Chapter 68 The Love-Brain Female Lead Awakens 11

Lost in thought, Sang Ruo wasn’t paying attention in the crush of the crowd and got bumped from behind by someone pushing forward. Yi Chen’an immediately drew her a little closer to his side. “What are you smiling about so much?”

Of course Sang Ruo wasn’t going to say she was daydreaming about the future, so she replied casually, “I feel like I’ve grasped the essence of Chinese culture.”

Smiling, Yi Chen’an gestured for her to continue.

“Watching the excitement.” The bright-faced girl clapped her hands. “Look how many people here actually stopped to buy something. Most of them are just here for the fun, like us. So the snack vendors really make the most money by cashing in on the crowd.”

Yi Chen’an didn’t comment on that. He looked over at the row of stalls nearby. “Want something to eat? You didn’t have much for breakfast.”

Sang Ruo shook her head and kept walking.

She stopped in front of a stall selling little accessories, picked through the items, and chose a bracelet woven from five-colored thread¹, silver wire, and jixueteng² vine. It looked quite pretty on her wrist. The vendor asked for one hundred and twenty, and she haggled it down to fifty. If it weren’t for the bit of silver in it, the bracelet probably didn’t even cost ten yuan to make.

“You like that?” The man following behind Sang Ruo frowned, clearly not approving of her choosing such a cheap trinket. Even so, he still scanned the code and paid before she could.

“It’s mainly for the holiday atmosphere.” Sang Ruo kept her arm raised as they walked, admiring it all the way. She seemed ridiculously fond of the bracelet. She even asked Yi Chen’an, “Pretty, right?”

The man nodded and said against his true feelings, “It’s okay.”

Sang Ruo could tell he was just humoring her and laughed. “Don’t be like that. It really is pretty. You men just don’t get it.”

Yi Chen’an thought for a moment and didn’t continue the topic. Seeing how happy she was, he treated it like buying her a toy to amuse her. He tapped the back of her head and sighed softly. “Kid.”

Sang Ruo accepted the label with a beaming smile and said, “You can’t come out for fun and go home empty-handed. At least now I’ve got a trophy.”

With that, she tugged him toward the crowd packed up ahead. “Looks like there’s a zongzi-wrapping competition over there.”

The competition was called “Zongzi Affection,” organized by a fairly famous chain restaurant brand in Qingyang. The zongzi they wrapped during the event were plain water zongzi, though if you liked, you could add a red date.

The rules were simple too. Two people per team, and if they wrapped ten qualified zongzi within three minutes, they could take them home for free. If they failed the challenge, sorry, they had to buy them back at three times market price. After all, there was raw material loss.

At last, she had found something fun, and Sang Ruo was eager to give it a try. She went over to the staff to register for a number.

Yi Chen’an didn’t stop her. Standing squeezed in among a bunch of aunties, he asked, “You know how to wrap zongzi?”

“Ah, easy. I used to do it every year before I came to college. My oldest cousin is on the dragon boat team in his town, and my aunt had to prepare zongzi for him, so I was always drafted into labor,” Sang Ruo explained as she watched a couple currently competing inside the ring.

That couple was obviously inexperienced. They were flustered and fumbling, rice grains scattering everywhere. They were definitely going to fail.

Still, they were laughing happily. In the end, the man paid seventy yuan to buy the seven mangled glutinous-rice-and-zongzi-leaf lumps the two of them had wrapped.

The staff took the money, gave change, and smiled just as happily.

Everyone was pleased.

“I don’t know how.”

A low male voice drifted to Sang Ruo’s ear, deep and faintly anxious.

“What?” She didn’t catch it.

“I’ll hold you back.” The man looked worriedly toward the competition area as if a dragon was waiting there for him to slay.

“Hahaha…” Sang Ruo was delighted. When had she ever seen Yi Chen’an like this? Standing on tiptoe, she patted his shoulder and said heroically, “You just have to hand me the rice and zongzi leaves. Leave the rest to me.”

Her calm confidence did nothing to comfort the deeply worried man. No matter what he had been thinking before the match, once they stepped up, Yi Chen’an appeared remarkably steady, his hands rock-solid as he passed Sang Ruo leaves and string.

Ah, even though he didn’t know how to do anything, he still gave off that solid sense of security. Honestly, how could anyone not like a mature man like that?

Her thoughts running all over the place, Sang Ruo’s hands never stopped moving. Her ten fingers flew, victory already in hand. She even had time to tuck a big red date into each zongzi.

By the time the judge called stop, the tray belonging to her and Yi Chen’an already held eleven neat, evenly sized zongzi with a nice appearance. Mm, one more than required.

Sang Ruo lifted her right hand, spread all five fingers, and waved her palm at Yi Chen’an. He understood immediately and cooperatively gave her a light high-five in celebration.

His hand was really big, his fingers long and strong.

Sang Ruo’s fingers were slender and long too, but when their warm palms met, her fingertips only barely reached a little above his second knuckle.

Naturally, they took those eleven plain water zongzi home for free.

Now that really counted as a “trophy.”

Sang Ruo said with feeling, “A trip out really does pay off in the end. At least I got something out of it.”

Yi Chen’an walked beside her, simply watching as she chatted to herself the whole way. He raised his hand to check the time, then lowered his head and said to the still excited girl at his side, “It’s getting late. Let’s go eat and celebrate today’s victory. What do you want?”

“Eat out?” She pointed at the zongzi Yi Chen’an was carrying. “That’d be such a waste if we don’t eat these. Let’s go back and cook.”

Yi Chen’an didn’t move. His brows drew together tightly as he said, “My cooking skills are limited to boiling noodles without turning the pot into mush, reheating takeout, and pouring prepared dressing over cold dishes the shop has already sliced.”

“Ha.” Sang Ruo shot him a sidelong glance. “Who was counting on you? Come on, big sister’s got you covered today.”

The back of her head got smacked. “Who are you calling big sister?”

Skipping one step away, Sang Ruo retorted, “Big sister isn’t about age. It’s my standing in the martial world of the kitchen.”

Just like that, with cheerful unilateral decision-making, Sang Ruo settled their dinner plan. She took out her phone to map their route back. They needed to swing by the supermarket first to buy some vegetables.

As for this girl who was so enthusiastically raring to go, Yi Chen’an remained doubtful, but he still activated his auto-follow mode.

A small hiccup came up in the middle.

Just as they were about to leave the National Expo Center, they ran into some people they knew.

At the front was Sang Ruo’s class monitor, a tall, skinny boy with glasses who always carried a backpack. There were eight or nine of them in total, most from the same class, along with two unfamiliar faces.

Chi Qing and Zhou Yan were among them too.

The class monitor pushed up his glasses and greeted her first. “Sang Ruo, you didn’t go home either?”

Sang Ruo’s gaze swept over them. “Yeah, what a coincidence.”

“I heard there was a festival going on here, so I organized a trip for the classmates who stayed behind. Didn’t expect we’d run into you here too.” He even introduced the two unfamiliar girls in the group, both of them girlfriends of classmates.

Then the shy young man got stuck, because he had no idea how to explain Chi Qing’s presence. After all, Chi Qing had come with Zhou Yan, and he had also heard a little about Sang Ruo and Zhou Yan breaking up.

Sang Ruo just smiled casually. “I was bored out of my mind too, so I came out with my family.”

Yes, family.

Calling him a friend would sound a little too suggestive. Calling him brother wasn’t what she wanted either. So family it was. Anyway, sooner or later they would be family. As for what the listeners made of it, that wasn’t her problem.

Zhou Yan’s gaze seemed glued to Yi Chen’an, but Sang Ruo pretended not to notice. She said to the class monitor, “There’s a zongzi-wrapping competition over in the west section. If you win, you get to take them home for free.” Then, thinking that they all lived at school, she added, “They can steam them for you there too.”

“Alright, we’ll go take a look.” The class monitor scratched his head and led the group away.

Zhou Yan kept looking back.

Something suddenly settled on her shoulder, and Sang Ruo turned her head to see Yi Chen’an’s hand resting there.

There wasn’t even a crowd here for him to help guide her through! Sang Ruo’s heart skipped a beat, and in a daze, she let him lead her all the way to the main entrance.

A bundle of zongzi was stuffed into her arms, and Yi Chen’an’s low voice, so distinctly his, instructed, “Wait for me here. I’m going to get the car.”

“Oh.” The warm touch of his palm seemed to linger on her shoulder, and Sang Ruo’s brain wasn’t quite listening to her anymore.

Seeing her standing there blankly, the man frowned and caught her by the shoulders, guiding her a few more steps to the side, somewhere people weren’t constantly passing by. “Stop spacing out. Be careful.”

Sang Ruo nodded half a beat late, still looking dazed.

The man raked a hand through his hair, seeming a little irritated.

Sang Ruo thought maybe she was imagining it. But that mood lasted all the way through the drive back.

Inside the quiet car, Yi Chen’an drove without saying a word. He usually wasn’t much of a talker anyway, but Sang Ruo could still sense the low pressure hanging around him. She had no idea why he had suddenly become like this. Maybe he’d gotten sick of spending the whole day with her?

Sang Ruo wasn’t afraid of him now, but facing Yi Chen’an like this still made her feel miserable.

Chasing a man really wasn’t something just anyone could do. A girl without a strong heart would be crying in minutes. When this man got moody, how was he like some unlucky girl on her period?

Should she coax him a little? But where was she supposed to start when she didn’t even know what was wrong with him?

So when she got a call from her dad, Sang Ruo still sounded downcast.

“Oh? What’s wrong with my girl?” Old Sang had always been booming and full of life, the kind of person who seemed not to know what unhappiness even was.

Sang Ruo hurriedly perked up and softened her voice into a coaxing tone. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just a little tired from all the walking today. Let me tell you, we went to the Dragon Boat Cultural Festival. We even entered a zongzi-wrapping event and won a whole bundle of zongzi.”

“My girl’s capable, alright.” When it came to his precious daughter, Comrade Old Sang always praised her without thinking. After praising her, he immediately asked warily, “Who’d you go with? Your boyfriend?”

Sang Ruo carefully glanced at the man’s profile as he focused on driving, then gave a vague little sound in response. She wasn’t lying, after all. A future boyfriend was still a boyfriend.

“What? Didn’t you already break up with that brat Zhou Yan?”

Ah. She had forgotten Old Sang knew about the breakup too. Zhou Yan had been her high school classmate, and her family had known when they started dating. They hadn’t exactly approved, but they hadn’t strongly opposed it either. Last week, when she told him they’d broken up, Old Sang had actually been pretty happy.

She quickly denied it. “No, no, not Zhou Yan.”

“…”

“…”

Who knew whether Old Sang was shocked by how fast his daughter had changed boyfriends, or whether he suspected she was lying. In any case, the two of them were speechless for quite a while.

But Sang Ruo didn’t dare say she was with Yi Chen’an, much less that she was actively pursuing him. Anyone could figure out with their knees³ that her dad would never agree to her chasing Yi Chen’an. A friend turning into a son-in-law was definitely more excitement than Comrade Old Sang could handle.

At the very least, she had to wait until she’d won him over and their relationship was stable before thinking about how to tell him in a way that wouldn’t be quite so devastating to this old father’s fragile nerves.

Translator’s Notes