Chapter 11

Joe Yumian slowly buried the lower half of his face into his loose scarf, leaving only a pair of dark eyes fixed intently on Jiang Caifu.

The heat in his gaze was almost tangible. Jiang Caifu tried to play dead, but she could feel it burning into her back like needles.

After a long pause, she couldn’t hold back anymore and glared back at him. “You again? Why does it feel like you’re everywhere?”

Joe Yumian’s voice came out muffled from behind the scarf. “Does this road belong to you?”

Standing off to the side, Lu Jianlan, a spectator to this exchange, could sense the subtle tension in the air. She whispered, “What’s going on here…?”

Jiang Caifu: “My ex-boyfriend.”

Lu Jianlan inhaled sharply, immediately realizing she shouldn’t stick around. “Should I go grab a milk tea or something?”

Jiang Caifu thought for a moment and said, “I want a taro boba with extra toppings.”

Lu Jianlan made an OK sign and turned to leave without hesitation.

Now alone together…

Jiang Caifu’s upward gaze met Joe Yumian’s downward one. Their eyes locked in silence for a moment, and she suddenly felt uneasy. She regretted letting Lu Jianlan leave—alone, she felt at a clear disadvantage.

“So, why are you here?”

Joe Yumian couldn’t understand why she always treated him like an enemy, bristling with thorns and loaded barbs in her words.

It made him feel as if he were the one who had dumped her.

He handed her a small bag. “This is yours. Your umbrella.”

Jiang Caifu took it, slightly delayed in her response. She finally remembered that she had lent him an umbrella the last time they ran into each other at the supermarket.

“You came all this way just to return an umbrella?” She set the bag aside carelessly.

It was an old umbrella she had used for a long time—no need to inspect it.

Joe Yumian’s reply was ambiguous. “Something like that.”

“But how did you know I’d be here?” Jiang Caifu scratched her head in confusion. A chilling thought suddenly crossed her mind. “You didn’t, like, implant some GPS tracker in the things you bought me, did you?”

She immediately glanced warily at her coat and shoes—both gifts he had bought her during their third year in college. They were good quality, and she hadn’t worn them often, so they had lasted.

Joe Yumian was speechless. “Even if you dislike me, you don’t have to imagine me as some lawless criminal, right?”

Fair enough—he wouldn’t dare do such a thing.

“Then how did you find me?” Jiang Caifu continued her mental rabbit trail. “Do you secretly have a burner account stalking my friend list, watching my posts all the time?”

After all, just earlier, she had posted on her feed that she and Lu Jianlan were at A University’s back gate.

Joe Yumian: “…”

He didn’t pursue the topic further. Instead, his long fingers pointed toward the griddle. “I’d like a family-sized jianbing guozi.”

Jiang Caifu crossed her arms, tempted to outright refuse his order. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. “Wait for Jianlan to come back. This is her stand.”

Joe Yumian raised an eyebrow. “You can’t make one?”

Jiang Caifu shot him a surprised glance. “Didn’t you once say you never wanted to eat anything I cooked again? That it lacked color, aroma, and flavor—and you’d rather cook yourself?”

She felt a little guilty as she brought it up.

When they were together, she had deliberately sabotaged her own cooking. Though she could make passable meals, she hated the oily mess of the kitchen. So when Joe Yumian had begged her to cook for him, she intentionally overcooked or under-seasoned everything to discourage him.

Back then, Joe Yumian had eagerly anticipated her cooking but ended up forcing down every bite with a grimace.

“Let’s just eat out from now on,” he had said seriously after gulping down several glasses of water. “You have no talent for cooking. Don’t push yourself. No color, no aroma, no flavor—my cooking’s better.”

Jiang Caifu had felt secretly proud of her cleverness in dodging the kitchen. But his words had stung.

“What? Do you think you’re a natural-born chef? You’re only slightly above average at best! If you’re so great, cook me a full spread of restaurant-quality dishes!”

She’d had plenty of his home cooking by then.

Joe Yumian’s meals were simple and ordinary, with no standout features except for their decent presentation. But to Jiang Caifu, his cooking reminded her of the occasional meals her mom made. Whenever she felt homesick, she’d ask him to make her favorite dishes as a stand-in.

“Besides, it was my first time cooking! Isn’t it normal to mess up? Were you perfect your first time in the kitchen?” She had argued back confidently.

Joe Yumian had calmly taken another sip of water. “The dinner I made for your birthday last semester was my first time cooking. You went for seconds.”

Their rice bowls were five inches wide—going for seconds meant she’d enjoyed the meal.

Jiang Caifu had fallen silent, awkwardly scratching her nose before making a bold demand. “Since you’re so talented, don’t waste it! Tomorrow, I want sweet-and-sour ribs and sautéed eggplant. You make them.”

Joe Yumian had set down his empty glass and snorted. “I must owe you something from a past life.”

He’d regretted his earlier insistence on testing her love by asking her to cook—he’d only made more work for himself.

From that point on, Jiang Caifu never set foot in the kitchen again.

…

In the slanting rays of soft sunlight, Joe Yumian’s expression subtly shifted, recalling the trauma of her disastrous cooking.

He parted his lips, still trying to excuse her failures. “You—”

“Back then, the dishes you made were pretty challenging. It’s normal for them not to turn out well, but making a pancake shouldn’t be that hard, right?”

Hearing this, Jiang Caifu couldn’t help but laugh, unsure if it was because of his misplaced encouragement.

Still, she had no desire to get her hands dirty. Something told her that once she gave in, it would never stop.

“Not in the mood to make one for you,” she brushed him off and started playing with her fingers, admiring her smooth nails and wondering if she should get a manicure soon.

Joe Yumian seemed to have expected this answer. Without any change in expression, he replied with a simple, “Oh.”

Then he too fell silent, staring at the buttons on his coat as if lost in thought.

Neither of them made a move to break the awkward quiet, until a gust of wind swept past Jiang Caifu’s face.

She shrank her neck back and quickly pushed her disheveled bangs back into place.

“Ugh,” she muttered under her breath, snapping Joe Yumian out of his daze.

He raised his gaze to her exposed neck and frowned, mistakenly thinking her irritation was due to the cold wind.

“Serves you right. Who told you to go out wearing so little?”

Jiang Caifu instinctively touched her neck, feeling the chill against her fingertips. “And how is that any of your business? Don’t start spouting nonsense—I won’t show any affection for an ex-boyfriend.”

Joe Yumian pursed his lips, muttering a barely audible complaint to himself, “As if you were ever affectionate to begin with.”

Remembering how he always ended up on the losing side of their arguments, he couldn’t help feeling indignant.

Pulling off his scarf, he raised his voice, “You’re the one who always has the sharper tongue, okay?”

Jiang Caifu crossed her arms and shot back louder, “That’s because you start it every time! Ever heard of self-defense?”

Her fierce tone instantly made Joe Yumian suppress his own anger out of instinct. He tightened his lips and gave her a look of quiet accusation.

Jiang Caifu caught the aggrieved look in his eyes and felt an odd, complicated emotion bubbling inside her.

But before she could figure out what it was, Joe Yumian stepped forward and wrapped his scarf around her neck.

The sudden closeness startled her, and the warmth of the scarf against her cold skin made her pause. She glanced down to see their shadows blending into one blurry, oversized form.

She froze on the spot.

Given their current relationship, this was an uncomfortably intimate gesture.

What she should do now was push him away and sternly tell him to maintain a safe distance from his ex-girlfriend…

But the more urgent the situation, the more her brain tended to short-circuit, causing her to say something entirely irrelevant.

“You were just talking with that scarf on. Did you get your saliva on it?”

Joe Yumian froze, his hands stiffening mid-motion. When he met her deliberately disgusted look, his expression turned dark and fierce.

“I shouldn’t have bothered with you. I should’ve let you freeze!”

With that, he tugged on the scarf’s loose ends and tied it tightly. Jiang Caifu immediately felt short of breath.

“I’m not freezing, but you’re going to strangle me,” she croaked.

Joe Yumian’s hand paused in mid-air, trembling slightly. He sighed and loosened the scarf.

The moment she was free, Jiang Caifu took several steps back, retreating to what she deemed a safe social distance. She looked down and examined the scarf.

…Something felt off.

She adjusted it to make it even looser, but the dull pressure in her chest didn’t ease.

Too weird.

She stared absentmindedly at her shoes, lost in thought.

Thankfully, Lu Jianlan soon returned with two cups of milk tea, breaking the awkward standoff. Jiang Caifu immediately felt relieved.

Lu Jianlan, however, looked far from pleased.

Seeing Joe Yumian still lingering by the stand, her face fell.

“You’re still here? If you two have so much to talk about, could you take it somewhere else?”

She just wanted to peacefully run her food stall. Why did this have to happen?

Jiang Caifu grabbed her taro boba and popped in the straw. “He wants a pancake, a ‘family special.’”

Lu Jianlan turned to Joe Yumian, her gaze sharp. “Oh, really?”

Joe Yumian glanced at Jiang Caifu, who was too focused on her drink to spare him a glance. Feeling frustrated, he muttered, “Yeah…”

Still unwilling to give up, he looked back at her and asked, “Can’t you really make one for me?”

Jiang Caifu nearly choked on her milk tea.

“Why haven’t you given up yet? You’re unbelievable!”

Annoyed, she slammed her cup down and decided to just get this over with. She grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and told him, “Pay first. I don’t trust you not to skip out.”

“Skip out?!”

Joe Yumian was incredulous. He knew she didn’t want to make him anything, but he didn’t expect her to insult him outright.

“That’s way too harsh!” he protested, clearly offended.

Jiang Caifu slipped on the gloves and rolled her eyes at him, her tone unapologetic and confrontational—something that would have gotten her complaints in any other shop. “Buy it or don’t.”

Joe Yumian’s chest heaved with anger. His frustration was palpable as he scanned the QR code, jabbing at his phone with visible force.

“Paid,” he spat out gruffly.

Lu Jianlan, glancing at her phone out of habit, did a double take when she saw the amount.

“Wait, this can’t be right…”

Hearing this, Jiang Caifu leaned over to take a look at the transferred amount, raising an eyebrow.

Lu Jianlan sighed. “It’s just a pancake, dude. You transferred eight thousand bucks? If you want to show off, can’t you pick a more high-end setting for it?”

What an absolute nutcase, she thought. She really wanted to grab Jiang Caifu and make a run for it.

Jiang Caifu sneered. “Just eight thousand? If you’ve got the guts, make it eighty thousand!”

Joe Yumian, as usual, was easily provoked by her simple taunts. With a fake smile, he whipped out his phone again and quickly scanned the QR code. “Who do you think you’re looking down on?!”

A few seconds later, Lu Jianlan’s phone pinged again, signaling another five-figure transfer.

Watching these two, who were acting so childish they might as well return to elementary school, the only adult in the room, Lu Jianlan, wiped her face in exasperation.

“If I were running a scam, clients like you would be my dream.”

She then looked at the rapidly growing balance in her account, sighed reluctantly, and turned to Jiang Caifu. “Should I transfer this money to you, so you can give it back to him?”

“Why give it back? He’s got money to burn—what a sucker,” Jiang Caifu replied, meeting Joe Yumian’s gaze with a smirk. Speaking slowly and clearly, she added, “Wouldn’t it be better to take this money and hit the club tonight? We could order some male models—ten or eight of them—and line them up in front of us…”

Before she could finish, Joe Yumian exploded.

“Take my money to order male models?! Jiang Caifu, have you completely lost your conscience?!”

Jiang Caifu chuckled coldly.

“Yep, and you’re the one who ate it.”