Gu Yue and Fried Skewers

Morning light filtered through the thin mist and fell over the residential complex's fitness area. Several silver-gray exercise machines stood quietly, their surfaces reflecting a chilly gleam. The air carried the scent of grass and dew, mixed with a faint, almost imperceptible... aroma of grease.

Ye Xinglan was focused on stretching. Her posture was upright, her movements textbook-perfect. Beside her, Gu Yue was doing leg stretches, her long hair tied into a neat ponytail. Dressed in a simple gray tracksuit, Gu Yue still could not conceal her distinctively cool aura. Yet beneath that coolness, something else seemed to be quietly taking root.

"Hoo..." Gu Yue slowly exhaled, finishing her final stretch. Her gaze inadvertently swept over a bench not far away, where a highly tempting bag of fried skewers sat—golden fried dough sticks coated in cumin and chili powder, crispy chicken strips glistening, and several squid tentacles covered in sauce. The rich fragrance pushed aggressively into her nose, instantly flipping some long-dormant switch.

Following her gaze, Ye Xinglan frowned slightly. "Xie Xie left that there."

Gu Yue's eyes sharpened. She was about to tell Ye Xinglan to make him behave himself, but her feet shifted on their own. The smell seemed to carry invisible hooks, firmly catching hold of her senses.

Just as Ye Xinglan turned to leave the area, a ghostlike figure suddenly shot out from the nearby bushes!

"Xie Xie!" Ye Xinglan called out sharply, recognizing that smug figure.

However, her warning came too late.

Xie Xie had a clear target. He grabbed the bag of sinful temptation, ripped it open, shoved a fried dough stick into his mouth, and taunted through a mouthful of food, "Ah, I was starving after getting up so early! Sister Xinglan, Sister Gu Yue, keep training. I'm just replenishing some energy here! This place's Golden Crisp is limited edition!"

Gu Yue stood where she was, her breathing growing slightly hurried. Reason told her that she should immediately stop this behavior that disrupted the peace of the morning workout and maintain the cleanliness of the area.

But her stomach and taste buds seemed to form some unspeakable alliance at that moment, jointly raising a loud protest. The scent of grease, spices, and charcoal fire was like a warm little hand gently scratching at her heart.

Ye Xinglan had already walked several steps away. With her back to them, she focused on adjusting the grip distance on the arm-strength machine, apparently unconcerned by the little disturbance behind her.

Now!

A flicker of struggle flashed through Gu Yue's eyes before being replaced by a reckless resolve. Her body swayed, fast as lightning. With a tap of her toes against the ground, she shot toward the bench like an arrow leaving the bow.

"Rip!" With a soft sound, even the cuff of her track pants lifted at one corner from the wind she generated.

"Hey! That's mine!" Xie Xie saw only a blur. The bag of fried skewers that had just reached his mouth vanished into thin air. He stared in disbelief as Gu Yue landed steadily, one hand holding the bag while the other... very naturally wiped away oil stains that did not exist.

"..." Xie Xie's mouth fell open, his jaw nearly hitting the ground. Gu Yue, the great demon queen who was always composed and elegant, sparing with words, and capable of freezing people to death with a look... had stolen his fried skewers?!

Gu Yue paid no attention to his petrified state. She swiftly scanned the surroundings, and after confirming that only Ye Xinglan was focused on the equipment in the distance, immediately tore open the bag. With lightning speed, she pulled out a squid tentacle thickly coated in sauce and bit down hard!

"Mmph!" The crispy coating shattered between her teeth, and hot, savory sauce instantly filled her mouth. Then came a fried dough stick, crisp outside and soft inside, its wheaty fragrance mixed with the rich scent of frying rushing straight to her head. Then the chicken strips... piece after piece, skewer after skewer. She ate quickly and urgently, as though she had starved for three days and nights. Her eyes, usually as calm as cold pools, were half-lidded now, and even her long lashes seemed touched by a lazy contentment.

Whenever sauce accidentally got on the corner of her mouth, she did not care in the slightest, merely extending her tongue to lick it away.

Ye Xinglan finished her final set on the arm-strength machine, put down the equipment, and patted away the thin sweat on her hands before turning to leave. She habitually glanced back, then stopped in her tracks.

Morning light outlined Gu Yue's profile as she crouched beside the bench. Gu Yue, whose stride usually seemed to carry the wind and whose bearing was always flawless, now looked like a glutton with no regard for appearances.

She wolfed down the food, the collar of her tracksuit slightly loosened by her exaggerated movements and revealing a small stretch of delicate collarbone. And below that collarbone, the faintly visible curve... seemed a little fuller than Ye Xinglan remembered?

Ye Xinglan's gaze moved from Gu Yue's puffed-out cheeks to her slightly flushed face, then fell on the way she instinctively guarded the bag of fried skewers while warily glancing around.

An absurd yet incomparably real thought exploded through her mind like a boulder dropped into a tranquil lake.

Was this... really Gu Yue?

The Gu Yue who would keep a cold face and ignore Tang Wulin for three days over one careless tease, the great demon queen who could freeze challengers into ice sculptures with a glare?

This person before her would lose all composure over a bag of roadside fried skewers, sneak in while her companion was distracted, get sauce on the corners of her mouth... And Ye Xinglan sharply noticed that when Gu Yue lifted her arm to wipe her mouth, the wrist stretched taut beneath her tracksuit cuff seemed a little... fuller than before?

Unconsciously, she pictured what Gu Yue had looked like in the past—clean-cut, slender yet strong, like a perfectly tempered cold iron sword. But now, that sword seemed to be... wrapped in a layer of warm jade? The strange sense of dissonance made her frown slightly.

During the few seconds Ye Xinglan spent lost in thought, Gu Yue had already swept through more than half the bag of fried skewers. She let out a small, satisfied burp, seemingly finally full. Only then did she suddenly notice Ye Xinglan's gaze.

Gu Yue's entire body stiffened, and her chewing stopped at once. Slowly turning her head, her eyes, which had just been immersed in delicious food, swiftly regained their clarity. Yet a trace of lingering satisfaction remained deep in her pupils. She saw the undisguised expression on Ye Xinglan's face, a mixture of shock, confusion, and... some indescribable "understanding."

It was over.

Gu Yue's heart skipped a beat.

"Uh..." She tried to recover her usual coolness, but the fried skewers she had just eaten seemed to churn in her stomach, leaving her momentarily speechless. She instinctively tidied her messy bangs and tried to pull her tracksuit collar closed, only making herself look even more guilty.

"Gu Yue," Ye Xinglan finally said, her voice carrying a complexity she had not noticed herself, "you..."

"It was Xie Xie!" Gu Yue suddenly cut her off, her voice rising sharply with an eagerness to clear herself. Her cheeks flushed suspiciously, whether from embarrassment or anger, was unclear. "It was him! He deliberately put them there to tempt me! I... I only meant to have one bite! Really, just one bite!" She pointed at the sky in oath, but her guilty eyes drifted elsewhere, and none of her usual composure remained.

Ye Xinglan looked at her blustering, outwardly fierce yet inwardly weak appearance, then at the empty bench beside her and the lingering scent of fried skewers in the air. An even more astonishing number circled through her mind—she had gained weight. Gu Yue had gained weight. Not the bloated kind of fat, but a kind of... fullness that naturally emerged after being carefully fed, endlessly indulged, and thoroughly satisfied. Like a piece of top-quality mutton-fat white jade warmed just right beneath the sun, with a little less sharpness at its edges and a little more gentle, fragile warmth.

"He can't get away." Gu Yue took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the heat in her face, putting on a stern expression again. Yet that stern face looked somewhat stiff no matter how one looked at it. She rolled her wrist, her joints giving a soft crack, as a long-lost, chilling aura that belonged to the "great demon queen Gu Yue" began gathering around her once more.

"Let's go." She uttered only one word. Her voice was cold, yet it carried a barely detectable... murderous anticipation?

Ye Xinglan looked at her and ultimately followed. She wanted to see whether this "glutinous rice dumpling," nurtured by Tang Wulin's endless affection, could still maintain her newly acquired, slightly rounded image as a "foodie" while hunting down the "true culprit."