Chapter 46：

On the way to the supermarket, Huo Ran was seriously thinking about what to cook for the evening.

In his past cooking experience, the most complicated thing is tomato scrambled eggs, followed by boiled eggs and instant noodles.

Today is the first time to show cooking skills in front of Tao Zhiyue. Although Huo Ran is well aware of his own level, he is absolutely unwilling to be limited to mere tomato scrambled eggs.

As for the starter dishes such as cola chicken wings and rice cooker braised pork ribs recommended by the search engine, Huo Ran ruled it out without even thinking about it.

Even if he is not good at cooking, he must show the courage to go forward on this unknown road.

Huo Ran browsed through a lot of complicated dish names confidently.

Referring to Tao Zhiyue's high evaluation of cold noodles yesterday, Huo Ran decided to choose the same sour meat dish, and pair it with a refreshing stir-fried seasonal vegetable.

In the increasingly hot summer, it is only appetizing to eat sour.

[HR: I chose two dishes, fat beef in sour soup and fried water spinach with fermented bean curd, do you like it? ]

It's just over six o'clock, and Tao Zhiyue should be off work.

After waiting for a few minutes, the other party replied.

[Tao: Well, the water spinach in this season is delicious. ]

[Tao: But... from tomato scrambled eggs to here, can you? ]

Huo Ran continued to type six words blindly and confidently.

[HR: I think I can! ]

[Tao: Eggy in a daze.jpg]

[Tao: Then I’ll go straight to the supermarket and get home at about 7:30. ]

[HR: Ok. ]

[HR: See you at home! ]

When sending this news, Huo Ran felt a little regretful for a moment.

It would be great if we could meet at home.

He sighed a little disappointed, and walked into the supermarket alone.

The last time Huo Ran went to the supermarket to buy vegetables, probably dates back to the last time when Huo Sihan boldly stated that he wanted to show off his cooking skills.

In short, a long, long time ago.

The supermarket was bustling with people, Huo Ran flipped through the recipes copied to the memo on his mobile phone, and bought ingredients accordingly.

Fat beef roll, enoki mushroom, millet pepper, hang pepper, water spinach...

He picked out these easy-to-find dishes with a shopping basket, and took a few cans of cold drinks by the way.

Next, Huo Ran is going to the condiment area to find the yellow lantern chili sauce for the sour soup fat beef, and the bottled fermented bean curd for stir-fried water spinach.

He explored and walked through rows of unfamiliar shelves, and it took him a long time to find it.

But at this moment, a thin boy in a hooded sweater was standing in front of the shelf full of seasonings and pickles, blocking his view.

Huo Ran has been paying special attention to the proportions of being in contact with the same **** recently, so he simply stood aside and waited for him to finish taking them before going up to choose.

The other party seemed to be distracted, Huo Ran saw that he was dawdling, it was useless to worry, he couldn't help but let his eyes go, and began to think about today's special dinner.

Until he was suddenly awakened by a timid voice.

"What do you want to buy? Want me to get it for you?"

The thin boy turned his head around at some point and stared at him nervously.

He has fair skin and is not tall. Standing in front of Huo Ran, he looks extremely weak.

"..." Huo Ran was stunned, and said implicitly, "No, I can do it myself, I'm waiting for you to finish it."

Hearing this, the other party immediately apologized to him like a frightened rabbit.

"Sorry, I was in a daze just now, I didn't notice anyone coming, I didn't expect to block you..."

Huo Ran looked at his thoughts, hesitant to speak and then stopped, and he stopped talking and then wanted, but finally couldn't hold back.

"So... have you finished your selection?"

The thin boy looked over in astonishment, blinked his big eyes, then blushed, picked up a can on the shelf in a panic, and walked away quickly.

His back quickly disappeared into the crowd.

Huo Ran looked away, confused for a moment, and didn't take this episode to heart.

Finally walked away.

He raised his hand to check the time, it was almost seven o'clock, and suddenly became anxious, wanting to go home quickly and call Tao Zhiyue.

Today he left work earlier than Tao Zhi, and he couldn't get home later than him.

Huo Ran had a strange desire to win and lose again.

He quickly checked out and paid, got out of the supermarket and got into the car, racing against time all the way.

When he was about to get home, Huo Ran suddenly remembered something.

He opened the app, and from the friend list, he found a person he hadn't been in contact with recently.

Lu Yan, the one who spoke surprisingly when he complained, made him lose his natural trust in all the relatives and friends around him for a period of time.

After thinking for a moment, Huo Ran didn't talk nonsense and hit a straight ball decisively.

[HR: I'm in a relationship. ]

[HR: / Grinning]

[HR: Next time we have a chance to go out for a meal together. ]

Facing the familiar Fa Xiao, Huo Ran didn't want to be overly tactful, he was afraid of causing even more outrageous misunderstandings.

It's better to speak up. If Lu Yan can't accept it, let him digest it by himself. Anyway, he will eventually accept it.

After all, for Huo Ran, in such a unilateral relationship that has been hidden for a long time, he has not done anything wrong, and there is nothing to change.

Lu Yan at the other end of the dialog box typed for a long time before sending a brief reply.

[Lu Yan: Good. ]

[Lu Yan: Girlfriend? ]

[HR: Boyfriend. ]

[Lu Yan: ... quite unexpected. ]

[Lu Yan: How did you know each other? It can't be the ones I told me before. ]

[HR: No! ]

[HR: It's a netizen. ]

[HR: We met later. ]

[Lu Yan: Are you still dating online? ]

[Lu Yan: I look at you with admiration. ]

Huo Ran thought about what he said, and felt that Lu Yan's acceptance was good, and the last big stone in his heart finally fell to the ground.

He was finally clean.

[HR: I got out of the car, carrying vegetables. ]

[HR: It's actually quite heavy. ]

[Lu Yan: Buy vegetables and cook by yourself? ]

[Lu Yan: You seem to have changed a lot. ]

[HR: Yeah ^-^]

[HR: Withdraw, let's talk next time. ]

Huo Ran carried a heavy plastic bag, walked into a cold villa area, bowed his head to enter the password at the door, and pushed open the door forcefully.

At the same time, in a residential building far away, Tao Zhiyue locked the door behind his back and turned on the light in the living room.

The night-soaked room was suddenly filled with warm light.

The smiling Cupid on the wall seems to have been waiting for him to come back.

Tao Zhi looked at it, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, and he responded softly: "Good evening."

The hands of the clock passed seven-thirty.

He put on his slippers, carried the dishes into the kitchen, and the phone in his pocket vibrated on time.

[HR: Here I come! ]

[HR: Are you home yet? ]

[Tao: Just entered the door. ]

[Tao: Ready to do it. ]

As soon as his message was sent, Huo Ran made a video call.

Tao Zhiyue was taken aback for a moment, then immediately walked to the bathroom, and glanced at the mirror hastily.

He simply stroked his hair a few times, adjusted his expression, and then connected to the video.

The picture appeared, showing Huo Ran's upper half face enlarged.

Tao Zhiyue saw that his heart stopped suddenly, and he blurted out: "Why are you so close?"

Huo Ran pulled the phone away and smiled at him smirking: "I see you haven't answered it all the time, so I thought there was something wrong."

Tao Zhiyue's eyes wandered: "...just walked away, didn't notice."

"Go wash your hands?" Huo Ran didn't think much, and waved to him, "Good evening!"

This was the first time he had a video call with Huo Ran, and Huo Ran in the camera looked exactly like a real person.

Tao Zhiyue couldn't help sighing, "You're very photogenic."

"You're photogenic too! You look more..."

Huo Ran belatedly swallowed back the self-made proposition, and forcibly changed his words: "Are you hungry, do you want to eat something first?"

"I'm full at noon, and I'm not hungry." Tao Zhiyue took over the words, "Shall we start now? These two dishes are quite simple to make."

"Okay! I'm ready!"

As he said that, Huo Ran deliberately moved the phone and showed him his apron with a brown bear printed on it.

"It seems to be a gift when I bought the pot, or maybe my sister took it secretly. Isn't it funny?"

Tao Zhiyue imagined him about 1.8 meters tall wearing a bear apron, and held back his smile: "No, it suits you very well."

"Really? Then I won't buy it again."

"Don't change it, just wear this."

The first step in making sour soup fat beef is to chop ginger, garlic and pepper.

The mobile phone was set aside, and amidst the sound of the kitchen knife hitting the cutting board, the two of them chatted one after another.

"I went to find Jin Shao today... It's far away. He's really weird. He doesn't get off work when he has nothing to do. He just sits there stupidly, not knowing what he's doing, and he justifiably says that he's waiting for me."

"What did he say?"

"Well, let me think about how to sum it up... I don't think he actually likes me. Their circle is very fond of looking for novelty. They may have followed me for some excitement before, but then they found that they couldn't break me, so they gave up. , and found out that I was in a relationship with the same sex, I immediately became rebellious.”

"It's as childish as the tea star before him. He has no sincerity at all, and they all have other purposes."

"What tea star?"

"Ah, the one I first asked you for, the one who left the necklace at my house. He's a star, though I haven't heard of it before."

"Is it called...Xia Xing?"

"Yes, you actually know! I'm done! What's next?"

The second step is to wash and disperse the enoki mushrooms, blanch them in water, and then blanch the fat beef rolls.

The adjective "tea star" is very special. The more Tao Zhi thought about it, when he was lying on the bed and browsing the forum that day, he saw a star scarf that was being complained about.

It turned out that at that time, he inadvertently passed by the Huo Ran described by others.

"Cut off the roots of Flammulina velutipes, then crush them with your hands, and then blanch them in water. Don't pour out the hot water when you run out."

"Okay."

The water in the pot gradually began to boil.

"By the way, I also asked him if he would be angry when he was called Shao Jin. His expression at that time was very funny, as if he had swallowed an egg raw, and he said probably not."

"...You actually asked."

"You want to know, so I asked. Anyway, I emphasized it to him in the end, if you bother me again, I will never end with him."

"Next time, I will ask my dad to persuade his dad to give him some correct emotional education. Don't mess around because of emptiness and boredom. You need to improve your aesthetics. Why do you like Jin Cancan so much? It must be painful to work in their company. "

"However, I don't think it's his problem alone. Many of them share this style of doing whatever they want with money. They often play together, influence each other, and become more perverted. In the end, they all lose touch with the normal world."

Tao Zhiyue laughed while listening to his complaints, his hands were busy, taking out the boiled Flammulina velutipes and draining the water.

"You have a good aesthetic and a good style. Have you fished out the Flammulina velutipes? Then you can use this pot of water to continue blanching the beef rolls."

"It's fished out, I bought three catties of fat beef rolls!"

"So much, can you finish it?"

"You can continue to eat tomorrow, anyway, what you taught me to cook must be delicious!"

The third step is to put the chopped ingredients into the pot, stir fry the aroma, add the yellow lantern chili sauce, then pour in water and boil for seasoning.

"The portions of the dishes are different, and our tastes are also different, so I can't tell you how many spoonfuls to put in. You can see for yourself. If you are not sure, just taste the taste at any time."

"Okay, I can do it!" Huo Ran was full of confidence, "This dish is really simple."

"Don't set a flag for yourself..."

"I know this stalk! No way!"

"Also, that Fa Xiao, I also informed him that I have a partner now, and he seemed to accept it calmly. When he thinks about it thoroughly, I will introduce you to each other, if you want."

"Now I am relaxed and will never be pestered by other people again!"

"Can I ask you a question?" Tao Zhi thought carefully, "Do you think he really likes you?"

"I don't know. I have the best relationship with him in these years. I complained to him that day that it was miserable to be stalked by others. Then I suddenly said that I would not consider him. It scared me silly."

"I regard him as a good brother, and I have never thought about that. If I have to say it, it seems that in the group of friends who often played together at that time, he always stood by my side and followed me when there was something... Damn, I always thought it was because of our relationship."

"No, I can't remember anymore. My hands were shaking when I poured the salt just now." Huo Ran was still terrified, "I finished putting in the seasoning, what should I do next?"

Step 4: Pour in the blanched beef, bring to a boil over high heat, spread the prepared Flammulina velutipes on the bottom of the bowl, take it out of the pan, sprinkle with chopped green and red peppers, and finally drizzle with hot oil.

"It doesn't need to be cooked for too long, just boil it, and remember to taste it before serving."

Tao Zhiyue looked at the fat beef in sour soup that was basically finished in the pot, and showed a reassuring smile.

The starlet who approached the rich with other purposes, the vain and flamboyant rich second generation who pursued novelty, the assistant who took the initiative to avoid suspicion and transferred away after being rejected, and the boy who had secretly fallen in love with the silly straight man for many years.

Everyone has their own logic, fresh and real, and they are not tool people who like Huo Ran just for the sake of liking.

They're not in the pre-written script, like he is now.

He couldn't help sighing with emotion in a low voice: "The world has changed."

Huo Ran happened to be holding the bowl, but he didn't hear clearly: "What changed?"

"It's nothing." Tao Zhiyue's tone was soft, "Anyway, it's a good thing."

In this strange seemingly unsolvable procedure, he believed that he had chosen a way out of the puzzle.

"I won't ask you about these people again in the future."

"It's in the past."

Huo Ran at the other end responded with a vague understanding: "Yes, it's all over."

The light brown fat beef is submerged in the golden soup. During the simmering, there are small bubbles and the special aroma of bell peppers.

Tao Zhiyue scooped up a spoonful, blew lightly, and tasted it carefully.

Hot and sour intertwined, instantly ignited the taste buds.

The taste is adjusted just right, and it can be out of the pan.

Huo Ran also imitated his actions, took a sip of the soup, and immediately frowned: "Why is mine so sour!"

Tao Zhiyue couldn't help laughing out: "Is it... too much vinegar?"