The phone suddenly went haywire, vibrating nonstop with a buzzing sound.
An international call came in. Before it was answered, WeChat notifications continued to buzz insistently with new messages.
【Dad: Say something!】
【Dad: What’s going on? Did you mistype something or are you just losing your mind?】
【Dad: Huh?】
【Dad: I heard from your mother that this guy has quite a bad temper. Why would someone with such a temper go out of their way to sterilize a bowl for you? Jiang Ran, I suggest you stop trying to get yourself killed.】
【Dad: Or maybe your flirty charm is so strong that everyone just caves in to you?】
【Dad: How come I don’t believe that?】
【Dad: …】
【Dad: Why aren’t you speaking? Are you already getting beaten up?】
Jiang Ran didn’t look at her phone anymore.
If she had, she would have started arguing with her father from the fourth-last message and gone back and forth with him for three hundred rounds.
Right now, her attention was completely on Beijiao, her mind filled with shock, which sharply contrasted with her outward calmness… In the chaos, she began envying the completely oblivious Beijiao himself, watching how steady his hand was as he held the scalding teapot?
Knowing the truth might make him throw the entire pot, along with its boiling water, straight at her face.
The entire bowl-warming process felt unusually long, as if everything had been deliberately slowed down—
Maybe he wasn’t afraid of the heat. With the temperature hovering near forty degrees outside, he held the white porcelain bowl filled with steaming hot water using just two slender fingers, lifting his wrist slightly so the water flowed over the rim.
Some of the boiling water ran across his fingertips, yet he seemed unfazed by the scalding sensation. His neatly trimmed nails had only slightly turned pink.
The motion wasn’t particularly skillful…
Probably because very few customers had ever gone mad enough to ask him to sterilize their tableware.
Looking at that refined face, it remained expressionless.
In contrast, Jiang Ran, sitting by the small table and watching his every move, felt a strange tingling sensation at the base of her spine, as if it had been scorched by the hot water.
She subtly straightened her back and stealthily lifted her eyelids to peek at him again, noticing how he was now focused on his task with his head lowered…
It was uncertain whether he was doing it on purpose—
Purposely slowing down his movements.
Of course, it was also possible that she was just feeling guilty.
Resting one hand against her cheek, her gaze circled around his face a few times. Her fingers lightly tapped on the table as she finally spoke, her voice hoarse: “Why are you working odd jobs everywhere?”
It was as if she hadn’t fully sobered up from last night’s drinking, her tone carrying an unconscious intimacy.
But there was no response.
After finishing sterilizing the last glass, he placed it in front of her.
With a “clap”—
It was noticeably heavier than his previous movements, clearly not without emotion.
She instinctively shut her mouth and reached out to touch the glass, only to be scalded by its residual heat. She let out a dramatic “Ah!” and quickly withdrew her fingers.
As she softly cried out, Beijiao’s gaze fell on her reddened fingertips. His eyes, dark and expressionless, calmly assessed her with four words: spoiled and pampered.
Rubbing her fingertips, she felt his gaze on her and looked up at him hesitantly…
But the young man gave her no chance to voice another absurd request. He straightened his back, handed the order she had placed through the kitchen counter, turned around, left the air-conditioned room, and sat by the sink under the shade of a tree outside, turning on the tap to start washing dishes.
Jiang Ran had no choice but to hunch by the low table, watching his back disappear into the distance—
Broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, his arms naturally flexing with muscle as he held the bowl…
It seemed he was constantly juggling unreliable part-time jobs, yet his skin remained surprisingly fair, especially his face. The much-coveted “early C and late A” skincare routine looked like a joke compared to his naturally fair complexion.
Her fingers tapped lightly against her cheek.
Jiang Ran fell into thought.
It was lunch break time, and the commercial street outside was bustling with people. She noticed that occasionally, passing female college students would glance back at him as they walked by. Some whispered to each other, while others hesitated before deciding to enter the shop to dine.
Soon, a few guys carrying basketballs came in, and the shop became livelier.
But he didn’t get up to serve anyone else again.
…Of course, no one dared to ask him for anything either.
Then the owner personally brought over the claypot rice, lifting the lid to reveal a fragrant aroma.
She stirred it with a spoon, uncovering a crispy layer of scorched rice at the bottom, soaked in beef and omelet sauce. Surrounded by the delicious scent, Jiang Ran finally realized how hungry she had been all along.
Just then, the shop door opened again. The person who had been squatting outside washing pots and pans walked in carrying a basket of clean claypots. Sweat dripped from his muscles, visible beneath his tank top… As he passed a certain table, someone precisely grabbed the hem of his pants from the side.
His forward movement was halted.
He looked down and met a pair of dark, bright almond eyes.
The culprit, who had caused the obstruction, smiled, her eyes curving slightly.
But he couldn’t manage a smile in return. After a three-second silence, he unusually spoke first, before she could open her mouth: “What now? Do you need me to feed you?”
The shop, which had just become slightly lively again because of his presence, fell silent for about three seconds.
Jiang Ran struggled to maintain her polite demeanor, but the curious glances from the surrounding people were making her uncomfortable. She still had some sense of dignity.
She let go of his jeans and remained expressionless: “I just wanted the chili sauce.”
“Oh.”
“How come you’re so aggressive?”
Her voice carried a nasal tone, dull and slightly whiny.
Beijiao looked at her deeply for a moment, then entered the kitchen to place the cleaned pots and utensils, before fetching the chili sauce and placing it in front of her.
Amid the clinking sounds in the shop, he pushed the door open again and went outside to wash another batch of claypots.
…
Beijiao sat outside washing dishes, the water flowing noisily as his hands soaked in it, slightly relieving the heat.
People came and went outside, and occasional conversations drifted from inside the shop. He didn’t turn around, just kept his head down, mechanically repeating the washing motions.
Suddenly, in one of those moments when he lowered his head, he wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but he thought he caught a faintly familiar scent entering his nostrils.
He paused.
Using the motion of placing the cleaned dishes down, he subtly lowered his waist slightly… and accurately caught a whiff of a scent that didn’t belong to him, mingling with his sweat and the heat in the air, coming from somewhere near the knees of his jeans—
Pepper on milk, an incompatible scent somehow blending together.
Spicy, with a faint, well-hidden sweetness.
This scent seemed to be unintentionally imprinted onto the cartilage inside his nose—
Abnormally prominent and stirring within his familiar masculine aura.
In his mind, an image surfaced: a pale hand tugging at his pant hem, gently pulling, or a woman standing beside him in a dimly lit bar restroom, holding up her skirt and mocking him mercilessly.
He paused slightly, then silently straightened his waist.
His previously emotionless mindset suddenly shifted a little.
Frowning slightly, Beijiao couldn’t help but turn his head. Through the reflective glass door, he saw the young woman sitting alone at the corner table diagonally opposite, clearly out of sync with all the other people around her…
But she was completely unaware of it.
With one hand supporting the claypot, its surface darkened by the coal fire, and the other holding a white spoon, she lowered her head and ate intently, completely unaware that several boys at the next table, who had just finished playing basketball, were secretly glancing at her.
Perhaps in her eyes, these little boys weren’t even human.
“……”
The brows relax.
The young man’s usually unexpressive face tensed slightly, then suddenly felt extremely irritated.
He decided to wash his pants as soon as he returned to the dormitory in the evening.
……
Unlike Bei Jiao, who was irritable due to the scorching weather, Jiang Ran ate her meal at a leisurely pace.
The less-than-twenty-yuan claypot rice was eaten by her with the grandeur of a five-star hotel’s Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. Holding a small spoon, she ate at a steady pace with meticulous care.
The door beside me opened and closed, with intermittent wisps of cool air from the air conditioning drifting in.
According to Beijiao’s absent-minded rough estimate, the moderately sized shop inside had already turned over its tables three or four times. Students came and went, and the boss had once again called him to collect the pots, pans, and dishes that needed washing.
She didn’t come out either.
I don’t know what they’re dawdling about inside.
The wind rustled through the treetops in the afternoon, while the monotonous chirping of summer cicadas formed a steady background. Looking up, the sun’s halo made one feel somewhat drowsy.
The boy, his fingers covered in soapy water, squinted slightly. Just as he let out a drowsy yawn, the door behind him creaked open once more—
The yawn got stuck halfway.
He didn’t look up, but the tips of his ears twitched slightly, and from just this single sound of the door opening, he somehow detected an unusual frequency.
Footsteps sounded, as if someone had turned in place a few times on the steps behind him.
Bei Jiao expressionlessly wrung out the dishwashing cloth, squeezing away the soapy bubbles. The cheap synthetic fragrance was quickly replaced by another irritating odor…
The black sandals came to a stop beside him, with a delicate golden metal anklet adorning the fair ankle, featuring a single pale purple pearl.
The sandals bore the familiar brand logo—two Cs intertwined—which he had seen many times these days, in his mom’s social media posts and on the lambskin bag that had been drenched by the wine he spilled.
A pair of expensive slippers?
His mind was in chaos for a second.
The owner of the slippers simply stopped behind him, hands clasped behind his back, bending over to watch him wash the dishes without saying a word for a long time.
Bei Jiao was getting impatient, not knowing what she was up to, so he wanted to ask her again if she was out of her mind standing there like a telephone pole.
The words were on the tip of my tongue when her aggrieved remark—”Why are you so aggressive?”—suddenly flashed through my mind…
He swallowed his words back with difficulty, exhaling a silent, impatient breath through his nose as he lowered his head and focused on washing the dishes.
……
Wait until Jiang Ran can’t hold it in anymore.
Hugging her knees, she squatted down with a “whoosh,” sitting shoulder to shoulder with him in a row.
“Can I ask you something… are you really short on money?”
She asked abruptly without any preamble.
…Actually, Beijiao wasn’t quite sure why everyone was asking him this question today—
Does he have “poor” written all over his face?
As soon as Jiang Ran finished speaking, she sensed the person beside her pause their dishwashing and turn to look at her with calm eyes.
His dark, penetrating gaze was like a camera in portrait mode—suddenly, everything around him faded into the background.
The scorching sun of the Great Heat.
The cicadas on the trees were screaming wildly.
The trees rustled and swayed in the faint breeze.
With the temperature nearing forty degrees, not a second was wanted to be spent outdoors. She stared at the beads of sweat clinging to the muscles on his arms and the frayed threads of his white tank top, which had clearly been washed countless times…
The smell of sweat and an unfamiliar masculine scent enveloped her face.
The sun is a bit too strong.
Her throat tightened slightly, and she instinctively pressed her tongue against her lower lip.
He didn’t notice his gaze also settling on the faint glistening moisture on her lower lip.
“If you’re short on money, I can give you some. Don’t work part-time anymore,” she said. “How about fifty thousand? Is that enough?”
She meant that if it’s not enough, she can add a bit more, and it’s open for discussion.
But listen to what this sounds like?
Given the full context, she was the only one who didn’t see anything wrong with it.
She was the first to present what she considered the most convincing condition. As she pondered how to phrase the situation—”your mother is my father’s middle-aged mistress who hasn’t registered their marriage, and my father asked me to give you money”—in a formal and appropriate manner, she suddenly realized, after a long wait, that the surroundings had fallen into complete silence.
Pausing for a moment, she turned her head and unexpectedly met his eyes, which were so close.
The two stared at each other in silence for several seconds.
He still didn’t speak.
She was a bit irritated, wondering if this kid was mute.
“I’m not kidding. On a scorching day like this, kids your age should either be chilling in the library, going on dates at the cinema, or at the very least playing basketball in the gym… But here you are, a proper college student on summer break, not having fun but miserably washing dishes—”
She quickly got into character.
As she spoke, she couldn’t help but feel that the person before her was her own tragic yet beautiful Cinderella-like younger brother.
So while speaking, she reached out to snatch the greasy dishcloth from his hand.
The faint sweetness brushed past the tip of his nose.
Before her soft, fair fingertips could touch the grimy, blistered rag, a large hand shot out and firmly seized her wrist—
Rough.
Scorching.
Slightly moist.
Her slender arms were no match for the grip of his single hand, effortlessly held within his grasp.
The calluses on his palm brushed against the tender skin on the inside of her wrist, sending a shiver down her spine.
Her voice suddenly stopped.
“Whatever you’re trying to do, I don’t have time for your games.”
The young man’s voice, oddly deep and dull, carried a hint of hoarse roughness.
“Stay away from me, got it?”
Author’s note:
Remember this moment—it might be the hardest the male lead gets throughout the entire story (no actual explicit content involved).
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage