C13

The Lady Boss of the congee shop hadn't changed. Many years had passed, and she still looked the same as she did at the start of the city. She was astute and capable, with many students entering a cycle of rebirth, but she still remembered Yu Meng's face.

Aunt Zhang was a genuine northeastern citizen, who had spent half his life in A City, this southern city, but still could not change his hometown's accent.

After saying that, she turned around and saw the man sitting opposite Yu Meng.

Yu Meng raised her head in surprise.

Aunt Zhang was full of smiles. The wrinkles at the corner of her eyes seemed extremely kind.

"You two …" Aunt Zhang laughed as he spoke, "Xiao Meng buys porridge from me everyday. As for this little boy, wait until Xiao Meng finishes buying them before you ask that girl what she bought earlier."

Aunt Zhang dusted off the aprons in front of her and leaned over to look around with a smile.

"Young man, you liked our Little Meng back then, right? After so many years, you must have gotten her!"

How could Aunt Zhang know that Yu Meng actually bought the porridge to chase after Tan Yubai? She wasn't the one being chased.

At this point, Yu Meng could not take it anymore.

"Alright Aunt Zhang, I'm hungry. Give us two bowls of porridge."

"Alright!"

When Aunt Zhang left, Yu Meng lowered her head, her face slightly flushed.

"You … "I've always known that I didn't make the congee myself. I bought it …"

Tan Yubai smiled and did not speak.

"Then why didn't you expose me, and why did you follow me here every day to ask …"

It was impossible to guess his intentions.

"Because I want to bring porridge with you every day." Tan Yubai opened his mouth: "I was secretly following you because I was afraid that you would buy an extra set for another boy one day …"

Remembering how childish he was, Tan Yubai laughed as he shook his head helplessly.

"I worry every day that you'll fall in love with someone else."

When Tan Yubai said this, Aunt Zhang just happened to bring over two bowls of meat porridge. White smoke permeated the air, concealing Tan Yubai's delicate face.

No matter how much time passed, his face would always look like a man that would only appear in comics.

Yu Meng could not help but helplessly say, "I always thought you didn't like me."

Ever since she was young, she had always been pestering him. Day after day, she would always press her hot face against his cold butt. The most heartless way was to really like him.

"You rarely smile at me, rarely speak nice words to me, rarely take the initiative to look for me, rarely …" Yu Meng could barely finish her sentence. She took a big gulp of porridge and swallowed the sour taste in her mouth.

"Back then, he was young, and he relied on the unbridled love in his heart." Yu Meng paused for a moment, her expression bleak, "I'm being overly confident."

She was so confident that she thought she could melt this block of ice with her burning heart.

Yu Meng lowered her head and stirred the porridge.

Suddenly, there were a lot of picked-up eggs in the bowl.

One by one, they were stirred into the porridge along with Yu Meng's spoon.

She was slightly taken aback as she raised her head to look and saw Tan Yubai carefully picking out the rice porridge and scooping up the ingredients into a small pile in his spoon before pouring everything into Yu Meng's bowl.

"At that time, I was curious why your porridge was darker than mine. Later on, I asked the Aunt Zhang why she said that every time you bought porridge, she would tell you to have more eggs than me."

"I eat leathery egg thin porridge, leathery egg is seasoning, but you're the one that specializes in eating leathery eggs."

Tan Yubai's smile was especially pretty, but from the past till now, he rarely smiled, and the few times that he did so, Yu Meng was always like this, looking at her in a daze.

When he smiled, his eyes seemed to be filled with a clear spring that was as warm as jade.

Seeing Yu Meng in a daze, Tan Yubai did not ask anymore as he helped her stir the porridge in the bowl with his spoon.

Every frame of the man's warm and gentle voice was the same as the past.

He didn't follow up on Yu Meng's words, but said something that made her heart tremble.

The boy who didn't talk much actually remembered every single detail about her in his heart.

Yu Meng scooped up a spoonful of congee and put it in her mouth. It didn't have the fragrance of a leathery egg or meat, instead, it was a bit more bitter.

It was probably the bitterness that came from the bottom of her heart that made her feel as if she had fallen into bitter water.

Yu Meng's throat was bitter and dry, she could not say a single word. On the other hand, Tan Yubai, who had the same style as before, suddenly said a lot of things.

He hadn't talked so much this year.

"I remember the first time you were sent to your house by Grandmother. You were only four years old."

He watched her as she lowered her head to her porridge, her eyebrows deeply furrowed with a deep infatuation.

"At that time, I just wanted to grow up faster, because I didn't want to live in your house. I also didn't want to be surrounded by a chattering little girl who was like a sparrow."

Tan Yubai was sent to Yu Clan at the age of six. Because Talk about how his father had died during a project, making it difficult for his young son to take care of himself, Tan Yubai was sent by his grandmother to Yu Clan.

From that day onwards, Tan Yubai's trajectory in his life had completely deviated.

He had once vowed to avenge his father. That international mercenary organization, that terrifying drug lord, was the target of his vow.

But then …

He was willing to be trapped in this woman's little world, fighting with love every day.

Not only did he not feel bored at all, he felt at ease instead.

Tan Yubai originally wanted to continue speaking, but when the words reached his mouth, they were interrupted by Yu Meng with a cold expression.

"You probably never would have thought that this little girl would be so shameless as to stick close to you for so many years."

Tan Yubai's finger froze in midair, the word "shamelessness", was like a sharp thorn that ruthlessly pierced into Tan Yubai's heart.

"Little Meng …" He opened his mouth to call out her name, but he didn't know how to explain what he was about to say.

With regards to what Tan Yubai had said just now, it wasn't that Yu Meng didn't have any feelings for her, it was precisely because she had felt it too deeply, and had almost pulled her back to the days when she had once liked Tan Yubai that she once raised her guard again, fully armed herself, and no longer wanted to be them … She was very cold, and her words didn't carry a trace of warmth either, "Since we're going to get divorced, you don't have to play any kind of game, you can say whatever you want to say. All these years of complaining in your heart, say it, and let me know how laughable I am all these years."

Tan Yubai laughed bitterly as he stirred the porridge in his bowl.

"Do you think that I would only feel disgust towards you?"

Yu Meng looked at him. Even now, she didn't want to lie to him, much less to herself.

"All these years, I've felt your changes, but I don't know if this change is because you've finally started to like me or because you're giving in because you can't compete with reality."

Yu Meng looked up, "Tan Yubai, tell me the truth. Back then, were you still brooding over the matter of me changing your college entrance examination aspirations?"

Tan Yubai slowly raised his head, his eyes seemed to be filled with mist, it was moist, it seemed to be weak, and it made people's heart ache.

But in the end he said nothing.

"If you don't say anything, you just agree, right?"

Although Yu Meng was already prepared for this answer, her heart was in so much pain that it was hard to describe when she was really faced with Tan Yubai's denial.

She bit her lip, unable to speak.

Then he spoke.

"Do you think I'm a smart person?"

Yu Meng was a little taken aback by her question. It came as a strange and unfathomable surprise to her. She thought about it for a moment and then replied with the truth.

"Since you were young, you have always been number one in everything you do. If you are not smart, then there is no one in this world who is smart."

"Then do you think that I would be unaware of your petty actions?"

Hearing this, Yu Meng's heart sank.

Her mind was in chaos again. She heard hope in those words, hope that frightened her.

She knew that behind every self-righteous hope was endless despair, just as she thought he liked her, but he only loved himself.

After a while, Yu Meng stood up helplessly.

"I'm going to the school to borrow the washroom."

Tan Yubai nodded, looking at Yu Meng's back as she left, seemingly wanting to escape.

She still loved him, he knew.

From the day they met, all her smart-ass decisions seemed foolish to him.

However, when placed in the memories, it was completely adorable.

Aunt Zhang had been cooking porridge beside them all this while, so she had more or less heard their conversation. As she wiped her hands with her apron, she walked out from behind the cashier's desk.

"Young lad..." She said in an experienced tone, "Auntie, did you hear what you just said? Are you going to get a divorce?"

Tan Yubai's fingertips trembled, but he had no choice but to admit it.

"Hai." The Aunt Zhang sighed: "Because she changed your choice?"

"You don't understand."

"Can you tell Auntie what Little Meng has changed from your aspiration form to?"

Tan Yubai spoke the truth.

Aunt Zhang was stunned.

"You look like a top student. Why are you not having your aspirations changed and instead acting like a wild chicken university?"

Tan Yubai ate a mouthful of the sour radish on the table and did not reply.

"Why is your filling up the same as bullshitting?" Aunt Zhang originally wanted to persuade him to forgive Xiao Meng, but after hearing what he said, her guess was completely different.

Bullshit... Aunt Zhang repeated. Suddenly, her eyes lit up.

"You were just randomly filling it in?"

Tan Yubai still did not speak.

"You knew that she would change your choice, so you didn't seriously consider filling in any sort of aspiration form from the beginning, right?"

Aunt Zhang opened her eyes wide: Then why didn't you tell her?!

"Auntie." Tan Yubai finally opened his mouth. His deep eyes were filled with undiscernible mysteriousness, as well as an inescapable loneliness: "Everyone has their own unspeakable difficulties, don't they?"

Aunt Zhang was an experienced person, of course she understood what Tan Yubai meant.

All that came to mind became a last sigh: "Little Meng is a good girl, young man. You shouldn't have given her up."

Tan Yubai lowered his eyebrows, his voice hoarse.

"Blame me for not being worthy of her."