Chapter 288 - Wei Zilin Straightened Himself And Suddenly Moved Closer To Her
Chapter 288: Wei Zilin Straightened Himself And Suddenly Moved Closer To Her
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
They reached Xu Moyan’s and Zheng Yuntong’s house in no time at all.
There was underground parking in the small district and a few parking spaces by the roadside that were allocated as temporary parking spots for visiting friends and relatives.
It could be because it was the weekend, but there were many cars parked on the road, while all the underground parking spaces were fully occupied.
Wei Zilin eventually found another parking space that was not as convenient as parking directly below the building, but thankfully, the spot was not too far away.
When they got out of the car, Wei Zilin went to take out all the bags of food from the back of his car. Xu Moyan wanted to help but Wei Zilin refused.
“The bags are really heavy. Let me deal with them,” Wei Zilin smiled as he expertly avoided Xu Moyan’s hands that were trying to take a bag away from him.
Thus, Xu Moyan could only give up. It was rare for her to encounter a gentleman like Wei Zilin in her daily life.
She had only met one before. It was a male classmate she had when she was still studying in high school. His gentlemanly mannerism in the class was not just because of some puppy love between a boy and girl, it was just because he knew how to take care of others.
Whenever there was a need to move the tables and chairs in class, he would always be the first to offer his help. When there was an outing organized by the school, he knew to help take care of the girls by carrying the boxes of mineral water and often even took the initiative to take over heavy chores for the female classmates.
This had nothing to do with his family background, rather, it was all down to his upbringing.
They walked into the elevator together and Wei Zilin placed the bags down momentarily to take a rest. Some of the snowflakes on his shoulders fell to the ground, but there were some still on his head.
Xu Moyan clasped her hands together. She almost wanted to reach out and sweep the snowflakes off of his head.
Wei Zilin straightened himself and suddenly moved closer to her. Xu Moyan could feel his shadow encompassing her as the already dim elevator suddenly became darker. As he moved closer, she could smell the fresh, clean scent on him; there also seemed to be a light fragrance from his aftershave. This meshed together perfectly with the cold, crisp air from the snow outside.
Xu Moyan’s eyes widened as her heart nearly jumped out of her mouth. She looked up in confusion and suddenly felt a gloved hand gently touch her head as it lightly brushed over it.
Xu Moyan was still in shock even after Wei Zilin had backed away. She was in a daze after being treated so intimately by him.
There was a silly look on her face as she looked at Wei Zilin. He was smiling, as if his actions were not intimate in the slightest.
She heard him say, “There was quite a bit of snow on your head. I’ve swept them away for you.”
Xu Moyan could feel his breath all over her where it lingered for a long time. At the same time, all she could do was nod robotically as she was lost in his words.
She was still dazed when the elevator door opened.
Wei Zilin originally had a grocery bag in each hand. Each bag was filled to the brim with ingredients and as such was quite heavy.
Because of Xu Moyan, he was forced to hold all the bags in one hand. He hesitated momentarily before reaching out to grab Xu Moyan’s wrist and press it slightly, hinting at her to follow him out of the elevator.
Then, he held her hand as he moved forward. Only once he reached the lift doors did he stop and pause. He looked left and right before awkwardly asking Xu Moyan, “Which way is it?”
Xu Moyan snapped back to her senses and pointed to the left, “Here.”
Wei Zilin nodded and pulled Xu Moyan toward the door.
Xu Moyan then remembered that she had to take out her keys. So, she lowered her head to look for them, but immediately realized that he had been holding on to her wrist. She had not noticed it earlier while in a daze, but now that she was more aware of her surroundings, she suddenly felt her wrists burning up. It was like holding on to hot iron.
Wei Zilin followed her gaze and noticed the same thing. The truth was, he had also forgotten about it. As a result, he immediately let go of her wrist, though Wei Zilin could not help but feel sorry about having to do so.
Xu Moyan felt awkward about the situation and could not move about naturally. Her wrist was still burning from the warmth of Wei Zilin’s touch. Her hands were trembling from nervousness as she went through her bag looking for the keys. While she did this, she could not forget the feeling of his hand holding on to hers. The feel of Wei Zilin’s warm, dry, gentle palms gripping her wrists made her feel as if her hands were not her own anymore.
The more flustered she was, the more awkward she behaved. Xu Moyan’s neck started to sweat despite the cold winter, and even her cheeks became flushed.
Unfortunately for Xu Moyan, Wei Zilin was standing right next to her. The clean, fresh fragrance slowly encompassed her, so it was very difficult to ignore.
Xu Moyan let out a huge sigh of relief when she finally found the keys. She aimed straight for the lock and quickly opened the door for Wei Zilin to enter first.
She found that Zheng Yuntong had already prepared a disposable pair of male slippers and had placed them tidily at the door.
When she heard the door open, Zheng Yuntong quickly ran toward it. There was a look on her face that indicated that she needed help, so Xu Moyan could not help but wonder what Shen Zongyi had done while they were not around.
“You’re finally back,” Zheng Yuntong said happily.
Shen Zongyi was sitting in the living room with a flirtatious smile on his face which caused Xu Moyan to make a mental note to interrogate Zheng Yuntong later on about what had happened in their abscence.
Zheng Yuntong took the bags from Wei Zilin’s hands, but this time, Wei Zilin had no intention of acting like a gentleman. While he did not allow Xu Moyan to carry any of the bags, he did not mind piling all of them into Zheng Yuntong’s hands.
Xu Moyan was too busy changing into her slippers to notice this.
Zheng Yuntong was unprepared for how heavy the bags were. She had underestimated the weight and let out a shout of surprise as she almost buckled under the weight of it all.
Thankfully, Shen Zongyi quickly rushed to her side just in time to help her lift the bags before they all fell to the ground. Due to the frantic situation, he could not avoid placing his palm on the back of her hand. Thus, he held on to her steadfastly as their hands intimately touched.
Even though the weight of the bags had been lifted off of her, Zheng Yuntong could not relax at all. She looked in shock at their intertwining hands.
Shen Zongyi’s lips curved into a happy smile when he saw their hands, but no one noticed this as his head was lowered. However, Xu Moyan was bent over while changing into her slippers, so when she heard Zheng Yuntong call out in surprise, she had looked over and seen everything clearly. Xu Moyan could not help but smile as she stopped what she was doing to watch them with interest.
Zheng Yuntong went red all over, from her fingers to her cheeks. Her hands were completely covered by Shen Zongyi’s hands, and she was so nervous that she even trembled slightly.
Shen Zongyi took pity on Zheng Yuntong and decided to back off a little as he let go of Zheng Yuntong’s hands. After this, he took the bags from her and carried them by himself.
His smile disappeared the moment he lifted his head. He turned toward Wei Zilin as he gave him an accusing look. How could he not know to treat her nicely?
Xu Moyan had a hard time repressing her laughter at Shen Zongyi’s quick change of expression.
Wei Zilin smiled too. ‘If I were too nice to her, then you throw all those bags at my face.’
Shen Zongyi ignored him and took the bags to the kitchen.
Xu Moyan changed into her slippers. Thanks to the little accident between Shen Zongyi and Zheng Yuntong, her previous nervousness and mixed feelings were now all but gone. She felt calmer and could look Wei Zilin in the eyes as she invited him to take a seat in the living room.
Zheng Yuntong had prepared hot water and made tea for both Sheng Zongyi and Wei Zilin. Then, she went into the kitchen to look for Xu Moyan.
It was now 11 am, which meant that Xu Moyan had to move fast so her guest would not need to wait for too long.
When Zheng Yuntong returned to the kitchen, Xu Moyan immediately gave her orders to help wash and cut the vegetables.
Xu Moyan cleaned the fish by picking out the bones and slicing it up. Then, she gave it a good rub of salt and covered it with flour and egg. She waited for the oil to heat up before picking up the fish slices with chopsticks to fry them in the pan. The hot oil bubbled the moment the fish slices were placed inside the pan which made for quite a pretty sight. The flour and the egg covering the fish were fried to make a puffy coat, causing the fish slice to seemingly expand. The fragrance of the fried slices could be smelt throughout the frying process.
Xu Moyan used a strainer to take all of the fish slices out of the pan and placed them on some paper towels so that the extra oil could be absorbed from it.
At the same time, Zheng Yuntong moved closer and sniffed at it. “It smells so good.”
She immediately used a toothpick to pick up a piece of fish and placed it in her mouth. It was deliciously crunchy.
Xu Moyan smiled and said, “Leave some for the two of them. I still need to pour the sauce on it. You’ll get sick of it if you have too much now.”
“I can’t help it. Your cooking is too superb. It tastes great even if all you did was fry it,” there was oil all over Zheng Yuntong’s mouth as she said this.
Xu Moyan used water, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, and tomato sauce to make the sauce according to a special ratio. This was her secret recipe. Then, she added a spoonful of Korean spicy sauce; however, since Wei Zilin could not take anything too spicy, she did not put too much of it.
Normally, the sweet and sour sauce does not require adding Korean spicy sauce to it, but Xu Moyan had realized during one of her cooking experiments that Korean spicy sauce helps give the sweet and sour sauce a beautiful color, making it turn a shade of a red that was even prettier than if she had used tomato sauce. Besides this, Korean spicy sauce also had a sweetness to it that made it less spicy. When she added it into the sweet and sour sauce, the color of the sauce brightened up while the slight spiciness aided in bringing out the flavors of the sauce.
She cooked the sauce under a low head and added a dash of Basil powder and some self-grinded black pepper. Once the sauce became thick, she turned off the fire and poured it over the fish slices.
Zheng Yuntong watched and asked quietly, “Something did not seem right when I saw you come in with President Wei. What happened between the two of you? Why was your face so red?”
Xu Moyan raised an eyebrow. “Nothing. It was just the cold wind. You know how cold the weather is.”
“Is that so?” Zheng Yuntong did not really believe her. It was obvious that something intimate had happened between the two of them based on the way they had walked through the door.
This was something major, especially since it involved Wei Zilin.
Xu Moyan took out some crystal dumpling skin from the fridge which she prepared the night before. She minced some carrots, cucumbers, fresh mushrooms, and bok choy, and mixed them all up with the minced pork before adding the marinade. Then, she stuffed the mixture into the crystal dumpling skins and made them into Siu Mai. She made a total of 12 Siu Mai and added a shrimp on top of each of them before steaming them in the pot.
After she washed her hands, she turned towards Zheng Yuntong. “What about you? When we walked through the door, you ran toward us like you were trying to escape from something. What were you doing alone with Assistant Shen at home? Why did you look so flustered?”
“We didn’t do anything!” Zheng Yuntong replied defensively, unknowingly raising her voice in the process. She was lucky that the noise of the ventilation fan had covered her voice such that she could not be heard in the living room.
“It’s just… It’s just that the two of us were sitting in the living room by ourselves, and it was getting awkward. Nothing really happened,” Zheng Yuntong lowered her head as she twirled the corner of her shirt.
Xu Moyan smiled. She stopped with her interrogation and said, “From the looks of it, things are progressing quite well between the two of you.”
Zheng Yuntong blushed and said, “I… I’m going out to make sure they feel comfortable!”
After this, she quickly dashed out of the kitchen.
Xu Moyan watched as she ran off and got the feeling that Zheng Yuntong had just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Xu Moyan could not help laughing at the thought.
Not long after, Xu Moyan started working on cleaning the lotus. She was preparing a nice, appetizing lotus pickle which was easy to make and was crunchy with a tinge of sweet and sour flavor. It made for a really good appetizer.
Xu Moyan was focused on cutting them into thin pieces when she heard the door open. She thought Zheng Yuntong had come back again and did not even bother to lift her head. “You should be taking care of the guests in the living room. We can’t leave our guests idling around our house.”
“Shen Zongyi and Zheng Yuntong knew each other pretty well. They aren’t really considered guests, so there’s no need to take care of them,” A voice from behind her said with some laughter. The voice sounded especially clear despite the loud rumblings from the ventilation fan.
Since getting to know Wei Zilin, Xu Moyan had constantly been caught off guard by the voice of the Great Lord Yu Linling.
She almost cut herself as the knife in her hands went sideways after getting startled. Luckily for Xu Moyan, she reacted quickly before any real damage was done.
Wei Zilin noticed what had happened and frowned slightly. He walked toward her quickly and grabbed her hand. Then, his perfect fingers gently held on to hers as he checked them one by one to make sure she was not hurt. He only let go of her hand after he was satisfied that she was not hurt in any way.
Xu Moyan was stunned. From his point of view, it may be gentlemanly of him to display intimate acts like this without any romantic connotation, but to her, it was very difficult for her to resist and not overthink things.
If he continued behaving like this, she might really be unable to resist and would eventually find herself falling for him even more.
She was never prepared whenever he expressed such gentle care for her.
“I heard from Zheng Yuntong that your culinary skills are really good, so why would you be so careless when chopping vegetables?” Wei Zilin frowned slightly as he questioned her with a slightly accusatory tone.
Xu Moyan pressed her lips together before saying, “I was a little distracted just now. I’m normally not that careless.”
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have suddenly said something so suddenly behind you,” Wei Zilin suddenly blamed himself.