Although Xie Chong was clearly in the wrong, he was too stubborn to admit it. He deliberately put on a fierce expression.
“Why are you yelling?!”
Mu Wen’s eyes shifted toward the space behind him.
“What are you hiding behind your back? Don’t tell me you’re holding some kind of weapon to attack me. I’m warning you, if you really try something, you might not be able to beat me!”
Mu Wen had caught lambs in the pasture before!
When she was little, the naughty lambs would run all over the sheep pen. She would follow the adults to catch them.
She had been tiny back then.
She would suddenly charge forward, block the lamb’s escape route, and then lift it right up.
The little lamb would angrily bleat while black mud covered Mu Wen’s face, and she would grin from ear to ear.
“I won’t beat you to death!”
Xie Chong stepped back two paces and pointed his chin toward the cabinet.
“Hurry up and fix it! Stop dragging your feet!”
He quickly moved his hands in front of himself, hiding what he had been holding.
Mu Wen got up from his bed.
Then, while he wasn’t paying attention, she deliberately sat down hard on the mattress twice.
Why is his mattress so comfortable?
She had never slept on a really good mattress in her life. Now she could immediately feel how different it was from her own little pad.
Mr. Xie’s life really is too good.
She went over to examine the handle.
It wasn’t Xie Chong’s fault. The screws from the furniture factory hadn’t been installed properly.
For Mu Wen, this kind of repair was incredibly easy.
She had been hardworking since childhood. At seven or eight, she could already cook. By the time she was a teenager, she could handle almost every chore in the house.
She quickly fixed the handle.
Then she carefully checked all the other handles as well.
Worried that something else in Xie Chong’s home might break, she took the initiative to offer a complete inspection of the house.
Xie Chong followed behind her, watching as she checked and adjusted things.
She could do everything.
She understood everything.
He had never met anyone with such strong practical skills.
His phone rang, and he stepped aside to answer it.
Mu Wen heard him say,
“I’m at home by myself. What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine. I just don’t feel like going out.”
“Let’s leave it at that.”
Xie Chong hated people asking about his private affairs. He didn’t want to casually expose his personal life to anyone.
But those words sounded strange to Mu Wen.
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 have something to deal with. My cabinet handle broke, so I’m fixing it.”
She would tell the truth.
Maybe this is exactly how people are different, she thought.
Mu Wen didn’t interrupt him or discuss it with him.
After checking all the furniture, she patted her chest confidently and told Xie Chong,
“I’ve checked everything. Your money was definitely well spent! All this furniture is very good quality.”
For large package clients, the company ordered all the furniture from the same manufacturer, and the quality requirements were very strict.
“I also gave all your furniture a complete quality inspection just now. Let me put it this way: for the next three years, as long as nobody deliberately damages anything, there won’t be any problems!”
Mu Wen felt that her trip had been worthwhile.
Xie Chong was the kind of person who had so many requirements that she was genuinely afraid one thing would break today and another tomorrow.
The company promised ten years of warranty for full-package clients.
She was terrified that he would create extra trouble for her when she was especially busy.
But now everything was fine.
She had checked the entire house, so she knew exactly what condition everything was in.
Xie Chong asked her,
“Is my home nice? Did you see those kitchen appliances and dishes? Aren’t they beautiful?”
“Beautiful, beautiful.”
Mu Wen sincerely praised them.
Then she remembered that she needed to get Xie Chong to sign something.
She took a folder from her canvas bag, pulled out a repair form, and began filling it out carefully.
Xie Chong hadn’t expected this at all.
She had actually pulled out a repair form just like the other technicians did and now wanted him to sign it.
When she saw that Xie Chong wasn’t willing to sign, she patiently tried to reason with him.
“Mr. Xie, look. This is part of my job. But today is the weekend, and technically designers aren’t required to handle this kind of work. Still, to make sure your home life isn’t affected, I came here personally.”
Xie Chong remained unmoved.
She continued,
“Don’t think I’m being too calculating. I just want my boss to see how dedicated I am to my work. Besides, I can apply for overtime pay for this repair…”
Xie Chong stopped teasing her.
He took the paper and signed it.
As he signed, he asked,
“Do you order all your furniture from a factory in Hebei?”
“Anyway, it’s not far from Beijing. It’s our own factory.”
Mu Wen didn’t dare tell Xie Chong that the furniture production was actually outsourced to a furniture factory.
Just like she didn’t dare tell him that Engineer Liu was actually part of their outsourced construction team and usually worked on projects for other companies too.
Every industry had its own secrets and methods.
She didn’t understand Xie Chong’s business, and she certainly couldn’t hand him her own livelihood on a silver platter.
These were also things Mu Wen had gradually learned after officially starting work.
She deliberately tried to understand how the industry worked.
Sometimes, when she had nothing to do at home at night, she would draw flowcharts on paper showing how the business operated.
She found it fascinating.
Sometimes she would even imagine:
What if I opened my own company one day? What would I do?
She didn’t have the ability to start a company yet.
She had no money and no resources, and she didn’t understand the industry well enough.
Right now, she was still just “the person who draws the designs.”
She needed a lot of time to learn.
“So you’re keeping it a secret from me?”
Xie Chong clicked his tongue.
“I need a factory to produce a batch of wooden picture frames. I want to see whether any factory has the ability to make molds for them.”
“Our furniture factory handles big orders. Why would they have time to make your little picture frames?”
Mu Wen winked at him deliberately, teasing him.
When Xie Chong raised his hand as if he were about to swat her, she dodged just for show.
The furniture was fixed, and there was no reason for her to stay any longer.
Although she really liked Xie Chong’s home, it was time for her to leave.
She walked toward the door and was about to change back into her shoes when Xie Chong asked,
“What do you usually eat for lunch on weekends?”
“I cook for myself.”
“You can cook?”
“Can’t you?”
Mu Wen looked at him in disbelief.
“Cooking! Isn’t that something you can do as long as you have hands?”
Xie Chong almost wanted to strangle her.
When he had studied abroad, all his classmates from China knew how to cook.
Unfortunately, he didn’t.
He hated the smell of cooking oil.
Chinese restaurants overseas didn’t taste the same as restaurants back home, but at least they were better than burgers and fries.
He spent money eating out for every meal. He would order several dishes, then pack the leftovers and eat them later.
While his classmates were studying hairstyling and cooking, he was studying how to make money.
His first real business was similar to personal shopping.
Jiang Wu wanted some chocolate.
At first, he planned to buy a little of each kind.
But once he started shopping, he couldn’t stop.
He ended up bringing back an entire box of chocolate.
Jiang Wu couldn’t possibly eat that much, so he resold the rest at a high price.
A middleman business is actually pretty fun.
He discovered that he enjoyed it.
The day after selling all the chocolate, he applied to register a trading company.
That was how his business began.
His parents did not object.
They thought their son had a clear mind and was decisive.
Since he wanted to do business, they simply let him try.
At first, they didn’t expect him to accomplish much.
They figured he could gain some experience and learn from a few losses.
But three months later, he sold a batch of dressing mirrors worth 300,000 U.S. dollars from China to the United Kingdom.
Only then did his parents realize that he wasn’t just playing around.
Their son really had the ability to make something of himself.
“I can’t cook. I don’t like cooking.”
Xie Chong looked at her.
“You have hands, so I’d like to see whether your cooking is actually any good. Don’t tell me you’re just bragging.”
Mu Wen had always hated losing.
The moment she heard that, every hair on her body seemed ready to stand up in protest.
“How dare you say I’m bragging? Just wait! If my food is good, you have to apologize to me!”
“If it’s good, I’ll call you Grandma.”
“Who wants you to call me Grandma?”
Their sudden competitive spirit completely took over.
Since they had challenged each other, they decided to go shopping and have a proper cooking battle.
Xie Chong happened to have a remote meeting to attend, which allowed him to avoid going to the supermarket.
Mu Wen held out her hand.
“Then give me some money. I’ll go buy everything.”
“Are you really that unwilling to spend even a single cent?”
As he spoke, Xie Chong took out his wallet and gave her 500 yuan.
“Is that enough?”
“With this much money, I could buy half the supermarket!”
Whenever Mu Wen went to the supermarket herself, she only bought a few things, usually spending no more than ten yuan or so.
She didn’t like storing too much food because she was afraid it would go to waste.
She only bought enough for what she planned to eat and use at that time.
Naturally, she didn’t spend much.
Mu Wen happily took the money and went to the warehouse-style supermarket.
She loved going to supermarkets.
How can there be such a fun place in the world?
Supermarkets had everything.
Sometimes she would stand in front of a shelf reading the strange descriptions on different products and find it fascinating.
Now she had discovered a new hobby:
She loved going to the supermarket with someone else’s money.
How wonderful would it be if I never had to spend my own money at the supermarket?
She happily moved through the aisles.
The dishes she had planned in her head automatically turned into a shopping list.
Then she received a message from Xie Chong:
“I have nothing at home. Not even oil or salt.”
“What do you have at home?” Mu Wen asked.
“I have the most beautiful tableware in the world.”
“You don’t even eat at home.”
“I like looking at beautiful things. What’s wrong with that?”
Mu Wen curled her lips.
Is this a rich person’s strange hobby?
Liking expensive things that aren’t practical and even being proud of them.
She bought everything Xie Chong needed.
She treated it like she was buying things for herself.
She carefully compared prices, ingredients, and sizes.
Even though it was Xie Chong’s money, she still didn’t want to waste any of it.
When she left the supermarket, she was carrying two huge shopping bags in each hand.
This was nothing to her.
She carried everything to the bus stop, took the bus to the area near Xie Chong’s home, then carried the bags from the bus stop all the way to his house.
When Xie Chong saw her, her T-shirt was already soaked with sweat.
It was extremely hot.
She had carried all those things from the supermarket, taken the bus, and brought everything back herself.
Xie Chong couldn’t understand it.
“Why didn’t you take a taxi? Did you run out of money?”
Mu Wen put the remaining 35 yuan on the table.
“I had enough. I just didn’t want to take a taxi. It wasn’t necessary.”
She looked as if the August sun had nearly roasted her alive.
Xie Chong stood about a meter away and could still feel the heat radiating from her body.
Her palms were already marked with two deep red lines from the heavy shopping bags.
“Do you actually enjoy making things difficult for yourself?”
Xie Chong was clearly unhappy.
“I gave you money. Why didn’t you just take a taxi and save yourself some trouble?”
He looked more serious than she had ever seen him.
“But I didn’t feel like I was suffering!”
Mu Wen answered sincerely.
“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 was a little hot during the process, but I didn’t feel uncomfortable.”
Mu Wen had no idea why Xie Chong was being so serious.
Xie Chong had never experienced a difficult day in his life.
More precisely, he had never lived an ordinary person’s life for even one day.
Most people in this world lived exactly like this.
They went grocery shopping, squeezed onto buses, cooked their own meals at home, and counted every cent and every small expense carefully.
But Mu Wen didn’t explain any further because Xie Chong suddenly brought her a tub of Häagen-Dazs.
Mu Wen had only eaten Häagen-Dazs once before.
When she was a student, one of her teachers had taken the class to an event. Afterward, the organizers treated them to a buffet.
Each person was given one small scoop of Häagen-Dazs.
In summer, the ice pops she ate most often were simple cream pops and Snowman pops.
At the little supermarket in her hometown, there were also green tongue-shaped ice pops.
They were soft and green.
When you ate them, it felt like you were eating a long green “tongue.”
They weren’t particularly delicious, but children loved them.
They would eat them while swinging them around for fun.
Xie Chong silently opened the ice cream container and handed it to her.
“Eat.”
“Then I’ll really eat it?”
Mu Wen asked politely.
He gave her a fierce glare.
She immediately scooped up a small bite and put it in her mouth.
Sweetness and coolness spread across her tongue.
Her eyes narrowed happily, and her face curved into a bright smile.
“So delicious.”
“If that’s not enough, get more yourself.”
Xie Chong said,
“Can you handle the cooking demonstration later? I have a meeting.”
“I can! Let me use your luxurious kitchen!”
During the renovation, they had installed both a Western-style cooking area and a Chinese-style cooking area, with the two stoves on opposite sides of the kitchen.
His kitchen was huge.
It was so big that Mu Wen could probably dance in it.
Her mother, Ge Yunqing, had spent her whole life trapped in a steamed-bun shop, always dreaming of having a huge kitchen.
Not the kind of huge kitchen in the pastoral areas where the sky was the ceiling and the earth was the floor.
She dreamed of a truly modern kitchen—bright, clean, spacious, and comfortable.
Xie Chong already had that kitchen.
Mu Wen closed the sliding kitchen door and shut herself inside.
Xie Chong had already shown her his luxurious cooking equipment and tableware before, but she admired them all over again.
She sincerely admired his sense of taste.
The porcelain pieces were so clean and delicate, and every pattern was handmade.
How much must all of this cost? she wondered.
Then she got to work.
She didn’t prepare anything fancy for Xie Chong.
She planned to make dumplings.
Mu Wen had learned how to make all kinds of dough-based foods from her mother.
Dumplings, steamed buns, pancakes, mantou, noodles…
These foods had been part of her entire life.
During all those nights away from home studying and working, they had been her greatest comfort.
Xie Chong was joining an international conference.
During the meeting, he was furious with someone.
A batch of items he had taken a liking to in Jingdezhen was going to have its production delayed.
Some reckless young man with the surname Chen had suddenly offered the factory a higher price and pushed his own order ahead of Xie Chong’s.
Xie Chong demanded that they fulfill his order immediately.
“Produce it according to the original agreement. Otherwise, I’ll sue you until you lose everything. Don’t mess with me.”
Xie Chong had his own principles when doing business.
He valued his reputation and hated people who went back on their word.
When someone tried to steal his order halfway through, he would fight back even harder.
His legal team was always busy.
Today they were suing one person; tomorrow they were suing another.
He jokingly claimed that he was going to clean up the entire market.
While still in the meeting, he picked up his cup to get some water.
As he passed the kitchen, he saw Mu Wen inside, chopping dumpling filling with loud, rhythmic sounds.
She held a knife in each hand, alternating them against the cutting board in a steady rhythm.
Her body swayed slightly with every movement.
Is she humming?
Do people really hum while cooking?
She looked so happy.
She’s really good at making dumplings.
Just like my grandmother.
Did my grandmother get reincarnated?
Xie Chong almost wanted to kneel down dramatically in front of Mu Wen.
He simply stood there watching for a while.
His mother didn’t like cooking, and his father was even more reluctant to do anything around the kitchen.
His memories of cooking were mostly connected to his maternal grandmother and paternal grandmother.
So this was fascinating to him.
A young woman barely in her twenties, humming happily while cooking in the kitchen.
Mu Wen knew nothing about this little episode.
She was completely focused on showing Xie Chong what she could do and curing his habit of looking down on her.
She was competitive.
Since she had decided to cook, she wanted to do it perfectly.
She wanted to see Xie Chong widen his “judgmental eyes” in shock because the food was so delicious, then practically beg her to make it again.
She made lamb, carrot, and green onion dumplings.
She stewed a pot of lamb ribs.
She stir-fried some beef.
She smashed cucumbers with garlic and seasoning.
She also made a cold dish of baby spinach.
Everything was simple home cooking.
When the meal was almost ready, Xie Chong finally finished his meeting.
He walked into the kitchen and spoke to Mu Wen with unusual respect.
“You really are just like my grandmother.”
Mu Wen raised the large spoon as if she were going to hit him.
“Are you sick? What kind of nonsense do you say every time? Do you talk to your grandmother like that?”
Xie Chong laughed.
“My grandmother used to make dumplings for me.”
“Then go find your grandmother.”
“My grandmother is dead.”
Xie Chong said,
“My maternal grandmother could make them too, but they weren’t very good. She’s dead too.”
“…”
Mu Wen asked,
“Then how did you eat when you were little? Were your parents extremely busy?”
“When I was learning horseback riding, I used to eat at the riding club.”
“There was a family there that was very kind. Whenever they cooked, they always included me. I liked their food.”
It should have been a touching story.
Because Mu Wen could see an emotion in Xie Chong’s eyes that he couldn’t quite hide.
She really wanted to hear more.
But Xie Chong was distracted by the dumplings.
He reached out and picked one up.
It was still hot, and he immediately grimaced and jumped around, blowing hot air toward the ceiling.
Mu Wen couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
Then she heard him ask,
“How many did you make?”
“Forty.”
“Do you know how much two normal, healthy adults can eat?”
Xie Chong immediately became critical.
“You made too few.”
“You aren’t going to eat the other dishes?”
“I am.”
“Then shut up.”
The two of them bickered while setting the table.
Then they sat across from each other.
Xie Chong said,
“Dumplings go well with alcohol. The more you drink, the better it gets.”
He went to his liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of Moutai.
Mu Wen had never tried Moutai before.
She immediately demanded a taste.
Xie Chong poured her a very small amount.
She raised the little glass, drank it in one gulp, and then imitated her elders with an exaggerated,
“Ahh!”
Xie Chong covered his forehead and burst out laughing.
Neither of them thought there was anything strange about this.
In a huge city like this, they were simply two young people sitting together and having a meal.
At least, that was how Xie Chong saw it.
He ate with great enjoyment.
Mu Wen hadn’t been bragging.
She really could cook.
He even considered paying her to come over and cook for him whenever she had time.
After all, he didn’t have anyone to cook for him.
And she needed money.
But he immediately suppressed the thought.
Because he noticed the way Mu Wen was looking at him before she could pull her eyes away.
He had seen that kind of look in the eyes of many women before.
It was admiration.