Sweet Gardenia - Chapter 26

The living room lights were bright, and his lips had a faint reddish tint, whether natural or from breakfast, she couldn’t tell.

Lu Zhi averted her gaze uncomfortably. Before making a hasty retreat, she muttered guiltily, “N-nothing’s wrong. I just choked.”

By the time she got into Li Siyi’s car, Li Siyi had already glanced at her flushed cheeks through the rearview mirror.

“So? I hope I didn’t interrupt your estrogen intake?”

“…”

“What’s with that expression?” Li Siyi expertly turned the steering wheel. “Don’t underestimate our estrogen. It’s the one thing we women can’t live without. Without it, we’d break out and get ugly. We can’t afford to be careless, got it?”

She took another look at Lu Zhi’s smooth, flawless skin. “But judging by your complexion, you’re clearly not lacking.”

Lu Zhi: “…”

She tried to cover it up. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Want me to give you a lesson? Ways to get estrogen: kissing, touching, sex… though drinking soy milk works too.” Li Siyi sighed. “That’s why they say women in love are especially beautiful. But it has to be good love. For those of us who’ve been single for four or five months, all we can do is look at handsome guys. It’s not that I’m lustful.  I’m just thinking about my health. Understand?”

Lu Zhi fell silent for a moment. “You’re really good to yourself.”

“Fine, I’ll be honest. I am lustful.”

“…”

Noticing Lu Zhi hadn’t fastened her seatbelt, Li Siyi stopped abruptly before driving out of the parking lot. “No wonder the alarm kept going off. With your hand suddenly out of commission, I’m really not used to it.”

It wasn’t just Li Siyi who wasn’t used to it, Lu Zhi wasn’t either.

“It’ll heal soon, and then I can remove the cast. Just bear with it a little longer.”

Li Siyi gave her a meaningful look. “Are you talking about your husband?”

“I’m talking about myself!”

He was fine.  What did he have to endure? He was completely unrestrained.

As the car entered the side road, Lu Zhi stared out the window for a while before suddenly speaking up again. “Do you ever have those moments… where you can’t control it, and you’re not actively recalling anything, but certain images just keep popping up in front of you?”

“Yeah, that’s totally normal,” Li Siyi said. “After my first kiss with my first love, I couldn’t sleep all night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him leaning in.”

Lu Zhi: “I can’t believe you had such an innocent phase.”

Li Siyi: ?

“I’ve always been this innocent, okay?”

The car drove into the neighborhood. Staring straight ahead, Li Siyi said, “I really want to kiss someone.”

Lu Zhi: ?

“I can’t take it anymore. Listening to someone like you, who has sex, show off in front of me every day, do you have any idea how jealous I am?”

“…”

“When did I ever show off?” Lu Zhi said. “Besides, I don’t have it either. Don’t misunderstand me, okay?”

“Well, if you wanted to, you could have it anytime. Can I?”

Lu Zhi glanced at her, unsure how she’d gotten that idea.

“Plenty of guys are chasing you. If you wanted to, you could have it too.”

Li Siyi came from a good family and was beautiful, the kind of looks that left a strong impression. Her nose, in particular, was very pretty, giving off an unapproachable, aloof vibe, though in reality, she was straightforward to a fault.

“They’re all too ugly. I’ll think about it when I find a handsome one.”

“…”

–

Dragged into Li Siyi’s home, the first task was to tackle the backlog of work.

For instance, discussing whether this card design was fully approved and whether the copy revisions met the requirements. With her hands out of commission, she could only communicate everything verbally with Li Siyi. Once these matters were settled, Li Siyi casually remembered to ask, “Did you sign the contract with your husband?”

“Signed it yesterday. He left it by my pillow, but I didn’t notice.”

Li Siyi: “What’s the split?”

Only then did she recall: “…I forgot to check.”

“…”

Lu Zhi: “My hands aren’t working well. I’ll take a photo and show you after the cast comes off.”

Li Siyi stared at her for a long while. Lu Zhi thought she was listening for something, but after a moment, Li Siyi said suspiciously, “I’ve noticed you’ve started trusting your husband quite a bit lately.”

Lu Zhi tilted her head: “Not really. I just think… he probably wouldn’t cheat me.”

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t seem like the type.”

After a pause, Lu Zhi added, “He doesn’t seem like someone who’d care about such a small amount of money.”

“Looks like your relationship has progressed quite a bit lately,” Li Siyi remarked, then clarified, “If you’ve started having sex, don’t share the details with me. I can’t handle that.”

“…”

A little after five, Lu Zhi left Li Siyi’s house on time, keeping her promise to pick Fu Yanshang up from work.

It sounded simple enough, but when it came time to buy milk tea, she realized she had no hands to carry it.

Under the guise of not intruding on their “couple time,” Li Siyi dropped her off at Rongsheng’s building and had the secretary escort her upstairs.

He didn’t like sweet things, so she ordered unsweetened milk tea. As she placed the order, she silently praised her own thoughtfulness and attention to detail.  Truly, it was so like her.

This time when she entered, he wasn’t in a meeting. Signed documents lay on the desk, and the secretary took them and closed the door behind her. She turned to look.

He was inspecting the growth of the leaves on his green wall. This surprised her a bit.  She had assumed he only kept easy-to-care-for plants like succulents, but that wasn’t the case.

He had a natural inclination for raising delicate, high-maintenance flowers, the kind that would wilt with too much or too little water, or throw a fit if the temperature wasn’t just right. They required strict control of temperature and moisture. Even with pets, it was the same, easy-to-raise cats and dogs weren’t on his radar. He preferred raising notoriously rebellious foxes, and not just one, but two.

Perhaps for someone like him, such activities offered a challenge. Anything too simple just didn’t hold his interest.

Each plant on the green wall had its own dedicated growth container, with temperature and humidity clearly labeled beside it. She asked, “Have any of them died under your care?”

Fu Yanshang turned, only then noticing her arrival. After a pause, he said, “Not yet.”

Then he added, “It would be quite difficult for anything to die under my care.”

She observed for a while and noticed a pattern: “Aside from these leaves, all the flowers you keep are spring-blooming ones.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“Look at the temperature and humidity settings. And… it just feels like it.”

He hummed in agreement. “The greenery is all winter plants.”

It seemed his icy-cold office wasn’t entirely devoid of warmth.  It just needed to be discovered.

“I brought milk tea, with two extras,” she said, her tone suddenly a bit awkward. “Two servings of pearls.”

He opened it and took a sip, the strong taste of Tieguanyin tea lingering on his tongue. “It’s bitter.”

Lu Zhi: “You’d like this kind, right?”

“Mm.”

She suddenly broke into a smile. Fu Yan Shang watched her for a long moment, expecting her to say something like, “As long as you like it”, or something along those lines, when he suddenly heard her nod in satisfaction and declare:

“I’m so smart.”

“…”

The plaster cast felt heavy after a while, so she sat down on the sofa. Fu Yan Shang rummaged through her bag and found a small cake inside.

There was no need to guess.  It was clearly for herself.

Sure enough, before long, the princess on the sofa began giving orders.

“I want to eat that molten lava cake now.”

He pushed the movable table in front of her and opened the cake box. Next to the small round cake was a transparent plastic ring.

Fu Yan Shang said, “Go ahead.”

Lu Zhi looked up. His suit buttons were fastened neatly, as if he always adhered to his own rules and order. She couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to challenge that.

Suddenly, she deliberately provoked, “Say, ‘Your Highness, please enjoy your meal.'”

Fu Yan Shang: ?

The rebellious thought lasted only a moment before she realized she might have overstepped. Just as she was wondering how to backtrack from her impulsive remark, a spoonful of cake was suddenly fed to her: “Eat up, Princess.”

“…”

It wasn’t until she was almost finished that she remembered: she had bought a molten lava cake, but when the plastic ring was removed, the cream shown in the advertisement hadn’t oozed out at all.

She paused and asked, “Why didn’t this cake burst?”

Fu Yan Shang followed her gaze.

“Maybe you didn’t tell it,” he said after a moment, “Your Highness, please burst.”

“…”

–

On the way back, Lu Zhi spent the entire car ride on the phone with Li Si Yi, puzzling over why the cake hadn’t burst.

Li Si Yi said on the other end, “Once your cast is off, have your husband make one for you himself. I’m sure it’ll meet your expectations.”

A week later, the housekeepers who had been on break gradually returned. But most of the time, it was still Fu Yan Shang “taking care” of her. Aside from occasionally charging some interest, he was quite considerate. By the time of her follow-up appointment, when it was confirmed that the cast could be removed, she finally regained the freedom to move her arm.

After the removal, she cautiously asked the doctor, “Can I use it normally now?”

The doctor assured her it was fine: “You’ve recovered well. Just avoid lifting heavy objects.”

Unexpectedly, when she returned home, molds and ingredients were already laid out on the table.

Her arm had just healed, so she was still using it carefully. She gingerly picked up a bottle of light cream from the table and asked him, “What’s this?”

“I’m also curious,” he said calmly, “why that cake didn’t burst in the first place.”

“…”

He had accompanied her to remove the cast. When they left, there was nothing on the table.  He must have had someone deliver the items. But by the time they returned, the house was empty again.

Just as she was about to ask, she saw him already gathering the materials and heading into the kitchen. She followed him in and asked, “…You’re making it yourself?”

“If someone else makes it, I’m worried it won’t burst.”

“…”

She strongly suspected he was doing this because she had annoyed him.

After all, she had indeed discussed it at length with Li Si Yi that day. Ever since, whenever she remembered it, she would bring it up as a running joke. It probably sparked his competitive side.

While she was lost in thought, the man had already rolled up his sleeves, added the ingredients separately, and started whipping the egg whites until they formed soft peaks. It looked like he was making the cake base.

She had always loved supervising in the kitchen since she was young. But since no one ever asked her to cook, and she disliked the smell of oil, she had never learned.

She thought she would have to learn after getting married, but it turned out he didn’t want her to cook either.

As the chiffon cake went into the oven, Lu Zhi suddenly snapped back to reality and unnecessarily smoothed his already neat cuffs before asking obediently, “What kind of tutorial are you watching?”

Fu Yanshang lowered his gaze.

Whenever she wore that expression, it usually meant trouble.

“What is it?”

She made her request gently: “I want sea salt cheese flavor.”

“…”