late every day, busy with studies, internships, and research. He spent very little time in the dorm and had changed dorms three times. He was a loner, called the “King of Overachievers” by his classmates. No one ever reached out to him. He and his roommates were polite but distant. After starting work, that rhythm continued. Between colleagues and seniors, it was just professional interaction. He had heard his bosses and colleagues tell dirty jokes in the operating room, but it was never directed at him, and never as blunt as what Yang Jianzhen was saying.
“What kind of reaction do you mean specifically?” Ming Zhifei wondered if he should try discussing this topic. If this was just normal social interaction.
“Like, wanting to do something the moment you see the other person?”
Ming Zhifei shook his head and said, “Isn’t that an animal? Do humans do that too?”
Yang Jianzhen was choked by the answer. He paused, then smiled and asked, “Zhifei, I bet you’ve never had a male friend, have you?”
“It depends on how you define a friend. I have many classmates and colleagues, and we interact often,” Ming Zhifei answered strictly. But he realized that all his relationships were indeed not very personal. The proof was that after he resigned, there was no one he felt sorry about losing contact with.
“You’re right, it depends on the definition.” Yang Jianzhen gave a bitter smile and agreed. Based on his own question, he didn’t have any real friends either. Drinking, gambling, doing business, and telling dirty jokes together—that didn’t really count as friendship. When he ran into bad luck, not a single one of those old “friends” answered his calls; they ran faster than anyone. Some even knew people were going to mess with him beforehand, but no one warned him.
Although Ming Zhifei didn’t define friends easily, surely some of those classmates or colleagues he mentioned would be willing to help him? Based on Ming Zhifei’s personality, there must be plenty of people who owed him favors. It was just that he was likely the type who would never easily ask for help.