Fortunately, Song Tingshen was a real gentleman. He didn’t actually kiss her and only found an angle to fool Little Wang。
……

  Well, there was a second there when she was somewhat disappointed and regretful that he went that route.

  However, thinking about it now, she still felt lucky. It was fortunate that he could remain so calm. Otherwise, it would only take a whim for something to happen between them. After all, they were both adults and married in name.

  But afterwards, the fallout would be going straight into the crematorium in the next scene.

  She had a headache just thinking about it.

  Thinking of this, Ruan Xia really wanted to give Song Tingshen a “like”.

  They had to carefully consider how they would get along in the future. It would be best to not take a step out of bounds before doing so.

  —


  As Ruan Xia was thinking about that goodnight kiss, Song Tingshen had returned to his room. He actually wasn’t as calm as he outwardly seemed. He was sitting on the side of his bed with his mind filled with the image of her. When he had gotten close to her earlier, he could smell the faint and pleasant scent of her body as well as see the blush that slowly crawled over her fair-skinned face. It was impossible for him to get rid of that memory.

  He felt both puzzled as well as a feeling that he couldn’t describe.

  He felt puzzled because Ruan Xia had never shown such a look, not even on that night four years ago.

  He found it increasingly difficult to see through Ruan Xia’s motives. He couldn’t figure out what she was thinking either. In the past, he didn’t care and wasn’t concerned about it. Now that she was “bestowing” maternal love to Little Wang, he had been interacting more often with her. However, for some inexplicable reason, he couldn’t connect the current Ruan Xia with the Ruan Xia that he had known for four years. Because of ths, he was curious what had happened to her when he had been away on a short business trip to City A.

  However, he was just curious. If she didn’t want to say anything, he didn’t want to ask her. Song Tingshen wasn’t willing to break their current comfortable equilibrium. He was worried that if he asked her, Ruan Xia would return to her old self.

  —


  In the other bedroom, Ruan Xia got out of bed around 10 PM. She had gotten into a habit of drinking a warm cup of milk before going to sleep. When she had almost reached the stairs, she saw lights coming from downstairs.

  The housekeeper aunty wasn’t here today, and the security system here was very good. Thus, the person downstairs could only be Song Tingshen.

  Why wasn’t he asleep yet?

  Ruan Xia was worried that she would startle him if she suddenly appeared. And so, when she went down the stairs, she instinctively made her footsteps louder. Once she had gotten to the bottom of the stairs, she saw that the light was coming from the kitchen. When she walked over there to take a closer look, she saw that Song Tingshen was doing something.

  She tentatively asked, “What are you doing?”


  Song Tingshen had already heard her footsteps a while ago. When he turned his head, his expression looked a bit awkward, and he was holding a bundle of leafy vegetables. It looked quite funny.

  Although he didn’t answer, Ruan Xia figured out what he was doing. She incredulously asked, “You’re cooking? Did you not eat enough at dinner?”


  He had eaten a lot tonight. There was cake followed by dinner…… And the most important thing was that he and Little Wang had polished off an entire mango smoothie between them after dinner.

  Could it be that Song Tingshen was a big eater?

  But if that was true, how come she had never seen him go downstairs to make himself a late night snack after dinner?

  The housekeeper aunty had never mentioned this to her either.

  Song Tingshen was silent for a moment before he answered, “My family didn’t have the tradition of eating cake on birthdays. We usually celebrate by eating longevity noodles.”


  Back when his parents were alive, his mom would make him a fragrant bowl of longevity noodles for his birthday. She would earnestly look at him until he finished the bowl of noodles.

  Translator Ramblings: This chapter reminded me of how my grandma would make dessert soup (the one with longan, red date, etc) and buy an asian fruit cake for my birthday when I was a little kid. Haven’t thought about that in a long time ^^. Do you guys eat or do anything special for your birthdays?

  Below are pictures of that type of soup and cake.