Nangong Yehen smiled faintly and set the washed vegetables aside.
He walked over and sat down next to Grandpa Hu. "I came here when I was a teenager. I had a strange illness back then, and a little girl saved me by having a venomous snake bite me. When her grandfather came home, he praised her endlessly... This place is beautiful, truly a great spot for health and retirement. Grandpa Hu, you live here alone—does your granddaughter feel at ease with that?"
After hearing Nangong Yehen's words, a flicker of surprise passed through Grandpa Hu's cloudy eyes.
His gaze lingered on Nangong Yehen's face for a long time.
Was he that boy from back then?
Grandpa Hu quickly calmed down, unmoved by Nangong Yehen's words.
"My granddaughter will understand me."
Upon hearing this, Chu Lingzhi's tears streamed down again uncontrollably.
Afraid Grandpa Hu would notice she was crying, she pretended to wipe her tears awkwardly and gave an embarrassed laugh. "I can't get the fire going—the whole room is filled with smoke, it's choking me."
"Silly child, that's not how you start a fire. How can you burn such thick logs?"
Grandpa Hu scolded gently as he stood up and limped over. "Get up, let me do it."
Chu Lingzhi looked at his legs and asked with a heavy heart, "Grandpa Hu, what happened to your legs?"
"They were crushed in a big fire."
Chu Lingzhi's heart ached so much she nearly rushed over to hug him and cry.
Nangong Yehen, seeing her on the verge of collapse, patted her shoulder sympathetically, and she managed to suppress the searing pain inside, not letting Grandpa Hu see her sorrow.
"That fire must have left you with a lot of pain, didn't it?" Chu Lingzhi asked mournfully.
As Grandpa Hu lit the fire, he said, "Everything is fate. As long as you can let go, you can turn pain into something faint."
Chu Lingzhi's heart throbbed with pain. Could people really turn pain into something faint?
This meal was very simple.
Each person had a bowl of white rice and a plate of amaranth.
The amaranth was picked from the edge of the fields, pure wild greens.
Looking at the plate of amaranth on the table, Chu Lingzhi's eyes welled up.
When she was little, she and her grandfather loved picking amaranth to eat.
Stir-fried with garlic, it was especially delicious.
The wild, unpolluted amaranth had a sweet, fresh taste, and back then, she loved mixing the red juice from the greens into her rice.
The rice would turn red, and she'd joke with her family that she was eating blood rice.
The past was like smoke, gone and never to return. Seeing this plate of amaranth, Chu Lingzhi knew she could never go back to those happy childhood days.
Her grandmother and mother would never come back.
Nangong Yehen sensed her sadness. He picked up some vegetables for her, his low voice carrying endless tenderness.
"Eat up. If you don't, I'll finish it all."
"My granddaughter loves this kind of vegetable the most," Grandpa Hu said, looking at Chu Lingzhi.
Chu Lingzhi's throat tightened painfully, as if a lump of bitterness was stuck there, her whole heart sinking like it was soaked in saltwater, heavy and deep...
She picked up a stalk of amaranth and put it in her mouth. This dish was cooked by Nangong Yehen, not the taste she remembered.
But the pure essence of the amaranth, like her memories, would always remain.
"It's good..." she said as she chewed, her voice choked, tears brimming in her eyes.
Grandpa Hu watched her, all his sorrow hidden beneath his ugly scars.
The only thing visible was his cloudy eyes, which held a trace of weathered desolation and grief.
His hand, holding the chopsticks, trembled violently as he picked up vegetables and placed them in Chu Lingzhi's bowl. "Eat more."
His hoarse voice carried a heartbreaking sorrow and a deep affection for Chu Lingzhi.