Release that Man

When Yao Zhixing and Ye Shuang arrived at Han Chu’s rented apartment, the man who opened the door greeted them with a disgruntled frown.

Then again, he had suddenly been betrayed by his old friend for the sake of someone he had only known for days, so Han Chu’s bad mood was understandable. Yao Zhixing’s obvious loyalty toward Ye Shuang and the way he happily screwed Han Chu over on the phone only made things worse.

“Don’t worry, Xiao Han is not one to hold onto grudges, and he is a man of his word.” Yao Zhixing walked into the room first, and instead of consoling Han Chu, he added this comment to rub it in. There were plenty of benefits to being around good friends—everyone knew each other well and would not create a big issue out of a small conflict. Then again, this also meant that they knew where each other’s bottom line was and would do anything in their power to challenge it again and again just to get a reaction out of each other.

Han Chu’s face darkened immediately. He dropped two pairs of slippers on the floor with a cold harrumph before turning back into his house. “Come in. I’ve also called the workshop that handles An Zining’s case. We’ll make use of this opportunity to inform them about An Zining’s situation. Ye Shuang, you’d better observe closely because you’ll be handling things like this very often in the future.”

Yao Zhixing put on the slippers and wandered into the room like it was his own home. He looked into the kitchen and asked, “What’s for dinner?”

“Get the phone and call for take-out yourself!” Han Chu glanced coldly at him. “There’s a box of change underneath the shoe rack; use the money in there to pay the take-out when it’s here. What? You expect me to cook for you?”

“Take-out? Not for me!” Yao Zhixing sat down and placed his two legs on the coffee table. “Aren’t you calling people? I remember you’ve assigned a private chef at that tigress’ place, right? Call her to get some ingredients before coming over and have her cook for us!”

“She cooks for An Zining because that is her job—why would she cook for you? Are you going to pay her‽” Han Chu gave him a side-eye.

Yao Zhixing smiled and pointed at Ye Shuang. “To bond with the future agent‽”

He added after some thought, “To bond with you who scouted her?”

The two men went back and forth. Han Chu was at his own home, so he probably wasn’t hungry; Yao Zhixing had already eaten quite a bit while he was staking out his car at the barbeque shop. However, Ye Shuang was really hungry. Even though she had finished work earlier than usual, she had discovered that Brother An was trying to shuttle his sister overseas, then was asked by Yao Zhixing to meet him to get the letter of recommendation, and finally beat up a gang of car thieves before being dragged to this place. The time for dinner had already passed, and what about those extra physical activities?

She would have died if they had to wait for Miss Chef to come cook for them, so Ye Shuang could not help herself from chiming in. “If Brother Han doesn’t mind, do you have a pack of instant noodles for me to stave off the hunger for now?”

“You want to eat instant noodle at my place?” Han Chu turned to look at Ye Shuang. “There’s nothing like that, and even if I did have some, I won’t bring that out to serve my guest. Go look inside the fridge to see whether there’s things like cake or not.”

Who store cakes inside their home‽ The short preservation period aside, can cake even be considered a meal‽ Ye Shuang thought to herself before walking into the kitchen to peer inside the fridge. There was nothing like a cake, but there was an empty cake box, some fruits, a box of eggs, and various drinks.

Ye Shuang picked out several eggs, closed the fridge and wandered about the kitchen. She found some noodles in the cupboard and a rack of wonderful spices. There were not enough ingredients to cook anything else, and it would take too much them, so Ye Shuang poked her head out of the kitchen to ask, “Brother Han, I’m cooking some noodles, do you guys want some?”

Why does this person only have noodles on her mind‽

Han Chu pressed his lips and was about to say something when Yao Zhixing cheered happily. “Wonderful, I’ll have one.”

“…I’m not hungry.”

Then, Han Chu turned to make a call to inquire after Brother Wong and the rest’s location. The answer he got was that they were stuck in afternoon traffic and would require another half an hour before they reached his place. Han Chu was not satisfied with this answer, but he could not control the traffic situation. In the end, he sighed and told the gang to buy some dishes on the way to his place before hanging up.

By then, a delicious smell had started to waft out of the kitchen. Ye Shuang placed the noodles inside the wok to let them simmer and turned on another stove to cook the sauce. The base of the sauce was ground beef, and she added soy sauce, black bean sauce, and some chili. When she thickened the sauce with roux, the noodles were almost ready.

She dried the noodles with a sieve and then poured them into two ready bowls. She fried two eggs sunny side up and placed them delicately on top of the noodles before applying the sauce. She carried the bowls of finished product into the living room with several bottles of seasoning.

“Here’s some soy sauce, pepper, and salt. Please free to add if you think the taste is not heavy enough. I wanted to add some vegetables, but there weren’t enough ingredients…” Ye Shuang picked up her own bowl and used the chopsticks to mix the noodles together. Then she started to slurp happily.

The white noodles covered in handmade beef sauce, topped with a bouncy egg. The egg white was just right, and the yolk was still in a half-cooked state, like it would burst and slither down into the noodles with a slight poke from the chopstick. The incredible presentation combined with the alluring scent. Even though it was just a simple noodle dish, the quality greatly impressed Yao Zhixing.

“See this‽” Yao Zhixing purposely moved the bowl of noodles toward Han Chu, gloating, “Now, don’t you regret saying you’re not hungry? Ha ha ha…”

Ha your head! Han Chu gave his friend a side-eye and suppressed the feeling of hunger that was burgeoning. “If you don’t eat it soon, the noodles will clump together.”

Yao Zhixing nodded in satisfaction. He pulled his bowl back and used his chopsticks to mix everything up. After taking a bite, he instantly raised a thumb up at Ye Shuang.

These people came to my home without warning, used my kitchen to cook my noodles, and even used my beef and eggs, but in the end, I did not even get the sauce of the noodles…

Han Chu felt a bit offended, but he was not one to be angered over something as frivolous as a bowl of noodles. He used his gaze to stress his displeasure before continuing to make the call to rush Brother Wong’s group.

…

“We’ll be there in another ten minutes, but Mr. Han, didn’t you tell us to go to the nearby market to buy some food first‽”

After answering the call, Brother Wong, who sat in the front seat of the taxi, turned around and reported to his colleagues, “It sounds like Mr. Han is not in a good mood today; he seems weirdly agitated.”

“How agitated is he?” Lawyer Lin pushed on his glasses and commented calmly, “The schedule I was assigned today is very weird, and the fact that Brother Wong was given a day-off by the client is an extremely rare case as well. Furthermore, Ye Shuang was also told to get off work early. If I’m not mistaken, some problems have arisen within this case. Mr. Han normally would not ask us to gather at his place…”

It clicked for Brother Wong. “Yuanyang, you mean this case might be cancelled? That explains Mr. Han’s mood.”

Lin Yuanyang was Lawyer Lin’s full name. He nodded. “If it’s just a small problem, it might be troublesome but solvable. If that’s the case, Mr. Han will just be a bit annoyed. If it’s a big problem, Mr. Han’s mood will be more than a little bit not good.”

Brother Wong finally understood why Lawyer Lin would ask how agitated Han Chu sounded on the phone. “Actually, I can’t really judge what Mr. Han’s mood is really like on the phone. In any case, he did not sound happy…”

Being observant of one’s emotion was too high-end of a skill, and Brother Wong had not mastered that yet.

“So, you’re not so sure yourself‽” A cold glint flashed across Lawyer Lin’s glasses. “For the sake of safety, we had better wait for Mr. Han to calm down first before we show up at his place. Sir, do you mind taking us to XX Market? I hear they sell the freshest meat.”

The driver was speechless; their destination was just minutes away, but the customer suddenly told him to take a detour to XX Market, which was at least ten minutes away. From their conversation, it sounded like they were going to buy some ingredients before going to this “Mr. Han’s” place. ‘The customer is always right’, and the driver was not going to turn down the opportunity to earn more money, so he made a U-turn at the next junction and drove the other way.

Han Chu had no clue what had happened to Brother Wong’s group. After he made the rushing call, he regretted it. He felt like he was being way too unlike himself, a paragon of calmness. Therefore, in the next one hour, even though Brother Wong’s group was still nowhere to be seen, he could only console himself with an explanation like probably the traffic was worse than he thought.

Just like that, Ye Shuang and Yao Zhixing finished the noodles, and even the fruit plate, took some drinks out of Han Chu’s fridge, and started to watch the television in his living room.

As the night fell, the energy to be angry had left Han Chu. Even his stomach had stopped growling—his stomach had gotten used to the feeling of hunger. Finally, the doorbell rang.

He answered the door with negative energy swirling all around him. Outside the door, Brother Wong’s group smiled apologetically at him with shopping bags hanging all over them. “We’re so sorry, Mr. Han. The roads were so crowded, and the lines at the market were so long so…”

“Come in.” Han Chu did not even have the energy to say anything to them. He glanced at them weakly before pointing at his shoe rack, telling them to put on slippers. “Forget about the dinner. We’ll jump straight to the point—I need to discuss Miss An’s case with all of you.”