Maybe it was because he saw and heard something inappropriate last night, so he has to pay something as a price.
His sixth sense told him that something bad would happen today. This was the omen that popped into Xu Hang’s mind the moment the lock broke just after he entered the medical hall.
The morning passed peacefully, and at noon, a “distinguished guest” came.
The distinguished guest was Duan Yelin. He brought a steamer to the medical hall. When Xu Hang saw him, he walked to the back hall. Duan Yelin followed him in and lowered the curtain.
After walking to the small courtyard and sitting down at the stone table, Xu Hang asked, “Why are you here today?”
Duan Yelin put the steamer on the table and said with a smile, “I brought you a gift.”
Gift? It’s not a festival, so where did the gifts come from? Curious, Xu Hang opened the lid of the steamer.
A puff of hot steam came out, and inside was a bowl of soup. The soup was clear and contained a few fish balls, which were round and smooth and translucent jade-white in color. Green onions were floating on the surface of the soup, which looked very appetizing.
Fish balls are not a snack from Hezhou City but Shucheng.
The moment he saw it clearly, Xu Hang froze in place, as if petrified.
Duan Yelin brought out the soup, scooped it up with a spoon, and said with a smile, “You ah, you never told me your birthday, and you don’t celebrate it yourself either. Yesterday I asked Chan Yi, and she said you never mentioned it either, but every year at this time, you would say you wanted to eat croaker fish ball soup. I thought maybe today was your birthday, so I specially asked someone in Hezhou City to find an old lady whose ancestral home is in Shucheng and asked her to make a bowl. Try it, even if today is not your birthday, just treat it as tasting something new.”
In fact, the truth is far from as easy as Duan Yelin said. Hezhou is far away from Shucheng. How can it be so easy to find someone who can make it? He even asked people to go to the surrounding counties and cities to inquire many times before finally finding one. He hired someone to take a train overnight at a high price just to make this bowl of soup.
He just wanted to make Xu Hang happy and to bridge the gap between them that was created by their false start.
He scooped a spoonful of soup, blew it cool, and put it to Xu Hang’s lips: “Come, open your mouth.”
Duan Yelin was rarely careless. He didn’t notice that Xu Hang’s expression was very wrong from the beginning and even became uglier. He stared at the bowl of soup as if he were looking at a bowl of poison.
Xu Hang did not open his mouth but moved back a little. Duan Yelin was puzzled and passed another piece forward, saying, “It’s not hot, it will get cold if you don’t eat it now.”
Xu Hang finally put on a stern expression, and with a powerful blow of his hand, he knocked the entire bowl of fish ball soup to the ground!
The porcelain bowl hit the ground and broke into pieces immediately. Several small pieces of porcelain rolled far away, and the soup even splattered on the trouser legs of the two of them.
Duan Yelin still held the soup spoon in his hand, staring at the ground with wide eyes, then moved his eyes from the ground to Xu Hang’s face, as if what Xu Hang broke was not a bowl, but the fragile relationship between them.
Xu Hang turned to leave, but Duan Yelin threw the spoon and pulled him over: “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to eat.”
“I’m not a three-year-old child. You can’t fool me with this excuse.” Duan Yelin used force on his hands to force him to look at him. “If you are dissatisfied with me or if I did something wrong, just tell me!”
Xu Hang looked lazy and unhappy: “No, you did nothing wrong, it’s me who doesn’t know what’s good for me.”
“Xu Shaotang!” Duan Yelin finally snapped, and he threw the person against the wall. All the medicine bags hanging on the wall fell to the ground.
If possible, he really wanted to pry open Xu Hang’s head and see what was inside. Every time Duan Yelin interacted with Xu Hang, it felt like navigating a battlefield full of landmines—one wrong step, and he’d be obliterated. If it were an actual minefield, he’d be confident in his ability to handle it, but Xu Hang was far more unpredictable, leaving no clues to follow.
Facing Duan Yelin’s anger head-on, Xu Hang smiled sarcastically, then took off his outer robe. Duan Yelin was surprised: “What are you doing?”
Xu Hang said, “Don’t you always do this when you are angry? This time I will take the initiative to save you from having to do it.”
He really unbuttoned his clothes one by one, but Duan Yelin held him back and said, “Don’t abuse yourself with words. You make me sound like a rapist.”
“Oh…” Xu Hang seemed to suddenly understand and squinted his eyes and said, “So, you are not?”
There was a thud, which was the sound of Duan Yelin’s fist hitting the wall. The wall was very rough, with tiny brick and stone particles on it. Duan Yelin’s wrist joints immediately started bleeding.
The two of them didn’t speak to each other, and there was a long silence. It was as if a fire was burning on Duan Yelin’s head, and it was as if he had swallowed magma alive, and he was filled with bone-eating anger from inside to outside. He pressed down with all his might until his violently heaving chest finally slowed down, and then he spoke.
“Is that all I am in your heart?”
Xu Hang also calmed down a little bit, so he said, “You should be what you are, and I’ve always been this way. If you’re not used to it, there’s no need for you to endure the anger.”
“I don’t want to hold a grudge against you, and I don’t believe you’d feel comfortable doing this either. Xu Shaotang, what’s the point?”
“Then don’t do anything unnecessary.” Xu Hang stepped aside.
“But you also have to tell me what is unnecessary! For four years, you never said anything, neither liked me nor hated me. Only when I touched your reverse scale would you prick my hands like a hedgehog and make them bleed! No matter what you have been through, no matter how cruel and unbearable the past was, I can accept it, but if you don’t tell me, what can I do?”
Duan Yelin forced the words out through clenched teeth, clearly having been holding them in for a long time. Once he finished speaking, he visibly exhaled deeply, and his eyes softened considerably.
He pressed his forehead against Xu Hang’s and lowered his voice, “If I wanted to investigate, you’d be exposed to me. But I know you don’t like that, and it’s your greatest taboo. So, I’m willing to wait until you decide to tell me yourself. But you can’t withhold things from me and then blame me for not knowing. Do you understand? Now, let me ask you again—are you willing to tell me?”
When he first mentioned that he would investigate, Xu Hang dug his ten fingers tightly into the wall. He slowly let go after Duan Yelin finished his last sentence.
Perhaps it was these words that finally pried open a little crack in his stubborn shell, and Xu Hang’s tone finally softened. He closed his eyes and said softly, “Duan Yelin, can you not ask?”
He still refused, still failed to accept it. Duan Yelin was a little discouraged and disappointed.
The fish balls on the ground had already cooled down, and Duan Yelin walked on them.
After a long while, the medicine boy outside came in tremblingly, took a look, and asked tentatively, “Head of the Household, did you, did you have an argument with Commander Duan? His face was so dark when he left… Aiya, what’s going on here? Let me clean it up!”
“No need, let me clean it up.” Xu Hang waved his hand and asked him to retreat.
He picked up a fish ball from the ground, placed it in his palm, and finally clenched his fist.
When he returned to Jinyan Tang that day, there was one set of bowls and chopsticks missing from the dinner table.
Duan Yelin had left Hezhou City on a business trip. Xu Hang was stunned for a moment when he heard Chan Yi mention this, then he recalled that Duan Yelin had mentioned it to him earlier.
But in the past four years, this was the first time he left without saying goodbye.
He must be really angry, Xu Hang thought.
