Lu Jinglin originally wanted to decline. He generally did not have the habit of eating dinner in the evenings, but when he met Xia Yuning’s smiling peach-blossom eyes, he ultimately didn’t refuse. “Mn.”
“Does Mr. Lu have any dietary restrictions?” Xia Yuning asked again.
“No spicy food.”
“Is it because you dislike spicy food, or…” Xia Yuning couldn’t help asking a bit more. Since he was going to latch onto Lu Jinglin’s powerful thigh, he naturally needed to understand the other person better.
Lu Jinglin gazed at him with profound eyes for a long moment before answering, “Bad stomach.”
“Oh, then I’ll cook for Mr. Lu whenever I have time in the future. My cooking is actually quite good, and I know how to make stomach-soothing meals as well. It will just happen to help nurse your stomach back to health,” Xia Yuning said with a bright smile.
Lu Jinglin met his gaze for a moment before looking away. “Mn, as you like.”
After Xia Yuning finished his pastries, Uncle Luo led them up to the second floor and stopped in front of a bedroom door. “Sir, Yuning Young Master, this is your shared room.”
Lu Jinglin instructed, “Butler Luo, go clean up another room. He and I will sleep in separate beds.” He raised a finger and pointed at Xia Yuning.
Uncle Luo said with a troubled expression, “This… The Master and Madam said that since you and Yuning Young Master just got married today, they only had one room prepared, so none of the other rooms are set up at all.”
Lu Jinglin looked at him. “How can none of them be set up?”
Uncle Luo raised a hand, pulled a handkerchief from his left breast pocket, and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. Remembering the instructions Lu Qian and Rong Feng had given him yesterday, he couldn’t help feeling a wave of a headache.
Yesterday, Lu Qian and Rong Feng had sought him out and pulled him aside to hatch a secret plot.
At the time, Lu Qian had looked at him with a deeply serious expression. “Old Luo, you watched Jinglin grow up. There is a matter… that I’d like to entrust to you.”
Uncle Luo: “Master, Madam, please feel free to instruct me.”
Rong Feng said with a worried expression, “It’s like this. Since childhood, Jinglin has never shown any interest in the people and things around him, always treating everything with a cold attitude. He has never kept anyone by his side, and this time he only agreed to the marriage after we nagged him for a very long time.”
She sighed, adding, “I’m genuinely afraid he’ll end up living out his life in solitude. So when you go back today, tell the servants to clean up a room—remember, clean up only one room—and make them stay together for a single night. Even just one night will do, so they can properly build up their feelings.”
“If Jinglin asks you to clean up another room, find a way to make up a lie and gloss it over.”
“Old Luo, I’m counting on you.”
Thinking of this, he could only sigh inwardly. This was throwing a difficult problem right in his lap.
He deliberated before speaking, “Yes. You rarely return to this villa, and whenever you do, you’re always by yourself. The things here aren’t completely stocked, but tomorrow I will make sure everything needed is properly arranged.”
Xia Yuning saw Uncle Luo’s dilemma and didn’t want to make things hard for him. He turned to Lu Jinglin and said, “Then I’ll just sleep on a futon on the floor tonight, and we can sort out another room tomorrow.”
Uncle Luo stood off to the side, quietly letting out a sigh of relief. The look he directed at Xia Yuning carried an extra hint of respect and sincerity.
Lu Jinglin frowned slightly. “No need. You’ll sleep on the bed tonight as well.”
Xia Yuning lowered his gaze, his long eyelashes veiling his eyes. “Forget it then. Mr. Lu must really find me repulsive.”
“I don’t find you repulsive. I’m just not used to sleeping with other people,” Lu Jinglin explained awkwardly upon seeing him like this.
“Oh, that’s good then. I thought Mr. Lu despised me.” No one noticed the corners of Xia Yuning’s mouth curving slightly upward before falling back into place. “Don’t worry, I sleep very quietly. I don’t kick the blankets off or crowd people.”
They entered the bedroom.
A double bed sat against the wall inside the room. The bed looked quite large, visually spacious enough to accommodate three adult males with plenty of room to spare.
Only, were these bright red pillows, bright red bedsheets, and bright red blankets actually serious?
They had merely registered their marriage; they didn’t need to take it this seriously!
It wasn’t like they were actually going to do anything on this bed.
Xia Yuning’s cheeks flushed slightly, and he coughed awkwardly.
“Uncle Luo…” Lu Jinglin couldn’t help twitching the corner of his mouth. “Tomorrow, go ahead and clear all of these out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Uncle Luo acknowledged the order and then backed out of the room.
“I’m going to make dinner.” Feeling a bit awkward, Xia Yuning quickly found a place to set down the items he had brought and headed downstairs.
In the kitchen, the ingredients inside the refrigerator were all fresh, clearly delivered brand new today.
In his past life, Xia Yuning had done every kind of job imaginable; if you could think of it, Xia Yuning had done it.
Back then, to pay off debts, he had worked himself to the bone, juggling multiple part-time jobs a day and doing whatever made money. Naturally, he had worked as a chef before, though his venture into cooking was partly due to the fact that his own cooking used to taste terrible.
He used to be a pampered young master who had tasted every exotic delicacy, which made it impossible for him to tolerate his own lousy culinary skills.
As a result, he had stubbornly trained his cooking skills to a level of mastery.
Thus, he was confident he could capture Lu Jinglin’s stomach.
Lu Jinglin came downstairs not long after, feeling a bit worried about Xia Yuning. Although the Xia Yuning he met today behaved completely differently in temperament from the little useless thing in the rumors, he still harbored some doubts about whether Xia Yuning could actually cook, and he also wanted to see what kind of tricks Xia Yuning could pull off.
Arriving at the kitchen, Lu Jinglin leaned his body casually against the doorway and quietly watched Xia Yuning’s movements.
The youth had slender wrists with prominent wrist bones, and his fingers were porcelain-white and slender, looking nothing like someone who knew how to cook. However, his subsequent actions proved that the youth was not as inept at cooking as his appearance suggested.
Xia Yuning gripped the handle of the knife, his hand rising and falling with extremely neat and decisive movements, showing zero hesitation or dragging.
Lu Jinglin paused slightly, clearly stunned by Xia Yuning’s skilled technique.
Xia Yuning held a pumpkin just taken out of the refrigerator. The pumpkin gave off a faint, fresh fragrance and was very crisp.
After peeling away the outer orange skin and removing the seeds, he began slicing it.
Gripping the knife handle, his wrist moved up and down with rapid speed, moving so fast that the blade left blurred afterimages. In no time at all, it was cut into numerous uniformly sized square slices. The thickness of these sliced pumpkin pieces was virtually identical, demonstrating just how impressive the cutter’s knife skills were.
Lu Jinglin raised an eyebrow. He now truly believed that Xia Yuning could cook, and that he might be even better at it than expected.
“Nice knife skills.”
A deep, magnetic voice came from behind him. Startled, Xia Yuning’s hand gave a little jerk, and he almost lost his grip on the knife handle.
Turning his head, he saw Lu Jinglin leaning leisurely against the doorway, looking entirely at ease, with no way of knowing how long he had been standing there.
Lu Jinglin had likely taken off his suit jacket before coming downstairs and was now wearing only a shirt. Two buttons of the fine fabric at the collar were undone, revealing a patch of skin. With his arms crossed and leaning against the doorway, the entire man gave off a lazy vibe.
“Thanks for the compliment,” Xia Yuning smiled, then asked, “Why is Mr. Lu down here?”
“Nothing going on right now,” Lu Jinglin replied. “Just came to look.”
Xia Yuning placed the freshly cut pumpkin slices into a steamer basket, then pulled out a bag of rice, measured a suitable amount into a basin, and washed it to remove impurities.
The plump grains of rice emitted a warm luster. Xia Yuning’s slender, delicate fingers wove through the rice grains as the cool water dampened his hands. In comparison, his skin looked even more lustrous and white than the milky-white rice grains, translucent like white jade.
Lu Jinglin’s gaze drifted gently to Xia Yuning’s well-articulated hands. “Need any help?”
“Huh? Is that okay?” Xia Yuning turned around uncertainly, the kitchen lights falling upon his fair face and making it appear even smoother and more delicate.
Lu Jinglin chuckled softly. “Of course.”
“Then could Mr. Lu help me find an apron? I looked around earlier and couldn’t find one. I’ll need to wear it when stir-frying in a bit.”
Xia Yuning pulled out a paper napkin, wiped his hands that had been dampened from washing the rice, and then took off his suit jacket, which he had worn all day. “Otherwise, my clothes will get dirty.”
This outfit looked very expensive and was currently the most valuable piece of clothing he owned, so he still needed to be careful to avoid staining it.
“Mn.” Lu Jinglin straightened up and stepped into the kitchen.
First, he checked the lower row of cabinets, and finding nothing, he walked over toward Xia Yuning’s side.
There were two cabinets directly above Xia Yuning, but seeing that Xia Yuning was currently busy mashing pumpkin and couldn’t free up his hands or step away, Lu Jinglin chose not to interrupt him.
Standing directly behind Xia Yuning, he reached upward. “Lower your head a bit.”
Hearing this, Xia Yuning lowered his head further, and the next second, he saw a firm, muscular arm brush past his face.
A wave of warmth radiated from behind him, and Lu Jinglin’s scent instantly enveloped Xia Yuning. All Xia Yuning had to do was lean back just a tiny bit to touch Lu Jinglin’s burning chest.
Xia Yuning unconsciously tensed his back, and his hand mashing the pumpkin sped up a bit.
Lu Jinglin was half a head taller than Xia Yuning, making it look to any outsider as though Lu Jinglin had completely enclosed Xia Yuning in his embrace.
So when Uncle Luo passed by the area, this was precisely the scene that greeted his eyes.
Uncle Luo watched quietly for a moment, then nodded with a satisfied expression and walked away with a smile.
Lu Jinglin lowered his head and sniffed gently. A faint, sweet fragrance lingered around them, which was the scent emanating from Xia Yuning, and could only be caught when standing very close.
He remembered today at noon, those candies Xia Yuning had eaten in the car; perhaps he had picked up the scent back then.