When Wang Luan hurried home, the sky had already gradually dimmed. She noticed that behind her, there was a set of footsteps overlapping with her own.
Someone was following her, and they hadn’t made much effort to conceal the sound at all. If it wasn’t just someone going the same way, then it was aimed at her.
The footsteps drew closer and closer. Wang Luan thought, well damn, there was a ninety-nine percent chance she’d run into a robbery again. The frequency of robberies and thieves in this place was so high it made one want to loudly exclaim, “Such simple and honest folk customs.”
After passing a corner, Wang Luan’s figure vanished from sight. The person following her also quickened their pace. Suddenly, a hand stretched out from the corner, grabbing straight for the follower’s head, but it was caught in midair as the well-prepared follower seized her wrist.
Wang Luan’s hand was grabbed. Instinctively, she tried to drag the person closer and throw him with a shoulder slam. Who knew that when she dragged him over, she also clearly saw the other party’s face. She froze on the spot………… Comrade Xiao Yan, have you changed careers to robbery now? And you even go after acquaintances?
The two of them each gripped one of the other’s hands, staring at each other in the dim street corner.
Separated for a year, their reunion came too suddenly. Wang Luan didn’t even know what to say. Just as she opened her mouth to greet him, Yan Qiongyu suddenly closed his eyes and pitched forward. Wang Luan instinctively reached out to support him.
The hand braced at his waist felt something damp. She lifted it toward the light, and her palm was full of blood.
Inside Yan Qiongyu’s open overcoat, a dark red stain spread across his gray shirt.
Wang Luan swallowed back the curse that was about to slip out, and immediately brought the “fainted” injured person home.
Her residence was behind the shop, a two-story building with a courtyard. She casually turned on the lights and temporarily settled him on the sofa in the living room, then went into the room to look for medicine.
Living in a place like this, wound medicine and the like had to be kept on hand.
Just as Wang Luan entered the room, the person lying on the sofa sat up. He very naturally surveyed the room once over, pulled down his scarf and tossed it aside, took off his hat, revealing slightly messy black hair, then leaned back against the sofa and let out a long breath.
When Wang Luan came back out of the room carrying the small medical kit again, she saw the long-legged young man lounging on the sofa looking over at her. It was still that face, but the feeling he gave off had changed quite a bit.
The black, choppy hair had grown longer and draped over his shoulders; three buttons of his shirt were undone. Combined with his casual sitting posture and the dust-worn overcoat and trousers, he looked entirely like a down-and-out yet dashing wanderer.
Wang Luan couldn’t help recalling the first time she had seen Yan Qiongyu. Back then, he had been seated in the hazy lighting of a high-end restaurant, every inch of him meticulously groomed and refined, his posture elegant, his smile captivating.
Even though she had been unable to accept her own body and his identity as her fiancé at the time, she still had to admit that he was like a flawless little prince.
Now, well—it was the feeling of a pretty ragdoll cat turning into a stray tabby.
Yan Qiongyu leaned there watching her approach, unaware of what she was thinking, and heard her say, “Let’s take care of the wound first.”
“Ah, the wound’s already been treated.” Yan Qiongyu lifted his shirt for her to take a look. Sure enough, a large healing patch was stuck over his waist and abdomen. He lowered his shirt and said, “I just haven’t changed clothes.”
In order to leave the scene as quickly as possible, he had been very rushed when treating the wound, and there hadn’t been time to change clothes.
Wang Luan realized that she had probably been tricked by him again just now. The person doing the tricking didn’t feel there was any problem at all, and even put on a polite expression as he asked her, “May I trouble you for a few days here, Miss Wang Luan?”
Wang Luan: “I’m using the alias Liu Luan now… If you want to stay, then stay.”
Yan Qiongyu: “Many thanks. Otherwise, I really wouldn’t know where to go.”
Wang Luan couldn’t help asking, “Didn’t you say you had somewhere to go? Did something happen?”
Yan Qiongyu replied casually, “Ah, something did happen. I can’t go back for the time being.”
After all, he had designed and killed Qin Ling, Yan Mu’s number-one loyal hound. Even though he had cleaned things up very thoroughly, suspicion at Yan Mu’s place was unavoidable. And he was in a special period; to be on the safe side, it was better to hide for a while first.
After just a few exchanges, Wang Luan found a bit of the old feeling again—mainly because Yan Qiongyu’s attitude was too natural. It was as if the two of them hadn’t been apart for a year, but just a single day.
Just like before, she didn’t ask much more, but it would be awkward to just stand here, so she brought up a universal topic: “Have you eaten?”
Yan Qiongyu: “Actually, I haven’t eaten anything for two days.” Only two nutrition injections.
Are stray cats really that pitiful? Wang Luan felt a twinge of sadness in her heart, stood up, and said, “Then I’ll go make something to eat. I haven’t eaten either.”
Yan Qiongyu, who was always high in emotional intelligence, suddenly exposed her old pasts at this moment and deliberately said, “Didn’t you eat a meal on the spaceship?”
Wang Luan: “Oh… I didn’t get full.” Since when had this person started following her?
Yan Qiongyu: “Hahahahahaha.”
Wang Luan planned to boil some noodles. Living alone, she naturally ate whatever she felt like making. Occasionally she ate out, but most of the time she cooked for herself, so she had stocked up quite a bit of food at home.
She had found many foods similar to those from her previous world, and had also figured out various ways of eating them from the past. In addition, she had planted some vegetables in the courtyard to satisfy her daily vegetable consumption.
There was no helping it—people here didn’t really like eating vegetables. Fresh vegetables were basically impossible to buy, so she could only grow them herself. Perhaps because the traditional Huaxia bloodline in her spirit had awakened, she had actually managed to grow a large patch of vegetables quite decently.
Seeing Wang Luan push the door open and walk into the courtyard, Yan Qiongyu pressed on the wound at his abdomen and slowly stood up as well, walking over to lean against the doorway, watching her grope around in the darkness to pull up some lush green vegetables.
Wang Luan came back quickly, deftly changed out of her mud-stained shoes, carried the small basket of vegetables, and headed straight for the kitchen.
Yan Qiongyu followed behind her again to the kitchen doorway, leaning against a different side of the kitchen door.
Wang Luan washed the vegetables, chopped them, fried eggs, and boiled noodles. Before long, she brought out two large bowls of noodles.
Pale yellow noodles soaked in clear broth, green leafy vegetables, soy-colored stir-fried pork, red small chili peppers, orange sweet-and-sour sliced cherry tomatoes, and two sunny-side-up eggs lying on top—it was Wang Luan’s usual mixed noodle soup.
It was just that this time, the color arrangement was more carefully considered, and the side dishes were more abundant.
In the past, when Wang Luan and Yan Qiongyu ate together, most of the time there was a long table between them, covered with a large spread of exquisite dishes. Servants waited at a distance while the two of them ate quietly.
At times like that, Yan Qiongyu was synonymous with elegance. No matter how delicious the food was, he never ate much. Every bite was of a standard size, chewed slowly and carefully, making no sound at all. What was absurd was that he didn’t even show his teeth, which often made Wang Luan feel that eating with him killed her appetite, and she could never tell if he had any preference for any food.
Now, she watched with her own eyes as Yan Qiongyu picked up the sunny-side-up egg with slightly crispy edges using his chopsticks, curiously flipped it left and right a couple of times, took a bite that ate up more than half of it, then wound up a big chopstickful of noodles and ate it, looking like someone who hadn’t been full in a long time.
Wang Luan stared blankly as he quickly finished an entire big bowl of noodles, then came back to herself and glanced at her own bowl that she hadn’t touched yet, hesitating as she asked, “If you’re not full, do you want this bowl too?”
“No need.” Yan Qiongyu wiped his mouth. In his unhurried movements, that familiar elegant bearing could be seen again. “I’m already full. Thank you for the hospitality.”
After eating, Wang Luan took him upstairs to the guest room. This guest room hadn’t actually been lived in since she moved in, so it needed some temporary tidying up.
Wang Luan carried up from downstairs the small multifunctional housekeeping cleaning machine she had modified herself, and had it conscientiously clean the room once over.
“Stay here with peace of mind and recover properly,” Wang Luan left behind this sentence, along with the medicine kit that hadn’t been used earlier.
Yan Qiongyu habitually checked the surroundings for any danger or surveillance devices, then quietly sat down on the bed that emitted an unfamiliar atmosphere. Only then did a trace of fatigue finally appear on his face.
Bloodstained and dust-covered dirty clothes fell to the floor. He walked barefoot into the washroom and turned on the hot water to shower.
White steam filled the air. Yan Qiongyu, with wet hair still dripping and his body carrying a damp chill, took out the folding pack he carried with him and removed a vial of medicine, injecting it into himself.
He had done this kind of motion countless times already, skillfully suppressing the slight discomfort inside his body.
On his long, lean frame, aside from the wound on his abdomen, there were also some small cuts and abrasions from bumps and scrapes. After treating these one by one, Yan Qiongyu collapsed onto the bed.
The house was somewhat old and not very soundproof. Lying there, he could hear some movement from the room next door—the sound of doors opening and closing, footsteps going downstairs, the sound of a window being pushed open.
Near dawn, Yan Qiongyu fell into a rare deep sleep, likely because he had been too exhausted recently. Morning sunlight fell on his cheek, and the sound of water droplets pattering against plants outside woke him.
Barefoot, he got out of bed and pushed open the window to look outside. Wang Luan had her sleeves and pant legs rolled up, standing at the edge of the large second-floor balcony, holding a hose and watering the vegetables.
Last night he hadn’t noticed—so aside from the vegetable patch in the courtyard, she had also planted all kinds of vegetables all over this large second-floor balcony. The lush vegetable garden bloomed with flowers of various colors; looking closely, one could even see unripe little fruits hidden beneath the leaves of different vines.
Water droplets rolled over the green leaves throughout the garden, fresh and verdant.
Yan Qiongyu had seen many aristocratic gardens, where rare flowers of precious varieties competed in splendor, yet none of them made him feel as full of vitality as the vegetable garden before him.
On an unknown vegetable vine not far ahead, there were many stalks strung together, blooming with purple flowers. Yan Qiongyu stared at them for a couple of moments, thought they would be nice for arranging flowers, and reached out to pinch one off.
Wang Luan turned her head just in time to see this scene, and immediately let out a heartbroken cry: “My bean blossoms!”
