Sweet Gardenia - Chapter 18.1

Summer had arrived. Although the suburban nights were cooler than in the city center, it was still too hot for much movement. The room had no air conditioner, only a miniature fan whirring slowly. The slightest movement would bring on a thin sheen of sweat that clung to the body like a transparent second skin.

When he spoke, he remained in his original position, not having shifted an inch. His breath seeped through the gaps between them as if sinking into her body, and she could clearly feel the shape of his nose as it pressed lightly against her.

Lu Zhi looked up, her gaze meeting that of the little fox, who was licking its paws with an innocent expression. The lingering warmth of having just woken up faded, and she slowly processed his words. “Well… not really.”

She pursed her lips and truly didn’t move again, unsure if she should or shouldn’t, perhaps adjust her angle or something… Time slipped by amidst her chaotic, rambling thoughts. She could distinctly feel the tips of her ears starting to burn. How could anyone compare themselves to a pet… What does a fox know…

Just then, her phone vibrated. It was a video call from Li Siyi. She abruptly looked down and saw Fu Yanshang’s black hair, immediately hanging up with a guilty conscience.

Li Siyi was instantly on alert: [What are you doing?? Is there something I’m not allowed to see???]

Lu Zhi’s eyes were wide as she typed a random lie: [Showering.]

After she had turned to her side to send the message, the person buried against her still hadn’t moved.

She hesitated before speaking. “…Have you fallen asleep?”

“No.”

His reply was swift. The sensation was even clearer when he spoke, and she began to regret opening her mouth. Still, she pressed on, “Are you still angry?”

“No.”

She propped herself up on her arms. “Then I’m getting up. My arm is numb from you using it as a pillow.”

Fu Yanshang tilted his head, propping it up with a hand to look at her. “And what if I said I was still angry?”

Still? So that meant he really was angry before?

With great integrity, Lu Zhi said, “Then I’ll let you use it as a pillow for a little while longer.”

“…”

Soon, Li Siyi’s call came through again. She answered it.

Li Siyi: “The artist has finished the revisions. Have you taken a look?”

“I’ve seen them,” Lu Zhi said. “No problems.”

The person on the other end moved closer to the receiver, her voice amplifying. “Why do you sound so weak? Are you low on oxygen?”

“No, I haven’t had dinner yet. I’m a little hungry.”

Fu Yanshang asked, “They ordered food and didn’t ask you?”

The next second, Li Siyi dropped a “Holy crap, your husband’s back,” and hung up, making it sound as if they usually discussed unspeakable secrets behind his back.

Lu Zhi reined in her expression slightly before answering his question. “They asked if I wanted to order food, but I said no. I ate a little at lunch, but it didn’t really suit my tastes.”

“You still can’t skip dinner.”

She licked her lips and asked him, “Don’t you know how to cook?”

“…”

She pointed weakly. “They said there are some groceries in the fridge.”

“…”

He chuckled. “Aren’t you afraid my cooking won’t suit your tastes either?”

“Is that so? But didn’t Jing Chi say your cooking is quite good?” she said. “In that case, just follow a recipe I give you. I have some for dishes I eat often.”

Fu Yanshang got up and walked over to the fridge. The one prepared for the guest room was very short, a tiny little thing. He unfastened his watch and, with one hand resting on the cabinet door, bent down to look at the ingredients inside.

Lu Zhi trotted over to his side. “I checked. There are potatoes and beef, so you should make beef and potato stew. It’s a really hard dish to mess up. Um, I found a recipe. 200g of peeled potatoes…”

Her words came to an abrupt halt the next second as he tore open a bag of chips and stuck one in her mouth. “Be good and wait.”

There were actually snacks in the cabinet. If she had known, she wouldn’t have starved until now.

Lu Zhi began to single-mindedly rummage through the snacks, all while supervising his cooking process.

Under the running water, the man’s bony, veined hands carefully washed the vegetables, a full three different kinds. The potatoes and beef were chopped and put into the pot. Lu Zhi glanced at her phone, then at the pot, and asked in confusion with a ketchup packet in her mouth, “Why does your method seem wrong…”

The next second, the ketchup packet was confiscated from her mouth and squeezed entirely into the soup base. Utterly clueless, Lu Zhi leaned closer. “Are you trying to get revenge on me?”

Five minutes later, the soft, mealy tomatoes were mashed, and the soup base melted with the sauce, taking on a rich, appetizing color. Fu Yanshang made a final adjustment and fed her a piece of beef, offering a simple name for the dish. “Borscht. Try it.”

The perfectly tender beef brisket, coated in sweet and sour tomato, burst with flavor in her mouth. Her eyes lit up, and she nodded repeatedly. “Delicious.”

“Good. I’m turning off the heat.”

“Wait,” Lu Zhi said, embarrassed. “Could you add some noodles?”

He leaned against the counter and glanced up at her. “You’re quite good at ordering me around.”

She spoke without thinking, the words tumbling out. “Well, I can’t just let you use me as a pillow for free.”

Fu Yanshang nodded, raising an eyebrow. “Are you saying that if I feed you, I can use you as a pillow?”

She immediately raised her voice. “No! That’s not what I meant, I meant…”

She spent two minutes trying to organize her words but couldn’t think of what to say. Fortunately, Fu Yanshang didn’t press the issue, so she justifiably stopped expending her brain cells.

She truly hadn’t expected Fu Yanshang’s cooking to be this good. At home, the housekeeper always cooked, so he probably hadn’t done it in a long time, no, that wasn’t right. There was that one time he’d helped in the kitchen and stir-fried a single dish of bitter melon, which she hated. There was no way to judge his skill from that.

She began to ponder what little tricks she could use over the next few days to make Fu Yanshang take charge of her three meals a day in this place devoid of food delivery.

Halfway through her meal, she felt a gaze on her face. She turned to meet his eyes and asked, “Do you want some?”

He was perfectly composed. “You wait until you’ve eaten all the meat to ask if I want any.”

“…”

“No, I just figured that if you were hungry, you would have cooked your own portion,” she said. “Didn’t you guys eat tonight?”

“We ate. I’m not hungry,” he said. “I’m just teasing you. Don’t be nervous.”

Lu Zhi pouted and lowered her head to continue eating her noodles. He had given her far too much. After finishing, she paced around the room twice and still felt full.

Fu Yanshang only saw her wander around the bed twice before slowly walking out of the room. A moment later, she returned and asked him, “Want to go for a walk?”

–

The moonlight in the small town was always lovely.

There was a small pond by the door, and countless insects were chirping in the dense woods by its edge. Lu Zhi let the breeze blow on her for a while before asking him, “What did you guys have for dinner?”

“Similar to lunch. It was all very spicy, which you wouldn’t like.”

“You didn’t have fish?”

“No.”

She turned her head in astonishment. “You didn’t catch a single one all afternoon?”

“We caught some,” he said. “Let them all go.”

“You guys have some real character. Fishing all afternoon while baking in the sun, only to let them all go. Wasn’t that all for nothing?” she said casually, tilting her face up to the wind. Then, her thoughts shifted. “But then again, a lot of things are meaningless in the first place. Like the two of us standing here.”

After a moment in the evening breeze, she heard his voice.

“How is it meaningless?”

She turned her head in surprise, about to ask what he meant.  Weren’t they just making idle post-dinner chatter?

But the next second, her eyes met his, and she suddenly recalled a line she’d read somewhere: intimacy is built in the midst of aimless, inconsequential small talk.

She hadn’t even realized it herself, but strolling, chatting idly, and discussing things were all activities they absolutely would not have engaged in when they first moved in together, or even just a week ago.

With this sudden realization, Lu Zhi felt she should get to know him better. She turned her head and asked, “Are there things you like to do?”

“If you’re just asking about a general ‘like,’ then there are many. For example, racing, skiing, diving, they all give me an immediate sense of pleasure and excitement in the moment.”

“But if you’re asking about a sustained, essential hobby, something without which life would seem to lose its meaning, something I’d think about even when I’m not doing it,” he said, “then at the moment, there’s nothing.”

“But if you ask me again in three months, that might be different.”

Lu Zhi asked, puzzled, “Are you trying to discover some new interest?”

He smiled noncommittally. “Perhaps?”

There was a slightly roguish, alluring charm to his expression. Lu Zhi averted her gaze and rubbed her earlobe.

“So mysterious.”

After walking for over an hour, her food had more or less digested. Back in their room, Fu Yanshang went to shower first. She chatted with Li Siyi for a while, and when she saw him walk out of the bathroom, she typed: [Gotta go, I’m going to shower.]

Li Siyi saw right through it: [?? You’re only showering now? Then what were you doing when you said you were showering earlier??]

“…”

Being caught red-handed, yet still lying in bed, felt like being thrown right back into the scene from two hours ago. As a result, Lu Zhi spent the entire night having all sorts of dreams that continued that scenario.

When she opened her eyes and saw the familiar face so close, she recoiled a good distance.

For once, he hadn’t started working yet. His arm was pillowed under his cheek, and the corners of his eyes held the lazy weariness of just having woken up. “What did you dream about?”

“…”

She put on a brave front. “Why the sudden guess?”

“Your expression is very guilty.”

Could he read minds? There was no way Lu Zhi was telling the truth. She turned her face away. “You guessed wrong.”

The time on her phone read 4:30. No wonder he wasn’t working. The agony of waking up early, which had been at bay for three days, suddenly came crashing down on her. She turned back with a woeful expression. “Do we have to get up again soon?”

Thinking about the morning’s activities, he said, “You don’t want to go?”

“It’s not a matter of wanting to or not,” she sighed heavily. “I don’t want to wake up early.”

He hummed in acknowledgment. Lu Zhi didn’t know what his “hmm” meant, but she fumbled for a bra from the bedside wardrobe and sluggishly put it on under the covers.

A moment later, she heard movement from the attic. Grandpa must be up. Soon after, a tapping sound came from the window.

“Little Zhi, are you awake?”

Just as she was about to answer, a hand suddenly clamped over her lips. Before she could even react, the momentum of the action had pulled her into his arms, her back pressed against his chest.

A tangible heat radiated through the fabric of their clothes.

Probably because he didn’t hear a sound, the words, “I’m opening the window then,” were followed by the window being slid open from the outside. But a second before they could be seen, Fu Yanshang raised a hand, pulled up the blanket, and shielded them both in a corner, out of sight.

The rustling sounds of people could already be heard from outside, likely the chefs preparing a meal. Amidst the clatter, Lu Zhi took the opportunity to whisper to him, “What’s going on?”

“Didn’t you say you didn’t want to go?” he murmured, his lips close to her ear. “I’ll tell him we went out.”