Blood Neon

Chapter 44

Chapter 44

Eating

Golden curry, rich in meat and generously portioned, was ladled spoon by spoon over steaming white rice, filling the small home with the rich aroma of spices.

Since they divided the portions evenly, they ended up with four bowls of rice, matching exactly one full box of curry. The leftover portion could be cooled, wrapped with plastic film, and stored in the fridge, to be reheated and eaten later.

Each of them carried a bowl and returned to the living room one after the other.

“Here’s good?”

Zhang Qiming gestured as he asked.

“Yeah, sure, right here.”

Zhang Qiming’s home wasn’t big and didn’t have a dedicated dining room, so the low table in the living room usually doubled as the dining table. The two of them bent down and placed their bowls and utensils on the coffee table.

Due to the shape of the sofa, their positions were offset by about three o’clock—one sat in the six o’clock direction, the other in the nine o’clock direction.

After sitting down, looking at the two bowls of steaming curry rice, Lin Ying politely remained silent for a moment, waiting for the host to start eating.

But she didn’t hear the host announce the start of the meal. She looked at the guy beside her, and the two exchanged a glance.

“You’re not eating?” “Go ahead, eat.”

In the end, they spoke at the same time.

Forget it, whatever. The girl silently picked up her rice bowl.

Because of the height of the coffee table in the living room, leaning forward to eat would be uncomfortable. So Lin Ying chose to hold the bowl in her arms and transformed into a full-on food warrior.

After all that preparation, it was finally time to taste her own cooking.

She couldn’t wait and scooped up a big spoonful of rice, mixing it with hot curry potatoes and meat, and took a bite. Instantly, her mouth was filled with flavor.

The curry was still a bit hot, so she quickly covered her mouth with her hand and blew out a puff of air, but it didn’t interrupt her chewing at all.

The plump grains of rice were evenly coated in the curry sauce, and the silky texture was delightful on the tongue and between the teeth as she chewed.

The only pity was that the mouth of this body was too small, so if she didn’t want to look too messy while eating, she had to split each spoonful into two bites. It robbed her of the joy of devouring food in big mouthfuls.

She considered herself rather thin-skinned, and in front of others, she would consciously stick to basic table manners.

After finishing a spoonful, she looked up at Zhang Qiming, who was eating slowly and gracefully.

Seriously? This guy is more image-conscious than I am.

“Is it good?”

She asked.

He swallowed his food first, then responded with praise.

“Delicious!”

This was his first time eating curry. He had only seen it in fast food places before and hadn’t expected it to taste this good.

Though the thick sauce looked like it would be sticky and cloying, it turned out to be surprisingly smooth in the mouth, and besides the curry, there seemed to be a unique fragrance mixed in.

“Tastes way better than I expected.”

Just now, merely smelling the aroma in the air had already stirred his appetite—he hadn’t expected that the taste would be even better once it was in his mouth.

The only issue was that eating with a beautiful girl made him feel quite self-conscious.

“Can you be more specific?”

The girl asked again, expectant. Being praised was always a pleasant thing.

“Uh… more specific how?”

Zhang Qiming didn’t quite catch the point.

“For example, the texture—did you feel it was smooth?”

“…Yeah, it did feel really smooth.”

The girl smiled.

“Fufu, that’s the effect of the secret ingredient—milk—added at the end.”

She looked genuinely happy.

“After the main curry is finished cooking, adding milk and letting it simmer gently for a little while can significantly improve the final texture. The finished curry also gets a faint milky aroma. Although it gets mostly masked by the curry's own flavor, that subtle change still has a big impact on the final taste when it reaches your mouth…”

As she launched into a detailed explanation of her cooking techniques, Zhang Qiming listened quietly.

At moments like this, she didn’t seem like some mysterious, monstrous being—just a regular, beautiful girl next door.

Maybe this was her most genuine side.

After all, they had only known each other for three days—there was still so much he didn’t know about her.

At first, he had assumed she was a cold, sharp-tongued girl, but after returning home, he realized she was nothing like that.

That made him a bit sentimental.

“Feels like you’re way more expressive today.”

“Really?”

Lin Ying tilted her head.

“Yeah, we just parted ways yesterday, so the contrast feels pretty obvious.”

Lin Ying thought about it. Had she changed that much?

She couldn’t remember at all. Didn’t feel anything unusual either.

But, since the other person had seen her just a day ago, his perception could serve as a kind of reference. Though to her, it somehow felt like it had already been two weeks since they’d last met.

“I’ve always been like this.”

She gave that response after a moment’s thought.

“Is that so,” Zhang Qiming swallowed a mouthful of rice.

“At first, you gave off a cold vibe—not like someone who’d cook for others at all.”

“Did I?” she asked back. “Would a cold person take the initiative to help you out?”

“…That’s true.”

Zhang Qiming gave a wry smile and nodded in agreement.

As for thinking she was cold on the outside but warm on the inside, that kind of contrast being cute or anything like that—those were things he absolutely couldn’t say out loud.

So he decisively dropped the topic and shifted to what had happened the day before yesterday.

“Speaking of that day, I really have to thank you.”

Words of sincere gratitude—he had already said them both yesterday and the day before—so he didn’t repeat himself.

“I told you already, no need to thank me.”

Lin Ying shoveled a few more bites of rice into her mouth.

.

“By the way.”

“What is it?”

She seemed to remember something, took a moment to organize her thoughts, then spoke.

“Do you remember the one who led the attack on you that day?”

Zhang Qiming looked silently at the meat in his bowl, thinking for a moment.

“I do,” he sighed.

“Wang Ze. Out of everyone I don’t get along with at school, he’s the most troublesome.”

But Lin Ying shook her head at that.

“Not him. I mean the one who looked the most like a thug.”

She gestured a bit on her face with her hand—it was kind of cute—but using abstract descriptions on a beautiful girl's face didn’t exactly help him understand who she meant.

“Which one?”

Zhang Qiming honestly couldn’t tell. That group of punks all dressed like wannabe gangsters—it was hard enough to tell them apart, let alone pick an extreme out of the bunch.

“The one who looked the oldest. Like the boss.”

Oh, now he got it.

“You mean one of those guys Wang Ze brought in from the streets, right? But unfortunately, I don’t know them either.”

He gave a bitter laugh, recalling the situation.

“Probably some local gangsters. I heard a week ago that Wang Ze had found himself a big brother out there, swore brotherhood with him, and started following him around.”

But that wasn’t what Lin Ying was asking about.

“Yeah, whatever. As long as you know who I’m talking about, that’s enough. The one I mean is that so-called big brother.”

She didn’t care who the guy was or what his background was. As long as Zhang Qiming knew who she meant, that was enough.

“The reason I brought it up is just to let you know—he’s dead.”

After saying that, the girl calmly took another two bites of rice.

“?”

Zhang Qiming didn’t react right away.

“What did you just say?”

“He’s dead. Or rather, they are.”

Lin Ying swallowed the rice in her mouth, repeated herself, then picked up a piece of chicken with her chopsticks.

“I just happened to run into them yesterday. Let’s just say… their luck wasn’t too great.”

She glanced at Zhang Qiming.

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