Cheng Liao quickly dismissed her own idea, "No, no, I still want to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Life can’t just be about comfort and having no ambition."
She slapped her own cheeks lightly, "Alright, people need to eat to survive. Let’s go have dinner!"
She had already planned to treat Sheng Jingchu to a meal since he had taken her to the movies, so it was only fair.
She turned to him and asked, "Is there anything you want to eat?"
He replied, "Song Sao fish soup."
Song Sao fish soup is a Hangzhou dish, and it’s hard to find a place in Jiangcheng that makes it authentically.
Cheng Liao hesitated, "I’m afraid it won’t taste as good around here."
Sheng Jingchu looked at her, "I remember you promised to make it for me once."
She had indeed promised him before, but when she made it, she hadn’t given it to him.
She checked the time and hesitated, "But my dad’s restaurant is really busy right now, and there’s no space to cook."
Sheng Jingchu told her, "We can cook at my place."
Sheng Jingchu lived outside the city. The original developer had planned to build a cultural and creative park, but when funds ran out halfway through, another developer took over and turned it into a private residential area.
The buildings still retained some of the original design elements, with colorful murals on the walls that had a surrealistic charm. The houses were spaced far apart, and each area was landscaped according to the owner’s preference. Some had flower gardens, while others had vegetable patches.
But Sheng Jingchu’s garden was unique—empty and devoid of any plants.
Cheng Liao thought it was a shame and offered to design it for him.
"Here, you could plant tomatoes, beans, eggplants, peppers, and pumpkins. You could line the perimeter with sunflowers, so in the fall, you can roast sunflower seeds.
"This area could be for roses, so you’d always have fresh flowers to change out in your house. You could also plant some tea trees and plum trees, so there would be flowers to enjoy even in winter.
"You could grow perilla here—it’s delicious when mixed with soy sauce. Over here, plant some radishes; they’re great pickled with sugar and vinegar. Potatoes could go in this area, and potato flowers are actually quite pretty. Under the window, you could plant some mugwort to keep the mosquitoes away."
In just a few minutes, she had drawn up a blueprint for Sheng Jingchu.
Her mind was always filled with quirky yet enticing ideas. After excitedly circling the garden, her eyes sparkled as she said, "Let me help you plant it all!"
Sheng Jingchu told her, "I was actually thinking of paving it with bricks."
Cheng Liao was confused, "Why would you do that? Are you planning to build something?"
"No, it’s just…" He paused before continuing, "When it rains, a lot of earthworms come out into the garden. When the weather gets hot, they end up dying in the sun. It’s a bit sad to see."
Cheng Liao burst out laughing, "Even if you pave it with bricks, they’ll still come out somewhere else and die in the sun there."
"I know, but at least they won’t die where I can see them."
Cheng Liao blinked, not quite understanding his logic.
When they entered the house, Cheng Liao took a deep breath, "Your place is as clean as a showroom."
The first floor was the living room and kitchen, while the second floor had the bedrooms and a study.
The décor was primarily black and white, giving the space a sleek, modern look with not a trace of hominess. The windows were bright and clean, and even the corners were free of dust.
Once she sat down, Cheng Liao suddenly realized, "Do you even have any fish?"
She guessed he didn’t, and fresh fish was crucial for making the soup.
Sure enough, Sheng Jingchu admitted that he didn’t have any ingredients at home.
Luckily, there was a convenience store nearby. As soon as they walked in, the store owner cheerfully greeted Sheng Jingchu, "I found that sugar you were looking for." She pulled out a bag of sugar from under the counter, the same kind Cheng Liao had eaten before.
Cheng Liao picked it up and looked at it, asking him, "Do you like sweets? Most men don’t."
"I don’t," he said. "I bought it for you."
He had initially bought the sugar to bribe the kids at the Go academy—one of them was only five years old and couldn’t sit still, so he used candy to keep the child in place.
The convenience store had a small section for fresh produce, but unfortunately, the fish were already dead.
Cheng Liao poked one of the fish bellies and whispered to Sheng Jingchu, "The owner will definitely say it just died."
Sure enough, the store owner called out, "Just died, still fresh!"
Cheng Liao looked at Sheng Jingchu triumphantly, "See?"
Sheng Jingchu shook his head with a smile, "You’re really something."
Back at Sheng Jingchu’s house, the kitchen looked almost unused. The pots and pans were so clean they reflected light.
Cheng Liao clicked her tongue in amazement, "You never cook, do you?"
"At most, I’ll boil water. Xiao Qi usually orders meals from a nearby restaurant."
Cheng Liao rolled up her sleeves, washed her hands, and asked Sheng Jingchu where the rice was stored. After washing the rice, she realized she didn’t know how to use the rice cooker.
The rice cooker was one Xiao Qi had bought abroad and had never been used.
After fumbling with it for a while and almost taking it apart, Sheng Jingchu sighed, "Should I go buy another one?"
Cheng Liao waved him off, "No need!"
She grabbed a small aluminum basin, added rice and water, placed a steamer rack in the pot, and set the basin on top. Covering it with a lid, she turned on the heat and smiled, "Done!"
She clapped her hands and asked Sheng Jingchu, "Impressive, right?"
Then she moved on to the fish, cleaning it, chopping off the head, and slicing it into two fillets.
Noticing that Sheng Jingchu was standing nearby, she felt a bit self-conscious, "Why don’t you take a break?"
Sheng Jingchu stepped back slightly towards the door and said, "I’m just here to learn."
As she talked, she said, “When I was little and moved back to live with my grandma with my dad, well, my grandma’s cooking… it feels a bit ungrateful to say this, but it was really a miracle we survived on it. My dad was busy with work and didn’t have time to cook every day. Luckily, I have a good nose. When I ate something delicious at a restaurant, I’d smell it once and could figure out what was in it, so I’d secretly try to make it myself. At first, I would cook and eat by myself, but then my cousin Cheng Nuo joined in. Eventually, the whole family revolted and took away my grandma’s cooking duties. My grandma, feeling the need to redeem herself, actually got quite good at cooking now.”
She finished with a long sigh. “Honestly, if I hadn’t been so obsessed with cooking, I might have gotten into Fudan University back then.”
As she added scallions, ginger, and cooking wine to the fish, she suddenly smacked her forehead. “Oh no, you don’t eat scallions or ginger.”
She was about to take them out when Sheng Jingchu said, “Leave them in.”
After seasoning with salt, Cheng Liao suddenly realized, “Oh no, the steamer’s already in use.”
She smacked her forehead so hard that it left a red mark, wincing in pain and feeling a bit embarrassed.
“You being here makes me nervous,” she admitted while she pulled apart the cauliflower and tore the cabbage leaves apart to wash them.
Once the rice and fish were steamed and she had deboned the fish and made the soup, Cheng Liao tasted it with a spoon, then held out a spoonful for Sheng Jingchu to try.
“How is it?”
Sheng Jingchu tasted it and nodded, “It’s good.”
She looked at him expectantly, “Does it taste like the way your mother made it?”
After a moment of thought, Sheng Jingchu gave a positive answer, “Yes, it does.”
Cheng Liao let out a whistle of satisfaction and pulled the spoon back, only to suddenly realize she had used the same spoon herself. Her face flushed with embarrassment as she murmured, “I’m really healthy, you know.”
Sheng Jingchu didn’t quite catch what she said, so he asked, “Hmm?”
“Nothing,” she replied, then added thoughtfully, “Maybe it’s a little bland.”
She was about to add a pinch of salt when her phone rang from the living room. Handing Sheng Jingchu the spoon, she said, “You add it.”
When she returned from answering the phone, she found Sheng Jingchu scraping something with the spoon. Leaning in to look, she saw he was trying to scrape the salt from the side of the pot.
He looked a bit embarrassed. “I didn’t add it properly. Some of it didn’t dissolve.”
“Want to see a magic trick?” Cheng Liao suggested with a grin.
She took the pot handles and swirled the pot around, allowing the soup to wash the salt back into the liquid.
After a moment of silence, Sheng Jingchu said, “Maybe I should step out.”
He left to set the table.
Cheng Liao made the fish soup, stir-fried cauliflower, and cabbage. The steamed rice was perfectly cooked, each grain full and glistening. She took a deep breath, savoring the aroma. “This is Xiangshui rice!”
He found it fascinating; he could only tell the difference between rice and noodles, but recognizing the type of rice or where it was grown was beyond him, even after over twenty years of eating rice.
Cheng Liao sighed with a sense of unrecognized talent, “Why hasn’t any restaurant hired me yet? If they want to know what ingredients their competitors use in their signature dishes, they could just send me to eat there.”
The more she thought about it, the more appealing the idea became. “Then I’d get to eat delicious food every day!”
She served Sheng Jingchu a bowl of fish soup. “Here you go, panda, drink up.”
The taste of the fish soup, once familiar from his mother’s cooking, no longer sparked memories in Sheng Jingchu. Every time he tasted this soup over the past twenty years, he felt something was missing.
But now, he thought, this must be how his mother’s version tasted, because at this moment, he felt a sense of fullness in his heart.
This dining room had rarely been used in his memory.
Xiao Qi had suggested hiring a housekeeper who could cook healthy, low-oil, low-salt meals.
He had refused, citing his dislike of having people around.
But that wasn’t the whole truth—he didn’t like too homely a diet because the food would carry the flavor of the person who cooked it, and he was someone who easily became dependent on familiar tastes. Once accustomed to a certain flavor, he found it difficult to change.
Unless a housekeeper could stay forever, he would have to adjust to a new one, which he hated, so he refused to change.
But at this moment, he found himself clinging to this warmth, even though once Cheng Liao left, the sense of home would quickly dissipate, leaving just a place to rest.
He wanted this moment to last a little longer, as long as possible, until it could be frozen in time.
Cheng Liao kept chatting away, but he mostly watched her, not really paying attention to what she was saying.
She suddenly fell silent, and the only sound in the dining room was the clinking of dishes.
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