Chapter 41: Lu Qingyu Wants Fair Competition

The crisp sound of chopsticks and bowls colliding echoed in the room.
This old-fashioned residential house was not large, and even seemed a little crowded and narrow.
But the traces of life that filled the house gave this small room a reassuring warmth.

Bai Ling was puffing out her cheeks and blowing on a shrimp dumpling.
The way she was trying to cool down the food was like a pufferfish that had been puffed up with anger.

“Miss Bai, are you from Lin’an?”

Lu Qingyu’s sudden question startled Bai Ling, and the shrimp dumpling that had just been cooled down a little fell into her bowl as her chopsticks loosened.

“Mmm, I was in Lin’an as a child, and then I went to Rongcheng with my mom.”

Bai Ling answered while fiddling with the shrimp dumpling in her bowl.

She should have expected that the atmosphere of this family dinner would be very strange before she came, but no one had told her it would be this strange, right?

Why was she sitting on the same side as Lu Qingyu?!

This girl’s gentle smile was even harder to deal with than a Resentful Demon’s!

“Rongcheng, we went there on a business trip a while ago.”

Lu Qingyu casually scooped up a spoonful of emerald shrimp.
“Here, try this!”

Although she was just picking up a dish, Bai Ling felt that the atmosphere hanging over the dining room was inexplicably tense.

Lu Qingtian had just sneakily taken out his phone to take a picture of Bai Ling’s cosplay makeup, but his hand was slapped by his sister’s chopsticks.

She cast a pleading look at Xu Zhi, who was on the opposite side, and Xu Zhi…

This person was now burying his face in a blue and white sea bowl, completely unaware of the rice grains sticking to the tip of his nose.

‘Not my brother! I came to help you out of kindness, and now you’re just leaving me with this mess?!’

‘Are we friends or not?!’

Tsk, I was too hasty.
I shouldn’t have been so impulsive and run to be a shield for this pig-headed Xu Zhi.

“Sister Bai! There’s a comic convention this weekend…”

Before Lu Qingtian could finish, a whole braised chicken leg was stuffed into his mouth, blocking the rest of his sentence back into his throat.

“Eat!”

Xu Zhi withdrew the hand that had stuffed the braised chicken leg into his mouth and frantically shoveled rice into his mouth with his head down.

‘This foolish child, can’t he see that the two ladies on the opposite side are about to shoot sparks from their eyes?’

‘Stop it, that’s no longer a battlefield that you and I, my brother, can set foot on.’

‘Help me…’

Bai Ling stomped on Xu Zhi’s shoe under the table, but she didn’t expect Xu Zhi to not even flinch.
Lu Qingtian, on the other hand, suddenly grimaced.

“Sister Bai, you’re stepping on my foot…”

‘I can’t save you, take care!’

Xu Zhi looked up from the sea bowl and returned a look that meant this.

‘What’s the use of you!’

Bai Ling understood the meaning in Xu Zhi’s eyes and could only turn her head and stare at the pile of dishes in her bowl.
She suddenly understood why snakes had the instinct to swallow their prey whole.

“Um… I actually have a small appetite.”

She weakly raised her arm, and the sophora flower bracelet on her wrist jingled with the movement.

“Eat it while it’s hot.
It won’t be good when it’s cold.”

Lu Qingyu said in a seemingly gentle but actually very gentle tone.

‘This temperature is a little hot even for a normal person. If I eat it, I’m afraid I’ll burn my esophagus…’

The brown sugar chicken wings in the small porcelain bowl glistened with an alluring oil.
Bai Ling closed her eyes, steeled her heart, and took a bite as if she were facing death…

‘So hot!!!!!’

The scalding soup exploded on the tip of her tongue, so hot that she opened her mouth and sucked in a breath of cold air.
She fumbled for the iced plum juice and took a big gulp.

A snake demon who could freeze all the demons in the 6.22 square kilometer range of Lin’an University with a snap of her fingers was actually broken by a piece of chicken wing?

“Eat slowly.”
Lu Qingyu smiled and handed her a tissue.
“Is it good?”

Bai Ling puffed out her cheeks and nodded vigorously.
The scalding soup that had exploded in her mouth mixed with the iced plum juice, making it impossible for her to speak.

The taste was indeed good.
Everything was perfect except for the scalding.

The evening wind outside the window brushed past the dried herb baskets on the balcony, and the faint scent of honeysuckle and mint quietly slipped into the room.

After Bai Ling had secretly glanced at the wall clock for the Nth time, this awkward family dinner finally came to an end.
The duration of this dinner was long enough for her to finish three line art drawings.

The cheerful melody of a game’s sound effect came from the living room.
Xu Zhi was sprawled on the printed sofa cushion in a “Ge You-lie” posture, his slippers arrogantly propped up on the glass coffee table.

Lu Qingtian was holding the controller and shouting,
“Boss, jump left! There’s a health pack on the left!”

The pixelated plumber on the TV screen crashed into a poisonous mushroom, making the young man so angry that he grabbed a cushion and threw it at the person who was pretending to be asleep.

“I’ll help you!”
Bai Ling shot a glare at Xu Zhi, this big shot, and quickly got up to help Lu Qingyu clean up the leftovers.

She knew that Xu Zhi was actually doing it on purpose.
This guy was deliberately acting like this in front of Lu Qingyu to make her give up those unrealistic thoughts sooner.

But she also knew that it was very impolite to do this as a guest in someone else’s home.

The mint leaves on the kitchen windowsill swayed gently in the night wind.
Bai Ling put the bowls and chopsticks in the sink.
The cold tap water on the back of her hand eased the burning heat in her body a little.

“You and him are not a couple, are you?”
Lu Qingyu suddenly lightly tapped the back of her hand with a soapy dishcloth.

‘She saw through me? When?’

Bai Ling’s cheeks instantly flushed red with embarrassment.

“Mmm…”
She scratched her face in embarrassment.
“You saw through me…”

“When you took his arm, your face was very red.”
Lu Qingyu shook the water droplets from her hand and stacked the dried porcelain bowls into a pagoda shape.

“If you were a couple, you wouldn’t have any reaction at all when you took your lover’s arm, right.”

“I like him.”
She turned around, and the moonlight shone in from the gaps in the blinds, plating her side profile with a soft silver edge.

“What’s so good about that pig?”
Bai Ling muttered and turned her head.
Through the frosted glass door, she could see Xu Zhi using a cushion to support the back of his head and pretending to be asleep.

‘Like a big shot.’

“That New Year’s Eve, he chased a demon into my medical hall.
His down jacket was still stuck with frozen flower petals.”
Lu Qingyu suddenly let out a light laugh.
“That fool still doesn’t know that the medicine cabinet he burned contained medicine that I had saved for a long time.”

This girl, who always had a gentle temperament, placed the last soup bowl upside down on the draining rack.

“That medical hall was left by my parents.
The front hall always smelled of mugwort back then.”
She suddenly grabbed the salt shaker and shook it.
“My dad always mixed up the dried tangerine peel and cassia seeds, which made my mom so angry that she would chase him all over the house.”

“And then?”

“And then…”
Lu Qingyu shook the water droplets from the dishcloth, and the soap suds splashed onto the succulent pot on the windowsill.
“On New Year’s Eve, my dad suddenly went crazy and took a knife.
Blood was splattered everywhere.”

“I’m sorry…”
Bai Ling’s mood also suddenly became a little heavy.

“It’s okay.
It’s all in the past.”
Lu Qingyu smiled and opened the refrigerator door, taking out a cup of iced plum juice and handing it to Bai Ling.
“If he hadn’t broken in that day, Qingtian and I might still be trapped in the closet counting mothballs.”

Bai Ling chewed on the straw of the iced plum juice and watched as Lu Qingyu arranged the bowls and plates neatly.
The night wind mixed with the little tune of “Orchid Grass” that she was humming.
“So, Miss Bai—”

She suddenly turned around, and her wet fingertip poked Bai Ling’s sash.

“Is it fair competition?”