“I’ve had a pretty good life in Beijing all these years. Now that I’m back from Beijing, I don’t regret it either.” Chen Zhimai paused. “And just so we’re clear, I quit. They didn’t fire me.”
Chen Zhimai buried her face in the foam bowl of spicy beef instant noodles. Soon her face was damp and warm with steam. Then she said, “I never regretted breaking up with you back then, either.”
“I know.” Fang Yicheng asked calmly, “Want some soy milk?”
Chen Zhimai burped. “No, thanks. The doctor said my blood lipids are high, so I need to cut out sugar. You drink it. I remember you like it.”
Fang Yicheng watched Chen Zhimai eat her noodles. She’d always been so focused when she ate.
“Chen Zhimai.”
“Mm?”
“How about we start over?”
Vivian got fired. After ten years making her way in Beijing, she came back with only a little savings and became Chen Zhimai again, the eldest daughter of Boss Shen, who ran a cold-dish shop on Baiyulan Lane.
Chen Zhimai lounged around at home for two months, with so much free time that she knitted two sweaters for Chen Zhimo’s hamster.
Unable to stand watching her laze about, Shen Qing found her a “stable” job: teaching music at the community college for seniors.
There was a stinky tofu shop outside the senior college, with a long line every day. That was where Chen Zhimai met her first love, Fang Yicheng, again.
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A gentle, sweet romance.
Relaxed and down-to-earth.
Childhood confidants reunited in their hometown. They talk, they fall in love.
Theme: The warmth of everyday life.
