Qiao Muyu: “You mean pudding?”
Lu Zhen: “Mm.”
Qiao Muyu picked some vegetables as he reminisced. “I found him by the school’s back wall when I was in 7th grade. He looked like he was only a few days old—so thin, small, and soaked by the rain. I wanted to take him home, but I knew my dad wouldn’t allow it. I couldn’t leave him there, so I carried him to every shop near the school, begging for someone to take him in. Only Auntie Fang said yes.”
“How could I say no?” Auntie Fang added colorfully from the side. “Xiao Lu, you have no idea. The day Xiao Yu-er brought Pudding here, he gave me a heart attack! He was so small and thin himself, yet he was worried the puppy wouldn’t have enough to eat. He looked at me with those pitiful eyes, tears welling up, like he’d burst into tears if I said no. My heart softened, and I took him in. Anyway, I run a restaurant; I don’t have much, but I always have plenty of leftovers!”
Lu Zhen felt a soft spot in his heart. He leaned toward Qiao Muyu and whispered, “You actually cried?”
Qiao Muyu choked and shouted, “I did not cry!”
Auntie Fang laughed at their bickering, and Pudding barked joyfully along.
…
Soon, Auntie Fang served the steaming clay pots.
“You two eat slowly. I’m going out to pick up a package; I’ll be back soon,” she said.
“Okay, go ahead. We won’t steal everything in the shop,” Qiao Muyu said seriously.
Auntie Fang pointed at him from a distance, laughing, “You and your glib tongue,” before untying her apron and heading out.
The shop was left with only Qiao Muyu and Lu Zhen.
Qiao Muyu pointed at the empty seats. “See, Young Master? I’m amazing. I booked the whole place for our first meal. No one to disturb us.”
Pudding didn’t understand, but seeing Qiao Muyu look proud, he barked twice as if giving him a thumbs-up.
Qiao Muyu added, “Oh, except for one dog.”
An irrepressible smile broke across Lu Zhen’s face. He gave a thumbs-up. “Amazing.”
Qiao Muyu handed him chopsticks. “Young Master, please enjoy your meal.”
The soup bubbled in the clay pot, topped with green onions and peanut sauce. Qiao Muyu mixed it all together and began eating the chewy noodles.
Lu Zhen, however, began meticulously picking out every single piece of green onion. Only after the bowl was clear did he start eating slowly.
There were many ingredients. Lu Zhen picked up a green, unknown vegetable and chewed. A strange, strong aroma filled his mouth. He didn’t recognize it; he had only picked it because he saw Qiao Muyu put some in his basket.
His conclusion: Terrible. He shouldn’t have been curious.
Lu Zhen pointed at the leaves. “What is this?”
Qiao Muyu glanced over. “That’s crown daisy (tonghao).”
Lu Zhen noted the name. “It tastes very strange.”
Seeing him about to pick it out, Qiao Muyu offered, “If you don’t like it, give it to me. Don’t waste it.”
Lu Zhen didn’t object and let him take the greens. Qiao Muyu asked, “Do you always eat like this?”
Lu Zhen: “Like what?”
Qiao Muyu: “Being a picky eater.”
Lu Zhen shook his head. “I rarely eat out. At home, the chef avoids things I don’t like.”
Qiao Muyu felt a wave of envy—not for the chef, but for the height. Lu Zhen was half a head taller than him. When they spoke, Qiao Muyu always had to tilt his head back slightly.
“I’ve wanted to ask… you’re so picky, how did you grow so tall?”
“Maybe,” Lu Zhen thought, “genetics.”
Qiao Muyu, defeated by innate biology, sighed. He had never been picky and was easy to feed, yet he could never reach his ideal height.
Lu Zhen sized him up. “How tall are you?”
“I haven’t checked in a while. I should be 180cm by now.” Qiao Muyu recalled something frustrating. “During the physical exam last semester, Hu Jun was recording data. I was 179cm. I begged him to round it up to 180, but he insisted on being ‘factual’ and told me to reach 180 with my own strength. Because of that, Du Jingfei teased me for three days.”
Lu Zhen stirred his food, a hidden smile playing on his lips. “My mom said one tall person in the house is enough.”
Qiao Muyu thought about it. “But my dad isn’t that tall.”
Lu Zhen looked up, saying calmly, “I mean… our house.”
“Cough!” Qiao Muyu was startled and choked on a noodle.
Wait, brother, how did we become one house?
He wiped his mouth with a tissue. Looking at Lu Zhen’s pleased expression, he felt like he was being looked down upon. If a house only needed one tall person, why should it be Lu Zhen and not him?
Being beaten in grades was annoying enough; he wasn’t going to lose in this, too. Grow all you want! If the sky falls, it’ll hit you tall people first!
The more he thought about it, the more indignant he felt. He decided to play a trick to vent his frustration.
Qiao Muyu picked up a slice of beef from his bowl, hid a piece of cilantro inside it, and held it to Lu Zhen’s lips with an innocent smile. “Come on, baby. I’ll feed you.”
Lu Zhen paused. Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. He obediently opened his mouth and bit down on the “booby-trapped” beef from Qiao Muyu’s chopsticks.
He even added, “Thank you.”
But after two chews, he realized something was wrong. The scent of cilantro hit him like a freight train. He frowned and reached for a tissue to spit it out.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Qiao Muyu interrupted him timely, looking innocent. “Are you going to spit out something I fed you with my own hands? I’ll be so sad.”
“……”
To spit or not to spit?
After an internal struggle, Lu Zhen put the tissue down. Under Qiao Muyu’s expectant gaze, he grit his teeth and forced himself to swallow.
Qiao Muyu suppressed a laugh. “Is it good?”
Lu Zhen saw the mischief in his eyes and realized he’d been pranked. With a dark face, he answered: “…Good.”
Qiao Muyu was already being mean, but he decided to be meaner. He picked a huge clump of cilantro from his own pot and dumped it into Lu Zhen’s. “If it’s good, eat more.”
Lu Zhen: “……” I thank you.
…
After eating and saying goodbye to Auntie Fang, they headed to the art museum downtown.
It was the weekend, and the weather was great, so there were many visitors. Most surprising to Qiao Muyu was the number of children.
He finally understood why Lu Zhen said the exhibition was suitable for kids when he saw the banner at the entrance. The theme was “My Childhood.”
“How did you know about this?” Qiao Muyu asked.
“My mom told me,” Lu Zhen said. “She studied art and is a curator. The organizer is a friend of hers. I asked her if there were any good places in Nanjian for art lovers, and she recommended this.”
Qiao Muyu understood. No wonder Xie Qiuling didn’t have the typical arrogance of a wealthy socialite; she had a friendly, artistic aura.
The exhibition was free with an online reservation. As soon as Qiao Muyu walked in, he felt his eyes and heart brighten. The walls were painted in high-saturation colors—a vibrant, “dopamine” fairy-tale world.
Qiao Muyu was completely immersed, his thoughts drifting back to summer afternoons lying under trees. He stopped in front of a painting titled Secret Base. It showed a girl with braids lying on a small island, surrounded by toys and snacks.
“What are you thinking?” Lu Zhen asked.
Qiao Muyu smiled. “Nothing. Just that I did the same thing as a kid. I had my own secret base.”
“What was it like?”
“A bridge tunnel. I don’t remember the details.”
Actually, Qiao Muyu hadn’t forgotten. He occasionally dreamt of it. But he didn’t want to tell Lu Zhen about his time in the orphanage.
It wasn’t really a bridge tunnel. It was a discarded hemispherical slide shaped like a blue mushroom. It was hollow with a narrow entrance only a six or seven-year-old could fit through. The orphanage director told them it was a “dog hole” with dirty things inside to keep them away.
But once, Qiao Muyu chased a cat inside and found a hidden world. Sunlight filtered through the semi-transparent blue plastic, coating everything in a hazy gold. Looking up, he felt like a fish in the deep sea looking at the shimmering surface. It gave him a sense of security, like a hermit crab finding a shell.
He thought no one would ever find it, until a little boy stumbled into his lonely world one summer afternoon.
The orphans were playing a “Knight Finding the Princess” version of hide-and-seek. Qiao Muyu lost at Rock-Paper-Scissors and had to be the princess. He hid in his secret base. The other kids couldn’t find him and gave up, accusing him of cheating.
But “Lu Zhen-zhen” didn’t give up. The little knight searched everywhere—the grass, the cracks in the stones, the attic—and finally found his princess in the blue tunnel.
“You’re so slow,” the princess complained. “I’m hungry.”
The knight paused and pulled out his only piece of plum candy. “I only have this.”
Qiao Muyu took it, his eyes crinkling. “Great. This is exactly what I wanted.”
Lu Zhen-zhen sat down beside him. He looked at the walls covered in crayon doodles. “You drew these?”
“Mm. Look, this is a little fish (Xiao Yu). That’s me.”
“What about me?”
Qiao Muyu took his crayon and drew two hazelnuts next to the fish. “This is you.”
“Why am I a rock?”
Qiao Muyu laughed. “Stupid, it’s a hazelnut (Zhen-guo)!”
Finally, they held a clumsy wedding ceremony, bowed to the heavens and earth, drank “wedding water,” and pinky-swore to be together forever. Childhood was full of such foolish, beautiful things.
…
They spent half an hour browsing the exhibits. Near the exit, there was an interaction zone where visitors could draw on blank walls. Qiao Muyu found a spot and drew his memory of the secret base.
He turned to see Lu Zhen drawing two stick figures holding hands.
“Who’s this?” Qiao Muyu pointed to the one holding a pink flower.
“The princess,” Lu Zhen said seriously.
“And the one in the helmet?”
“The knight.”
“What are they doing?”
“A wedding.”
“Oh, playing house?”
“Mm, something like that.”
Qiao Muyu looked at the cool, aloof Lu Zhen beside him and tried to imagine him playing house as a kid. He laughed. “So Young Master Lu played such childish games too? Did you play in the mud?”
Lu Zhen: “I don’t remember.”
Qiao Muyu: “So that’s a yes.”
Lu Zhen didn’t argue. He just watched Qiao Muyu with a gentle gaze. “Are you happy today?”
Qiao Muyu was stunned, then smiled. “Yeah, I’m happy. Thanks for bringing me here.”
Lu Zhen took his hand. “Then… Can we go on a date every weekend?”
Qiao Muyu thought: Half a day won’t hurt my studies. It’s good to relax, and I should give him some sweetness to keep him hooked. He squeezed back. “Sure. Whatever you say.”
…
Over the next two weekends, Qiao Muyu kept his word and went on short dates with Lu Zhen.
He thought a passionate “honeymoon phase” would begin—Lu Zhen would become obsessed, neglect his studies, and fall from the #1 spot. But things didn’t go as planned.
After two weeks of dating, they had a monthly exam. Lu Zhen was still the #1 student with 700 points!
Qiao Muyu nearly fainted when he saw the results. He spent the whole night tossing and turning, sitting up at midnight to punch the air.
Why is my perfect plan failing?!
After a night of analysis, he concluded the problem was Lu Zhen.
Question: What kind of person takes their partner on a date… to a bookstore to read? To a library to do homework? To feed stray cats and dogs? Is this what people in love do?!
Answer: Lu Zhen.
More ridiculously, in their private time, they occasionally held hands, but any further physical contact was zero. The only thing close to a “hug” was when Qiao Muyu held onto him on the bike.
Qiao Muyu felt their relationship wasn’t “passionate fire”; it was a light drizzle. It wouldn’t even cause a cold, let alone a heartbreak. Young Master Lu was too pure.
The next day, Qiao Muyu went to school with massive dark circles. Du Jingfei was shocked and checked on him during lunch.
“Yu, you don’t need to study that hard. You look like a ghost. Are you trying to lose weight too?” (A dig at Xu Rongcan, who was currently eating whole-wheat bread to lose weight).
Qiao Muyu shook his head listlessly. “It’s not about studying.”
“Then what?”
Qiao Muyu didn’t know how to start. He tried a hypothetical. “What do you do with your partner when you’re dating?”
Du Jingfei: “Never had one. Next.”
Qiao Muyu: “I mean, imagine it.”
Du Jingfei: “What else? Dates. Food, shopping, movies.”
Qiao Muyu: “Besides that? Shouldn’t there be something… more intimate?”
Du Jingfei looked at him strangely and leaned back. “Your questions are making me nervous, bro. Can we talk about something ‘safe’?”
“Tsk. Be serious.”
Du Jingfei sensed something was up. “Why are you asking? You like a girl?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not me,” Qiao Muyu lied. “It’s a friend. He started dating someone a month ago, but the partner has only held his hand. Is that normal?”
Du Jingfei pushed his non-existent glasses up like a love expert. “Is the partner male or female?”
Qiao Muyu sat up straight. “Male.”
“How old?”
“18.”
“An adult?”
“Mm.”
“Not normal,” Dr. Du diagnosed immediately. “For your friend’s future ‘happiness,’ I suggest breaking up early.”
Qiao Muyu, who was drinking soup, froze. “Why?”
Du Jingfei: “You can’t keep a man who’s impotent.”
“Pffft—” Qiao Muyu sprayed his soup.
The words are crude, but the logic is…
He wiped his mouth. “But he doesn’t look like he has a ‘defect’ like that.”
Du Jingfei suspicious: “You’ve seen it?”
“No! My friend told me.” Qiao Muyu pressed on. “Could there be another reason?”
Du Jingfei pondered. “Only two possibilities. Either he doesn’t love him enough, or he loves him too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“One: He doesn’t like him, so he doesn’t want contact. Two: He likes him too much, so he’s being overly cautious. Haven’t you heard? Liking is indulgence; love is restraint.”
Qiao Muyu murmured, “Is that so?”
Love was more complex than advanced math. All he knew was that finals were 20 days away. If Lu Zhen stayed this calm, his plan would fail.
Qiao Muyu grit his teeth and made a decision:
No. I have to give him some ‘strong medicine’ before finals…!