Sweet slice-of-life love story: Wife, Let's love again
Chapter 133 - 132: The Noodles Are Delicious

Chapter 133: Chapter 132: The Noodles Are Delicious

"Ah!"

Another scream.

It wasn’t Qin Guanglin, nor was it He Fang, but rather the already deceased waiter in the computer, who couldn’t help screaming when someone stepped on his finger.

Qin Guanglin was sneakily looking at He Fang’s little feet when he heard the noise. Unable to resist, he lifted his head to look at the computer, and his face was a picture of confusion.

The waiter’s neck had spurted blood for quite some time—how could he have gotten back up?!

"See, the entire twenty minutes of foreplay buildup was for this moment." He Fang pointed with her chin toward the computer, "Now the real show begins."

"Plot twist, huh? You like watching this kind of thing," Qin Guanglin began watching more seriously.

Three men and the waiter were in cahoots, aiming to scam the fourth man they had invited, who was a rich man. Seeing a corpse, the rich man panicked and, listening to one of them say that money could make the problem go away, was about to pay up, when he accidentally stepped on the waiter’s finger, revealing their scheme.

The plan went bankrupt.

"Kind of formulaic," Qin Guanglin said as he saw the screen go black and shook his head, "it’s just that..."

He didn’t finish his sentence before the picture lit up again.

Nighttime.

A restaurant.

Four people sat together, ready to eat.

Dressed as a waiter, the rich man brought the meal to the table and then gave the camera a slight smile.

...

Qin Guanglin swallowed back the rest of his sentence—the ending scene was just brilliant.

"Interesting, right?" He Fang asked.

"Yeah, pretty good," Qin Guanglin nodded.

It was a classic buildup and release, the first half as dull as holding in a pee, with the ending providing a hugely satisfying release, fairly decent, only slightly eye-catching.

But the key was that last scene, like finally releasing after holding in that pee and then shivering a little... Ah, that was satisfying.

It capped it off.

"Have you touched enough?" He Fang asked again.

"..."

"Come on, let’s go for a run."

He contentedly crawled out of bed to turn off the computer. Glancing back, he walked over to the bedside, swiped a touch more, and then, as He Fang bit her teeth to hit him, he swiftly slipped out and shut the door, "Quick, change clothes."

Snorting angrily at the door, He Fang couldn’t help laughing out again, stood up, slipped off her nightie, and looked down at her body with a hint of pride in her eyes.

Hmph, he’d be drooling.

She changed into her sportswear and came downstairs. The crescent moon hung sharply in the sky, and a light breeze brushed by, not as stifling as the previous days, bringing the coolness of a summer night.

"Maybe we should run a bit less? Just to the stone bridge up ahead and back, I think that’d be enough," Qin Guanglin attempted to haggle, "It’s not a race, just a casual run."

"Do you want to touch again or not?" He Fang leaned on his shoulder and asked with a grin.

"I think one hour would be just right."

Qin Guanglin nodded confidently, "It’s eight-thirty now. We’ll run until nine, then head back."

"So what are we waiting for?"

He Fang looked around, picked up a little twig she’d thrown there the previous night from beside the wall, and gave him a light smack on the back, "Start!"

"You keep up, too."

One after the other, they ran slowly forward under the dim streetlights on the night street.

...

A ramen shop.

Sun Wen slurped down half a bottle of beer in one gulp, then thumped it on the table and belched satisfyingly.

The noodles hadn’t been served yet, and there was already an empty bottle on the table—it was the second one.

Getting off work, he hopped into his car and without knowing how, he found himself back at his old place. Only when he reached for his keys did he remember he no longer lived there.

He had moved out since Saturday midnight; that house had nothing to do with him anymore.

Rubbing his belly, he turned to look around, Sun Wen clicking his teeth in annoyance.

So boring.

What would I normally be doing around this time?

Fighting... or maybe watching a Korean drama with her.

It’s kind of nice when I think about it, at least there was someone to argue with. Now, I don’t even have that option.

He shook his head with a chortle and lifted the half bottle remaining, gulping it down, "Boss, another beer, please."

"Don’t drink too much," the landlady warned as she put a new bottle on the table, unable to hold back her concern.

Seeing a strapping man nearly two meters tall guzzling beer at his own steady pace, she felt a bit worried; if he got drunk and caused trouble, that would be no small headache.

"Don’t worry, I can hold my liquor."

Sun Wen brushed it off carelessly, not taking the bottle opener she passed to him but using his chopsticks instead to pry at the bottle cap.

Pop!

The beer cap shot up high.

That’s the feeling I wanted... Sun Wen tossed aside the chopsticks and took two more hearty gulps.

He tilted back his head, opened his mouth, and let out a breath of air, noticing the landlady sitting back down still watching him; he chuckled, "It’s so hot in the summer, you need to drink a couple of beers to cool down."

With half the bottle down, the steaming hot handmade noodles were served. Sun Wen heaped a spoonful of chili into them, poured in some vinegar, stirred, and began to slurp them up.

Elastic and smooth.

The taste was excellent, much better than the noodle shop beneath the apartment he used to rent.

"This chili is really tasty," he complimented the landlady after finishing his meal and wiping his mouth, "The noodles are good too, fragrant."

"I’ve been making it for many years, but I still can’t learn his noodle-making skills," the landlady laughed heartily, directing the praise to the plump boss sitting next to her.

"Hey, I have my own secret technique for kneading dough that no one else can learn," the boss bragged with eyebrows raised proudly. Every time someone praised his noodles, he would show this delighted expression, "If you like it, come by more often."

"Yeah, I’ll be back tomorrow." Sun Wen nodded, tilted his head to finish the rest of the beer, and pulled out his wallet from his pocket, "How much do I owe?"

"Three beers and a bowl of noodles, twenty-one yuan."

"Here you go."

Handing over the money to the landlady, Sun Wen tucked his wallet away and stepped out the door onto the street, pausing to look around. Not sure what else to do, he simply decided to return to the hostel.

Having not found a place to rent, he had no choice but to stay temporarily in a hostel, leaving the matter of renting to the weekend.

Staying in a hostel was much more comfortable than renting: the cleaning was done by someone else, and the bedsheets were changed regularly; the only downside was the noisy calls outside at night, which could easily cause insomnia.

Stretching out on the bed in the shape of a big "I," Sun Wen closed his eyes to lay still for a while before getting up to sit at the table and turn on his computer, planning to play a couple of rounds of a game.

The best part about no one hogging the computer to watch Korean dramas was that he could play whenever he wanted.

As the computer booted up, the screen displayed a photo of two people cuddled up together, faces pressed close, both beaming with joy.

This seemed to be taken when they first moved in together; he had cooked a grand meal to celebrate, and they took the photo before starting to eat.

Sun Wen frowned, opened the photo folder intending to change it, but as he scrolled through it, the hundreds of images were all either of them together or individual shots.

"Hmph."

He looked at those photos with a mocking smile, poised to press delete, but as the confirmation box popped up, he hesitated, hit cancel, and began to look through the photos instead.

One by one, they were all memories.

All of them from a year ago or even earlier, with very few taken in the recent year.

Had it all started this early...

Sun Wen stared blankly at the screen, his fingers gently scrolling the mouse wheel, zooming in on the smiling eyes in the picture.

Gradually, that eye filled the entire screen as he continued to zoom in, and then zoomed further still.

When maxed out, all that was left was a mosaic.

"Hey," Sun Wen chuckled at the screen, the patchwork of colors similar to the paints he mixed.

Leaning back to get a better view, he forgot that what he was sitting on wasn’t a swivel chair from the office but a four-legged stool.

Thud!

Crash!

"Fuck!"

A series of tumbles ensued, with the power cord yanking the computer down on top of him.

The room fell silent once more.

He breathed out softly as if exhausted, lying on the floor without the desire to move again.