After Being Pestered by My Gloomy and Clingy Roommate 9

Chapter 9: Nine

“Have you been waiting long, baby? There were a lot of people eating out today, so the line was a bit long.”

Chu Qingzi explained as she placed the food from her tray onto the table.

Yu Jiang helped her. “It’s okay.”

Thanks to the nameless pervert’s harassing messages, she actually hadn’t noticed how much time had passed at all.

The two of them rarely spoke while eating.

The exceptionally quiet atmosphere between them, embedded in the surrounding noise, seemed a bit out of place.

With something weighing on her mind, Yu Jiang’s eating speed was noticeably slower than usual.

Chu Qingzi began to pick the bones out of a piece of fish with her chopsticks. After carefully finishing, she picked up the most tender part of the fish and placed it in Yu Jiang’s bowl.

She knew Yu Jiang’s tastes better than any friend, and she knew the speed at which she savored her food better than any friend.

Seeing that Yu Jiang was not herself, she couldn’t help but frown. “Don’t you have an appetite today, baby? How have you eaten so little?”

Yu Jiang was still struggling with how to initiate the feeding task. Startled by her sudden concern, she was instantly like a top student caught daydreaming in class by the teacher, so nervous she could barely hold her chopsticks steady.

She quickly regained her composure. Just as the slender chopsticks were about to slip from her palm, she gripped them tightly again.

“I’m fine. The food is delicious today. I like it a lot.”

After speaking, she shoveled two mouthfuls of rice. Before she could get the piece of fish, which was coated in sauce, into her mouth, she chewed no more than three times and swallowed it whole.

Chu Qingzi sighed, “Even if you like it, you don’t have to eat so fast, baby. We don’t have class this afternoon, so we can stay here as long as we want.”

Seeing that she was no longer worried, Yu Jiang secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

With a “Chu Qingzi-shaped inspection device” staring at her at all times, Yu Jiang didn’t dare to get distracted again.

The result of concentrating on her meal was that by the time there was only one last mouthful of rice left in her bowl, she still hadn’t figured out how to “calmly and naturally ask Chu Qingzi if she could finish it for her.”

At this point, the food on the various plates was nearly gone.

Chu Qingzi was just about to pick up the last piece of beef on the plate for Yu Jiang when Yu Jiang, who had always accepted silently, uncharacteristically pulled her bowl back.

Yu Jiang: “I’m full. You should have this piece.”

Chu Qingzi said okay.

Thanks to this little interlude, Yu Jiang, who had been going around in circles in a maze, suddenly found an exit.

She had almost forgotten that the damn pervert had already taken a step back.

Since the other person only needed her to make a gesture of invitation, what was she still struggling and worrying about?

The Z language was vast and profound. When asking someone to do something, one could certainly use a more tactful approach.

Yu Jiang no longer hesitated. She put on a very natural expression and pushed her rice bowl slightly in the direction of the person across from her.

“Qingzi, it seems like there’s more rice than usual today. I still have this one mouthful left, and I’m already full.”

Yu Jiang felt that her way of handling this was perfect.

Even if the damn pervert checked the surveillance footage later and expressed dissatisfaction, she would have every reason to refute all her words.

As for how Chu Qingzi would react…

She naturally assumed that a considerate person who was also a germaphobe, when faced with this situation, would surely give the same answer—

Since you’re full, baby, let’s go then.

Chu Qingzi had just finished clearing the empty plates. Hearing this, she smiled and asked in return.

“Are you asking me to finish this last mouthful for you, baby?”

Yu Jiang was about to nod when she realized what she had just said.

The corner of her mouth stiffened, and a trace of disbelief appeared in her eyes.

Eh eh eh eh eh eh eh???

This isn’t right, is it???

Was what I said not tactful enough?

Under Chu Qingzi’s doting and indulgent gaze, Yu Jiang felt as if she had been locked in a terrifying zoo.

There was a wolf in front, a bear behind, a snake to the left, and a tiger to the right.

No matter which direction she took a step, the result was a single word—

Death!

“Baby?”

Now that the matter had been pushed this far, if she denied it, the damn pervert would definitely say she hadn’t done the task properly.

Yu Jiang forced a smile. “Um… I was going to say that, but you absolutely don’t need to deliberately change your eating habits because of me. It’s just one mouthful of rice—”

The rice bowl in her hand was taken away, and Chu Qingzi interrupted her, looking very hurt. “In your eyes, am I the kind of person who would waste food?”

The other’s delicate face had a heart-stoppingly pitiful look. Yu Jiang was almost seduced by her beauty into losing her bearings.

She composed herself and explained calmly, “I know you’ve always cherished food. What I mean is, aren’t you a germaphobe? Since—”

“What did I do wrong to make you have this kind of misunderstanding about me?”

Yu Jiang: Huh?

Her mind started to get confused.

“You’re not a germaphobe?”

Chu Qingzi’s watery eyes shimmered. “So the reason you’ve been unwilling to share the same food with me all this time is actually because you misunderstood that I’m a germaphobe?”

“That time when Senior Wang wanted to drink your milk tea, didn’t you refuse? So I thought you were a germaphobe,” Yu Jiang explained simply why she had thought that.

“Plus, later on, whenever I ate with others, you never participated, so I became certain of that guess.”

Chu Qingzi seemed to be trying to recall the “incident where she refused the vice president’s request to drink her milk tea” that Yu Jiang mentioned.

After about half a minute of silence, she spoke softly.

“Sorry, baby. I thought about it carefully, but I still can’t remember what you’re talking about.”

“Compared to that,” her tone shifted, “what I remember more clearly is actually the time I took the initiative to ask if you wanted a sip of my milk tea, but you refused.”

Yu Jiang almost immediately found the contradiction in her words.

She remembered very clearly that the two events, “Chu Qingzi refusing Senior Wang” and “Chu Qingzi asking her,” had happened within three minutes of each other.

Chu Qingzi wasn’t someone with a bad memory. Could she really only remember the latter of two such closely related events?

On second thought, it didn’t seem so strange that her memory had a selective blank.

When people recall the past, they can often only vaguely remember certain relatively important memory points.

That incident had happened so long ago, so it was normal that Chu Qingzi couldn’t remember everything from that time.

Yu Jiang found an excuse for her, but her mood didn’t lighten much.

With the other’s emphasis, she instead felt as if she had become a great sinner who had made her innocent friend sad.

“Qingzi, did you really ask me that way back then?”

If I remember correctly, that’s not what Chu Qingzi said at the time, right?

Chu Qingzi smiled with relief. “It’s okay, it’s all in the past. Now that the misunderstanding has been cleared up, from now on, you should be willing to share food with me, right, baby?”

Deep within her beautiful eyes was a sense of grievance that was impossible to ignore.

“Because you refused me that day, I thought you found me disgusting.”

Yu Jiang had originally been secretly struggling, trying to figure out why Chu Qingzi had refused Senior Wang that day if she wasn’t a germaphobe.

Hearing her say this, she immediately cast those no-longer-important little fragments to the back of her mind.

She hurriedly comforted Chu Qingzi, who rarely showed such emotions. “It’s my fault. Maybe I really did remember it wrong. Don’t overthink it. I would never find you disgusting.”

Chu Qingzi’s eyes curved into crescents, as if she were extremely happy.

“That’s good. After I finish this mouthful of your rice, let’s go home. We still have to watch a movie together tonight.”

Her gaze fell, stopping on the pair of chopsticks near Yu Jiang, and she asked cautiously, “My chopsticks are dirty. Can I use yours?”

Every table was equipped with a chopstick box, and if a customer needed a new pair, they could just take them from inside.

Compared to continuing to use the ones Yu Jiang had used, it was obviously cleaner to get a new pair.

That’s what Yu Jiang thought. Just as she was about to suggest this, she saw her slightly subservient attitude, and her heart was pricked.

By the time she reacted, her more honest right hand had already bypassed her brain’s command and taken the initiative to hand the chopsticks to the other person.

Since it had come to this, Yu Jiang could only silently shut her mouth.

She quietly watched Chu Qingzi put the rice into her mouth. The tip of the chopsticks that had once been in her own mouth was unhesitatingly taken into the other’s.

Yu Jiang’s face flushed, and she looked away as if to escape, not daring to look at those red lips that were now faintly stained with her own taste.

Them, like this…

Does this count as an indirect kiss…

Translator’s Notes

1. Z language (Z国语言, Z guó yǔyán): A common way in Chinese web novels to refer to the Chinese language without explicitly naming China, similar to how “C-dramas” or “K-pop” are used. “Z” comes from “Zhongguo” (中国), the Mandarin name for China.