Chapter Thirty-Five: I Want to Have a Taste

In truth, she wished she could reenact Manager Huang's arrogant, commanding manner right to his face, and she longed to bring her colleagues’ gossip and ridicule out into the open for a candid discussion. Yet Ximin Tang summed it up in one sentence: “I believe your upbringing would never allow you to do such things.”

He was right. Deep down, she harbored a profound sense of propriety, and the caution she maintained so diligently often stabbed at her through sleepless nights. She despised herself for being so timid.

It was again the season when hydrangeas bloomed. She enjoyed burying seeds into the soil with her own hands, watering them thoroughly, sealing them under a thin film, and quietly waiting for a tender green shoot to break through the earth. In those moments, she was deeply moved—moved by life, by encounters, by wishes fulfilled. Yet such feelings only came true two or three times out of ten, for she was never adept at tending flowers, even though her family owned a small plot of land back in Dounan. So the arrival of this year’s blooms thrilled her. She adored hydrangeas: not fragrant nor ostentatious, but clustered together in lively profusion.

The phone rang just as she was focused entirely on the pale pink blossoms. Recognizing Lin Shuo's voice, she showed no sign of resistance. He informed her with utmost calm that he would soon arrive; she responded with a faint hum and, before hanging up, found herself inexplicably saying, “If you pass the pharmacy at the corner, pick up a box of aspirin for me.” Her tone was as casual as if she were reminding her husband to come home for dinner.

Not long after, Lin Shuo arrived, accompanied by two movers. He directed them to place the new rocking chair on the balcony, tipped them, and sent them on their way. Xiaoxiao sat by the window, observing all in silence, hands still wielding scissors, tending the hydrangeas. Lin Shuo stepped outside, set the medicine on the windowsill, and for once, asked with concern, “Are you ill?”

She lowered her head, trimming the ends of the flower stems at a slant, her lips curled in a faint smile. From his height, her bangs just covered her eyelids, revealing long, delicate lashes like butterfly wings.

“Fetch me some water,” she said, handing him a large sky-blue glazed jar and indicating the water pipe in the corner of the balcony. He grasped the jar’s handle, filled it to seven-tenths full, and carefully placed it on the windowsill, leaning over the waist-high wall to freely observe her tending the flowers.

“Do you have a lighter?”

Shuo was momentarily flustered, fumbling through his pockets before finding the lighter. He always kept it in the same place, but today had forgotten.

The elegant lighter sparked a small flame under her inexperienced hands. She slowly brought it close to the freshly cut ends of the stems, singeing them until a faint blue smoke wafted up.

He was intrigued. “Won’t it kill them?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. After carefully burning each stem, she dropped two aspirin tablets into the water. They released a few tiny bubbles before sinking and vanishing. She arranged the flowers in the glazed jar; the sky-blue vessel paired with the pale pink blooms was crisp and neat, like jeans with a white shirt. He rested his hands on the windowsill, as if studying this new technique. She smiled with satisfaction. “They say it prolongs the bloom. I’m not sure if it works—let’s try.”

“You seem to know quite a lot.”

“It’s just things I’ve heard on TV. There was a cooking show that taught how to make West Lake Vinegar Fish. I tried it once—maybe my skills are lacking, but it was inedible.” She shrugged, having always been hopeless in the kitchen.

Even so, Lin Shuo was delighted. “You can cook?”

“Incredible, right? At first I didn’t believe it, and afterward I truly didn’t believe it.”

Lin Shuo listened, interested, and blurted out, “I want to try it.”

Lonely Moments, No Talk of Love, Chapter Thirty-five: I Want to Try It—complete!