Lu Qingyan had left.
Xu Xi also arrived.
She held a plate in her hand, "Jiangjiang, look what I brought you, your favorite crispy pork! I’ve been in line for a long time, and there was only one dish left, eat it while it’s hot."
Xu Xi placed the crispy pork in front of Jiang Nanshu, along with a dish of tomato sauce and chili sauce for dipping.
Jiang Nanshu stared at the crispy pork for a few seconds, then looked at Xu Xi, "How do you know... I like to eat this?"
Xu Xi smiled sheepishly with pursed lips, "When you care about someone, you just observe her habits a bit more and you’ll know. I also know you like grapes, milk tea with half sugar, you like to prop your face with your left hand when you’re thinking, and you really like sparkling water."
After saying that, she magically produced a thermos.
Sitting opposite Jiang Nanshu, her face chubby with baby fat, she smiled, "But you’re on your period now, you can’t drink cold drinks, have some brown sugar water instead."
Seeing that Jiang Nanshu didn’t take it, Xu Xi quickly explained, "This cup is very clean, I just bought it, I washed it many times with hot water, and asked the cafeteria aunt to boil it for me. I saw you covering your stomach in class, lacking energy. If you don’t like brown sugar water, I’ll go get you some hot water."
As she spoke, she was about to rush off again.
Jiang Nanshu grabbed her, took her cup, and sipped the brown sugar water, which was still steaming.
It was so sweet that it made her eyes crinkle, and she looked at Xu Xi with a smiling gaze, "How did you know I like sweet things?"
"Thank you." The steam fanned across her face, her almond eyes looking foggy and beautiful, "I really like it."
Xu Xi let out a sigh of relief, sitting down at ease, "As long as you like it, I’ll heat up another pot for you tonight."
"Hey, you are quite attentive, are you Nanshu’s new friend?"
Suddenly hearing Yang Jiashu’s voice, Xu Xi looked over, proudly lifting her chin, "Of course, I am now Jiangjiang’s top fan, no one can beat me."
She wanted to be Jiang Nanshu’s number one darling.
That Chen Qian, wherever she came from, should just disappear.
Yang Jiashu’s smile revealed little tiger teeth, giving Xu Xi a thumbs up teasingly, "Impressive."
The meal was filled with laughter and noise.
Jiang Nanshu ate the crispy pork.
Yet, warmth welled up inside her.
Rarely did anyone remember her so clearly. In the original world, her biological parents did not pay attention to her, wanting to sell her to a middle-aged man who had been married once before for a thousand yuan. After being rescued, her new classmates treated her like a vine climbing to a high branch, despising her. After Zhou Yanxu died, a huge inheritance fell on her head, and the hungry wolves around her just wanted to tear her apart, wishing her dead.
She didn’t know why she liked crispy pork so much.
Maybe when she was little, in the icy snowy weather, she, at four years old, could only watch from the window as her younger brother, one year younger, ate the crispy pork fried by their biological mother.
Rubbing her hands raw with chilblains, she continued to carry water with a small bucket, slowly filling the big tank at home.
She thought that as long as she was a little better behaved, a little more obedient, always yielding to her brother, she too could be loved.
But when she walked into the warm house, her parents were watching TV with her brother, not even leaving her a bite to eat.
Jiang Nanshu really couldn’t understand, why did the same couple who were her parents treat her this way, was it because she wasn’t good enough?
Even when she felt wronged she did not cry, she could smile, yet they still disliked her.
When she was four years old, she stole a piece of meat and nearly got beaten to death by her mother. They threw her out into the yard, made her kneel in the snow that was a foot deep to admit her wrongs.
She was rebellious once, that was the first time she ran out and met Zhou Yanxu coming to the village.
Perhaps seeing how severely she was freezing, the clean-eyed young man squatted down gently and asked her where her home was.
Then, her tiny hands, red with cold, clutched his coat corner, and even though she was shivering, she stubbornly told the stranger she just wanted to eat crispy pork.
She had never eaten it before, so in her heart, it was the best food.
Jiang Nanshu ate quietly, her memories of her original world weren’t good.
Even though the couple was killed by her hand, she didn’t feel much relief.
Because it was their deserved retribution.
At this moment, Xu Xi’s care seemed to tell her, there were people in the world who would also love her, not fear her or avoid her.
Jiang Nanshu slightly curved her lips, and when she looked up again, her almond eyes shined, smiling at Xu Xi, "I think this crispy pork tastes a bit like what our family cook makes."
Yang Jiashu was picking at his food, raising an eyebrow, "You didn’t know? Your dad changed the school’s chef to someone from the same culinary school as your family cook."
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