LA ⋆ Chapter 17: Eating Alone

Sheng Yao arrived home to find Sheng Yi in the living room suddenly snapping his laptop shut and jumping to his feet.

Sheng Yao kicked off his shoes while watching Sheng Yi. "What are you hiding?"

"Nothing, you just startled me coming back suddenly," Sheng Yi walked over and asked, "Do you need to catch up on sleep?"

Sheng Yao had messaged Sheng Yi yesterday that he was staying out. Sheng Yi guessed he hadn't rested well.

"No," Sheng Yao shook his head and sat down on the sofa, looking at some electronic modules on the coffee table. "Are these things you need for school?"

"No, just tinkering around," Sheng Yi picked up a tiny camera the size of a fingernail and showed it to Sheng Yao. "It's cheap to set up your own surveillance system."

"Oh, then get one for the apartment."

He said he didn't need to catch up on sleep, but actually fell asleep within moments of lying down.

Sheng Yao often felt like he was a machine—eating, sleeping. Life was like being a rat: either in the granary or in the toilet. Monday through Friday he worked until he had no time for himself, and on weekends he could sleep through both days.

Sheng Yao slept like the dead, so cooking fell to Sheng Yi.

Both of them had the same standard for food: cooked and not poisonous. So what appeared on the table was steamed sweet potato, stir-fried dried tofu with shredded meat, and scrambled eggs with chives. Not even a bowl of rice—the upside was fewer bowls to wash.

Cooked in rapeseed oil, it was actually quite fragrant. Come to think of it, there was no need to stir-fry it into two separate dishes; mixing it all together would have been fine.

Sheng Yao wolfed it down.

Somehow, Cheng Ai's words echoed in his ears: "You have to cook for yourself to feel like you're living."

Sheng Yao's chewing slowed a little.

He suddenly remembered the time right after graduation when he didn't have a job yet, living in a tiny studio of two or three square meters with no pots, pans, or cooking equipment. He'd buy meals from convenience stores, and one glance showed him that the rice was packaged in plastic-sealed bags. Though he'd expected pre-made food in this city, seeing even the rice pre-packaged still shocked him.

"It's been so long since I've eaten food she made," Sheng Yi said, almost as if talking to himself. "She wouldn't let us two eat something this plain."

Sheng Yao froze slightly. She meant their mother.

Starting in high school, he'd lived at school, and every time he left home, their mother would remind him to eat well.

Even during the family's hardest times, their mother would make the food look beautiful—stir-fried vegetables with garlic and dried chilies, dried tofu fried to have the texture of meat.

"Go ahead and eat," Sheng Yao said.

Sheng Yi returned to school on Sunday afternoon. After he left, Sheng Yao sat on the sofa in a daze, and by the time he came to, it was nearly dusk.

The apartment was compact, with the living room and kitchen as one space. Looking out the window beside the induction cooker, the sunset was perfectly framed.

Northern China's sky and sun had a color that seeped into one's heart—a pale, listless blue sky and a sunset red like the plums of March, and this sunset bore a strange resemblance to a sunrise over the sea.

Sheng Yao went downstairs and bought two donkey-meat flatbreads, finishing them on the way back.

Eating alone was indeed careless.

Monday. Before entering the office, Sheng Yao stood at the door and adjusted his breathing. Act natural, more natural, he repeated silently to himself.

Sheng Yao basically arrived five minutes before attendance time, and Cheng Ai always arrived half an hour early. So every time Sheng Yao came in, Cheng Ai was already sitting there.

Click—the door lock made a soft sound.

The person inside was signing something, heard the noise, and looked up, nodding at him. Sheng Yao swallowed and nodded back, taking three steps in two strides toward his desk.

That gaze followed him, then slowly dissolved into the morning light.

Logging into the work system, messages waiting for replies came flooding in. Sheng Yao threw himself into work, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

By the time he finished, it was already past lunch break. Sheng Yao shot up from his chair—no time for hot food now. He'd go downstairs and grab a rice ball to chew on.

Just as Sheng Yao stood up, Cheng Ai seemed to be about to say something, but Sheng Yao left the office before he could open his mouth.

Behind the door, only a sigh remained.

When Sheng Yao appeared in the plaza with his rice ball, Tony and Shuitan's eyes lit up.

Shuitan looked Sheng Yao up and down. "We thought you weren't coming down today."

Sheng Yao gave her a look. "I had a lot of work today. What's with that look?"

Shuitan dropped the act. "So what's the situation between you and your boss?"

Sheng Yao: "…"

Tony: "Can you say something I can understand?"

Sheng Yao: "You're better off not understanding."

Shuitan wasn't about to let Sheng Yao off the hook. Who knew how she and Chen Siyu had managed to spin eighty episodes of melodramatic drama that day. "Cheng Ai, he looks cold and aloof, keeps people at a distance, but actually his heart is burning hot inside."

Tony looked back and forth between the two of them. "?"

Sheng Yao pulled out a lighter, and the flint wheel struck with a spark. He cupped his hand to shield the flame. "What's it got to do with me? I'm just a laborer. Whether he's cold or hot doesn't matter to me, as long as I get paid on time."

Shuitan pouted, her skeptical eyes considering how much of that was true and how much was false. Nothing really happened? Cheng Ai was really like a teapot filled with soup dumplings—nothing comes out. What a waste of that face!

Seeing Sheng Yao still wore that faint, half-dead expression, she let it go for now.

Cheng Ai, you've got your work cut out for you.

December's weather froze people into idiots.

Sheng Yao returned to the office covered in frost, taking a while to thaw out.

Cheng Ai wasn't there—he had meetings all afternoon.

Sheng Yao had checked Cheng Ai's schedule and now looked at the empty desk and chair. The desktop was neatly organized, with only a computer, mouse, and coffee cup remaining, the human presence very faint.

This person seemed like a workaholic, yet never let work bleed into life, treating them as two separate halves. The work half was a precision machine, all gears meshing perfectly, running in orderly fashion. The life half was a squirrel, constantly gathering, picking up a little here and a little there, patiently hoarding things that could fill his emotions.

Sheng Yao opened his memo app and crossed off his to-do items one by one.

By the time he crossed off the last one, it was already dark. The days had been getting dark earlier and earlier lately. Checking the time, it was already seven.

Cheng Ai hadn't appeared. He'd probably left by now.

Sheng Yao shut down his computer and tidied up, preparing to leave. When he pulled open the door, he collided face-to-face with someone.

"You're still here?" Cheng Ai's tone rose at the end. "Perfect."

Sheng Yao stepped back. "President Cheng, you haven't left either."

"Mm, the discussion ran long," Cheng Ai pressed a box of something into Sheng Yao's hands. "A gift from a client. I don't like sweets, so this is for you."

Sheng Yao looked down. On the cream-colored box were written the characters "green tea cake," with small text beside it reading "made with pre-Qingming Longjing."[[1]]

"Oh, thank you, President Cheng," Sheng Yao thanked him and moved to leave.

"Hey, wait," Cheng Ai had already entered the changing room. "I want to eat Northeast cuisine. I'd waste food ordering too much for one person. Will you come with me?"

Sheng Yao thought he should want to leave.

"Eating with your boss" was the kind of thing only the crazy HR lady at Shuitan's company would use as an activity reward.

But his feet stopped moving without his permission.

That "will you" seemed to have magic in it, making it impossible to say no.

Sheng Yao turned around and saw Cheng Ai emerging in his overcoat—tall, slender, like a pine tree, robust and verdant.

"Why aren't you wearing a scarf? It's very cold outside."

Before he could respond, a soft, skin-friendly piece of fabric with the scent of cedarwood wrapped around his neck.

It was Cheng Ai's scarf.