The Sickly Double Doesn't Want to Be Spoiled - Chapter 26.1

Chapter 26.1

This time, Meng Yuan slept very soundly.

When he woke up again, the sky was already dark.

Meng Yuan lay on the bed, looking at the deep blue sky outside the window, feeling a bit dazed.

How long had he slept? From noon to night? What time was it now?

He fumbled for his phone and took a look.

9:00 PM.

He had practically slept the whole day away.

Meng Yuan stared at his phone in disbelief, unable to help but reflect: was he the reincarnation of a sleep god? Otherwise, how could he manage to sleep for so many hours every single day?

He lay there for a while to recover, finding that his body had regained some strength.

His head was no longer dizzy, and his stomach ache was much better. Most likely, that small bowl of noodles had long since digested; he felt a bit empty now.

Meng Yuan got up and took another dose of medicine. Just as he was hesitating whether to call someone to send some food over, the bedroom door opened.

Lu Cong walked in.

He was finally dressed less formally, having changed into light-colored loungewear, which looked much softer than his daytime shirt.

Lu Cong was carrying a tray. Meng Yuan craned his neck to peek; the aroma of food wafted into his nose.

It was actually a bowl of fresh shrimp wontons!

Heavens, had he arrived in Chinatown?

After eating all sorts of foreign delicacies these past few days, novel at first, but tiring by the end Meng Yuan realized he still possessed a Chinese stomach.

These wontons smelled far too good. Meng Yuan swallowed his saliva.

“Look at that pathetic expression of yours.” Lu Cong closed the door.

Meng Yuan saw undisguised disdain in his eyes, though there was also a hint of helplessness.

“Stomach doesn’t hurt anymore?”

“It can choose not to hurt.”

“Can it?” Lu Cong raised an eyebrow.

Meng Yuan kept staring at the tray in his hands. Wherever Lu Cong walked, he followed, his eyes fixed straight on it.

“The thought of being able to eat fresh shrimp wontons immediately makes it stop hurting,” Meng Yuan said dreamily. “It can wait until after I finish eating to start hurting again.”

Lu Cong: “…”

The gaze he directed at Meng Yuan held a few more layers of complexity.

MDS patients at Meng Yuan’s stage usually have almost no appetite, and their physiques would become severely emaciated in just a few short months.

Although Meng Yuan was also thin, he consistently maintained an unparalleled longing for food.

Whether one can eat is one thing; whether one wants to eat or is willing to eat is another.

At the very least, Meng Yuan was very willing.

He was the type of person who, even if he would throw up right after eating, had to eat it first regardless.

And he wasn’t a picky eater.

At least subjectively he wasn’t; he was willing to eat anything his physical condition allowed.

In this regard, he was truly well-behaved.

However, he was also constantly itching to try things that weren’t allowed—this part was a bit naughty, but harmless enough.

Lu Cong thought about Meng Yuan’s daily state at home: if he wasn’t buying, buying, buying, he was eating, eating, eating.

To some extent, this kid’s mindset was actually quite good.

“Don’t rush.”

Lu Cong held the tray, dodging Meng Yuan’s first “attack,” and walked toward the dining area.

Meng Yuan’s room was a large suite, including a sitting area and a dining room.

Lu Cong quickened his pace, and Meng Yuan followed behind with a flushed, anxious face.

Finally reaching the dining area, the tray was placed on the table. Meng Yuan reached out to grab it, but Lu Cong moved it away with quick eyes and hands.

Meng Yuan: “?”

Lu Cong sighed: “Go wash your hands.”

With his body, he was most afraid of bacterial infections. Going to an island for a vacation, they didn’t even dare let a single mosquito into the house, yet Meng Yuan was blissfully unaware.

“Go,” Lu Cong said with emphasis.

Meng Yuan scurried off dejectedly, with Lu Cong’s insistence echoing behind him: “Wash them thoroughly, get them clean.”

“Okay!” Meng Yuan responded loudly.

Having completed all the preliminary work, Meng Yuan sat at the dining table and finally took the first bite of the small wontons.

Heavens, they were so fragrant!

Meng Yuan was so overwhelmed by the flavor that tears almost welled up in his eyes; life was just too happy.

With this kind of skill, Qin Qing was practically wasting her talent as a housekeeper. If she opened a restaurant chain, she probably would have achieved financial freedom long ago.

“Is it really that good?” Lu Cong watched his expression. No matter how he looked at it, it seemed exaggerated, and his words came out sounding a bit sour.

“You’ll know once you try it yourself,” Meng Yuan said, his head buried in the bowl, voice muffled. “No one would dare call this ‘bad’.”

Lu Cong twitched the corner of his mouth but didn’t respond.

Meng Yuan comfortably ate a few bites first. When he felt somewhat full, he paused his chopsticks to catch his breath.

He let out a long, satisfied sigh, then suddenly blinked as if remembering something: “You didn’t leave?”

Lu Cong’s movements paused: “Where would I go?”

“Don’t you have work?”

Lu Cong: “…”

“What does silence mean?”

“Guess what I was doing while you were sleeping like the dead all day?”

“How should I know?” Meng Yuan said matter-of-factly. “You said to yourself I was sleeping like the dead. Could I have an out-of-body experience to go watch you?”

Lu Cong didn’t speak, just stared at him.

After being stared at for a while, Meng Yuan’s skin began to crawl, and in a flash, he suddenly realized.

“Oh~”

“Oh oh~~”

“So while I was sleeping, you handled all your work?”

“More than that,” Lu Cong said. “I even held tomorrow’s meetings in advance.”

Meng Yuan: “…”

Lu Cong said with a fake smile: “You can probably imagine how that group of people is cursing me behind my back. My ID photo has likely been stabbed into a sieve in the group chats.”

Meng Yuan: “…………”

Meng Yuan was stunned.

He had nothing to say.

Because he, too, had experienced countless times where the boss randomly changed the schedule, demanded overtime, or caused the workload to skyrocket within a single day.

Back then, their WeChat groups were exactly the “grand occasion” Lu Cong described.

Perhaps even worse, because they didn’t get overtime pay.

“Maybe… it’s not that bad?” Meng Yuan tried to comfort Lu Cong. “Look on the bright side: at least you’re a boss who is very generous with overtime pay. That’s already better than many people.”

“Even if your employees have grievances, it shouldn’t escalate to the point of personal attacks.”

Lu Cong snorted and looked up at him: “You seem quite experienced?”

Meng Yuan: “…”

Meng Yuan rubbed his hair, guiltily shifting his gaze and changing the subject: “Then since you were here all day, how did you eat?”

“I ate.”

“What did you have?”

Lu Cong glanced at him.

Meng Yuan felt a bit guilty under that gaze, but he insisted on asking: “What did you eat?”

“…The same as you.”

Meng Yuan froze, then lowered his head, then looked up again.

“You ate first again? You guys never wait for me!”

The scales tipped; at this moment, Meng Yuan’s momentum held the upper hand.

Lu Cong was speechless: “What exactly is your obsession with eating together?”

“You don’t understand,” Meng Yuan shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

Lu Cong: “…”

He didn’t see what there was to “not understand.”

Eating is eating you put it in, you swallow it. Doesn’t it taste the same whether someone is with you or not?

In any case, Lu Cong had liked eating alone since he was a child.

It was only Qin Qing who was always spoiling him.

Lu Cong remained silent, as if thinking of how to answer, or perhaps just dazing out.

After a long while, he spoke again.

“Next time.”

He said: “I’ll call you next time, alright?”

Only then did the corners of Meng Yuan’s mouth curl up: “It’s a deal then.”

Lu Cong sighed in his heart: “Mhm.”

After finishing the meal, Meng Yuan leaned back in his chair, feeling like he had finally come back to life. He looked at the pitch-black sky outside the window and suddenly realized a problem.

“I slept all day,” he looked at Lu Cong. “Will I be able to fall asleep tonight?”

Unexpectedly, Lu Cong let out a strange chuckle. “Don’t underestimate yourself. You can fall asleep at any time, in any place, even standing up.”

To carry the sleeping Meng Yuan back and forth, he had truly suffered.

Meng Yuan: “.”

He thought Lu Cong was quite unpleasant to listen to.

“Actually, your sleep quality isn’t half bad either.”

After all, few people these days could maintain such a standard “dead-man’s pose,” lying still from dusk till dawn.

Lu Cong was clearing the dishes and paused upon hearing this.

He noticed Meng Yuan’s words were becoming “thorny.” Meng Yuan had always been like a soft persimmon; seeing him act tough occasionally was actually quite sexy.

“So what do you want?” he asked.

“Watch a movie?” Meng Yuan said.

“Fine. What do you want to see?”

Meng Yuan almost blurted out Tom and Jerry, but bit his tongue to stop himself.

He really wasn’t sure if this novel world had Tom and Jerry.

His clever brain took the high ground, and Meng Yuan calmly suggested: “Let’s watch your favorite cartoon.”

Lu Cong: “…Why do you think I would watch cartoons?”

“You weren’t born this big,” Meng Yuan said. “You grew up like a little monkey too. Who didn’t watch cartoons as a kid?”

“Me,” Lu Cong said.

Meng Yuan: “…”