Before they had finished chatting, the meal was served. Luo Binghe carried over two bowls of noodles.
White noodles and red broth, fresh and oily chopped green onion, and topped off with a pile of tender slices of meat—the presentation was unspeakably exquisite. But Shang Qinghua wouldn’t get grabby. Without even needing Bing-ge to open his mouth and say it, Shang Qinghua required only a seemingly nonchalant glance to understand that there was no portion for him.
Shen Qingqiu sighed. “See, I told you it was a bad time.”
After all, this was the food Bing-ge had made with his own hands; not just anyone had the right to eat it. Shang Qinghua didn’t have anything to say, and he shrank to the corner of the table to pitifully watch the pair across from him split their chopsticks.
Later, when Shen Qingqiu finally couldn’t stand to watch anymore, he put a piece of meat in Luo Binghe’s bowl while holding back a smile and finally lent him some mercy. “Forget it; no more teasing. Your shishu has been pitiful enough recently. Don’t bully him anymore.”
Luo Binghe put that piece of meat in his mouth and said, without lifting his head, “There’s more in the pot.”
Shang Qinghua giddily went to the pot, shovel in hand.
As he held the noodles, he slurped until his eyes were brimming with hot tears. For the first time, he had the deep-seated feeling that the most reliable thing in this world was indeed the friendship of Peerless Cucumber, his comrade from the same hometown.
After he had mooched a meal of incomparably delicious noodles, Shang Qinghua was already pleased beyond his expectations, and it entirely did not occur to him to ask for lodging.
What a joke. He did not want to eavesdrop through Bing-ge’s wall. The quality of the sleep he’d get was one thing, but whether Bing-ge would cut off his ears and boil them with tomorrow’s noodles was entirely another.
Ugh, but look at the sort of godly days Shen Qingqiu’s living, then look at the sort I am. Then again, constantly comparing yourself to others will drive you to an early grave… Really, though, this is preposterous. Clearly I’m the author; I’m this world’s divine creator deity. Can’t you all be a bit better to me?! Love your authors! Protecting authors is everyone’s responsibility!
Shang Qinghua, savoring the lingering taste of the only bowl of noodles his son had ever made him while using a piece of grass to pick his teeth, walked down the small path between the mountains. He walked and walked, until his foot suddenly slid out from beneath him.
There was a ravine right next to the path, and Shang Qinghua had tossed his pitiful little sword who knew where long ago. If he fell down there, he wasn’t flying back up. He burst out in a string of curses at himself. “How can you slip when you’re just walking on the road? You’re not some female manga protagonist who comes with the supreme talent of tripping on flat ground!”
But when he sat down to look, he found neither an obvious banana peel nor a small tree root, only a tiny puddle.
However, that puddle was frozen over. The short weeds all around it were also covered with a faint layer of frost.
Shang Qinghua frantically rolled and crawled over to the closest rock face, his back against it as he sought out a bit of security.
He had thought that spending too much time dilly-dallying and tempting death by not returning until Mobei-Jun came knocking was already the worst-case scenario. Then a certain person walked out from behind the craggy rocks and drooping vines, and Shang Qinghua finally discovered that things could be even worse.
“Well, well, look here. Who’s this?” Linguang-Jun said.
Shang Qinghua laughed dryly. “Right! Who is this?”
Linguang-Jun patted the top of his head. “Mobei-Jun nearly overturned the whole northern border looking for you. You sure know how to hide, ah?”
“My lord is joking. Since when was I hiding…”
“Right? I was also wondering: What’s there to hide from? You performed such a meritorious service at the ice fortress, last we met, but Mobei didn’t even have the chance to reward you. I can’t figure it out; why did you run to this nothing place in the middle of nowhere?”
“Oh, that was nothing, nothing!” Shang Qinghua repeatedly waved his hands. “That was nothing to do with me. That was all Mobei-Jun relying on his own skill…”
Shang Qinghua was denying his role in fear that Linguang-Jun would assign him the greatest responsibility for his defeat at the ice fortress. But unexpectedly, upon hearing this Linguang-Jun’s face suddenly changed, and his tone turned harsh. “Do you mean to say that without you, a lowly, shameless, treacherous Cang Qiong Mountain dog, to jump out and wreck all my good work halfway through, that damned youngster could have defeated me all by himself?!”
Yes is wrong; no is also wrong… Shang Qinghua bemoaned this injustice to the skies. “How could he! Mobei-Jun defeated you, my lord, only because he relied on a sneak attack!”
“Are you mocking me?”
Shang Qinghua couldn’t immediately respond.
When he thought about it… Oh, right, the one who had performed the first sneak attack had clearly been Linguang-Jun himself. The wind had blown his piss right back to him—no matter what he said, it was wrong. After clinging to people’s thighs with a subservient smile for decades, Shang Qinghua had at last encountered a character too difficult to flatter!
He shut his mouth, a mournful look on his face.
Linguang-Jun sneered. “That little Mobei certainly never could have imagined I would just casually run into the person he expended all his energy on finding to no avail. So, I must use you well…”
“My lord! If you want to catch me and use me to threaten Mobei-Jun, it’s completely useless!” Shang Qinghua said hurriedly. “I’ll tell you the truth about why I ran away. In fact, at the fortress, while he couldn’t move, I couldn’t resist beating him up… And you know that damn temper of his! With that kind of opportunity, it would be hard not to hit him, right? But after, there was nothing I could do; I was afraid he would retaliate, so I just…ran. He’s probably only looking for me because he wants to beat me in return. I don’t have a mote of value in his eyes. At most, I’m a convenient attendant and punching bag.”
Linguang-Jun paused, then said impatiently, “Why are you telling me all this? Do I look like the type of demon who’d do such a shameless thing?”