Fifteen minutes.
Shen Qingqing’s eyes flicked away from her phone screen and back to the wok. With a twist of her wrist, she scooped out the crispy pork cracklings that had turned golden and poured them into a nearby bowl with a loud clatter.
A thin layer of lard remained at the bottom of the wok, just enough to coat the surface, shimmering with faint wisps of white smoke.
Something was moving in her mind.
Not a voice, not words, but a sensation, as if someone had grabbed her wrist. Every muscle fiber from her fingertips to her elbow was being tuned to a rhythm she had never been familiar with.
The system notification flickered once and then disappeared, but her hands had already moved.
Chunks of pork belly were tossed into the wok. With a sharp sizzle, oil splattered onto the counter and onto the back of her hand, but she did not flinch. The spatula pressed into the meat, pressing, turning, crushing against the wok. Fat rendered out, lean meat tightened, the surface shifting from pale pink to deep caramel brown. Oil seeped from the gaps in the meat, bubbling together with the lard beneath it.
The fragrance of fat spread out.
Not ordinary meat aroma, but the kind released when lard is pushed to its absolute limit under high heat, rich, heavy, with a faint caramel sweetness.
“Egg.”
Shen Qingqing’s left hand grabbed an egg from the bowl, cracked it against the edge of the wok. The shell split, and the liquid poured in.
A sharp hiss. The egg white instantly puffed up, its edges curling into golden lace, while the yolk stayed centered and swollen. Before it fully set, her spatula cut through it sideways, breaking it apart and tossing it together with the meat.
Three seconds.
Her wrist trembled slightly, then she lifted the spatula from the bottom of the wok.
A toss.
The wok left the stove. The contents rose into the air for half a second, scattered, then fell back with a heavy clang as the pan hit the flame again.
A second toss. A third.
Every arc, every height, every landing point was precise, almost unnaturally so, as if she were no longer just a roadside vendor making fried noodles, but a calibrated machine.
Even Shen Qingqing herself froze for a moment.
In her past life, she had helped in a construction site cafeteria and knew how to toss a wok, but never this stable. Something inside her wrist was guiding her movements, not controlling them, but directing them, like an invisible master holding her hand and telling her to shift slightly left here, reduce force there.
The soaked rice noodles were lifted from the basin and drained, a pale white mass. She grabbed them with one hand and threw them into the wok.
A loud sizzle.
The moment the noodles hit the boiling oil, moisture exploded out, sending up a column of steam. The metal exhaust fan above buzzed loudly but could not pull it away.
Her spatula slid under the noodles.
She did not stir randomly. She lifted and separated each strand, then let it fall, ensuring every noodle was coated with lard, egg, and the fragrance of meat.
Soy sauce.
She grabbed the nearly empty bottle on the corner of the stove and tilted it. The sauce poured over the noodles. The moment it hit the high heat, it caramelized with a sharp hiss, releasing a burst of aroma like an explosion inside the pan.
Bean sprouts.
A handful went in. Three quick flips of the spatula. The moisture crackled and hissed, merging with the soy’s richness and the lard’s fragrance.
Minced garlic.
Crushed cloves slid off the spatula into the wok. The instant they hit the oil, the garlic aroma detonated.
Scallions!
The final garnish. Green and white scattered over the noodles, instantly softened by residual heat, releasing a fresh sharp fragrance.
Chili flakes.
The last handful, sprinkled through her fingers. Red specks fell into the wok, and the heat made her cough once as her eyes narrowed against the smoke.
One final toss, then she turned off the heat.
The wok fell silent.
Steam slowly drifted away from the rim. The noodles lay piled inside, each strand coated in a glossy soy-brown sheen. Pieces of meat and pork cracklings were embedded between them, bean sprouts half translucent, scallions and chili flakes scattered like stars on top.
Then the aroma came.
Not drifting out slowly, but exploding all at once, as if a bomb of fragrance had detonated in the tiny ten-square-meter room, spreading in every direction.
The heaviness of lard, the freshness of soy, the sharpness of garlic, the brightness of scallions, the heat of chili, the richness of egg, and the rice fragrance drawn out by high heat all twisted together into something that drilled straight into the brain.
Shen Qingqing froze, spatula still in hand.
Something was wrong.
Not wrong, but too good to be right. In her entire previous life of cooking thousands of plates of fried noodles, she had never produced anything like this. The aroma felt as if it was being squeezed out from the molecular gaps of every grain of rice noodle, carrying something she could not quite name, something that dragged hunger straight from the stomach to the throat.
Footsteps stopped outside the door.
A cough, then another.
It was Wang Guihua. The landlady who had come two days ago to demand rent while banging on the door. She was passing by with a trash bag, her steps halting at the stairwell.
She stood there for three seconds.
Then came a loud swallow.
“Who’s cooking? What is that smell?”
Wang Guihua’s voice drifted through the door crack, nasal, as if she was inhaling desperately.
Her footsteps moved away, then returned, then stopped again at the door. Then left again.
A dog barked from next door.
No, not quite a bark. The usually noisy stray dog suddenly went quiet. After two seconds, it whined softly, tail thumping against the floor, claws scratching at the door.
Shen Qingqing glanced toward the door, then back at the wok.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered, setting the spatula down.
On the edge of the bed, Huo Yan had not moved since she started cooking.
From the first sizzle of the lard to the final toss, he had remained in the same posture, hands resting on his knees, fingers gripping the seams of his trousers.
His nose kept working.
From the moment the pork hit the pan, he had been inhaling without pause. He could identify the scent of rendered fat, of eggs hitting hot oil, of soy sauce caramelizing. He had been surrounded by private chefs in the Huo Family before, and he had smelled all of this countless times.
But never like this.
Once all the aromas combined, they became something else entirely, something missing from his memory bank. It slipped into his nose, down his throat, and into his stomach, where his stomach muscles tightened sharply.
His Adam’s apple moved.
Once, twice, three times.
Uncontrollably.
He had not eaten for nineteen hours. The plain noodles Shen Qingqing made for him last night were the last thing he had. During half a month of carrying cement at the construction site, he survived on one steamed bun a day and a bowl of watery vegetable soup. His stomach had long grown numb to hunger, a background noise in his body.
Now it was no longer numb.
This scent broke through the shell of that numbness, and hunger surged up violently, rolling from his stomach to his throat. His Adam’s apple moved again.
His fingers dug into his trouser seams, nails pressing into the fabric.
Shen Qingqing’s footsteps came closer from the stove, slippers pattering. A pause, then the sound of bowls and chopsticks.
Serving! The spatula scraped the wok, heavy portions being lifted.
Footsteps stopped in front of him.
Hot steam hit his face, carrying that maddening fragrance even closer, denser, layered beyond recognition.
“Take it.” Shen Qingqing’s voice came from above.
A bowl was pressed into his hands, hot enough to burn through the cloth into his palm. Heavy. Substantial.
Chopsticks were placed into his other hand.
“Eat.”
Huo Yan’s fingers tightened around the bowl, thumb resting on its rim, which was also hot.
He did not move.
“You’re not eating?” he asked.
“I—”
“I already have mine on the stove,” Shen Qingqing interrupted quickly. “Eat yours first. It won’t taste as good when it gets cold.”
Huo Yan’s thumb brushed the rim of the bowl.
He lifted his chopsticks, picked up a strand of noodle, and brought it to his mouth.
The moment his lips touched it, it was hot. He held it there without letting go.
The noodle slipped into his mouth.
The moment his teeth closed, his chewing stopped.
Shen Qingqing stood by the stove holding her own bowl, watching him.
Half the meat in her bowl was gone, most of the pork cracklings had been transferred to his, piled high on top of the noodles, glistening with oil.
Huo Yan did not take a second bite.
He held the noodles in his mouth, lips closed. The chewing motion slowed, then stopped completely.
His chopsticks tapped lightly against the rim of the bowl.
His hand was shaking.