Heart Pounding

Chapter 8: Heart pounding

Baisui was a local mongrel he had picked up while recuperating in a longevity village.

Since he was renting a villager's courtyard, he occasionally went for walks in the back mountain.

The graveyard over there was buried right in the back mountain, unlike in the city where people were buried in dedicated cemeteries.

He had just suffered a major illness back then, tormented by pain to the point of losing all hope for survival, yet unexpectedly, he had still pulled through. However, his spirits remained gloomy, so he told his bodyguard not to follow him, walking aimlessly by himself in that scenic place of clear waters and lush mountains.

He had thought about giving up, strolling slowly through the mountains all alone, lost and wandering, not knowing what to do.

Only, feeling a bit tired from walking and slightly hypoglycemic, he sat down anywhere and fell asleep leaning against a tombstone. When he woke up, he heard a bark, and a light-yellow puppy emerged from the weeds on the grave mound. He noticed that tombstone—it turned out to be a martyr, only nineteen years old when he died.

Looking at the life story on the epitaph, he turned pale. After wiping the tombstone clean, he bowed to the grave and took the little mongrel away, naming him Baisui.

Ever since then, for reasons unknown, he stopped giving up. Though he still held little hope for his own life, now it was just taking things one day at a time.

The arrival of Baisui truly brought him a great deal of joy. Raising a puppy for the very first time, he did everything himself without delegating to others, acting just like a mother. As time went on, he actually grew reluctant to die, fearing that his Baisui would be sad after he was gone.

Perhaps it was very selfish; he hadn't thought about whether his family would be sad after his death, yet he would worry about whether a little dog would be sad.

Shen Rui'an felt he was very despicable, but the flare-ups hurt far too much, and he simply lacked that strong willpower.

"Woof!" Baisui stuck out its tongue to lick Shen Rui'an. Shen Rui'an pinched its snout. "You can't lick! I haven't washed my face yet!"

Shen Rui'an put Baisui down and only then noticed the tall figure leaning against the doorway. He paused for a moment, nodding at Su Tingbai to greet him. "Morning."

"Morning. I've made breakfast, hurry down and taste it. I made Snail Rice Noodles today, though I'm not sure if you like eating them." Su Tingbai withdrew his gaze from Shen Rui'an and let it fall on the little puppy trotting around Shen Rui'an's trouser legs. "Oh, its breakfast is ready too. Is minced meat porridge okay?"

Shen Rui'an was somewhat pleased that Su Tingbai was so considerate and rarely smiled brightly. "Thank you."

By now the sun was already well up in the sky. Su Tingbai originally lived here and had the smart curtains set to open automatically at nine. At half past nine, he had come upstairs intending to wake Shen Rui'an.

The smart curtains had long since opened, sunlight bathing the entire bed, and the whole room smelled of warm sunshine. A fluffy black head was hidden under the quilt, and Shen Rui'an was still sleeping soundly, so Su Tingbai didn't wake him up.

Shortly after heading downstairs, he received Baisui, the little mongrel sent over by Shen Rui'an's eldest brother.

After placing all the puppy's belongings brought by Elder Brother Shen in a small room on the third floor and settling them in, he glanced at Shen Rui'an again. He still hadn't woken up, and Su Tingbai felt a bit worried.

As a result, by half past ten, Baisui scampered merrily into Shen Rui'an's room, lying down at the edge of the bed to play with its own toy ball. Not long after, Shen Rui'an woke up.

Su Tingbai was very surprised.

Right now the sun was bright, the view outside the window was full of lush greenery, and the large floor-to-ceiling windows let dazzling golden light shine into the room. The entire room was bright and cheerful, with Shen Rui'an's back to the window. The sunlight cast upon him made him look like a glowing angel, every strand of his hair gilded with a golden edge. As he smiled at Su Tingbai, Su Tingbai felt that he might have stayed up late for too long and his heart was acting up—his heart was pounding.

Why wouldn't his heart stop beating, even more violently than when he ran five kilometers this morning?

"N-not at all." He fled in panic. "I'll go check on your food."

With that, he vanished without a trace.

"?" Shen Rui'an blinked in a daze, touching his face. Why did Su Tingbai run off so fast?

Without thinking too much about it, Baisui nudged his leg with its fluffy little head. He collected himself, went into the bathroom to wash up, and headed downstairs feeling fresh and invigorated.

Strange to say, whether it was because the Feng Shui of this place was good, his condition over the past two days had actually been quite good, lacking that muddled physical exhaustion.

Before Shen Rui'an could ponder it further, his gaze was captured by the overbearing aroma drifting up from downstairs.

Come to think of it, Baisui was a local mongrel from Gui Province, and he had been there before. He had never eaten things like Snail Rice Noodles, though passing by noodle shops he had been seduced by their aggressive scent, but unfortunately they were too spicy and his family wouldn't allow him to try them. Even when he secretly ordered some, he was intercepted by the auntie hired to look after him.

Left with no choice, he had to drop the idea.

Now, coming to Su Tingbai's villa was simply like a little mouse falling into a rice vat; no one could control him!

The scent of the pickled bamboo shoots made Shen Rui'an swallow hard. He looked at this very standard bowl of Snail Rice Noodles, alongside which were placed a braised egg and other side dishes: pig trotters and chicken feet with duck webs that had been deep-fried and then braised, plus quail eggs!

The freshly ground soy milk was iced, contained in a glass cup, and suffused with the fragrance of soybeans. At one sniff, those soybeans must have been stir-fried when making the soy milk, giving off a charred, nutty aroma.

Su Tingbai placed Baisui's minced meat porridge in its bowl, and seeing Shen Rui'an staring curiously at the soy milk, he said, "I stir-fried the soybeans before grinding them, so there's no beany taste and it's richer. Have a taste and see if the sweetness is right."

Shen Rui'an nodded, and not seeing Little Zhu and the others, he couldn't help wondering, "Where are Little Zhu and them?"

Su Tingbai pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Shen Rui'an, pushing the side dishes for the Snail Rice Noodles closer to him. "They finished filming the footage early this morning, and right now they're busy in the workroom."

The only people living in the building Su Tingbai currently occupied were him and Shen Rui'an. Usually, when they needed to film footage for cooking, Little Zhu and the others would come over; when there was nothing to do, they generally edited videos in the other building. They had rooms over there as well, and when not busy, they could drive back into the city to hang out.

Su Tingbai's food videos didn't necessarily update every day, and his update frequency wasn't very high—once a week was already quite good—so Little Zhu and the others didn't have very long working hours.

The main reason he was here was to stay by himself and hide from those annoying romantic entanglements.

Sheltered under the wings of the Shen Household, Shen Rui'an hadn't even gone to a regular school, having little contact with other people and society, and didn't find anything amiss upon hearing Su Tingbai's words.

His mind and soul had already been captured by the Snail Rice Noodles.

Snail Rice Noodles, Fire Chicken Noodles, Cao's cuisine, Spicy Hot Pot, and the like were mostly popular mukbang ingredients, and he had yearned for them for a long time.

Acting like a child who hadn't grown up yet, Shen Rui'an felt that high-end ingredients and gourmet food held no attraction for him, harboring instead a special fondness for these "junk foods" despised by parents.

It was just like children when they were young who didn't want to eat meals but loved instant noodles, wishing that when they grew up they could eat instant noodles every day.

He didn't understand hardships to any great degree, feeling that his greatest suffering was the recurrent flare-ups of his illness. Precisely because of this, he didn't waste extra thoughts pondering much else—living day by day was fine, and it was best if every day was spent happily and at ease.

Seeing Baisui start to eat, he took the chopsticks handed over by Su Tingbai and picked up a piece of yuba skin softened from soaking in the snail broth.

He had heard that yuba soaked in soup and fully saturated with broth was extremely delicious.

"I didn't know whether you eat scallions, garlic, and things like that, so I didn't put any in. If you can accept them, look, I brought some for you." Su Tingbai strode over toward the kitchen to fetch some small side dishes. They were mostly the usual accompaniments found in Snail Rice noodle shops: pickled water spinach stems, finely minced garlic and scallions, along with some chopped cilantro, and chili paste-marinated radishes.