Ai Wentao knew that Zhou Zike liked to boss people around. Since there was no one else here, a specially chosen quiet place, he decided to indulge him.
“What do you want to order?” Ai Wentao handed over a thick stack of menus.
Zhou Zike immediately flipped to the drinks menu.
“Don’t be like this. Skipping a meal will leave you starving. Everything on this table is from this restaurant, specially ordered for you. At least have a few bites,” Ai Wentao hurriedly persuaded.
The beer arrived, and Zhou Zike started drinking silently. Xiao Ai could only accompany him. He had just returned from Singapore, having a belly full of herbal soup in the afternoon, feeling uncomfortable.
“Bro, you really won’t eat?” Ai Wentao asked. “What’s going on with you? You didn’t say anything and didn’t come back to China. Why did you suddenly sneak back?”
Zhou Zike said, “I don’t know.”
“Don’t say you don’t know,” Ai Wentao said. The smell of smoke clinging to Zhou Zike made him want to cough. “You came back without letting me know and stayed downstairs smoking all by yourself.”
Zhou Zike’s eyes were moist, stubbornly fixated on the glass in front of him. He kept swallowing, as if trying to force something down his throat.
“What’s wrong?” Xiao Ai kindly urged, “Did someone upset you? Your sister, your father, or maybe your manager?”
Zhou Zike shook his head.
“Don’t just shake your head. Say something,” Xiao Ai insisted.
Zhou Zike looked up at Ai Wentao and asked, “Why did you come back to China too?”
With just that glance, Xiao Ai’s face immediately turned red.
“Well, it’s because of my dad’s company…” Xiao Ai hurriedly explained, “With such a big group of people, I can’t be away from them even for a second—”
Zhou Zike continued drinking his beer. Ai Wentao rambled on, only realizing afterwards that Zhou Zike had shifted the topic back to himself.
“Don’t keep talking about me. Today, I came here mainly to talk about you,” Ai Wentao said.
“I don’t have much to say,” Zhou Zike replied.
“No, bro, what’s wrong with you? Did you fall into a pit while walking, or did you get halfway through flying and get stuck on a tree?” Ai Wentao felt frustrated. “Can’t we be more carefree? If there’s something on your mind, just say it. Don’t keep it to yourself. It really hurts to see you like this.”
Zhou Zike looked at him seriously and slowly said, “Thank you.”
Ai Wentao was taken aback.
“Okay, okay…” Ai Wentao helplessly ordered a few more bottles of beer for himself, “So, how’s Tang Zhen? Did you go see him?”
“Yeah,” Zhou Zike nodded.
Ai Wentao ordered a plate of fruits from outside and brought it over to eat for himself. It was already late, and he couldn’t eat a single bite of food, feeling uncomfortable with the smell of alcohol.
“So, how are you two doing in your relationship?” Ai Wentao asked. “Didn’t you ask why he attempted suicide?”
Zhou Zike replied, “What’s there to ask?”
“Don’t tell me it’s because of you that he attempted suicide,” Ai Wentao said. “You two were together for a while. If someone goes to such extremes, you should show more care and consideration. Don’t be like the last girl who cut her wrists multiple times, and you didn’t even bother to visit her once.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“Why is the sun so bright? What time is it…” Ai Wentao rubbed his eyes and felt aches and pains all over his body. As he rolled over, he realized that he had slept on the entrance floor for the entire night.
Dazed, Xiao Ai looked towards the living room at the end of the hallway. The dazzling sunlight revealed the ethereal wings of cranes on the thin window curtains, hovering and swaying in the air.
This was Zhou Zike’s apartment.
Xiao Ai walked inside and immediately noticed the host. The host didn’t fare any better than him, still wearing shoes and curled up, sleeping on a small couch despite his towering figure.
Mr. Zhou Shiyou hadn’t even arrived home that morning when his driver informed him that Mr. Ai had called and Zhou Zike had already returned home. “He said he overslept yesterday and didn’t hear the phone ringing.”
Mr. Zhou Shiyou responded with a grunt. The car followed the mountain road and slowly entered the gates of the Zhou family estate. As the car stopped, several young security guards approached to open the door. Mr. Zhou Shiyou stepped out of the car, leaning on his cane. He had only taken a few steps when someone informed him that a Mr. Cheng was visiting and waiting in the reception room.
Mr. Zhou Shiyou raised an eyebrow and, with the assistance of others, walked to the entrance of the reception room, where he glanced from a distance. Then he turned around, intending to leave.
“Uncle Zhou!” However, the other person spotted him immediately. With the sound of his leather shoes tapping the ground, he quickly walked over.
“Uncle Zhou, is Ziyuan at home?”
Mr. Zhou Shiyou looked back at the man, impeccably dressed in a fitted suit, meticulously groomed with his hair perfectly styled. Mr. Zhou Shiyou took a sniff, realizing that the man had even sprayed perfume.
“She’s not here,” he said, about to leave.
The man didn’t seem surprised by his answer at all. “Uncle Zhou, I was wrong. I know I’ve been completely out of line all this time. I came back from the United States specifically to bring Ziyuan back. I’ve realized that she’s the only person I truly love—”
Mr. Zhou Shiyou glanced at him. “Have you divorced?”
The man was taken aback. “The procedures will be finalized in a few months…”
“And the child?” Mr. Zhou Shiyou asked coldly.
The man’s forehead broke out in a sweat. “C-custody… goes to the mother…”
“Leave now and don’t come back,” Zhou Shiyou said, leaning on his cane, without even looking back, and walked away.
Early in the morning, Zhou Ziyuan immersed herself in the kitchen. Ai Wentao told her over the phone that despite ordering so many dishes yesterday, Zhou Zike didn’t eat a single bite. Instead, after getting drunk, he suddenly had the urge to eat “scallop soup with cloud shreds.” The cooks had already gone to sleep, but he insisted on waking them up to make it. However, after taking a sip, he refused to eat it.
“He said it was terrible, claimed that they couldn’t cook, and offended the cook who is my friend. Now I have to apologize to them,” Zhou Ziyuan muttered as she leaned on the kitchen counter, her face full of worry, staring at her tablet.
In front of her was the most popular online video tutorial she could find for “scallop soup with cloud shreds.” She had already replayed it at least five times, but she still couldn’t understand how to cut the “cloud shreds” properly.
“Hello, people,” the eccentric old man wearing brown glasses appeared again, standing in the center of the camera, imitating the dance moves of his idol as he said, “Welcome to the JingJing’s Kitchen, airing every night at ten. I’m your host, Zu Jing!”
Laughter erupted off-camera, and the camera shifted slightly to the right, revealing a young man standing beside the eccentric old man. He was wearing a simple T-shirt with an apron hanging around his neck, and two thin strings tied around his waist. At the moment, he was laughing along with the audience.
“Hello, everyone! Welcome to the TangTang’s Kitchen, airing every night at ten. Today, we have a special guest, our esteemed Zu Jing Laoshi,” the young man announced, and applause erupted from the audience. The camera zoomed in, capturing a close-up shot of him, not sparing any detail, from his forehead to the slight glimpse of his collarbone, even capturing each individual eyelash. The young man looked at the camera, suppressing a smile, and said, “Last month, Zu Jing Laoshi wrote several songs for us Mattias, so as a gesture of gratitude, the production team and I have decided to fulfill Zu Jing Laoshi’s long-standing wish!”
The man called Zu Jing replied, “So, you finally let me be the host. I’ve told you before, Tangtang Delicious Kitchen is a dead-end show. Women viewers won’t be interested!”
Tang Zhen laughed again. He seemed to be easily amused, unable to stop laughing once he started. His mouth, eyebrows, and eyes were all filled with laughter, making his eyes glisten, and even his ears seemed to be blushing.
Zu Jing raised his voice in the studio and asked, “What wish are you finally fulfilling for me?”
The audience laughed, and a staff member reminded him in a low voice, “Zu Jing Laoshi, the soup, the soup.”
The young man approached Zhou Ziyuan and noticed that she had a gloomy expression on her face. The knife in her hand and the clothes she was wearing were covered in pieces of soggy tofu.
“Although Zike doesn’t like Western food,” the young man chuckled with a furrowed brow, “you seem to be too impatient.”
Zhou Ziyuan explained that it was the only thing her picky brother had requested to eat.
“He wants to eat the scallop soup?”
“Scallop soup with cloud shreds.”
“I didn’t expect him to be health-conscious,” the young man remarked casually.
Zhou Ziyuan wore a pained expression on her face.
In the camera frame, the young man had already sliced a piece of tofu. With the knife, he flipped the thinly sliced tofu, while his other hand gently pressed it down.
His delicate and tender hands, pressing on the tofu, made people suspect that he might cut his own hand in the next second. He pressed each slice securely, and the eccentric old man stood by, hands behind his back, fully focused, not daring to breathe. The young man lowered his head, lifted the knife, and started cutting from the edges. With incredibly fast and steady movements, he sliced the white tofu into fine pieces.
At first glance, the cut tofu seemed like a shapeless paste. But when it was scattered into a small porcelain bowl filled with cold water and gently stirred with chopsticks, it slowly transformed into delicate strands, resembling wisps of clouds.
“Whoever marries Xiao Tang in the future will be lucky,” Zu Jing exclaimed with infinite emotion towards the girls in the audience.
Tang Zhen began slicing dried scallops one by one, still cutting them into shreds. After finishing, he looked up with a smile. Beads of sweat glistened on his fair forehead, and the camera captured the moment he winked at the audience, accompanied by cheers and screams.
“To be this good at only nineteen,” Zhou Ziyuan read the description beneath the video, which mentioned “Tangtang’s Signature Dish” and “Nineteen years old.” She became even more disheartened, hanging her head low.
The young man glanced at Zhou Ziyuan and then at the pitiful pieces of tofu. He said, “Knife skills require practice. You can start by learning with small pieces of tofu.”
Zhou Ziyuan kept her head down, her voice as soft as a mosquito’s buzz, explaining that she had indeed started by cutting small pieces.
“Have you tried putting the tofu in the refrigerator to freeze it?” the young man suggested.
“Wouldn’t that affect the texture?” Zhou Ziyuan asked.
“For now, don’t worry about the texture. Just focus on learning how to-”
“I can’t cook Chinese food at all,” Zhou Ziyuan suddenly put down the knife. Slowly, she leaned against the edge of the kitchen counter, her arms wrapped around her head. “I only know how to cook Western food that none of you like.”
The young man lowered his head, looking at her while half-crouching in front of her.
“I didn’t say I don’t like it,” the young man said softly.
“But Zike doesn’t like it.”
“It’s okay, take it slow.”
The tablet on the kitchen counter remained on, with no one rewinding or replaying the video. As one video ended, the next one automatically started. Zhou Ziyuan kept mentioning “Zike” repeatedly. When she heard someone else calling out the name Zhou Zike, she froze.
She thought she had misheard, but when she took the tablet and looked at the screen again, the person on it was not her brother Zhou Zike.
“Didn’t you say he wouldn’t participate in this kind of program?” Zhou Ziyuan asked.
“I don’t know,” Zhou Ziyuan looked bewildered, her eyes flickering.
The young man chuckled as the camera swept across the faces of the people sitting on the stage. When it reached Zhou Zike, the young man said, “He’s wearing a poker face on TV too.”
The host evidently shared the same thought. The nineteen-year-old boy who had just been cooking in an apron had now transformed into a senior figure among Zhou Zike and his peers. Zhou Ziyuan glanced at the timestamp on the video description—it was from two years ago.
“You guys, raise your signs higher so I can see,” Tang Zhen held the microphone, sitting alone at the edge of the stage. Amidst the excited screams of the girls in the audience, he read out one by one, “Zhou Zike… Zhou Zike… Zike… Zhou…”
He jumped up and walked back while raising the microphone, asking, “Director, are all the audience members here today Zhou Zike’s fans?”
Laughter filled the studio, even the boys on stage were clutching their stomachs with laughter. Only Zhou Zike himself stared leisurely at Tang Zhen’s figure, as if Tang Zhen’s words were utterly boring to him.
“Are you all fans of Zhou Zike?” Tang Zhen asked the audience below. He was the sole host, and he had to keep talking non-stop. “Xiao Zhou has so many fans at such a young age. It’s truly envy-inducing.”
The girls in the audience immediately screamed, some calling out “Tangtang,” while others called out “A-zhen,” shouting and proclaiming their love for him.
The camera zoomed in, capturing Tang Zhen’s disdainful expression as he faced the lens. “Your love is too fickle,” he said.
Some laughed, while others exclaimed, “We love you! We really love you!”
Tang Zhen smiled and asked, “So if you had to choose between marrying me or him, whom would you choose?”
The girls in the audience shouted, “Both!”
“You can only pick one,” Tang Zhen pretended to be angry.
He extended the microphone towards the audience.
“Zike!” Suddenly, a passionate roar erupted from the far corner of the audience, shocking the entire venue.
The audience erupted like a boiling pot, bubbling with excitement. Tang Zhen burst into laughter, his shoulders shaking. Zhou Zike’s teammates had expressions of amusement on their faces, while Zhou Zike himself remained nonchalant. His gaze wandered around the audience for a while before settling back on Tang Zhen.
The intense, scorching lights on the studio ceiling made Tang Zhen sweat profusely. His shirt clung to his narrow waist, revealing a faint, powdery-white layer. Tang Zhen turned to look at the people on stage and said, “Everyone here today is Mrs. Zhou, and over there, sitting, is Mr. Zhou. Don’t you have anything to say?”
Zhou Zike looked at him, remaining silent.
Tang Zhen licked his lips, hesitating with the microphone. His throat was already a bit hoarse. He couldn’t let the atmosphere become awkward, but as the sole host, he blinked his moist eyes, as if even he didn’t know how to proceed.
“Mr. Zhou…” Tang Zhen started to say, contemplating his words.
“Mrs. Zhou,” Zhou Zike suddenly interjected.
Tang Zhen probably didn’t expect him to respond, and he laughed, saying, “Say something quickly.”
Zhou Zike looked down at the stage, his mouth twitched, as if he was smiling. “What do you want me to say?” he asked, looking at Tang Zhen.
Tang Zhen’s eyes brightened even more. He brushed his sweaty hair behind his ears and asked the audience, “What do you want him to say?”
“We want to hear him sing!” the voices from below shouted, “We want to hear him sing!”
After the sentence starting with “Don’t shake your head” there is some chinese text left.
Also, after “Don’t keep talking about me” the bame should be Xiao Ai.
oh thank you!