Chapter 29: Spanish

Back in the living room, Miaomiao slumped on the sofa like a salted fish drying on the beach—dazed, despairing, with a faint trace of fear in his round, grape-like eyes.

On the other side of the living room, Ming Can, having taken off her apron, was completely at ease. She picked up her phone, leaned against the counter, and casually scrolled through her social media while sipping water.

Seeing his mom so carefree and oblivious to the impending disaster, Miaomiao felt a deep sense of helplessness in his tiny body.

His parents from over a decade in the future had absolutely no cooking skills, and the food they made had even made the judges vomit.

Was there any chance that his parents from over a decade ago could do better than their future selves?

Even a five-year-old like him knew the answer: No way!

Meanwhile, inside the kitchen.

The cream-colored marble countertop, wide and smooth, with golden and beige veins running through it, stretched across the center of the kitchen. Standing beside it was a tall young man, his lean and muscular arms resting on the surface, his muscles slightly tense, his shoulders hunched, exuding an inexplicable air of defeat.

He was still young, with a full head of hair, but at this moment, he felt like he was truly going bald.

Most people who boast about their abilities are actually half-baked, pretending to be experts when they’re not. But him? He wasn’t just half-baked—he had no skills at all. It was like a landlubber jumping into the sea; the consequences were predictable.

At this point, there was no way Chi Xiao could go back to Ming Can and take back what he had said. Trying to tough it out and produce a table full of culinary disasters was absolutely not an option. The only path left was to call for outside help.

After quickly running through his mental list of contacts, Chi Xiao soon locked onto a target—someone who could cook and had a good relationship with him.

He made a WeChat call, and the person on the other end answered instantly, as if they lived inside their phone.

“Brother Zhou,” Chi Xiao took a deep breath and tried to sound as humble as possible. “I need your help. Teach me how to cook a few dishes.”

“…” The person on the other end was silent for a moment, then their voice grew distant. “Wait, can AI voice scams mimic voices this accurately now?”

Chi Xiao was speechless. “It’s really me.”

“I don’t believe it. Even if the sky fell, I wouldn’t believe you’re cooking,” the person said. “How about a video call?”

The person on the other end of the call was Chi Xiao’s roommate, Sheng Nan Zhou, the one who had been knitting a scarf for his girlfriend in the dorm not long ago. His girlfriend was a doctoral student, swamped with research work. Not only did he knit sweaters for her, but he also often cooked meals and delivered them to her lab when she was too busy to eat in the cafeteria. His excellent cooking skills were all honed in the dorm, where he set up a small stove and pot after getting into a relationship.

When Sheng Nan Zhou cooked, the other two roommates would occasionally sneak a bite or two, and sometimes even borrow his pots and pans to cook something themselves. Chi Xiao, however, had always been indifferent to food and had zero interest in cooking. He would quickly finish his three meals a day in the cafeteria, then return to the dorm to bury himself in studying or crafting. He had never once participated in his roommates’ cooking activities.

Chi Xiao thought about it. Since he was going to be taught how to cook, a video call would make things easier. So, he turned on the camera, revealing his flawlessly handsome face from a death angle that somehow still looked perfect.

Sheng Nan Zhou: “Holy crap, AI is getting too powerful! It can even fake video calls now!”

Chi Xiao: “…”

The other roommates, hearing the commotion, crowded around the screen. Three heads squeezed into view, chattering away: “This has to be real, right? There’s no way his WeChat got hacked too.”

“Brother Xiao, say something?”

“Where are you? There’s gotta be a reason you suddenly want to learn how to cook, right?”

Chi Xiao: “I’m at a friend’s place.”

The other end of the video fell silent for a moment, and then, as if realizing something, the three of them erupted in unison:

“Oh my god, spill it! What kind of friend would have you cooking at their place?”

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s gotta be a girlfriend!”

Chi Xiao sighed. “No, stop making things up.”

Zhu Yida pushed his way to the front of the camera, exasperated: “Brother, don’t tell me you still haven’t won her over? And now you’re cooking for her? Are you addicted to being the backup plan or what?”

Chi Xiao’s temple twitched. He didn’t have the energy to argue with them and simply said to Sheng Nan Zhou, “I remember you mentioned a while ago that you wanted to go on a ski resort vacation with your girlfriend during winter break? My family invested in a ski resort in the northern suburbs of Beicheng. I’ll get you two luxury passes tomorrow—stay as long as you want, all-inclusive, meals, lodging, and skiing.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Sheng Nan Zhou’s expression changed instantly. He shoved the other two aside with one hand each: “Brother Xiao, you’re my one and only brother. Tell me what dishes you want to make, and I’ll teach you step by step. I’ll make sure you become the sturdiest, warmest backup plan out there!”

“Can you stop mentioning the backup plan?” Chi Xiao’s head was pounding as he walked toward the fridge with his phone. “Something simple. Let’s see what ingredients we have first…”

…

In the living room, Ming Can leaned against the bar counter, less than ten meters away from the kitchen.

When she got tired of playing on her phone and looked up to rest her eyes, she faintly heard more than one male voice coming from inside the kitchen. The sound was muffled by the sliding door, making it hard to discern what they were saying.

Curious, Ming Can walked over slowly and gently pulled the door open.

Chi Xiao was in the middle of preparing a dish of steamed chicken wings. He had just finished mixing the marinade for the wings and was holding up his phone to show Sheng Nan Zhou whether the color looked right.

The kitchen was noisy—the rice cooker was steaming, the stew pot was boiling, and the range hood was humming. His roommates were loudly giving instructions, and Chi Xiao didn’t notice the kitchen door opening or the soft footsteps entering.

“What are you doing?”

A sweet, clear female voice suddenly came from beside him. Chi Xiao froze, instinctively turning to look at her.

The phone’s rear camera was on, and in the video, the girl’s stunningly beautiful face flashed by for a brief moment.

The boys on the other end of the video immediately erupted, shouting in unison: “Sister-in-law, hello!!!”

Chi Xiao reacted quickly, turning off the screen the moment they started howling. But he was a fraction too late, and Ming Can caught a word or two: “Law… floor what?”

“Sweeping the floor,” Chi Xiao replied calmly. “They’re doing a big cleanup before leaving campus.”

Ming Can raised her eyebrow. “You’re cooking while video-calling them to watch them clean?”

Chi Xiao: “Yeah, just participating remotely.”

Ming Can: “…”

Chi Xiao: “I need to grab something.”

He clutched his phone, quickly walked to the entryway, opened the cabinet, and pulled out a Bluetooth earbud from his coat pocket. After putting one in his ear, he returned to the kitchen and said to Ming Can, “It’ll take about half an hour before everything’s ready.”

“Oh, okay.”

Although Chi Xiao didn’t explicitly say it, the subtext seemed to be that he wanted her to leave. Ming Can had only been curious and came in to take a look—she had no intention of helping out. In her eyes, Chi Xiao knew how to cook, while she was clearly the type to make things worse by trying to help. So, she gracefully retreated.

Just as Chi Xiao put in the Bluetooth earbud, his roommates’ excited barking came through one after another, making his eardrums ache—

“Holy crap, that girl is stunning! She looks like she’s from the film academy—not just gorgeous, but she’s got this incredible aura. Definitely campus queen material. Brother Xiao, you’re not wrong to be her backup plan!”

“Not just not wrong—being able to cook at her place and then eat with her later? That’s the dream!”

“I’m so curious. Even if you’re the backup plan, she’s already let you into her house. There’s gotta be some progress, right? Have you kissed? Held hands?”

…

The kitchen suddenly felt even hotter, and beads of sweat formed on Chi Xiao’s temples. He had the urge to throw his earbuds and phone straight into the trash.

On the living room sofa, after worrying for what felt like an eternity, Miaomiao finally decided to abandon even the slightest hope in his dad’s cooking skills. His little life was at stake, after all.

“Mom…” He sidled up to Ming Can, whining. “I want to eat the black truffle pizza from Dada’s. Can you buy it for me?”

Ming Can: “Just wait a little longer. Dinner’s almost ready.”

Miaomiao: “Mom, I just remembered something. I’ve had Dad’s cooking before, and I remember it wasn’t very good.”

“Really?” Ming Can was surprised. “But he said he knows how to cook.”

He’s lying to you! He actually doesn’t know anything and is just putting on a show in front of you!

Miaomiao didn’t want to expose his dad’s secret, so he just said, “Anyway, I don’t really like it.”

Ming Can thought for a moment. It was already late, well past Miaomiao’s usual dinner time, and there was no telling when Chi Xiao would finish cooking. It wasn’t good to let the child go hungry for so long.

“Alright, I’ll get you a small one,” Ming Can relented.

Miaomiao: “Get a big one, a super big one!”

Who knows? All three of them might end up relying on that pizza to survive!

Ming Can shook her head. “You can eat it yourself. I’m not hungry.”

Miaomiao heard his mom’s thoughts. She said she was a little hungry too, but she needed to save her appetite for the meal Dad was cooking.

Miaomiao was surprised. In the past, most of the thoughts he’d overheard from his mom were complaints about Dad or rejection of him. But today, Dad and Mom were on the same side, both saving their appetites for each other’s cooking.

This was actually easy to understand. As parents, no matter how strained their relationship, they could still empathize with each other. Ming Can and Chi Xiao were now in the same boat, both learning how to be parents for a child who had fallen from the sky. While Ming Can was trying her best to offload as much work onto Chi Xiao as possible to make her own life easier, the time and effort Chi Xiao was putting in for their child—and the results of that effort—couldn’t just be wasted.

The Dada Pizza store was close to home, and Ming Can placed the order on her phone. It arrived in less than twenty minutes.

Miaomiao ate a slice of pizza, filling his stomach halfway, before Ming Can put the rest away in the cupboard. She also reminded him not to let it slip during dinner.

Another ten minutes passed, and Chef Chi Xiao finally slid open the kitchen door, ready to serve the meal.

There were three dishes and one soup, all very simple and beginner-friendly: scrambled eggs with tomatoes, oyster sauce lettuce, steamed chicken wings, and a corn and pork rib soup.

Ming Can glanced at the spread and couldn’t help but feel like they were having a vegetarian meal tonight.

The household’s grocery budget was generous, and Auntie Zhang always bought fresh seafood to store in the fridge. Before today, their dinner table would always feature at least one dish with ingredients costing four figures or more—fish, shrimp, crab, or other exotic delicacies. So, the four dishes on the table tonight felt… underwhelming.

Ming Can suppressed her thoughts and was the first to pick up her chopsticks, taking a bite of the scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

“…”

Weird.

“How is it?”

Chi Xiao sat across from her. After being cooped up in the kitchen for so long, his pale skin had taken on a warm flush. He looked like he had just run a 3,000-meter race, exhausted but holding it together, waiting for the judge’s verdict.

“…A bit bland,” Ming Can commented.

If she were to be brutally honest, the dish could only be described in five words: It won’t kill you.

“Really?” Chi Xiao stood up. “I’ll go add some seasoning.”

While cooking, he had been worried about making the flavors too strong, so he thought it would be safer to keep it light. After all, if it was too bland, they could always add more seasoning later.

He went into the kitchen, grabbed some salt, MSG, and sugar, and added a bit of each. Then he mixed it with a serving spoon. “Is this better?”

Ming Can felt that adding seasoning after cooking was a bit odd, but since she had no experience in the kitchen, she wasn’t sure if this was normal. If Chi Xiao was doing it, it must be fine, right?

Miaomiao, who had been quietly observing, silently hugged his rice bowl and scooted a little farther away from the unfortunate scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

After the seasoning was added, Ming Can took another bite. It tasted even weirder.

It felt like the food and the seasoning were completely separate entities. The other dishes had the same issue—different flavors clashing in her mouth, anything but harmonious. That said, it wasn’t exactly inedible. As long as she didn’t chew too much or dwell on the weirdness, she could force it down.

Children’s taste buds are delicate, and even though Miaomiao adored his dad, he couldn’t bring himself to choke down the strange food like his mom. He sat at the table for only five minutes, had a few sips of soup, and a couple of bites of rice before declaring he was full and bolting back to the living room.

“You’re done already? Alright then.” Ming Can followed him, found a Spanish cartoon for him to watch, and encouraged him to learn the language while enjoying the show.

Back in the dining room, the two of them sat across from each other in silence.

Chi Xiao didn’t say anything. He had a mouth, and he knew exactly how the food tasted.

It was kind of amazing, really. He seemed to have created dishes that were passable at first bite but became increasingly unpleasant the more you ate.

Even though his friends had taught him with great care, he was the only one actually doing the cooking in the kitchen—a complete novice. By the time he carried the dishes out, he had already braced himself for the worst: Miaomiao taking one bite and bursting into tears from how bad it tasted, Ming Can glaring at him and demanding to know if he even knew how to cook…

The fact that she was still sitting across from him, continuing to eat, felt like a tremendous act of mercy.

The sound of the cartoon from the living room TV was loud, and it was clearly audible in the dining room.

To be honest, Chi Xiao wasn’t feeling too bad at the moment. Hearing the characters in the cartoon arguing, their dialogue was actually pretty funny, and he let out a soft chuckle.

“You understand it?” Ming Can suddenly asked. “You understand Spanish? That’s Miaomiao’s second language.”

Chi Xiao: “Yeah. My second language is Spanish too.”

“Mine too,” Ming Can said, surprised. “No wonder Miaomiao is learning Spanish.”

Because both his parents’ second language was Spanish, he had started learning it even before he traveled back in time.

Perhaps feeling that her comment had made the atmosphere a bit awkward, Ming Can suddenly cleared her throat, lifted her chin, and said to Chi Xiao in fluent Spanish:

“The food you made is terrible.”

Chi Xiao looked up and saw her beautiful face tilted slightly upward, a mix of arrogance and pride in her expression. The curve of her long lashes carried an air of confidence, like a haughty young lady mercilessly criticizing the dinner he had prepared.

“I’m sorry,” Chi Xiao replied in Spanish. “I’ll work harder to improve in the future.”

His voice was low, shedding its usual coldness and becoming gentle and submissive. It carried a slight magnetic roughness, as if lightly brushed by sandpaper, and when he spoke in a foreign language, it sounded unexpectedly sexy.

As it flowed into Ming Can’s ears, her heart inexplicably itched, and her eyelashes fluttered slightly.

Two Chinese people communicating in Spanish felt like exchanging a secret code only the other could understand. Even though they were sitting face-to-face, it added a sense of whispering.

He said he would work hard to improve.

Ming Can was somewhat surprised. This guy, who appeared so cold and aloof on the outside, was unexpectedly obedient.

However, she liked being pampered, so she nodded with a touch of pride and replied in Spanish, “Keep it up.”

She stopped eating halfway through the meal, put down her chopsticks, and took the initiative to clean up.

But halfway through, a call from home interrupted her. Ming Can picked up her phone and went into the study to answer it.

The caller was her father, Ming Zheng. There was a high-profile business banquet next week, and he wanted Ming Can to attend with him.

Ming Zheng made it clear over the phone that the collaboration between the Ming and Chi families was already in motion, and the Chi family would also be attending the banquet, with the second son of the Chi family confirmed to be present.

The subtext was obvious: with the collaboration underway, the arranged marriage needed to be further solidified. Ming Can and Chi Yao were expected to meet at the banquet next week to foster their relationship.

Hearing this, Ming Can couldn’t help but cover her forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

Given her current situation, how could she possibly develop any feelings for Chi Yao?

Chi Yao’s older brother was currently at her house helping her take care of their child!

“No, Dad,” Ming Can refused. “I happen to have something on that day. The orchestra is hosting a winter concert, and I’m the lead violinist. I can’t miss it.”

Ming Zheng: “It’s on the same day?”

Ming Can: “Yes.”

Actually, it wasn’t.

Ming Zheng: “Can you try to reschedule the concert? This banquet is quite important. You can always participate in the concert next time. Besides, I thought you hadn’t been playing much recently?”

Ming Zheng felt a bit puzzled. In his impression, his daughter, even if she didn’t have the best relationship with the family, would always seriously consider matters involving family interests. It was rare for her to outright refuse like this.

Ming Can: “…”

In the end, neither of them convinced the other, and the call ended on a sour note.

After leaving the study, Ming Can ran into Chi Xiao, who was being pulled by Miaomiao to visit his bedroom.

Their eyes met in mid-air, and the frustration in Ming Can’s gaze was unmistakable. Chi Xiao instinctively slowed his pace, about to say something, when Ming Can bent down and pinched Miaomiao’s cheek. “Sweetie, can you play by yourself for a bit?”

After straightening up, Ming Can’s gaze landed directly on Chi Xiao. “Senior, I need to talk to you.”

Since they were now co-parenting starting today, there was something messy and unavoidable that needed to be laid out clearly.

Miaomiao obediently ran into his room to play, while Ming Can led Chi Xiao to the floor-to-ceiling window in the balcony. She gently cracked open the tightly shut window, letting the cold outdoor air seep in to clear her tangled thoughts.

Chi Xiao stood beside her, his tall and upright figure reflected on the glass, towering over the girl in front of him by a full twenty centimeters, if not more.

“Senior,” Ming Can began hesitantly, “there’s something I’m not sure if you’ve heard about.”

“What is it?”

Ming Can took a deep breath, her crimson lips pressing together tightly before she spilled it all out. “My father and your family have been discussing a collaboration recently. To solidify the family ties, there might also be an arranged marriage. Coincidentally, my father and Mrs. Li, the wife of Chi Yanyue, are old acquaintances. They’ve talked privately, and both sides are interested. The arranged marriage would be between…”

“You and Chi Yao,” Chi Xiao said, his eyes lowered, his gaze dark and subdued. “I know.”

“You know?” Ming Can felt a bit relieved. “Before today, I had already met Mr. Chi and Mrs. Li at the Xinghe Bay 10th Anniversary Celebration. Now, they might want to push forward with this… collaboration.”

Chi Xiao: “The call you just took was about this?”

“Yes. I thought I should keep you in the loop. No other meaning, just letting you know that your brother and I have a… potential engagement.” Ming Can spoke calmly. “There’s a banquet next week, and my father wants me to attend to continue the matchmaking with Chi Yao. Given that I now have Miaomiao to take care of, I really don’t have the energy to deal with…”

“Don’t go.”

The living room wasn’t quiet—the TV was still on, playing a noisy Spanish cartoon. Chi Xiao’s voice was brief and cold, barely leaving his throat before it was drowned out, carried away by the wind.

Ming Can was taken aback, as if she hadn’t heard him clearly. “What did you say?”

“I said,” Chi Xiao looked down at her, his tone cool, each word clear and deliberate, “don’t go to the banquet next week.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a gust of cold wind rushed in through the narrow gap, whistling sharply between them.