What’s Mr. Huo Eating Today

“Actually… that… because you said you don’t want to eat shrimp today, so….”

He Yunzhou spoke stiffly, his eyes dodging, not even daring to meet Huo Zheng’s gaze.

“So?”

The expression on Huo Zheng’s face froze.

“I only roasted dried shrimp for Nangua,” He Yunzhou’s voice became smaller and smaller, “Of course, people can eat it if they want, but the dried shrimp that people eat should be salted before roasting. Nangua can’t eat salty stuff; I’ll omit this process. If you eat its dried shrimp, you’ll probably feel that the taste is a bit bland….”

Should I say thanks for this little episode?

The loneliness, emptiness, and sadness that had made He Yunzhou unable to breathe before disappeared in an instant, and all that was left was complete panic and embarrassment.

Moreover, at this moment, the set time for roasted dried shrimps was up, and the orange heating tube inside the glass door instantly extinguished, and the oven’s crisp “Ding—” sounded very clear. Obviously, it was just a very ordinary completion reminder, but there was a deafening feeling at this particular moment.

The atmosphere was rather embarrassing.

Not to mention Nangua, who had been in the living room before heard the sound of the oven, immediately jumped from the sofa to the floor, trotting all the way to the kitchen with joy, then familiarly stayed guarded in front of the oven, tilting its head, and intently waiting for its own share of snacks—the embarrassment level doubled instantly.

Of course, Nangua doesn’t care about these. He Yunzhou has already made so many small snacks for it, and it knows very well what the “ding” means.

At this moment, only the sea of joy and dried shrimps within its paw’s reach were in its mind.

If it were in regular times, just seeing Nangua’s greedy and well-behaved appearance, He Yunzhou would be so meng-ed1T/N: Hm, like “It’s so cute!” feelingthat his heart would melt. But now, the more happy Nangua is, the more He Yunzhou wants to cover his face.

“How about I reprocess these dried shrimps? I also have an excellent nori powder and wasabi paste here. If processed, we can make a Japanese-style seaweed wasabi stir-fried dried shrimp. It will also be great to pair with the drink….”

He Yunzhou spoke in panic, trying to remedy it.

“No need.”

Huo Zheng stubbornly refused.

“Then do you want to eat ham? Honeydew melon wrapped in ham2can also be eaten with wine. Otherwise, I’ll just cut up some marinated ox tongue…”3

“No need to bother.”

Still an exasperated refusal.

As a matter of fact, this Mr. Huo losing his temper made no sense at all.

But for He Yunzhou, just seeing Huo Zheng’s unhappy and forcibly suppressed emotions on his face, he had already lost his helmet and abandoned his armor, completely unable to fight.

The appearance of the dead cat Guaji overlapped with Huo Zheng once again, completely dispelling the strange human feeling that He Yunzhou felt in Huo Zheng a few minutes ago.

“I also stewed chicken soup, boiled a little taro in it to make boiled taro? It just can’t be paired for drinking….”

“It’s ok; you don’t have to go to too much trouble for me. I also just saw that you happen to have shrimp here, so I just took a bottle of wine down in passing. It’s just a misunderstanding, nothing more; drink it whenever you have time.”

Huo Zheng tried his best to suppress his emotions.

In fact, he wasn’t angry, at least. When He Yunzhou began to make frantic attempts to make up for it by cooking, his anger had disappeared.

But his ears and neck were still a little hot.

It was humiliating… and a little bit subtle, being shamed into anger.

Huo Zheng also knew that his misunderstanding was nothing more than a trivial matter—didn’t he just mistakenly regard the cat’s snacks as a loving snack that He Yunzhou specially made for him? What’s the big deal? Although he was a little secretly delighted when he saw the shrimp before. Naturally, immediately after he sighed for a long time, he was also quite embarrassed.

He was afraid that if he really rejected He Yunzhou too cruelly, he would make this foolish guy too sad.

“Meow… Meow meow… Meow meow wuwu…”

Huo Zheng was still trying to calm down in an attempt to forget this humiliating incident. Nangua, next to him, waited for a long time without seeing He Yunzhou open the oven to take out the dried shrimps, and it gradually became anxious.

It howled while jumping on the flow table, stretched out a paw on He Yunzhou’s arm, frantically hinting to He Yunzhou to present its dried shrimps.

He Yunzhou’s headache was as big as the Big Dipper. He stroked Nangua’s head, comforting it repeatedly.

“Wait a minute; the dried shrimps are still drying and cooling oh. It’s so hot now; you can’t eat them.….”

“Meow meow meow….”

“The dried shrimps won’t grow legs and run away, don’t howl la!”

“Meow meow meow meow meow.….”

……

Huo Zheng looked at the scene, took a deep breath, and turned his head, intending to leave.

“Huo Zheng!”

He Yunzhou hurriedly retrieved.

It was also at this time that Huo Zheng’s previously delivered truffle box caught He Yunzhou’s eyes—

“I’ll make matsutake for you, ok?”

He Yunzhou subconsciously reached out and grabbed Huo Zheng’s wrist.

He softened his voice just like the old days he coaxed Guaji to eat, softly pleading.

“I’ll give the dried shrimps to Nangua. How about we don’t give it a bite of matsutake—”

It’s over.

When he reacted, He Yunzhou realized that he had unknowingly used the same thing when talking to Guaji on Huo Zheng.

[“That can is just for Nangua, our Guaji will eat very expensive, expensive and frozen dried foods, don’t leave a bite to that fat Nangua, ok…”] 4It’s called “Freeze-drying” that are mostly made into cubes. Like this:

Nangua and Guaji had a bad relationship at first; they always fought over food. Nangua has always been generous,5big-hearted and serene (idiom)and will be very happy as long as it has something to eat. But once Guaji sees Nangua eating food that once belonged only to its can, it will ultimately go mad or even refuse to eat.

Whenever this time comes, it’s He Yunzhou’s turn to lower his head6Willing to be in a low position.and work hard to coax Guaji.

He Yunzhou has to prove to Guaji that he would always like it the most in this family (for example, prepare a separate snack just for Guaji and feed it to him in front of Nangua) before Guaji will reluctantly relent.

It’s just that this kind of cat coaxing technique fell on another human, which was really a little exaggerated and even ridiculous.

“It’s not—”

In the next second, He Yunzhou wanted to apologize, but he didn’t expect Huo Zheng to speak in advance and responded awkwardly, “That, that’s more or less the same.”

He Yunzhou’s eyes widened, and he looked at Huo Zheng in surprise.

And Huo Zheng’s gaze also happened to fall right on He Yunzhou. At the moment when the two people’s eyes were facing each other… an inexplicable heat rushed to his cheeks.

“Meow wuwuwuwu—”

Nangua also continued to howl at this time and began to pull open the oven door with its paws.

“Cough,” Huo Zheng lightly coughed as a cover and quickly averted his eyes, “No need to trouble so much at night. If you want to roast the truffles to eat, that’s enough. You can treat them as late-night snacks.”

It was all because he felt sorry for He Yunzhou.

Huo Zheng thought.

He would never admit that once he heard He Yunzhou begging him in that sweet and soft voice, he couldn’t resist.

He Yunzhou breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that Huo Zheng was willing to eat roasted matsutake at his home for a snack, knowing that the other party’s emotions had finally passed.

“Wait a little, the roasted matsutake will be quick.”

As he spoke, he opened the wooden box containing matsutake.

Seeing the words “Tamba Products” printed on top of the box, He Yunzhou’s hand trembled for a moment.

He had known for a long time that Huo Zheng is probably quite a wealthy person, but He Yunzhou still had a little trouble breathing in the face of such a box of matsutake that may be equivalent to his one-month mortgage.

He Yunzhou couldn’t help but turn around and look at the dining table.

He could just see Huo Zheng sitting next to the dining table from his current position.

The latter had his chin propped up with one hand, staring coldly at Nangua on the table—the round orange cat was currently curled up, contentedly eating a dried shrimp that it forcibly begged for.

But the strange thing was that every time Nangua takes a few bites, it has to look up fixedly at Huo Zheng for a while, then bury its head and continue to eat painstakingly.

… It was exactly the same as when it was with Guaji.

Huo Zheng squinted his eyes at the orange furball before him; he was also agitated. So much so that he wanted to directly pick up the whole cat and roll it frantically into a ball before throwing it to the ground.

“En?“

Suddenly, he turned his head as if he was aware and looked towards the kitchen.

He Yunzhou was dealing with the matsutake with his back to him, and his back with an apron looked particularly homely.

Seeing He Yunzhou’s back, Huo Zheng’s expression instantly softened a lot.

Was it an illusion? He thought.

How else would he feel that He Yunzhou was looking at him?

As for He Yunzhou, he was actually thinking about Huo Zheng at this time.

Just like some kind of a small country prince or lord…

He sighed in his heart.

Looking at Huo Zheng’s face, then at the luxurious matsutake that was huge and perfect in appearance in his hand, it made sense—After all, that is what Huo Zheng wants to eat, no matter how expensive it is, it’s only natural, right?

While thinking about it, He Yunzhou used thin bamboo strips to scrape off the scattered brown bits and pieces on the surface of the matsutake. The tightly shrunk into a small ball that hadn’t been unfolded matsutake head was wiped with kitchen paper.

The next step is to use these thin bamboo strips to cut the matsutake into three evenly thick slices roughly.

The cast-iron pan used to fry the steak was red-hot and brushed with olive oil, then the matsutake slices were sizzled on it—after being heated, the unique fragrant aroma of matsutake rose abruptly, making He Yunzhou inhale deeply.

“You like matsutake a lot?”

Huo Zheng’s voice came from behind He Yunzhou.

He watched He Yunzhou cook the matsutake he had specially prepared with some curiosity. He didn’t think it was much of a treat, but after seeing He Yunzhou reveal a happy expression, he couldn’t help but be happy, too.

He Yunzhou nodded sheepishly.

“Yes ah… and I’ve never eaten such an expensive matsutake before.”

As he said, a layer of moist juice had already appeared on the surface of the matsutake, which was the fresh juice oozing from the matsutake itself during searing. He Yunzhou quickly turned the matsutake over, and the side that came into contact with the bottom of the pan had already shown a rather beautiful golden-brown horizontal scorch mark, and their aroma became stronger and stronger.

“It’s like the smell of the forest.”

He Yunzhou exclaimed in a small voice. At the same time, his hands didn’t stop. He turned the grinder and evenly sprinkled coarse sea salt and black pepper on the matsutake slices.

After just a moment of effort, this simple olive oil roasted matsutake was ready.7Something like this:

Although only the simplest cooking techniques are used, it’s precisely because of this that the aroma and charming flavor of matsutake itself are perfectly expressed.

He Yunzhou wanted to get a plate, but unexpectedly, Huo Zheng had already stretched out his chopsticks calmly, picked up a matsutake from the cast-iron pan, and put it in his mouth.

Freshly roasted matsutake has a particular taste that other mushrooms don’t have.

The extremely delicious juices seem to fill every fiber of matsutake, but at the same time, they retain their exceptionally crispiness and taste.

The slightly roasted charred aroma and the fragrant and rich aroma together stimulated the taste buds and nasal cavity, and the restrained salt and black pepper just lifted out the fresh sweetness of the matsutake just right.

“Well, delicious.”

Huo Zheng praised him very directly after eating the matsutake.

The author has something to say:

“Just give the dried shrimps to Nangua, how about we don’t give it a bite of matsutake—”

Nangua: ? ? ? ? Meow? ? ? Meow meow meow? ? ?

1T/N: Hm, like “It’s so cute!” feeling234It’s called “Freeze-drying” that are mostly made into cubes. Like this: 5big-hearted and serene (idiom)6Willing to be in a low position.7Something like this: