Please, Manage Your Chicken
Of course, Ling Li still opened the door and invited them inside in the end.
Ling Li went to the kitchen to check on the soup. Su Jingyang held Ah Xuan, who was still sniffling nonstop, and comforted him, while Ah Yi sat at the table and watched him with nothing better to do.
Ah Yi noticed how patient he was at comforting a child and said, “You’re doing a pretty competent job as an uncle.” Back then, seeing him look like he was fighting for the kid’s life, he assumed the child was his own. Turns out he wasn’t even married. That made sense. Who would be willing to marry such a stupid thing?
Su Jingyang originally didn’t want to bother with him, but it was rare to hear a compliment come out of his mouth, so he couldn’t help replying, “Of course.”
In this world, Su Jingyang’s spiritual support was Ling Li and Ah Xuan. With them keeping him company, he didn’t feel so alone and miserable. Having a home to return to every day finally gave him a bit of steadiness in his heart.
Su Jingyang paced back and forth in the main room a few times. Ah Xuan gradually quieted down, eyes wet, lying motionless in Su Jingyang’s arms.
Su Jingyang took the opportunity to sit down with him in his arms. The moment he settled, his hand lifted unconsciously to scratch his shoulder. The spot that had been bitten earlier didn’t hurt, but there was a faint numb itch.
Ah Yi’s fingers tapped lightly on the tabletop. Seeing that, he let out a short, low laugh. “Don’t tell me you got bitten too?”
His tone didn’t sound especially gloating, yet it still made Su Jingyang inexplicably annoyed. Su Jingyang shot him an icy glance and said, “You even know that? People who know too much get silenced, you know.” Su Jingyang knew the guy assumed Ah Xuan had bitten him, and he couldn’t be bothered to explain. He also didn’t need to explain it to him.
Ah Yi smiled lightly, his eyes curving. “I’ll silence you.”
Su Jingyang took a deep breath and said earnestly, “Young man, as your senior, I’ll teach you a principle. Leave yourself a way out when you speak, so you can meet again in the future. Don’t act too arrogant. Be careful, you’ll have to pay it back someday.”
Ah Yi folded his arms and looked at him. “Who wants to meet you again? I like talking to you like this.”
Su Jingyang: “……”
Ptui! The hell! What a piece of work!
Just then, Ling Li came in carrying dishes. Su Jingyang immediately turned his mind to the table. Six dishes and one soup, meat and vegetables, more lavish than anything they had before. Just smelling the aroma made his appetite flare up. Su Jingyang had even less interest in dealing with that guy and grabbed his chopsticks, digging in eagerly.
Ah Yi ate quietly and didn’t keep provoking Su Jingyang. Ling Li ate while feeding Ah Xuan. The meal ended up peaceful enough.
Su Jingyang only put his chopsticks down when he truly couldn’t eat another bite. He collapsed back in his chair with satisfaction. “Ah Li, your cooking is too good. It would be such a waste if you don’t open a restaurant.”
Thinking about the surprise he would soon be able to give Ling Li, Su Jingyang couldn’t help feeling a little smug and pleased.
“It’s good as long as you like it.” Ling Li had heard Su Jingyang praise him like that before. Ling Li pressed his lips together and smiled, then handed Su Jingyang a cloth to wipe his mouth.
Hearing Su Jingyang’s words, Ah Yi actually followed along in a gentle, bright tone and said to Ling Li, “If you open a restaurant, I’ll definitely support it. I’ve been worried about having nowhere to eat.”
Su Jingyang’s wiping motion paused. He couldn’t help casting several probing looks at Ah Yi. This young man, could it be… he really had designs on Ah Li?
That night, after everything was tidied up and Su Jingyang was already lying down, he still couldn’t hold it in. He ran to Ling Li’s room and tested the waters, asking whether Ling Li felt anything was off about Ah Yi. Ling Li thought about it and shook his head. Su Jingyang simply said it outright, “Ah Li, I always feel like he treats you differently.”
Ling Li’s light brown eyes watched him thoughtfully for a moment before he said, “He’s treating you differently, isn’t he… Toward me, it’s just basic politeness.” He added, “I’m the same toward him.”
“Differently toward me? Differently in the worst way, more like,” Su Jingyang said, annoyed.
“That’s still different.”
Su Jingyang: “……”
Su Jingyang actually couldn’t refute that.
Ling Li looked at him steadily for a while, then lowered his eyes and continued folding clothes, giving away no emotion. “Besides, we’ve known each other for less than a day. Why are you thinking so much already? It’s not possible.”
Su Jingyang subtly sensed something was off with him. He hesitated, then asked softly, “Ah Li, are you angry because I guessed randomly?”
Ling Li immediately shook his head, lifted his face, and smiled at him. “No. How could I be angry at you? I just think I’m fine the way I am now. I have Ah Xuan, and also… you. I don’t want anything to change, and I don’t want to think about it.” By the end, Ling Li’s tone was calm and low, as if it truly was just what he said, without any anger toward Su Jingyang.
Su Jingyang smiled, realizing Ling Li didn’t like hearing this sort of thing, so he didn’t continue.
On the bed, Ah Xuan was wrapped in the blanket and sleeping with his little face flushed red. His sleeping posture was curled up, and he made a faint snoring sound. Su Jingyang walked over and gently turned him over. Once Ah Xuan’s breathing smoothed out and he stopped snoring, Su Jingyang returned to Ling Li’s side and sat down, helping him fold clothes.
“Ah Li, why do you keep staring at me?”
“You’re good-looking.”
Su Jingyang gave two little huffs. “My Ah Li has taste, unlike certain people who actually said I’m ugly.”
“Certain people…” After a brief silence, Ling Li looked at him and asked softly, “Ah Yi?”
Su Jingyang nodded indignantly. Ling Li lowered his eyes again. The corner of his mouth moved, like he smiled or like he didn’t. After that, he silently folded clothes without saying another word.
Only after Su Jingyang finished helping Ling Li fold the clothes did he return to his own room. Su Jingyang didn’t even remember when he fell asleep. He only vaguely remembered that the candlelight in Ling Li’s room stayed lit for a long time, the weak flame swaying endlessly in the cold night.
Early the next morning, when Su Jingyang got up, Ling Li already had breakfast ready. Seeing that Ling Li looked normal, Su Jingyang relaxed a little.
Just as he was about to sit down to eat breakfast, Ah Xuan ran in with quick thudding steps and urgently tugged on his sleeve. “Uncle, chicken, chicken, chicken!!”
Ling Li and Su Jingyang, both confused, followed him out. Ling Li counted. There were only four chickens wandering around the courtyard. One was missing.
At that moment, someone knocked on the main gate, accompanied by a chicken’s miserable squawking.
Su Jingyang immediately thought of a possibility and hurried to open the door. On a freezing morning like this, the handsome youth stood outside wearing only a set of white inner clothes, expressionless. In his left hand, he held a chicken, half-yellow and half-white. It was the same one from yesterday.
“Th-this…” Su Jingyang swallowed.
Ah Yi stuffed the chicken into Su Jingyang’s arms. His dark eyes were cold as blades, and his voice came out word by word, like it was squeezed through his teeth. “Please, manage your chicken.”
After speaking, he turned and strode away, returning next door, slamming his door shut hard.
Su Jingyang carried the chicken back in and felt that this chicken really was too much. It was clearly his family’s chicken, yet it kept yearning for some wild man outside, so eager that it flew over first thing in the morning. How could this continue?
Su Jingyang discussed it with Ling Li and used a long piece of string to tie the chicken’s leg. It could still stroll around the courtyard, but it couldn’t fly up anymore, so it had no way to cheat.
After finishing that, Su Jingyang quickly ate breakfast, took his identity plaque and silver notes, and went to the bookshop for work. He was just waiting for Liang Lu to come take him to sign the agreement and get the deed.
Once the shop was in hand, he could start preparing the setup. When it opened, he would be the shopkeeper and a server, and Ling Li would be the head cook. Perfect.
Su Jingyang arrived at the bookshop in high spirits. The moment his butt hit the stool, Ah Yuan, who had covered Su Jingyang’s shift the day before, ran over like a gust of wind. With an exaggerated expression, he said to Su Jingyang, “Something huge happened yesterday while you weren’t here!!”
Hearing how serious he sounded, Su Jingyang asked in surprise, “What happened?”
Ah Yuan told him furiously that near closing time, an old woman came to cause a massive scene in the shop, nearly tearing the books apart. She cursed so loudly that people all over the street gathered outside to watch the spectacle. The staff didn’t get home until after midnight from cleaning up.
The moment Su Jingyang heard “old woman,” his head started aching. After asking carefully, it really was the Hao family’s old woman!
Su Jingyang thought, Oh my god, how did we provoke this old buddha again?!
Ah Yuan said the Hao old woman had found several indecent illustrated albums hidden in her grandson’s room. They were already worn from reading, clearly frequently viewed. In her eyes, her grandson was a good child who only read the classics and never strayed.
How could he possibly look at filthy things that polluted the eyes?! In her fury, she interrogated her grandson, and her grandson cried and said that when he came to the bookshop to read, the shop’s people lured him into buying them, and that was why he couldn’t focus on studying properly.
Naturally, the old woman believed it couldn’t possibly be her precious grandson’s fault. She marched over with brisk steps, full of aggressive momentum, to settle accounts at the bookshop. It just so happened that when Su Jingyang left, he casually tossed that book onto the counter, and the wind flipped it open a few pages.
The old woman had sharp eyes and saw it at a glance, instantly igniting with rage inside and out. Smoke practically poured from her seven apertures as she rushed to the shelves, yanking and flipping books, shouting curses so vile they were hard to hear.
In short, her grandson was good, and everyone else was wrong.
Su Jingyang suddenly thought of a saying: It’s not that old people turn bad, it’s that bad people grow old. The elderly he’d met before had all been warm and amiable. He truly hadn’t seen someone like this. Hao Jiasheng was really something too. His own roots were rotten, yet he still had the face to shove the blame onto others. Sure enough, birds of a feather flock together!
Sometimes without real contact, you really couldn’t believe such bizarre people existed in the world!
At noon, Su Jingyang ate packed in with everyone else, then went back to his spot. He was thinking to himself that the old woman probably wouldn’t come again to make trouble, right? As he thought that, he leaned and looked outside. He didn’t expect it, but f*cking hell, it was exactly that kind of coincidence. Speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao arrives!
Su Jingyang saw the Hao old woman’s gloomy face and immediately wanted to dodge, but it was already too late. The Hao old woman narrowed her eyes. She clearly remembered Su Jingyang’s face. She charged in and reached out to claw at him.
Even though Su Jingyang raised his hand to block, he still couldn’t stop it. Her thick, hard nails gouged a vicious scratch across his face. All kinds of filthy, unbearable words sprayed at him until it felt like his head was being drenched in dog’s blood.
At this moment, she was clearly convinced that Su Jingyang, who had a prior “seduction” record, was the one who lured her grandson into buying those pornographic albums.
Everyone else who had still been eating heard the commotion and rushed over. They tried to pull the old woman away, but one way or another, because she was old, they all had their reservations. They couldn’t hold her back. Su Jingyang got scratched again. He hissed in pain, dodging her attacks while running outside.
F*ck! If he couldn’t afford to provoke her, couldn’t he at least hide?!
He didn’t want to tangle with an unreasonable old woman, yet she refused to let him go. She chased him into the street, grabbed him, and tried to hit him. Su Jingyang’s anger surged, and he couldn’t stand it anymore. In the chaos, while dodging, the hand he had free swung back. With a loud slap, he struck her across the face.
Her head jerked to the side. That neatly arranged hair bun even got knocked loose. A furious roar tore out of her throat. Her expression grew even more savage as she lunged for Su Jingyang’s hair. “I’ll beat you to death! Beat you to death, you stinking b*tch! Beat you to death! I knew you had bad intentions! I’ll beat you to death!”
Su Jingyang kept dodging not because he couldn’t beat her, but because he was afraid he would hit too hard and cause trouble. Endurance still had a limit. Hearing her keep calling him b*tch over and over, and seeing her scratch Ah Yuan’s eyes when Ah Yuan tried to block her, Su Jingyang’s gaze went cold.
F*ck it! He was already getting ridden over. He will fight! If she got hurt, he’ll just pay. He wasn’t broke anymore anyway! One hundred taels wouldn’t be a problem.
Su Jingyang clenched his teeth, gathered strength in his hand, and was about to strike back when the old woman suddenly cried out “Aiyo!” Her body was flung backward by a force and fell hard to the ground. The old woman, who had been fierce like a bull a moment ago, instantly couldn’t even get up.
Su Jingyang’s carefully built cold, ruthless expression immediately fell apart. He released all the tension in his body and turned his head in shock toward the person beside him who had just stepped in. Only then did he realize that this elegant black-clad youth looked unbelievably familiar.
Su Jingyang’s surprise turned to shock. “Wh-why is it you?!”
It was Ah Yi. Why did this guy come here?
He came, and not only that, but he had also just helped him??!!! Su Jingyang felt like life was full of surprises.
“Can you handle yourself or not?” Ah Yi’s ink-dark eyes looked at him, the disdain in his gaze completely undisguised. “You not being able to beat me is normal, but getting pinned down and beaten by an old woman in the street, too weak to fight back? You ate four bowls of rice last night. Where did all that strength go? Pathetic.”
Su Jingyang had been jabbed by him more times than he could count, but today he found himself especially unable to refute it, and especially humiliated. People on the street had been pointing and watching earlier.
He held it in, fuming, for a long time. With eyes wide, he blurted out an off-topic line at Ah Yi, “So what if I ate four bowls of rice? So what?!”
Su Jingyang felt like he should thank him right now, yet this guy was so irritating that no words of gratitude would come out.
Ah Yi glanced at him faintly, then looked away. “Nothing. You’re very impressive.”
Su Jingyang wasn’t stupid enough to believe that was real praise. He snorted through his nose, turned his face away, and didn’t bother with the Hao old woman who was moaning on the ground and couldn’t get up. The surrounding onlookers also kept their distance. Not a single person went over to help her.
Just then, Su Jingyang saw Liang Lu leading a squad of soldiers, hurrying toward them with brisk steps.
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