Volume One, Chapter 88: He Had Never Paid Her Any Attention Before

Huo Mingting was also learning for the first time that Ninth Uncle could actually cook.

And not only could he cook—the skill was clearly practiced.

Those hands, which could command the world and were worth more than gold, now drizzled oil and salt, added sauces and vinegar. Huo Mingting could not help feeling it was a waste of talent, a squandering of treasure.

He watched Ye Sheng helping from the side and wanted to lend a hand as well, but there was nothing for him to do.

When had he ever stepped into a kitchen?

“It’ll be ready in a minute. You two go wash your hands,” Ye Sheng said to the two children, then added to the grown man, “You too.”

“...”

Huo Mingting frowned slightly, feeling a little humiliated, but since he was the one eating for free, he had no standing to object. He could only follow the children to wash up.

When he returned, he saw Ye Sheng taking a white porcelain plate and handing it to Huo Lindong. Huo Lindong reached out to take it, and the instant their hands met over the plate, a wash of warm light fell upon them, making the scene breathtakingly beautiful.

One pair of hands belonged to a surgeon. The other, to a researcher.

Huo Mingting lowered his eyes to look at his own hands.

These hands of his had only stirred up the market and the stock exchange, stained with the stink of money.

Come to think of it, his old longing for home had been much the same: plain on the surface, yet warm everywhere one looked.

And yet the truth was that in three years of marriage to Ye Sheng, they seemed never to have sat down together for a proper meal like this...

What had they been busy with all that time?

Huo Lindong’s cooking was remarkably delicious.

With his first bite, Huo Mingting’s eyes lit up. They were all home-style dishes, yet they suited his taste even better than the Michelin chef the Huo residence had hired at enormous expense, and the flavor even felt strangely familiar.

He frowned a little, and Huo Lindong asked, “Not to your taste?”

“No, it’s excellent.” Huo Mingting’s brow smoothed out. “The dishes cooked by Ninth Uncle taste a lot like what I used to eat as a child at the old manor, almost like... what Granny Xiu used to make.”

“Mm.”

Huo Lindong said quietly, “My cooking was learned from Granny Xiu.”

Huo Mingting looked a little surprised. “Didn’t Granny Xiu leave the old manor very early? I only saw her twice when I was little, and only had two meals she made.”

“That’s normal.”

Huo Lindong served a bowl of soup for Ye Sheng. “When you were about Huo Cong’s age, Granny Xiu went overseas with us. The old man couldn’t get used to Western food. Without Granny Xiu, he couldn’t eat.”

Only then did Huo Mingting remember that back then, in order to pursue Ninth Uncle’s mother, his great-grandfather had gone to America at such an advanced age to expand overseas, settling in N City for several years and building, together with his great-grandmother, a business empire in the entertainment world.

The two of them had lived into legend, and their love story had become myth.

“Then is Granny Xiu still in N City now?” Huo Mingting seemed unexpectedly eager to talk.

Huo Lindong said, “She’s with God.”

“...”

Four words, and the conversation was over.

—

After the meal, Huo Mingting picked up Huo Cong’s heavy little schoolbag and went with Ye Sheng and her son to the apartment across the hall.

Ye Sheng did not welcome him very warmly. “Are you going to sit for a while? We don’t have any tea at home.”

In other words: you may as well leave soon.

Huo Mingting understood, but pretended he did not. “Water is fine.”

“...”

As expected, he was the sort who could not understand plain speech.

With a wooden face, Ye Sheng opened the shoe cabinet and took out an unworn pair of men’s slippers for him. Huo Mingting glanced down and noticed another pair of men’s slippers, as well as a pair of cartoon slippers for a child.

It seemed the father and son across the hall came over often.

Then why not live together?

A flicker of doubt crossed Huo Mingting’s mind. Ninth Uncle had grown up abroad; he should not have been so conservative. Their home was clearly big enough, and yet he did not move in with Ye Sheng. Instead, he let Ye Sheng live across the hall and become a neighbor...

He could not make sense of it.

Could it really be that he was overthinking things, and had misunderstood the two of them?

Huo Cong went to take a bath. When Ye Sheng returned to the living room, Huo Mingting was still standing in the entryway without moving, his brows tightly knit as though deep in thought.

Ye Sheng did not bother with him any further. She simply fetched a bottle of mineral water and set it on the dining table, then after a moment said to him, “Cong is only just getting used to it. Let him stay here for two more days.”

Huo Mingting came back to himself, looked at Ye Sheng, and nodded in agreement.

Only then did he notice that Ye Sheng had already changed into home clothes.

Unlike the apricot-colored long dresses she used to favor at the Huo residence, her clothes now were almost all trousers. She was increasingly simple in dress, and looked cleaner and sharper for it.

After discussing the child, there was nothing more for Ye Sheng to say to Huo Mingting. She simply assumed he had come to see Huo Cong because he missed him.

It had nothing to do with her.

She returned to her old spot on the sofa, picked up the unfinished knitting, and continued.

Huo Mingting sat in a chair watching. Just like that, he saw Ye Sheng swiftly finish the red scarf in her hands and begin knitting a pair of black gloves.

At a glance, those gloves were clearly for a man, and not for a child.

A thought stirred in Huo Mingting’s mind. “You knit very quickly. Back home I often saw you knitting, from summer all the way into winter.”

Even he could hear that he was just fishing for conversation...

Ye Sheng flicked the ball of yarn beside her and said lightly, “You remember wrong. I never knit in summer.”

Hm?

Huo Mingting froze. Then had she knit from autumn into winter? He could no longer remember...

In the past, he had never paid such quiet, sustained attention to her.

He rubbed the side of his nose with one finger, watching the gloves gradually take shape—they were rather pretty. “These gloves aren’t for Cong, are they?”

“No.” Ye Sheng did not even lift her head. “They’re for Brother Lindong.”

Huo Mingting’s brows drew together as he looked toward the items in the small basket. “Then what about the hat over there?”

Ye Sheng glanced at it. “For my brother and Third Brother.”

Huo Mingting knew she meant Ye Zhun and Wan Sandao. Though he had never met either of them, their names had been filling his mind and his ears lately, until they were already quite familiar.

“And the scarf is for my sister-in-law.”

After introducing everything herself, Ye Sheng raised her eyes to him, her gaze calm and cool. “Do you have anything else to ask?”

Huo Mingting stared straight at her.

...Everything was for other people. There was nothing for him?