He Yueyin looked back at Ronan, rather puzzled. He had turned partly sideways, looking as though he were chatting with her on the street. When the unfamiliar middle-aged man they had just met was about to step up onto the curb, Ronan suddenly smiled at He Yueyin.
Amid that slightly mischievous smile, the unfamiliar middle-aged man stepped into empty air. A fragrant curse burst from his lips as the heavy wooden slat crate dragged his whole body forward into a fall.
Ronan promptly reached out and caught him, but the wooden crate was not so lucky. It slammed down from the man's shoulder. Half its slats snapped, and a corner of the packaging split open. An irregular vacuum-packed, misshapen strip protruded partway out, scraping across the slightly damp ground with a dull rasp.
"Careful, careful." Ronan's standard adolescent drake voice made him sound even younger than he really was.
Only then did he seem to notice what was inside. He let out an envious sigh, carrying the childishness appropriate to his age.
"This big a pack... ham?"
"Mm-hmm, ham."
The unfamiliar middle-aged man was somewhat flustered as he hurried to gather up the package. Perhaps because Ronan seemed too harmless, his eyes kept darting toward He Yueyin, dressed like a white-collar worker, and he deliberately tried to block her view.
Yet He Yueyin softly asked, "Need help?"
"Ah, no, I can carry it."
"Excuse me, where do they sell this kind of 'ham'?"
"Uh, a relative mailed it to me..."
"What brand is it?" Ronan curiously tugged at a corner of the "ham's" vacuum packaging.
"No brand. He made it himself!"
The unfamiliar middle-aged man practically snatched the "ham" back from Ronan's hand, stuffed it haphazardly into the half-collapsed wooden crate, and reflexively said "thank you" again. Without caring whether