Bowl of Noodles

“Of course.” The waiter nodded. He could tell from the clothes they were wearing that this mother and daughter weren’t wealthy. Those were all old clothes that been left behind by the seasons, and the vast majority of people in the city don’t wear plain clothes like that anymore.

“Xi, let’s just have a bowl then? Mom can’t eat that much, and this one looks quite big?” The mother said to her fifteen or sixteen-year-old daughter.

Chen Xi knew that her mother was trying to save money, but the doctor said… that her mother was dying soon, and coming here to eat a bowl of beef noodles was her wish. Chen Xi wasn’t wasteful herself, so it took her some effort to speak. “Maybe we should have two bowls?”

“Xi, what if we couldn’t finish, we’d be wasting food!” The mother interrupted before turning to the waiter. “One bowl then, how much?”

“That’ll be fifteen kuai.” The waiter pitied the family, but he was just working here, and he wasn’t that better off than them either. He couldn’t just make the decision to give them an extra bowl, or the boss would just deduct it from his salary.

The mother felt her heart tighten at the price, but Chen Xi took out from her pocket a stack of neatly folded bills, counting it to fifteen before handing it to the waiter.

The waiter knew that this money was most likely a big sum for them, but he couldn’t do anything for them. He gave them a look of sympathy and was ready to ask the cook to give them a little bit more noodles- that was all he could do.

“Xi, you work hard for that money, and you still pay for my medical fees… We shouldn’t spend it carelessly like this…” Chen Xi’s mother said softly. “Fifteen kuai- that’s a lot of dried noodles we could buy, we could be having that for days…”

“Mom, today’s my birthday, we agreed that I’d be in charge!” Chen Xi interrupted with a smile. “After today, I’ll be sixteen, an adult! In the future, I’ll earn even more money, and bring you to big restaurants every day!”

“Haha… Okay, mom will look forward to that…” The mother sighed in her heart. Could she last that long? Now that she’s seen her daughter grow up perhaps it’d be easier on her when she left this world.

This noodle shop was an old name around here, and Chen Xi and her mother would always look at the customers in here with envy. Her mother told her back then that one day when they had money, she’d bring Chen Xi here to have noodles.

And all of a sudden, Chen Xi grew up—her mother, on the other hand, was diagnosed with cancer! All of a sudden, their already-poor family became poorer still. Her mother couldn’t work anymore, and it fell on Chen Xi’s shoulders to collect bottles and cardboard after school to sell.

It was her sixteenth birthday, but she wasn’t happy at all. Just a few days ago, when they were at the hospital, the doctor told her that her mother only had one or two months left, telling her to get the funeral ready…

She was shocked. She knew that the day would come, but she didnt’ expect it to come so soon!

Was mother really going to leave?

She was sad, she was desperate, but in order to keep her mother from suspecting, she had to put on a happy face!

Using her birthday as an excuse, she brought her mother to the noodle shop. From her mother’s perspective, Chen Xi was being a stubborn kid, the way kids were, but Chen Xi knew that if she didn’t bring her mother here now she would never be able to eat the noodles here again!

So, for a few nights, Chen Xi came home two hours later, taking the train to collect trash at the beach, and finally managed to earn thirty kuai! The goal was to be able to eat a bowl of beef noodles with her mother! She’d asked for the price beforehand—fifteen per bowl. It was expensive for her, but she felt that it was worth it!

Lin Yi’s eyes gazed across the two, resting his eyes on Chen Xi’s mother.

This was a woman who had been battered down by her sickness, tortured by it for years, but he could tell, she was probably a pretty lady when she was young! But, from what Lin Yi could see, her life was ebbing away, and it wouldn’t be long before she died. Lin Yi didn’t understand the reasons, and without doing more analysis, he wouldn’t know what sickness it was.

The Chen Xi girl, on the other hand, was pretty, likely the same as her mother when she was young. She was only sixteen, but her youth and beauty were already flowing out of her. Her clothes may be plain, but they were clean.

Lin Yi couldn’t help but think of Tang Yun. This caused him to realize something…

He frowned. He didn’t know when it started, but he wasn’t as cold a person anymore? Did he like to butt into other people’s business?

Had the environment here changed him?

Lin Yi realized that he really has left the days of blood and war far behind, and was starting to adapt to life here in this environment… He liked this place!

The waiter walked over and Lin Yi moved his eyes away, turning to Xiaoxiao, who was also focusing on the mother and daughter before, clearly empathizing with them.

“Hello, what would you two like to have?” The waiter asked.

“We would like a bowl of beef noodles!” Xiaoxiao said before Lin Yi could speak. She got the idea from the mother and daughter: if she ate one bowl of noodles sharing it with Lin Yi, it’d help their relationship tremendously!

“Oh… Okay.” The waiter nodded after a pause—it wasn’t that odd that a couple would share one bowl. It was just that Xiaoxiao’s order coincidentally lined up with the single bowl the earlier customers ordered.

“Just one? You’re not eating?” Lin Yi frowned as he looked at her.

“I am!” Xiaoxiao said, very annoyed. He was supposed to be buying her lunch, of course, she was eating, what kind of question was that? Why would they be here if she weren’t eating?

“Oh, two bowls then.” Lin Yi said flatly.

“Alright, sir.” The waiter said, smiling to himself. It seemed that Lin Yi didn’t understand the meaning behind sharing the noodles, and Xiaoxiao was just doing it one-sidedly. The two might not even be a couple, it could be the type of situation where the girl was pursuing the guy!

Xiaoxiao was a little unhappy. “I can’t finish it, the noodles here come in big portions…”

“Then tell him to give you fewer noodles.” Lin Yi said.

“…Why would I do that?” Xiaoxiao was getting pissed at this point. She waved her hand to signal for the waiter to leave.

The waiter shook her head, afraid of pissing her off even more as he left to make the order.