Chapter 18: Can’t Eat

Ye Weixi lifted her head.

It was a little cold.

But she was used to it. She felt cold every day. Her hands and feet were always icy, no matter how many layers she wore.

The sound of the kitchen range hood finally stopped.

Lin Cheng walked out carrying two plates. One held a simple dish of stir-fried meat with green vegetables; the other was scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

He placed the dishes on the recently wiped dining table, then served two small bowls of rice.

“Time to eat,” Lin Cheng called out.

Ye Weixi held her apple, nibbling it in tiny bites, and shook her head slightly.
“I’m full.”

“How did you usually eat before?” Lin Cheng pulled out a chair and sat down.

“I bought instant food from the supermarket. A big pile of it. I have all the receipts. I just finished what I bought last week at noon today. I was planning to call my parents when I got back, to buy more.”

No wonder.

Lin Cheng took a clean plate, served a portion of the food onto it, walked back to the kitchen, and placed it in the rice cooker to keep warm.

Although apples could fill her up, the effect wouldn’t last long.

Taking care of a sick person wasn’t like raising a child.

Kids who love snacks and refuse proper meals can be taught a lesson by starving them for two or three meals. After all, it’s the snacks that spoil their appetite.

But if Ye Weixi missed two or three meals, she’d die. So he had to behave.

He left the food warm. When the apple’s effect wore off, Ye Weixi would eat on her own once she got hungry.

Lin Cheng returned to the living room, picked up his chopsticks, and began to eat.

Ye Weixi quietly watched as he devoured most of the food on the table, finishing every last grain of rice in his bowl.

The pale light in her eyes seemed to brighten slightly.

“Apple, do you want some?” Ye Weixi offered hers to Lin Cheng.

Because she’d been nibbling at it so delicately, the exposed pulp had barely oxidized. The fruit still looked fresh.

But suddenly, her body twitched, and the hand holding the apple trembled. It dropped onto her pale thigh.

“…Eek…”

Ye Weixi winced. The brief pain came so suddenly, she only realized the apple had fallen after she’d returned to her senses.

She hesitated for a moment, then picked it up and offered it to Lin Cheng again.

“Want some?”

Most people wouldn’t refuse a piece of fruit that someone else had already peeled and offered.

Although Ye Weixi was sick — with even the hospital unable to pinpoint her illness — the apple might carry something.

But Lin Cheng wasn’t worried. Her strange condition seemed limited to herself.

It was just an apple. He’d eat it.

Not wasting food is a noble tradition.

Lin Cheng took the apple and finished the small fruit in a few bites, then tossed the core in the trash.

“There are more apples. Want another one?”

Ye Weixi picked up another small one from the washed plate of fruit and looked at Lin Cheng with quiet anticipation.

“…I’ll eat it,” Lin Cheng said, rubbing his stomach.
He could still manage one more.

This was part of looking after a patient’s feelings.

It was like an ADC feeding their support some kills. If he refused, the support might start to question whether they were playing with a person or a bot.

After Lin Cheng finished another apple, Ye Weixi immediately grabbed a third from the plate.

“Lin Cheng, here, for you.”

“…”

Lin Cheng hesitated, and Ye Weixi caught it.

But instead of thinking he was full, she considered it seriously, then took a few more small bites herself and offered the apple again.

“Here, it’s fresh.”

Fresh?
This is a secondhand apple! If anyone’s going to eat it, it should be me taking the first fresh bite!

Faced with Ye Weixi’s “half-eaten apple offering,” Lin Cheng found himself at a loss.

“Is it not enough?”

Ye Weixi began to nibble along the edge of the apple in a circle, until it was ringed with her small bite marks.

“Here…”

She blew on it gently. “You don’t like apple skin?”

Just as she was about to keep nibbling, Lin Cheng quickly stopped her.

“I can’t eat anymore. I’ll have it later.”

Who even feeds people like this?
What is this, feeding your Labrador?

Lin Cheng got up and began clearing the dishes.

Hearing the sound of running water in the kitchen, Ye Weixi took a deep breath and stood.

She knew — even though Lin Cheng said he wasn’t trying to make her his girlfriend — could a man’s words in a situation like this really be trusted?

She didn’t understand guys very well, but she had seen their behavior.

Because of her lifelong illness, she had always received extra attention, especially from certain boys in her class who’d go out of their way to buy her snacks and drinks, trying to get close to her.

At first, she thought they were just kind. She politely refused most of them.
But when one boy finally confessed, she realized what all those gestures really meant.

They were testing the waters — offering kindness in exchange for affection.

She rejected him too.

She might be sickly, but she wasn’t stupid.

A few bottles of water and some spicy strips, and she was supposed to be someone’s girlfriend? And she hadn’t even accepted those things.

When she couldn’t refuse outright, she’d return the items the next day — unopened, with money or replacements.

But ironically, that made the boys even more persistent.

Their QQ messages, their long paragraphs about “taking care of her,” the promises to help her get better and “then we’ll be together” — it was all so transparent.

Ye Weixi could see the emotion behind their messages.
Love, love, love…
All just empty words.

A little boring.

She stood at the kitchen doorway, staring at Lin Cheng’s back.

Her impression of him came mostly from fragments in a dream. A persistent teenager, always working toward something.

So what exactly was his relationship with Su Wanqing?

And what did her strange dream mean?

Ye Weixi couldn’t figure it out. She didn’t have the strength to dwell on things for long.

She just wanted to live.

“Lin Cheng, I have a photo from my first year of high school on my phone. Want to see it?”

Ye Weixi walked over and handed him her phone.

“I wasn’t as sick back then. My dark circles weren’t so bad. I think I could still pass as pretty. Maybe you’ll want to be my boyfriend after you see it.”

On the screen was a photo of a very slender girl in a plain white dress — delicate features, elegant temperament.

Lin Cheng barked, his tone unusually harsh:

“Ye Weixi!”

“…Here.” She answered automatically, startled by his sharp voice.

“I’m helping you because I pity you. Don’t go imagining that I’m after your body. I’m not that kind of person.”

“Is that so?” Ye Weixi touched her thin, almost brittle body. “You think my chest is too small, don’t you?”

“It’s true your chest is small,” Lin Cheng replied, deadpan. “But I never once thought that had anything to do with whether I wanted you to be my girlfriend.”

Honestly, big thunder or small thunder — as long as it’s not a landmine, what mattered was that she liked him.

Lin Cheng quickly finished washing the dishes and pointed toward the sofa.

“Go sit down.”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t like small chests. But I’m still developing! It’s only because I’ve been sick and malnourished. If I eat papaya every day, drink milk, eat eggs, and… and cantaloupe, I’ll grow!”

“Your chest is small, but that has nothing to—”

“So you admit it. You don’t want me to be your girlfriend because my chest is small, right?”

Ye Weixi was relentless. She stepped closer to Lin Cheng, standing on tiptoe, stubborn as ever.

“Eat, eat, eat! Eat my ass!”
Su Wanqing grumbled, floating off to the side with a sour expression.

Just now, when Ye Weixi fed Lin Cheng that apple, her face had already turned dark.

Now things were getting ridiculous.

Where did Ye Weixi get the nerve to make Lin Cheng buy her food every day?

Shameless.

Meanwhile, I don’t even get a single bite.