"Were you waiting for me?" Qi Yongrui asked with a hint of giddiness in his tone. He raised his head and glanced at Luo Huian before saying to her, "I wanted to come earlier, but something held me back." He indeed wanted to come right away when he received the message from Luo Huian, but he was in a meeting.
Even though Qi Yongrui had given up on the Qi family, he still had some of his own businesses that he opened under the nose of the Qi family without letting them find out. Thus, now that he had stopped paying attention to the Qi family, he wanted to work hard on his own company, which was why he had taken on some new projects.
In the past, these projects didn’t seem as troublesome, but now that these projects were coming in between his and Luo Huian’s dates, he was finding them annoying.
"Couldn’t you have told us that you wanted to invite Yongrui to lunch?" Long Zhong asked with a frown on his face. He didn’t read the atmosphere carefully and ended up ruining it.
Luo Huian turned to look at him, and so did Qi Yongrui, who frowned even harder while looking at Long Zhong. He rolled his eyes and then said, "There is no need to worry about such small things; didn’t I finish all the work that I needed to before lunch?"
"But still—" Long Zhong was still speaking when Qi Yongrui shot him a look which made the mer shut up at once.
"Did I trouble you?" Luo Huian asked with a frown on her face. As she had been using the spiritual water to bathe, she looked even prettier.
And though Qi Yongrui was not the kind of person who went after face rather than heart, he still couldn’t withstand the charm of his wife. His heart trembled, and he nearly fainted then and there before saying to Luo Huian with a shake of his head, "No, there was no trouble at all."
At that moment, if Luo Huian had asked him to give away all his fortune, he would have handed it all to her just because he wanted to smooth the frown on her forehead.
When Luo Huian heard his response, she smiled at him before asking the servers to bring the dishes that she had prepared for Qi Yongrui.
"Uncle Tang is quite good at making traditional medicinal foods," she explained as the servers placed the bone broth soup, pork trotters, including the crab roe and mutton chops with stir-fried mushrooms and cold jelly salad. There was also pig brain and pork hock with a generous amount of bone marrow collected in a small bowl that was placed in front of Qi Yongrui.
She said to him, "We are trying everything to help you, but it seems like it’s not enough. That’s why I asked Uncle Tang to prepare a few dishes that will help you. Try some of these and tell me whether you like them?"
When Qi Yongrui heard Luo Huian’s casual remarks, the inside of his mouth turned sweet. He knew that Luo Huian cared for him, and he also knew that she was really guilty because of what happened to him, but he never thought that she would treat him so considerately one day.
Even though he knew that it was all because of guilt, he was still willing to accept it.
However...
He looked down at the many dishes that Luo Huian had placed in front of him, and he said to her, "I cannot eat this much."
Though he had started taking therapy, he was still getting used to eating decent meals. He still couldn’t help but throw up whatever he put in his mouth; according to his therapist, it was because he was still getting used to life after going through such traumatic incidents.
And it would take time for him to become what others called normal.
"Really?" Luo Huian frowned as she looked down at her fingers, which had several cuts and burns, and sighed. "I worked hard to make Uncle Tang teach them to me."
"You cooked them?" Qi Yongrui asked along with Long Zhong.
The two mers didn’t expect Luo Huian to be this caring. They thought that Uncle Tang was the one who cooked these dishes for Qi Yongrui.
"Ah... didn’t I tell you?" Luo Huian asked while scratching her cheeks. She said to Qi Yongrui when the mer shook his head, "Though I asked Uncle Yang to prepare them, he scolded me, saying that I should be the one making them, as I am your wife." She sighed helplessly before adding, "I did tell him that I was no expert, but he said that you would like it if I did it."
"Then—then why didn’t you tell me earlier?" Qi Yongrui thought of how Luo Huian had said to him that she had asked Uncle Tang to prepare the dishes.
"Such that I can blame him if the dishes don’t taste good." She was not good at cooking yet; she might have downloaded a lot of cooking videos, but the truth was that none of those skilled chefs could even come close to Uncle Tang; thus, she was still far from getting to Uncle Tang’s level, and it was not a surprise that the old man was not even the slightest bit happy with her and her skills that he considered lousy.
As soon as she finished speaking, there was a loud smack, and Luo Huian’s body leaned forward. She covered the back of her head and turned to look at Uncle Tang, who had hit her on the back of her head, and said to him, "What was that about? Why did you hit me?"
Now, Uncle Tang was no longer the same Uncle Tang who was once gloomy and depressed. He was now full of spirit and looked really vibrant and chatty. He immediately raised his hand and pointed at Luo Huian before saying to her, "What do you mean that I cook something bad? I am an expert. My skills are passed down by my ancestors who used to cook in the imperial palace! How can my cooking be bad? You, on the other hand, are useless!"
"Don’t tell anyone that I am teaching you, or else I will be too embarrassed to raise my head up."
"What nonsense? If I am useless, then it’s because you, as my teacher, failed in teaching me properly, how come I am the one at fault here?" Luo Huian snapped back.
"What do you mean by ’ I am useless? Isn’t it because you are too dull? You can’t even cook for your husband. Back in my days, mers were only married to men or women if they could keep the mer happy. I won the heart of my husband in a matter of a few seconds by cooking. You — you are lucky that your mother got you married, or else you would have never been able to get married."
After he finished speaking, he walked away without looking back, leaving Luo Huian to fume. She then turned around and said to Qi Yongrui, "Just eat...it. No, you have to eat it, my freaking pride is on the line here!"
As soon as she finished speaking, Qi Yongrui burst out laughing. He knew that his wife was arrogant but never before did he think that she was this cute!