Huo Yan bit down on that mouthful of rice noodles, but he did not chew at first.
The tip of his tongue touched the layer of oil coating the noodles, and the flavor of pork lard spread out. It was not the refined, luxurious fat he remembered from private chefs who used black truffle and foie gras. This was rough, wild, with a scorched edge forced out by a blazing hot wok.
The noodles were caught between his teeth. Only then did his upper and lower jaw finally close, biting down.
They were springy. There was resistance as his teeth cut in, and the broken noodles bounced back slightly. The juices that burst out were mixed with the saltiness of soy sauce and the sharpness of minced garlic, sliding down the base of his tongue toward his throat.
His Adam’s apple jerked hard, and the bite was swallowed.
No bitterness. No strange aftertaste. Nothing he had expected if it had been tampered with.
He waited two seconds, waiting for a burning sensation in his stomach, for tightness in his throat, for his pupils to scatter, for any reaction like the ones he had seen before in the Huo Family when someone had been drugged.
Nothing came.
The noodles, coated in oil, settled against his stomach wall, warm. The edges that were still hot were softened by gastric acid, and a warmth slowly spread upward from his stomach to his chest and throat.
It was not poisonous.
The tip of his chopsticks tapped the rim of the bowl a second time. His trembling hand made the bowl vibrate slightly, producing faint clinking sounds.
“Is it bad? Not good?” Shen Qingqing asked as she came closer, squatting in front of him while still chewing her own food.
Huo Yan did not answer. He took a second bite.
This one came with pork cracklings. The crispy bits snapped under his teeth with a crack, and oil burst out from the broken pieces, coating his entire mouth. Every taste bud was drowned in fat.
Salty, fragrant. A strip of meat came along with it. The lean meat had tightened under high heat, then been soaked in pork fat. At first it felt slightly tough, then it loosened as he chewed, and juice seeped out from the fibers.
His hand stopped shaking.
A third bite, then a fourth. His chopsticks moved faster, shifting from cautious picking to urgent scooping. Noodles tangled around the chopsticks and went into his mouth together with the crunch of bean sprouts and the smoothness of scallions.
There was no time to chew properly. He swallowed them down.
Shen Qingqing squatted in front of him, still holding her own mouthful of noodles, staring at him.
He had his head lowered, the bowl held at chest level, chopsticks moving so fast that noodles slipped over the rim and hung under his chin. He wiped them away with the back of his hand without stopping.
A piece of scallion clung to the corner of his mouth, oil glistening on his lower lip.
He did not look like the heir of the Huo Family. He looked like someone who had not eaten in three days.
“Eat slower. No one is stealing from you,” Shen Qingqing said, reaching out to tug his bowl.
Huo Yan pulled his arm back slightly, bringing the bowl closer to his chest. His chopsticks did not stop.
Her hand froze in midair.
She withdrew it, resting it on her knee, squatting there as she watched him.
The food in the bowl disappeared bite by bite. The pork cracklings were gone first, then every piece of meat. Even the remaining sauce at the bottom was soaked up with the last strands of noodles.
The bowl was empty.
His chopsticks scraped the bottom twice, producing a dry scratching sound.
His lips were closed. The final bite stayed in his mouth for a long time, longer than any before it, as if he were pressing the flavor into the spaces between his teeth, hiding it under his tongue.
Then he swallowed.
His Adam’s apple moved. A dull sound came from his throat.
The bowl rested on his knees. His fingers tightened around the chopsticks until his knuckles turned pale.
Shen Qingqing saw his eyelashes trembling.
Not slowly, but rapidly, as if something inside him was trying to break through and being forced down.
His eyes were wet.
Not crying, not truly. It was the body’s reaction after nineteen hours of hunger being violently filled, the stomach’s shock sending signals through his entire body. The numbness of starvation was dissolving, layer by layer.
A tear slid from the corner of his right eye, down his cheekbone, to the corner of his mouth. It mixed with the oil on his lips.
He licked it away.
“Why are you crying?” Shen Qingqing blurted out, nearly dropping her bowl.
“I’m not,” he said.
“Your eyes are wet and you still say you’re not?” She leaned closer, reaching to wipe his face.
Huo Yan turned his head away.
“It’s oil smoke,” he said.
“Oil smoke? The fire’s been off for ages. What oil smoke are you talking about?” Shen Qingqing said, poking his shoulder. “Did you burn your throat? I told you to eat slower.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then why are you crying?”
His lips pressed together. The warmth of the bowl still seeped into his palm.
“It’s good,” he said.
The two words were forced out through his teeth. His voice was hoarse, clipped, and then he fell silent.
Shen Qingqing froze.
She squatted there, holding her own half-eaten noodles, mouth slightly open.
“What did you say?”
“I won’t repeat it.”
She closed her mouth, then broke into a grin.
“It’s good, right? Of course it’s good! My cooking can’t be bad!” she laughed loudly, patting her knee. “Wait until I set up a stall and start making money, I’ll cook for you every day. Egg, meat, extra pork cracklings, whatever you want!”
Huo Yan did not respond.
His thumb brushed the rim of the bowl, where a thin layer of oil still remained.
Her cooking.
His hand paused.
In the original host’s memory, she could not even cook instant noodles properly. She once threw a noodle cake into a pot, forgot to add water, and burned a hole in the bottom. When he woke up from the smoke, she was cursing at the kitchen and kicked him to clean it up.
Yet this same person had just served him a bowl of noodles that made him cry.
He had heard the wok movements. Three tosses, evenly spaced, consistent force, no more than ten centimeters off the stove. He had also heard the chopping rhythm, steady like a factory assembly line.
This was not something learned from a tutorial.
This was trained. Thousands upon thousands of repetitions.
Who exactly was she?
“What are you spacing out for?” Shen Qingqing took his empty bowl. “Another bowl? There’s still more in the wok.”
“Did you eat?” he asked.
“I did,” she said, taking a bite, chewing casually. “Didn’t you hear me eating the whole time?”
His ears moved slightly.
From when she brought the bowl over until now, he had only heard four clinks of chopsticks against the bowl. Four bites. She had been watching him eat the entire time and only took four bites herself.
“How much meat is in your bowl?” he asked.
Her chopsticks paused. “Why do you care?”
“The pork cracklings and meat in my bowl were taken from yours,” he said.
Her chewing stopped for half a second.
“Nonsense. I portioned them evenly.”
“The cracklings were placed on top after cooking, not stir-fried together. You added them later,” he said evenly. “When you served the bowl, your spatula scraped the wok twice. The first was light, the second heavier. That second one was scraping meat stuck at the bottom. After serving, you moved the spatula again. The sound changed. You were transferring from one bowl to the other.”
Her chopsticks froze inside the bowl.
“How much meat is left in yours?” he asked.
“None of your business,” she snapped.
“How much?”
She looked down. Half a bowl of noodles remained, a few bean sprouts, and plenty of scallions.
Two pieces of meat. Zero pork cracklings.
“Quite a lot,” she said.
“Bring it here. Let me touch it,” he said.
“What touch? Your hand is still injured. Don’t touch anything. Sit there and rest. I still have to wash the wok and prepare for tomorrow’s stall.”
She turned toward the stove.
After two steps, her wrist was grabbed.
The red string tightened as his hand rose from the bowl. His fingers locked around her wrist, pressing the bandaged wound against her pulse.
Shen Qingqing turned back.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, head lifted, empty eyes facing her direction.
His lips moved slightly, his voice rough, scraped up from the depths of his chest.
“Why are you good to me?”
Her wrist was in his grip. She could feel his fingertips trembling, holding on too tightly, as if afraid to let go. It hurt, but not enough to be painful. It was the weight of someone unwilling to release.
“I don’t believe any reason you give,” he said. “You’re not her.”
Her breath paused.
“What did you say?”
“You’re not Shen Yaning.”
The air in the room seemed to tighten. The stove fire had already gone out, but oil still dripped from the wok, each drop hitting the surface with a faint sound.
His grip tightened again, thumb pressing against her pulse, where her heartbeat thudded wildly beneath his touch.
“Your hands,” he said. “The calluses from repairing tricycles, from chopping vegetables, from tossing woks. They’re all there. Shen Yaning’s palms were as smooth as a baby’s. She didn’t even open the doors herself.”
His thumb pressed lower, onto the callused inner wrist.
“Who are you?”