Chapter 19

At the supermarket, Ruan Qing had Nian Qi handle the checkout, helping him get used to modern life. They spent just over 600 yuan, and after paying, his phone balance showed only 98 yuan left. Ruan Qing confidently reassured him, “This is very typical. Really, every time I casually pick up a few things at the supermarket, it’s around five or six hundred. Even when I just order toilet paper online, the bill ends up being two or three hundred.”

Nian Qi did the math in his head. Based on Ruan Qing’s spending habits, it seemed like living comfortably would require at least 10,000 yuan a month. Ruan Qing then transferred him another 1,000 yuan, saying, “Here, to top it up.”

When they got home, Ruan Qing guided Nian Qi in organizing the fridge. “This goes in the freezer, this in the fridge. Remember, don’t put cola in the freezer, it’ll explode.”

“Oh, by the way,” she asked, quite interested, “now that you’ve had a chance to try out a lot of modern appliances, which one do you like best? Which do you think is the most useful?”

Nian Qi didn’t need to think about it at all and pointed straight to one. “That one.”

“Huh? Why not the refrigerator?” Ruan Qing asked curiously. “In summer, you can drink ice-cold cola and have popsicles, ice cream, and all that.”

But Nian Qi replied, “We had ice chests back then too. They couldn’t make ice on their own, but for the user, the difference isn’t that big.”

Ruan Qing, leaning against the fridge door, asked, “Where did the ice come from?”

Nian Qi explained, “We had to store the ice in winter to use in summer. It was labor-intensive, but in practice, it wasn’t much different. We didn’t have ice cream, but chilled fruits from the ice chests were quite refreshing, not bad at all.”

As one of the top ten elite assassins under the Yanwang, Nian Qi enjoyed the best treatment in the organization. On his days off when he wasn’t on a mission, he lived in luxury, with fine clothes and servants at his beck and call. Their line of work was risky, never knowing if the next job would be their last, so they made sure to enjoy every day they had.

“But air conditioning is something we didn’t have,” Nian Qi said, clearly in admiration. “With this, no one has to suffer through the summer heat.”

He referred to himself as a “manual laborer,” yet was so familiar with ice chests, which were only enjoyed by the elite in ancient times. He could even compare the taste of fruits chilled with ancient and modern methods.

Ruan Qing let out a simple “Oh,” closed the fridge door, and kept her thoughts to herself. “Come on, I’ll show you what’s what in the kitchen,” she said, directing him to organize the various things they’d bought at the supermarket and put them away. She introduced him to the microwave, oven, toaster, and air fryer, showing him how each one worked. Suddenly, she remembered, oh right, she also had an electric griddle!

She opened the cupboard and dug out the griddle, which was covered in dust and had only been used once. She explained how it worked to Nian Qi.

He stifled a laugh, “You’ve got quite the setup here.” She even had a full set of knives—long ones, short ones, blunt-tipped, sharp-tipped, for cutting vegetables, meat, and fruit. Someone might mistake her for a top chef.

Ruan Qing blushed. She had been lured in by videos on the internet, seeing how people seemed to live such charming, cozy lives, and she couldn’t resist buying kitchen gadgets. She tried them out, but some of them didn’t deliver the desired results because she didn’t have the skills. Others, she could make work, but after two hours of cooking, it took just five minutes to eat, and then another half an hour to wash dishes, scrub pots, and clean up the kitchen.

The “charm” only existed in those staged videos, food bloggers would never show the messy kitchen or dining table after the shoot.

Ruan Qing straightened her neck and said, “I do try to cook sometimes, but I’m just too busy with work. Modern women have to earn a living and support themselves, do you understand what that means? Don’t be fooled by how much time I spend at home, I’m actually working. All my designs have deadlines, and when I’m rushing to finish them, I work around the clock. You get that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nian Qi nodded seriously, but there was a playful glint in his eyes, as if he was teasing her. “A thousand years have passed; times have changed, I get it.”

Ruan Qing snorted, then pointed out various cooking ingredients like oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, and added, “There are lots of cooking tutorial videos online. You can check them out.” She then asked, “How’s your pinyin coming along? Once you learn pinyin, you can search for videos online on your own.”

In truth, Nian Qi still didn’t quite grasp what “online” meant, but that didn’t dampen his curiosity or his desire to learn. When they got back to the living room, Ruan Qing took out the set of pinyin cards for kindergarteners she had bought earlier and tested him. “Here, spell this out for me.”

But Nian Qi was no kindergartener; he was an adult with a natural gift for language and a sharp memory. He had already mastered pinyin, and he answered every question fluently.

“Faster than I expected,” Ruan Qing said, a little surprised.

Nian Qi replied humbly, “It’s not that difficult.”

Well, fair enough. Ruan Qing then took out her phone to show him, “Use this video app, and here is the search bar. You can also use voice input on your phone, but it’s not as convenient on a computer. So you still need to learn pinyin, especially for the future.”

Nian Qi nodded, “Got it,” watching Ruan Qing’s demonstration with full attention.

Ruan Qing thought about it, since Nian Qi had just started learning his way around a modern kitchen, there was no need to overwhelm him with complicated recipes. She searched for “home-cooked dishes” and found many results. After browsing through them, she picked a straightforward and practical content creator, showed him how to save videos to his favorites, and said, “This person has a whole series of videos, enough to keep you busy for a while.”

Afterward, Ruan Qing went to take a shower. When she came out, she found Nian Qi still on the couch, watching the videos. She waved her hands at him, “Get up, I’ll set up the bed for you.”

But Nian Qi stood up instead. “I can do it.”

He quickly and skillfully unfolded the sofa bed, which surprised Ruan Qing a bit.

“I watched you do it this morning,” he explained.

That morning, Ruan Qing had been in a rush to go to work and had a lot of things to explain to Nian Qi, so she quickly folded up the sofa bed without showing him how it worked. But Nian Qi had been observing and figured it out just by watching. It wasn’t a complicated mechanism, but still, his keen observation and eagerness to learn were impressive. Overall, he was a very low-maintenance time traveler.

With the bed set up, Nian Qi asked, “Can I take a shower?”

Ruan Qing hesitated. “You still have injuries, right?”

“They’ve scabbed over,” he said, as he unwrapped a piece of gauze from his arm, revealing that the wound had indeed healed over. His quick recovery suggested he was in good health with a strong metabolism.

“Alright then, if you feel fine, go ahead,” Ruan Qing said. “Here, we can take showers every day, even in winter.”

She rummaged through a storage box and said, “Wait a moment, these are all loungewear. You can change into them after your shower.”

A lecherous old man is always a lecherous old man. Remembering the half-naked, battle-worn male body she saw yesterday, Ruan Qing’s mind drifted for a moment before she tossed a tank top to him. “Here, wear this.”

Nian Qi looked at the small piece of fabric in his hands and sighed, “Nowadays, food, shelter, and travel are all vastly superior to the past. But why is it that clothing alone has become so skimpy?”

Ruan Qing responded with a righteous, matter-of-fact tone, “Because the climate has changed. With global warming, no one can stand being wrapped up head to toe in fabric like in your time.”

“What does ‘global’ mean?” he asked.

“That’s something you’ll have to learn later,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Go on, take your shower.”

Nian Qi showered quickly. First, because showers were genuinely convenient, and second, he now knew that staying here meant paying for water and electricity—everything cost money. Back in the day, people didn’t bathe frequently mainly because heating water required firewood, and firewood wasn’t free. This house had hot water available 24/7, but he was certain it didn’t just come out of thin air, maybe there was some technology he didn’t understand, but it definitely involved burning some kind of fuel. It was easy to deduce that if they paid for water, hot water would certainly be more expensive than cold.

When he finished his shower, Ruan Qing was still awake, sipping on a cold cola at the dining table. There was a rectangular device in front of her.

“What’s that?” asked Nian Qi.

“It’s also a computer, a portable one. Since it’s shaped like a notebook, it’s called a laptop. Usually, people just call it a laptop,” she explained. She lifted her drink, partially covering her face, and discreetly studied him. He had a great physique! His muscles were naturally toned and smooth, not overly bulky, but very aesthetically pleasing. The old scars scattered across his body appealed to Ruan Qing’s inner nerd, who had a bit of a fascination with heroic, battle-hardened figures.

Control yourself, control yourself! She put down her cola and asked, “Are you going to sleep now? If so, I’ll head back to my room.”

“No need,” said Nian Qi. “I want to watch a bit more of that… what was it called?”

“Videos. If it has visuals, it’s a video. If it’s just voices, it’s called audio,” she clarified.

So there they were—Ruan Qing leaning on her hand at the dining table, and Nian Qi sitting cross-legged on the sofa bed, each focused on their own activity. He watched his videos, while she, under the guise of her laptop, was secretly watching him.

What she didn’t realize was that Nian Qi was exceptionally alert to his surroundings, especially to the gaze of others. Even though his eyes were glued to the phone screen, he could tell that Ruan Qing had been watching him the whole time.

He thought to himself, Ruan Qing might seem carefree, but she was actually very vigilant. People in his line of work were always like this, if they pretended to be a farmer, they acted like a farmer; if they posed as a nobleman, they played the part perfectly. What was on the inside and what was on the outside were often worlds apart. They were trained from a young age to be wary of people, situations, and their environment, with covert observation being a basic instinct.

After all, they had only spent a day and a night together, and Ruan Qing still didn’t fully understand who he was. It made sense that she wasn’t letting her guard down around this “time traveler” and was quietly observing him…

Yes, thought Nian Qi, eyes still on his phone, this was perfectly normal.