Chapter 20: Hotpot

The few of them chatted and teased each other all the way and finally arrived at the hotpot restaurant Cai Xiaotong had mentioned.

After saying goodbye to Uncle Zhao, Bai Yurou got out of the car.

This was an ordinary hotpot restaurant of the most common kind, two stories high. 

On the wall of the second floor were printed four large characters—“Yucheng Hotpot.”

Cai Xiaotong led the three of them into the interior of the hotpot restaurant.

“Welcome—Xiaotong is here. What do you want to eat?”

A middle-aged woman had originally been receiving customers at the front desk according to routine. 

The moment she raised her head and saw Cai Xiaotong wearing a cosplay costume, her tone immediately became familiar, and she became quite a bit more enthusiastic than just earlier.

“Sister Chen, I brought friends to eat today. My friend can’t eat spicy food, so bring a yuanyang pot. Just the ordinary four-person meal.”

Xiaotong relied on that loli figure of hers, standing on her tiptoes before she could barely reach the front desk, and said.

“Alright, a yuanyang pot. You all just sit at that empty spot over there.”

Sister Chen pointed toward a spot by the window in the hall—that was a four-person table where two people could sit facing each other.

“Thank you, Sister Chen.”

Cai Xiaotong skillfully acted cute toward Sister Chen, then led her good friends to the designated empty seats and sat down.

Cai Xiaotong and Zhao Dandan sat on one side. Ning Mu and Bai Yurou sat on the other side.

“Sister Chen is the boss of this shop. From childhood I was often brought by my parents to eat at this shop, so Sister Chen knows me.” After sitting in her seat, Cai Xiaotong explained the reason she had been so familiar with the front desk just now.

“I remember when I went to your house to play when I was little, my uncle and aunt also brought me to eat at this hotpot restaurant.” Zhao Dandan also recalled.

Listening to the memories of this pair of cousins, Bai Yurou also could not help recalling her own memories related to hotpot—no, Lin Ye’s.

***

The first meal after Lin Ye was adopted by the Ning family was hotpot.

At that time, in order to celebrate him becoming a member of that family, the Ning parents had specially taken him and Ning Mu to a hotpot restaurant to eat. 

At that time he still did not understand what hotpot was—after all, he was a child who had come out of an orphanage. 

Normally being able to eat a mouthful of rice was already satisfying. 

He had never even seen this kind of eating method.

After arriving at the shop, the Ning parents and Ning Mu had all gone to prepare the dipping sauce. Only he sat dryly in his seat, at a loss.

Before long, Ning Mu returned. She looked at him and asked in a naive tone with doubt: “Why aren’t you preparing a dipping sauce?”

“Preparing a dipping sauce? What’s that?” Lin Ye heard this way of saying it for the first time.

Ning Mu froze for a moment, seeming to recall something. 

The lack of understanding in her eyes gradually turned into sympathy. 

She handed the dipping sauce in her hand to him: “Here, this is the dipping sauce. Later when eating hotpot, dipping it in this is when it tastes good.”

Lin Ye looked at that dipping sauce and still did not understand.

“Just understand it as needing to dip vinegar when eating dumplings. This is the vinegar of hotpot.”

Lin Ye had still eaten dumplings before. 

Previously during New Year, the director of the orphanage would often wrap dumplings for them. 

So he understood Ning Mu’s analogy.

“Seeing as it’s your first time eating, this time I’ll prepare it for you. Next time you have to prepare it yourself, okay?”

Ning Mu said playfully to this adoptive older brother of hers, then turned around again to prepare a second dipping sauce for herself.

That meal of hotpot was the most delicious meal Lin Ye had eaten in his life. 

The taste of hotpot was something he had never seen in the orphanage. 

At the same time, this meal also made this orphan feel familial affection from strangers who had no blood relation to him. 

Ning Mu and the Ning parents did not look down on him for not knowing the ingredients were cooked and hurriedly fishing them up. 

Instead, they patiently taught him one by one—this one needs to wait until it changes color before it can be eaten, that one only needs to be blanched for ten seconds.

At that time after finishing the meal, what Lin Ye thought in his mind was that sentence of Ning Mu’s. 

Next time? Something this delicious? I can actually still eat it a second time?

Later, just as Ning Mu had said, the Ning family took him to eat hotpot quite a few more times. 

Under Ning Mu’s guidance, he also gradually learned how to eat hotpot and how to prepare the dipping sauce.

While thinking, Bai Yurou went with her companions to the seasoning area.

Add some sesame paste, add some cilantro, then add some garlic paste and chopped green onions……

Subconsciously, she mixed it into the combination Lin Ye had been most accustomed to in the past—that was what Ning Mu had taught him back then, saying it was the most delicious way of pairing.

If she poured it out it would waste food, and it would instead be very strange. If she added more of other seasonings, it would not taste good.

It was only one dipping sauce. Preparing it like this should be fine, right?

Bai Yurou thought as she carried this dipping sauce of hers back to her own seat.

She felt that the probability of Ning Mu recognizing her because of one dipping sauce was not large. 

After all, she felt that people who prepared dipping sauce like this should still be quite many. 

Even if it was discovered, it could be explained as a coincidence. 

Moreover, who would specially stare at other people’s dipping sauce?

Only later did Bai Yurou understand. 

One coincidence was indeed not enough to expose herself, but when there were enough coincidences, every single coincidence would become fatal evidence.

Bai Yurou was the first to finish preparing the dipping sauce and return to her seat. 

Discovering that her speed was the fastest and the others had not yet returned, she took out a thermos cup and several pills from her bag and silently swallowed them.

This was the medicine she had to take before every meal. 

She deliberately chose the current time when no one was around to take it precisely because she did not want her good friends to therefore question and care about her, treating her specially as a patient. 

So just earlier when asking about eating hotpot, she had only told her friends that her body was not very good and she could not eat spicy food, rather than that she was ill and could not eat spicy food.

Although everyone had not shown any estrangement toward her identity as a young miss from a wealthy family, which made her let out a breath of relief. 

But a young miss from a wealthy family and a patient were two different matters—everyone would not deliberately flatter or distance themselves from her because she was a young miss, yet that did not mean that after knowing she was frail and frequently ill they would not sympathize with her.

She did not want that.

She only wanted when interacting with her good friends to be Bai Yurou herself, not some young miss from a wealthy family, and also not a patient with congenital heart disease.

Not long after Bai Yurou finished taking her medicine, Ning Mu also finished preparing her dipping sauce and returned. 

Because Ning Mu was sitting by the window, Bai Yurou had to stand up to yield the seat to her.

“Thank you.” 

Ning Mu said as her gaze accidentally glanced toward the dining table.

The moment she saw Bai Yurou’s dipping sauce, Ning Mu’s eyes froze for a moment.

However, it only lasted an instant before dissipating.

She probably treated it as a coincidence?

Bai Yurou thought. 

She did not believe she would expose her identity because of such an ordinary dipping sauce.

The two of them seemed to have just like that ordinarily completed a yielding of the seat.

On the other side, Cai Xiaotong and Zhao Dandan also completed the step of preparing dipping sauce and returned to their own seats.

Before long, the waitress big sister brought up a large pot. 

The middle of the pot was separated into two halves—one half had red oil rolling, chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns floating on the surface, the hot and spicy aura rushing toward one’s face; the other half was milky white bone broth, warm and moist like jade, with a few red dates and goji berries dotted within, light and mellow.

“Um…… can the white soup be placed on my side? I can’t eat spicy food.” 

Bai Yurou said to the waitress big sister while also seeking the opinions of the three companions.

The other three naturally had no objections. 

They themselves preferred eating spicy food. 

This yuanyang pot had originally been ordered for Bai Yurou.

Seeing this, the waitress followed Bai Yurou’s request and slanted the white pot side toward her.

I truly hope I can have a healthy body. 

That way I would be able to eat spicy food and also wouldn’t need to take medicine before every meal.

Bai Yurou prayed inwardly.

Before long, the dishes were also all brought up, and the hotpot also came to a boil.

“To celebrate today’s anime convention, cheers!” 

Cai Xiaotong raised her cola cup and took the lead in speaking.

“Cheers.”

“Cheers!”

“Cheers.”

The other three also smiled as they raised their cups and responded one after another.