Chapter 298: Cooking Skills [19/20]
Back in the girls’ dormitory, Ning Chu was finally free from the worry of being reported.
Although her new student ID hadn’t come in yet, the counselor already knew she was a girl, so even if she was reported, the counselor wouldn’t say much.
Yan Xinya’s dorm was as messy as always.
Bottles, cans, clothes, socks, and underwear were tossed around everywhere, which made Ning Chu feel irritated at just one glance; she wished she could clean it up.
Though it was messy, at least it was clean enough; aside from the bathroom, there wasn’t any bad smell, and there was no sight of a succubus.
“Lin Li went out to play. She likes to go to the bar to dance on weekends. I wonder what’s so fun—how about a dance machine?”
Yan Xinya babbled on, pulling out a folding table from the corner of the dorm. “Ning Chu~ come help!”
“Okay.”
She spread a thick blue cloth over the folding table and grabbed a deck of cards for scoring. The wolf girl ran to the wardrobe and took out her beloved mahjong set.
“Come on! Let’s play mahjong!” Yan Xinya looked at the others, “Are we playing for money?”
“Not gonna play, right?”
But Lily suddenly chimed in, “Strip mahjong?”
“……”
Everyone turned to look at Lily, who maintained her cold expression, as if the words hadn’t come from her. The room fell into a brief silence.
“I have no objections!” Yan Xinya, always one for chaos, wasn’t worried since Ning Chu was there to take the fall for her.
Ning Chu instinctively covered her jacket; at her level, she feared she’d be the first to lose everything.
She could already envision herself covering her chest and lower body, face flushed red, yet still insisting on playing mahjong… that would be so embarrassing!
“I have major objections!” she protested strongly, “I don’t even know how to play mahjong! Jumping into something so big right away?! Is it necessary?!”
Nana timidly nodded in agreement.
“Then let’s just play for fun,” Yan Xinya grumbled, “No stakes makes it less exciting~”
“I’ll consider it once I learn how to play…”
Ning Chu grew up watching mahjong being played; her mother and grandparents loved the game, but she only knew the rules and had never played herself.
Sitting awkwardly to the side, she clumsily shuffled the tiles and set them up.
Compared to online games, setting up the tiles was giving her a headache. By the time Yan Xinya quickly sorted her tiles and played her first tile, Ning Chu’s long row was still a jumbled mess.
“Don’t rush me, wait a second…”
Flustered under everyone’s gaze, she managed to play a tile, but she was truly terrible at mahjong.
After one round, Ning Chu felt like she was in prison, clumsily playing tiles, hesitating on eating and melding, and didn’t even win once. She felt no enjoyment whatsoever.
Even losing in a gaming team with her roommates all afternoon wasn’t as torturous as this mahjong prison.
At least with games, there was some experience…
On the other hand, Nana was on a lucky streak; although a bit clumsy, her luck allowed her to win several times in a row.
Thank goodness no one agreed to strip mahjong…
“It’s time to cook.”
As noon approached, Lily got up and turned to Ning Chu.
“I’ll help! Teach me too!”
“Sure.”
Lily was quite the cook; while not a qualified teacher, she deliberately slowed down to let Ning Chu observe closely.
Lunch was sweet and sour ribs, stir-fried Shanghai greens, and stir-fried pork with green pepper.
“I’ll take some back. Is there a meal box in the dorm?”
Ning Chu concentrated on memorizing the cooking steps and the seasonings used while asking Yan Xinya.
“You’re planning to take it back to eat?!”
“Uh… yeah!”
Taking it back to show Wen Yang that she made it! What would his reaction be?
Imagining Wen Yang’s incredulous face made her chuckle out loud.
Yan Xinya suddenly peeked at her face, her eyes filled with teasing laughter.
“What’s up?” Ning Chu touched her cheek, thinking something might’ve splattered during Lily’s cooking.
“You seem really happy since you’ve been with Wen Yang~”
“Not at all!”
“You were so gloomy for about a month when school just started; it was like… you had a lot on your mind.” Yan Xinya reminisced about late September, “Especially toward the end of September, you looked all down and deflated.”
During that time, Ning Chu utterly transformed into a girl.
The little bug had completely hidden away, and her descriptors changed from length to depth.
She chose her words carefully: “There were some unexpected issues… They got resolved, so of course, my mood improved.”
“Really?”
“Yeah!”
“You were really stubborn~”
“……”
It was undeniable that Ning Chu’s emotions gradually improved from feeling like a girl to a succubus, especially in her relationship with Wen Yang.
At least she didn’t feel the heavy pressure of being alone anymore.
This period in her life felt the lightest in both her past and present…
“I’ll go get you a meal box!”
Yan Xinya teased as she dashed into the room, quickly returning with a plastic meal box. “Lily, you pack it up for her!”
“Okay.”
“She’s definitely taking it back for Wen Yang!”
“That’s not true!”
Ning Chu couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the two: “Didn’t you say Shao Qing’s food is just as good? Stop picking on me.”
Glancing at Lily, she quickly reminded, “Pack lots of rice, and just a little bit of dish, drench it in the rib sauce.”
Wen Yang had a big appetite; the lunch Lily made could be polished off entirely by him, but she couldn’t take all the dishes!
“Sure.”
Lily handed over the filled meal box and asked expressionlessly, “So, my cooking raises a man?”
“……”
Ning Chu checked the time and changed the subject, “Wen Yang is about to head back too.”
“Yeah.”
Hurrying out of the girls’ dorm, she took the bus back, and as Ning Chu arrived at her rental apartment, she saw Wen Yang standing at the door, fiddling with his keys.
“Back already?”
On weekends, when he was out working part-time, he usually made a quick stop back home for an hour.
He turned to look at the meal box Ning Chu was holding, momentarily bewildered. “What are you holding?”
“It’s my cooking!” Ning Chu declared confidently, “I made it at Xin Ya’s dorm! I brought some back for you!”
Wen Yang didn’t know anything about Ning Chu’s cooking and had never tasted it, so he straightforwardly believed her words. “Then I’ll try it out later.”
The two entered the apartment one after the other, and Ning Chu couldn’t wait to open the meal box, handing Wen Yang chopsticks and looking at him eagerly. “Hurry up and eat; it’ll get cold!”
“It’s delicious!” Wen Yang just took a small bite and immediately gave a thumbs up, praising, “Better than what restaurants make!”
“Seriously?”
“You used to say you couldn’t cook.” He joked, “Are you planning to slack off after marriage?”
Ning Chu’s face turned bright red in an instant, stammering, “M-Marriage… after…”
She looked down, a bit shy, muttering, “That’s something way in the future; why would I think about that?”
Wen Yang seemed to really enjoy Lily’s cooking.
Looks like she just added another task to her list! Time to learn cooking from Lily!
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