The class leader was quite embarrassed when she saw her mom desperately serving me her poorly made broccoli soup.
“Mom, I could have a bowl too…”
She finally offered to share the burden with me.
Lin YuMeng smiled as elegantly and charmingly as Snow White’s mother.
“Silly child, you can’t fight a guest for food. Ye Lin likes it, so let’s give it all to him.”
Who likes to drink this kind of soup? Auntie Lin, I don’t think you can make soup this bad as the class leader’s cooking teacher. You must have done it on purpose.
The broccoli soup was both sweet and greasy. I used my chopsticks to pick up a piece of beef from the potatoes stewed with beef with a bitter face. I wanted to make sure that the beef wasn’t also intentionally made to taste bad.
It was juicy and tender after it entered my mouth and it made me overjoyed.
Looks like Auntie Lin didn’t intend to eradicate me and left me a way out. If I had this delicious beef dish, then I could still forced myself to drink the unpleasant broccoli soup.
However, as I was about to eat a second piece of beef, Auntie Lin suddenly asked, “Have you ever eaten candied sweet potatoes?”
“I’ve eaten it before.” I didn’t understand the meaning of this question since there weren’t any candied sweet potatoes on the table.
“Hehe, everyone has to dip candied sweet potatoes in cold water before eating it to prevent the sugar from sticking to their teeth, but there are also people who don’t like to dip it in cold water. Ye Lin, which type of person are you?”
Was it a psychological test or something? I stopped my chopsticks that was holding the second piece of beef in mid-air. I was embarrassed to put it in my mouth without answering the question.
“If there’s cool water, I’ll dip it…”
“Is that so, then have you ever tried eating stewed beef dipped in broccoli soup?” Auntie Lin’s winked at me, “It’s apparently a high-class way of eating in French cuisine. I wonder if my handiwork can be served at a Western restaurant…”
Stop lying, I’ve eaten many French meals at Ai Mi’s place, and I’ve never heard of eating stewed beef dipped in broccoli soup! Also, it would be dipping it in broccoli soup that has three times the normal amount of cream added to it! I was able to find out the beef tastes delicious, but now it’s going to be contaminated by the broccoli soup!
Although Auntie Lin didn’t force me to do what she said, her eager and expectant eyes was no different than forcing me to do it. I toughened up and dipped the delicious beef into the broccoli soup, and got a piece of cream broccoli beef.
When cows, horses, and sheep were alive, they all ate grass, and broccoli would be something they eat. Broccoli has finally gotten its revenge after their death.
The broccoli soup was like the opposite of a philosopher’s stone. It doesn’t matter what delicious food passes through it, it would immediately turn into a dark cuisine.
I ate the stewed beef that was dipped in the broccoli soup like I was swallowing medicine.
“No need to hold back, eat as much as you can.” Auntie Lin said to me with a hospitable smile, but her gaze clearly landed on top of the broccoli soup.
So you want me to drink the disgusting soup until I’m full? Why exactly are you torturing me?
At this point, the class leader could already tell her mom wasn’t being kind to me. In order to cover for me, she began to purposely change the topic and started a conversation with her mom.
“Mom, how’s your research going? Yesterday, one of your colleagues gave you a call to talk about work. Do they need you to go back as soon as possible because there was a new breakthrough?”
Auntie Lin was a researcher at a vaccine research institute in Shanghai and seemed to be involved in some major research project at the moment.
“How could one of the most difficult problems on earth be solved so easily. Ye Lin, come, have some more soup.”
The class leader’s plan to distract her attention failed. She couldn’t stop Auntie Lin from using her food to attack me.
The class leader was undeterred and she started to talk about the law and order in Shanghai to divert the conversation.
“Mom, you often get off work late and have to walk at night, so you have to be careful about your safety.”
“It’s okay, the public security in Shanghai is overall better than Beijing and Guangzhou. Although there are fraudulent beauty parlors at Hong Kong Plaza that specialize in pulling in single women and forcing them to work, I haven’t fallen for it.”
I took advantage of Auntie Lin’s conversation with the class leader and quickly stuffed a piece of beef that hadn’t been dipped in broccoli soup into my mouth.
“Something like a fraudulent beauty salon definitely can’t fool mom. I’m just worried that since you sometimes have to work until midnight, you might run into thugs…”
“You’re worrying too much.” Auntie Lin smiled and said, “Remember I gave you a long-handled flashlight the first day I came back?”
“I remember.” The class leader blinked, “I haven’t unpacked it yet, does the flashlight have anything to do with the public security in Shanghai?”
Just as she was about to explain to her daughter, Auntie Lin saw that I had dared to eat a piece of beef without dipping it into the broccoli soup, and began to look at me with a gentle and elegant gaze. Although she didn’t say, “It’s not right for you to eat it this way”, I felt a lot of pressure from her gaze and I had no choice but to make a gesture as if to say “Oops, I forgot to dip it into the soup”, then I proceeded to slaughter the delicious beef for the second time…
As she forced me to continue eating her food, Auntie Lin explained to her daughter:
“The flashlight I gave you might look like a flashlight, but it’s actually a stun gun disguised as a flashlight.”
She specially glanced at me when she said ‘stun gun’.
Hey, I’m the Iron Blood Lone Wolf not a wolf, today’s attitude towards me, is it treating me as a wolf who has bad intentions towards your daughter.
Hey, I’m not a pervert. Are you treating me like this because you think I’m a pervert who has eyes set on your daughter?
“The stun gun is very easy to use. Normally, it could be used as a flashlight, and it could also be wielded as a baton. When you’re wearing high heels, sometimes you might not even need the shock function to repel a pervert.”
It sounds like she really met a pervert before and fearlessly drove them away.
“Once Ye Lin leaves, I’ll teach you how to turn on the safety for the stun gun. I’ll teach you once he’s gone.”
I don’t think there was a need to say “when I’m gone” twice. Did she say it twice because it’s important? Is the reason she can’t show me how to use it is because the stun gun will be mainly used against me?
“I know, anyway mom, you have to be extra careful walking alone at night.”
“You should also be extra careful when you go to and from school alone.” Auntie Lin seemed to have something else in mind.
Auntie Lin wasn’t looking at me, so the opportunity to eat “uncontaminated beef” finally appeared. My hands moved swiftly and silently. I quickly grabbed a piece of beef, crossed over three bowls of the horrible broccoli soup, and was about to be put it into my bowl.
I was going to hide the piece of beef under the rice so I could eat it unnoticed, I’m so clever.
The class leader saw my movements and in order to make my plan succeed, she covered for me and said:
“Mom, although there are less violent crimes in Shanghai, there are still quite a lot of thieves, right?”
“Not so much to the point where you need to warn people. Also, if they steal anything from me that has the institute’s logo, it will trouble them.”
I didn’t quite understand why a thief would find it troublesome when they saw the institute logo. Actually, I didn’t even have enough time to think about it because the class leader immediately said something that made me spit out my rice:
“I think there are quite a lot of thieves in Shanghai. I’ve heard it mentioned more than once, it seems like there’s a guy named Luffy who’s always trying to be the ‘Shanghai King of the Thieves’, and he hasn’t been caught yet…”
The class leader’s obliviousness to anime is through the roof! Luffy is trying to become the “King of the Pirates”, not “Shanghai King of the Thieves”. Did you really not know the difference or were you trying to distract your mom so I could get a piece of beef?
It didn’t work out the way I wanted. She said it with such a serious expression that Luffy was going to be the “King of Thieves” and it made me want to laugh. I tried my best to hold back my laughter, but I didn’t hold the beef properly, and unfortunately, it fell into the broccoli soup that was underneath it.
The broccoli soup splashed out onto the table and a little bit of it splashed on my collar.
Since the table was so full, the napkins were placed on the coffee table a little farther away. When the class leader saw the spill, she immediately got up and went to get a napkin for me.
Utilizing the few seconds it took for the class leader to get up and go over to the coffee table, Auntie Lin lowered her voice and asked me from across the table:
“I heard from Xiao Zhe that you’re Sha Sha’s boyfriend.”
So that’s what Shu Zhe reported to his mother? No wonder Auntie Lin had an odd attitude towards me. When she came back in May, her daughter was still fine, but now her daughter had a boyfriend in September. As a mother, of course she would be suspicious.
“Auntie, you misunderstood.” I quickly lowered my voice to explain, “Shu Sha and I are just ordinary friends, Shu Zhe was joking.”
Auntie Lin’s gentle smile remained unchanged, “What a pity, I have eyes, so I can see exactly what relationship you have between the two of you.”
At this time, the class leader came back with napkins. Auntie Lin and I stopped talking for the time being, but the atmosphere at the table was even more suppressing than before.
“Oh, right.” Auntie Lin suddenly remembered something and said to her daughter, “The day before yesterday, I was chatting with our neighbor, Auntie Zheng, and it seems that she saw Ye Lin walking out of our house once in the morning, is that true?”
Huh, was she referring to what happened after the intramural basketball game last semester when I suddenly got a fever and spent the night at the class leader’s house, and also used her as a hugging pillow for the night?
The next day, when I left with Shu Zhe, I was spotted by the neighbors. So nosy, you didn’t have to tell the class leader’s mother even if you did see.
The class leader’s face reddened, but she finally forced herself to calm down.
“Ye Lin had a sudden fever and his body temperature had reached 39 degrees. He insisted he didn’t want to go to the hospital, that’s why Xiao Zhe and I stayed with him overnight to take care of him as a patient.”
The class leader heavily emphasized the word “patient” as if I didn’t have the physical strength to do anything bad at that time.
“Is that so.” The smile on Auntie Lin’s face was warm and her tone was gentle, but the hidden aura of danger emanating from her made me subconsciously feel that “something bad was going to happen.”
“Since I work at a vaccine research institute, I’ve never seen many patients conducting clinical trials, so I’d like to ask…”
She suddenly widened her eyes and it seemed like she shot out an icy shock-wave that froze everything and it made me shiver.
“If you’re taking care of a patient, is it necessary to sleep in the same bed as the patient and cuddle with them all night long?”
<<Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter>>
