Thirteenth Meow

“Be good…?”

Sitting on the sofa in his own home, as soon as He Yunzhou put down his phone, he heard Shu Ran butt in and repeat his unconscious appeasing sentence beside him with a smile but not a smile.

“Why didn’t I know you were so sappy before?” Shu Ran winked at He Yunzhou and said with a smile.

He Yunzhou’s face heated up and he almost dropped his phone.

Facing Shu Ran, he couldn’t really tell the other party anyway. As if demons and gods were at work, he was now using a grown living man as a substitute for his dead cat and feeding him. After a long time, he accidentally brought of coaxing the cat when he spoke.

What’s even more unfortunate is that He Yunzhou is still accustomed to using voice input method. Just now, he had a momentary brain twitching and added the usual “be good” when coaxing Guaji, which was also truthfully entered by the voice input method into the text message to Huo Zheng.

“Didn’t you just rummage through the refrigerator? Found what you want to drink so quickly?” He Yunzhou instinctively avoided Shu Ran’s probing eyes and stiffly attempted to divert the topic.

“Mm, my stomach is not good lately, so I just want to drink some beer—”

Shu Ran shook the beer in her hand and said with a smile. Halfway through her sentence, she suddenly raised her eyebrow and looked closely at the bottle of beer, followed by a gasp, “Wow! Junior He, you’re rich now ah. The beer at home has been upgraded.”

Only then did He Yunzhou notice what Shu Ran was holding was the beer Huo Zheng had sent over earlier.

It was some time ago that He Yunzhou made a German-style roast pork knuckle. Huo Zheng praised his pork knuckle to heaven but strangely disliked the beer He Yunzhou bought at random in the small supermarket downstairs. Halfway through the meal, Huo Zheng directly made a phone call and it didn’t take long to see an assistant-like person respectfully delivered a small case of beer to He Yunzhou’s door.

He Yunzhou isn’t good at drinking. The small case of beer had only a few bottles left at the end. He Yunzhou stuffed them into the corner of the refrigerator. He didn’t think that Shu Ran would come, so he just directly turned these two bottles of beer out.

“That’s just the beer that my friend left here before…”

He Yunzhou explained. Shu Ran’s eyes unexpectedly lit up after hearing his answer, and immediately asked smoothly, “This friends shouldn’t be the Mr. ‘Be Good’ ah, right?”

Damn, the topic accidentally returned to Huo Zheng.

He Yunzhou was upset in his heart, smiled at Shu Ran awkwardly, and replied as if it was.

If the person sitting on the sofa, carefree like a good buddy and gossiping with him wasn’t Shu Ran, He Yunzhou would’ve already explained everything frankly.

It’s just a slip of the tongue, nothing else at all.

That person? That person is just a friend who occasionally comes over to dinner ah.

You really think too much.

……

Anything is fine, just say a few random words to solve the current awkward situation.

However, He Yunzhou couldn’t really explain too much.

Because at this moment, he’s facing Shu Ran—the woman he’s been secretly in love with for many, many years.

And Shu Ran also likes women.

As early as when they became friends, Shu Ran had already bluntly stated her sexuality to He Yunzhou, and she also particularly clearly drew insurmountable boundaries for He Yunzhou.

[Junior He, you’re really a good person, and I don’t hate you or anything. It’s just that you, an ordinary male and I, a steel lily,^[1]lesbianare prone to accidents if we’re intimate^[2]to whisper sweet nothings to one another; to be very much in loveand go down like this… Hey, I’m mainly here to prevent the problem before it happens. I’m afraid that when the time comes, you won’t be able to hold it and hurt your heart…]

At that time, Shu Ran might have also noticed something, and when He Yunzhou wanted to get closer to her, she jokingly said it to him in this way. 

Shu Ran in college was so beautiful and eye-catching, just like her name, like a raging flame.^[3]The Rán 燃 in her name means to burn/igniteEven if she had been out of the closet in front of everyone, she still couldn’t resist some delusional moths, pursuing her like moths flying into the flame. Shu Ran was so annoyed that she simply kept her distance from all men from the beginning.

As for He Yunzhou, the reason why he was able to stay in Shu Ran’s circle of friends and became a safe haven for her when she was distressed and frustrated was that he lied to Shu Ran.

He told Shu Ran that he, like her, could only fall in love with the same sex.

In order to make up this lie, he even pulled his former best friend into the water and acted together.

He Yunzhou thought that his botched lie would probably be punctured soon, but he didn’t expect that after so many years, Shu Ran would have believed it all along.

“… If you have any chance of falling in love, don’t just let it go.”

He Yunzhou was still secretly struggling with himself, not knowing how to answer Shu Ran, but her words suddenly sank in his ears.

He raised his eyes to look at the other with some surprise, and the unnaturally brilliant smile on Shu Ran’s face had gradually dissipated. 

“You finally have someone…hiss. I can see that your relationship with Mr. ‘Be Good’ is not ordinary, so don’t rack your brains there to think of excuses to put me off.”

Shu Ran unceremoniously snapped open the beer, grunted, and poured a large mouthful down in her throat, then followed by a long burp.

“For so many years, you haven’t found someone new after you broke up with Ouyang. I’ve been worried that you wouldn’t be able to get out…”

“Shu Ran…”

As soon as he heard Shu Ran mention that name, He Yunzhou’s eyelids jumped. He subconsciously wanted to interrupt the other’s words. Fortunately, Shu Ran only seemed to mention that person in passing, and didn’t dwell on him too much.

“If you really have something with the other party, hurry up and don’t delay. People’s feelings are most likely to change, no one knows how it will turn out in the end…”

Having said all the words, He Yunzhou doesn’t need to guess. What Shu Ran was really talking about was actually between herself and her lover Liang Mengmeng.

Shu Ran and Liang Mengmeng have been together before He Yunzhou appeared. But after so many years of going around, they still had a big fight for three days and a small fight for two days, and finally broke up, reconciled, then broke up.

It’s only natural that every time Shu Ran and Liang Mengmeng broke up, Shu Ran will find He Yunzhou to confide in thoroughly, and even if He Yunzhou is hurt like a knife being twisted in his heart, he’s still an empathetic, gentle, and considerate listener best friend on the surface. It was until two years ago before the end of New Year, Shu Ran broke the cauldrons and sink the boats,^[4]to cut off one’s means of retreatfollowed Liang Mengmeng to elope to the United States in spite of everything. It was said that she was going to get married there. He Yunzhou thought that he could finally slowly get out of his secret love for Shu Ran. 

Unexpectedly, Shu Ran finally returned to the country.

Shu Ran, who was sitting on the sofa, gulping down the bottle of beer in her hand, followed by opening another bottle, her eyes gradually straightened.

The previous smile and cheerfulness was like broken shards of glass, peeling off her body piece by piece.

“I also know it’s my fault but I still can’t control it at all. Let me tell you, Mengmeng and I are probably screwed this time… I may not be able to live anymore…”

Hearing Shu Ran’s gradual incoherent murmurs, He Yunzhou’s movements stiffened. He secretly inhaled and forcibly calmed the hidden pain in his heart. When he looked back at Shu Ran again, he was still calm as usual. 

“Did you already drink before you came?” He Yunzhou asked with a frown.

When he saw Shu Ran just now, he was full of fright and didn’t care about anything else. It wasn’t until this time that He Yunzhou slowly noticed the faint smell of alcohol under Shu Ran’s heavy perfume.

Shu Ran raised her head and gave He Yunzhou a twisted smile. “Of course, I drank ah, otherwise, what should I take to stabilize my emotions.”

Without waiting for He Yunzhou to speak, she blankly said again, “… I want to eat braised prawns served with wine.”^[5]Picture below

He Yunzhou stood in place and secretly sorted out his emotions before he could barely speak rationally.

“What eat braised prawns? I’ll stew you some soup and drink whatever you want. You’re not a little girl anymore and I don’t know how to take good care of your stomach—” 

“Classmate He… Why aren’t you a woman? If you were a woman, I would’ve dumped Liang Mengmeng and left with you…”^[6]T/N: I feel so sad for HYZ. My heart…

Shu Ran was already immersed in alcohol, and her speech became more and more irregular.

But it was just one sentence that made He Yunzhou almost unable to breathe.

After another while, Shu Ran covered her face and said to He Yunzhou, “Don’t look at me, ok? I’m going to cry loudly for a while, my makeup will be blown, and I don’t want you to see my ugly face.”

“Good…” 

He Yunzhou also didn’t want Shu Ran to notice that his expression was different, so he immediately turned and went to the kitchen.

He thought he would listen to Shu Ran’s cries in the kitchen, his heart hurt as if a knife were being twisted and his brain was blank. In the end, he could only stand dumbfounded in the corner where she couldn’t see him—as he had done many times in the past.

But when He Yunzhou reacted, he realized that he had mechanically started cooking. 

Nangua’s shrimp was blanched and dried. The shrimps head was cut off and were used to boil the shrimp oil. The curly and red shrimp body was wiped dry with kitchen tissue and sent to the oven. The hot air was turned on and was slowly roasted.

There were black-boned chicken in the refrigerator that He Yunzhou previously processed and packed before. He just need to take them out and simmer them slowly in a casserole. Take a few dried longan, cut them out into small bites with scissors, and slowly tear the yellowish dried out longan pulp. Put them in the chicken soup with ginger and red dates and let it cook for a while. The golden soup water is slowly tinged with a hint of sweetness.^[7]Picture below

The steam slowly soaked the air in the kitchen along with the boiling chicken soup. He Yunzhou was holding a wooden soup ladle in his hand, but found himself at a loss of what to do— 

The soup was obviously stewed, but the choking sound of Shu Ran in the living room didn’t subside.

Nangua slipped into the kitchen quietly, his soft but unusually fat body twirled around He Yunzhou’s ankle. The touch of the warm and supple fur made He Yunzhou abruptly return to his senses. 

He slowly squatted down and held Nangua to his chest for a while.

“It’s ok.” He said to Nangua, “It will be fine soon.”

Nangua raised its head slightly, and the fine fluffy fur on its forehead rubbed against He Yunzhou’s chin, then it made a loud gu lu^[8]rumbling of stomachsound.

……

“Ding Dong—”

At this moment, the doorbell rang.

He Yunzhou, who was still somewhat dumbfounded, heard the doorbell ring and opened it straight away.

He completely didn’t expect that the person outside the door would be Huo Zheng.

“Oh, so you’re home.” Huo Zheng lowered his eyebrows and narrowed his eyes, as he said to He Yunzhou with a calm face.

A strong smell of sweet chicken soup flowed out from He Yunzhou’s home which couldn’t be concealed.

“… Cooking at home?” The green-eyed man paused for a long time then faintly added a question.

---

The author has something to say:

Mr. Huo’s grievances degree: max+

---

Braised prawns served with wine:

Soup: