After boiling the meat, the next step was to simmer the broth and wrap the wontons.
Ye Ning thought that after spending a little while in the kitchen, he would leave since such a messy place wasn’t where he liked to stay.
But to her surprise, when she returned from the stove, she saw him holding a knife, chopping meat on the cutting board without rhythm. Those beautiful, slender fingers, which had spent a lifetime dealing with computers and documents, were now gripping a kitchen knife.
Ye Ning was dumbfounded. She had wanted to say something, but then she changed her mind and swallowed the words, and went to get the ingredients. She fetched a clean plate and came to stand beside him.
"Are you done chopping?"
"Let me see..." She reached out with chopsticks to part the meat under his knife and saw the mince was nearly ready. She told him to stop chopping and took the bowl that had been set aside, then filled it with the meat.
"And green onions? Right, you don’t eat green onions." She lifted her hand and put the green onions back.
The man, with a slight smile curling at the corners of his mouth, stood there contentedly watching as she seasoned the bowl of minced meat. Finally, she began to wrap the wontons.
This was something he was even less familiar with. Of course, he had never thought of learning it. He just stood there, watching her fingers—they weren’t too skilled, but she could manage. She took those thin wrappers and one by one, wrapped up the meat inside.
It was fascinating and quite entertaining to watch.
In about ten minutes, she had finished wrapping enough wontons for three. Then he saw her carrying them to the pot. On her way, she didn’t forget to give him a command, "Bring three bowls, a small one for Xiaobao will do."
He washed his hands, obediently went over to the sterilizer, opened it, and took out the bowls.
They were very pretty blue and white porcelain. He remembered the last time the cleaning lady made breakfast here, there were no bowls, and in the end, the cleaning lady had to buy some disposable ones downstairs.
But unexpectedly, today Ye Ning had also brought bowls.
So he brought the bowls out, placed them next to her neatly—two large ones, and one small one, lined up in a row. They looked so pleasing to the eye, and they brought such joy to his heart.
Yet Ye Ning had not noticed this. Seeing that he had brought the bowls, she lifted the lid off the pot.
As soon as the lid was removed, a tantalizing aroma burst forth with the steam, enveloping her face. Standing nearby, Ou Mucen saw this and without a thought, pulled her back, "Be careful!"
The tension in his voice, along with his astonishingly quick action, immediately filled the kitchen with an air of tightness.
Ye Ning was a bit startled, but she wasn’t scared by the steam; rather, it was the man’s reaction that frightened her.
She looked up at him with widened, startled eyes, "What’s wrong?"
Ou Mucen stared grimly at the pot, "Are you an idiot? Getting so close with no concept of safety?"
So, he thought she would get scalded and that’s why he had hastily pulled her away.
In that instant, warmth surged through the cracks in her heart that had long been open for him. In just a few seconds, warmth filled her once cold heart completely.