Changed His Tune So Fast?

When Shen Rui'an woke up, he felt weak all over. He lay motionless in bed, quietly staring at the ceiling for a while. After spacing out for some time, he finally got up slowly.

He adapted well to the environment. Because of his illness, his family often traveled between home, hospitals, and various sanatoriums.

Actually, he was not as the rumors claimed, someone who never went out. It was just that the places he went resembled retirement homes—beautiful surroundings, fresh air, and hardly any people.

He did not feel uncomfortable after arriving at this mountain estate either. He was only a little tired from the long car ride.

He touched his stomach. He was a little hungry.

Shen Rui'an slowly walked out and took the elevator downstairs according to the route in his memories. The open kitchen on the first floor was bustling at the moment, filled with an enticing aroma. Two people were also carrying cameras and filming Su Tingbai from different angles.

Only then did Shen Rui'an remember. Oh, Su Tingbai was a food blogger.

The corners of Shen Rui'an's lips lifted imperceptibly. He felt a little happy. Did that mean he could eat lots of different foods?

Because of his illness, his meals at home were very bland. No matter how tasty they were, he had grown sick of them. Most were medicinal dishes with balanced nutrition and the like, which he did not enjoy.

That was why Shen Rui'an really wanted to try the "junk food" eaten by food streamers. It looked delicious, but his family took his illness into consideration and would not let him eat such things. He had secretly ordered a bowl of fragrant, spicy mala tang once, but his eldest brother discovered it and confiscated it.

Later, the housekeeper made him a "healthy version" of mala tang. Shen Rui'an took one bite and did not eat any more.

To be fair, it was not bad. It just was not much different from his medicinal meals...

At that thought, the young master's faint smile flattened.

After Su Tingbai plated the finished dish, Little Zhu and A-Ming filmed close-ups from different positions. Su Tingbai stepped back, then turned his head and saw Shen Rui'an.

Having just woken up, Shen Rui'an's slightly long bangs covered his brows and eyes, making his expression impossible to read. He stood beside the island counter. It was almost six in the evening, but summer sunsets came late. The sunset in the mountains was strikingly red, and its glow shone through the glass onto Shen Rui'an. Even his pale face was tinged with a layer of rosy color, making him look far less sickly.

He was so beautiful he did not seem real.

Su Tingbai thought.

"You're awake?" Su Tingbai poured a glass of freshly squeezed juice and carried it over to Shen Rui'an. "Do you want some juice?"

It was apple juice, specially squeezed for Shen Xiaoyao. Very healthy.

Hearing the movement, the two cameramen instinctively turned their cameras toward him. Through their lenses, they saw the slender man, and their breathing caught. He looked like someone who had stepped straight out of an anime.

The two cameramen regretted not having enough words in their vocabulary. There was only one sentence in their minds: Holy shit.

They subconsciously forgot Su Tingbai's warning from yesterday and unconsciously aimed their cameras at him.

Su Tingbai did not notice the cameramen behind him. Holding the apple juice, he walked over. "Apple juice."

Apple juice? Shen Rui'an frowned. He did not like it.

He pushed it away in refusal.

Su Tingbai was a little surprised. "You don't like it?"

Shen Rui'an nodded.

Su Tingbai saw that the stray lock of hair sticking up from Shen Rui'an's head nodded along with him and found it rather cute. Why did he look like a kitten that had just woken up?

"Then what do you want to drink?"

Just then, a slightly chubby girl wearing glasses came in, panting as she carried several cups of milk tea. "Boss, we're back. Here, milk tea. Everything's great here except ordering delivery is inconvenient. Luckily, Snow King is amazing—they've even expanded their business to the village up ahead..."

As she spoke, she walked in, intending to put the milk tea on the island counter. Then she saw Shen Rui'an right in front of her and froze. "Holy shit..."

A sickly, gorgeous man!

"..."

"I want this one." Shen Rui'an pointed at a cup of fruit tea, a very cheap lemon black tea with seventy percent sugar.

Meng Meng had ordered it for herself. She wanted to lose weight, so she had chosen seventy percent sugar.

In a daze, Meng Meng handed the milk tea to him. Seeing that he was not very skilled at inserting the straw, she hurriedly inserted it for him attentively, then watched him with a fond, auntie-like smile.

"Here, here. Boss, this is..." Meng Meng was one of Su Tingbai's team members, responsible for operations and editing. There was another girl named Ya-ya, responsible for copywriting and planning, but she was on leave and had not come these past two days.

Su Tingbai introduced him. "This is Shen Rui'an, my friend. He'll be staying here for a while to recuperate. Just treat him as a food guest."

Shen Rui'an had been handed a cup of iced fruit tea. He lowered his head to look at the droplets of water on the plastic cup. His long fingers curled slightly. It was a little cold, but he wanted to drink it.

Shen Rui'an had never had milk tea. What he drank most were all kinds of healthy fruit juices and milk. Maybe because he had drunk too much of them, he hated juice made from fruit the most.

As for lemonade, he had only tried the kind the housekeeper dried and used for tea. The taste... could not exactly be called good.

"Cough, cough..."

While Su Tingbai was introducing him to the others, Shen Rui'an lowered his head, put the straw between his lips, and took a sip. He drank too quickly and choked.

Before Su Tingbai could even react, his large hand was already gently patting Shen Rui'an's back. Through the thin fabric, he could clearly feel the young man's protruding spine. He was so thin.

Su Tingbai thought, Had the Shen Household sent Shen Xiaoyao here because they wanted him to fatten him up?

No one around Su Tingbai had ever been as thin as Shen Rui'an.

"Slow down."

Shen Rui'an coughed for a long while before finally stopping. When he looked up, he met the man's tightly furrowed brows and eyes full of disapproval.

"Sorry," he said softly, his voice faint and drifting.

Su Tingbai's brow furrowed even tighter. He did not even have the strength to speak. Did the Shen Household usually not feed Shen Rui'an?

"Can you drink this stuff? Did the doctor tell you to avoid anything?" Su Tingbai asked.

Shen Rui'an shook his head. They could not even determine the cause of his illness. The doctors only ever told him to take good care of himself, mostly advising him not to eat junk food lest he become malnourished.

Perhaps the Shen Household was too nervous, so they had always made Shen Rui'an eat healthily, focusing on food that was all-natural and free of additives.

How should he put it? Shen Rui'an had indeed found it delicious when he first tried it—the fresh sweetness of the food itself. But after eating it for so long, he could not help becoming curious about what all the popular foods in viral videos tasted like.

Shen Rui'an looked at Su Tingbai. He seemed to have scrolled past this man's account before, but he usually preferred watching muscular men and food streamers, rarely paying attention to people who cooked.

After all, he had no talent for cooking himself.

"Then it's okay for you to eat with me, right? My main job is being a chef. I usually film food videos, and after I make something, I eat it. Sometimes I livestream cooking and eating. I might occasionally film parts of your body. Would you mind?"

Shen Rui'an recalled the foods Su Tingbai had filmed that he had seen before—hot pot, barbecue, grilled skewers, mala tang...

No problem!

Shen Rui'an nodded eagerly. It was fine, more than fine!

He could finally taste what all those foods were like!

Seeing Shen Rui'an's excited expression, Su Tingbai somehow felt as though he were looking at a greedy cat that had spotted dried fish. A hint of amusement appeared in his eyes.

Little Zhu and the others watched the two interact as though no one else existed and quietly made themselves less noticeable.

The few of them exchanged looks. If they remembered correctly, when the old man had called to say that young master Shen would be staying here temporarily, their boss had seemed to say he had no interest in babysitting and that the boy should go back where he came from.

Why had he changed his tune so fast now?