As the crowd sat there with a blank reaction, Xiaoyun awkwardly cleared his throat before giving his final words.
"I hope everyone has a good night’s sleep today... And for those who were a part of Wuli’s mission, your work won’t be forgotten."
With a bow towards the crowd, Xiaoyun quickly jumped back down the stage before leaving the cafeteria, letting them process the information themselves.
"Whew, that was a little scary..."
Stepping back into the parking lot, the car was still there. The driver was filled with curiosity, yet he didn’t ask a single bit about it.
"Where are we going now, commander?"
"Can you drive back to the house earlier? You’re free to go afterward... Thank you for driving for the past few days."
"It’s been an honor, sir."
A few minutes later...
"Welco back, Honey."
As Leyan opened the door and gave Xiaoyun a warm hug, he barely reacted to it as he put his belt over to the hanger.
"Are Wuli and Houqin asleep?"
"Yeah, I brought them to the guest room for now... You hungry? I can go heat so food right now."
"I already ate... Is everyone else asleep already?"
"They still have work tomorrow—but they had been waiting for you to co back for the past two days."
Leyan quickly added the last part as she didn’t want to make it sound as if she were the only one who cared about it.
"Tell them just to sleep early next ti... I’m going back to bed, sorry, babe. I’m too tired to talk anymore."
"It’s fine."
Hearing a loud yawn from Xiaoyun, Leyan didn’t speak any further as she watched him head upstairs before disappearing to the 2nd floor.
"I should probably sleep soon as well..."
---
When the next day arrived, Xiaoyun woke up extra early as his body felt surprisingly more energetic than usual.
"The bed at ho is so much better... Wait, it’s only six-thirty right now?"
Unable to sleep any longer, he quickly got out of bed and headed over to the bathroom to take a shower.
A strong stench instantly hit his nose as he took off his clothes. An even worse sll ca when he took off his underwear.
"Ugh, why does it sll so bad?"
Throwing both of them into the laundry basket, he walked straight into the shower area before closing the glass door.
Water began splashing over Xiaoyun’s toned body as he turned the lever. One hand reached for the hair shampoo as the other adjusted the showerhead.
After a short five-minute shower, he headed back to his bedroom. Picking a new pair of soldier uniforms before heading downstairs.
"Honey, you’re up early today," Leyan said. "You sure you don’t want to sleep in a little longer?"
Xiaoyun was startled slightly—she sohow knew it was him walking into the kitchen despite not turning around a single ti.
"How do you know I was the one who woke up early today?"
"Your slipper is a little louder than everyone else’s... Breakfast isn’t ready yet, you’ll need to wait for like an hour."
"What are you cooking up?"
Looking at the counter, Xiaoyun could see a bunch of powder and a cup of water, seemingly being prepared for dough.
"Making Tangyuan since you and Wuli ca ho today. And it’s almost mid-autumn festival, so I thought I should prepare for it today."
"Let help—"
"Go sit at the dining table and wait. I can do this myself... This is the least I can do for how hard you have been working outside."
Xiaoyun wanted to argue back for a second, but he chose to head over to the dining table in the end.
"It’s going to take a long ti for one person to roll enough for eleven, no twelve people."
"That’s why I got up extra early today to do this. Just wait and have your bellies ready to eat."
As he idly watched Leyan mix the water and the powder into a dough, he was starting to get a little bored.
It was the most standard kind of tangyuan he had done before. Just break the dough into smaller bits before rolling it up into a ball with your palm.
No extra ingredients inside it or anything. Plain old tangyuan that Xiaoyun had eaten with Leyan multiple tis back when he was still Songming.
One by one, the small balls of dough began to fill up the entire rectangular food board. But Xiaoyun knew it was nowhere near enough.
"Let help you. Don’t say no. Do you want them to miss breakfast and go to work with an empty stomach?"
Xiaoyun’s argunt made Leyan freeze for a second before backing down as she moved aside to give him room.
"Have you cut the white radish or the mushroom yet?" Xiaoyun asked as he started rolling the small dough bits into a ball.
"I haven’t," Leyan answered as she started breaking the big dough into smaller bits for him to roll.
"You go prep for the other ingredients. I got this."
After a few seconds, Leyan stopped as she let him handle all of the dough, going over to the other side to deal with the other ingredients.
"Have you heated the pot of water yet?" Xiaoyun suddenly asked as he noticed the missing thing on the stovetop.
"Crap. I completely forgot about that."
Leyan quickly ran over to the cabinet to take out a big stock pot, causing him to realize she hadn’t really prepared all that much.
"Did you just randomly think of eating Tangyuan last night?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"M-Maybe."
The nervous answer made it abundantly clear as he let out a small sigh before putting everything down on the table.
"They’re going to wake up with no breakfast at this point... Move aside. Let just make all the ingredients at once."
Leyan wanted to speak up, but she fell into silence in the end as the tir was rapidly approaching seven o’clock.
"A bunch of sweet glutinous rice balls... White radish... dried shiitakes, dried shrimp, dried scallops... and napa cabbage."
As a bunch of already-made and cut ingredients appeared straight out of thin air, it still managed to shock Leyan a little despite knowing his ability.
"Oh, right, almost forgot. Dried shrimp. How could I forget our daughter’s favourite ingredients?"
After getting everything readied up on separate plates, Xiaoyun noticed Leyan was just standing there with the pot in hand.
"Leyan, what are you doing?"
"N-Nothing!"
As she quickly puts the pot onto the stovetop, it slowly starts to heat up the water as Xiaoyun creates more Tangyuan onto the board.
"This is still not enough... Actually, can this much even fit in this pot?"
Examining the number of rice balls in the pot itself, Xiaoyun soon realized he might have overdone it.
"Might as well speed it up... Leyan, can you fill this pot with water?’
With a replica stock pot appearing right in her hand, Leyan didn’t hesitate as she quickly headed over to the sink to fill it up with water.
After ten minutes of work, the two of them finally had everything running smoothly as water reaches boiling point.
"Now ti to put the radish and put this in and wait for... Leyan, do you rember how long we have to wait again before we put in the tangyuan?"
"Three minutes," Leyan answered as her face mysteriously flushed for a second before returning to normal.
"Okay, three minutes it is."
With all the other ingredients dumped into the two different pots, the two now waited as the counter held mountains of tangyuan waiting to be put in.
"Man, I can’t wait to eat this... I haven’t eaten tangyuan for so long." Xiaoyun murmured as he headed back over to the dining table.
"I can cook this again tomorrow if you want. I-I’ll get everything ready next ti." Leyan suggested.
"No need. It’s so much work for a food. If I want to eat it, I can just make a bowl of tangyuan for myself."
Xiaoyun paused for a second as he looked over to Leyan, who was still standing near the stovetop.
"I don’t want to make you wake up so early. You woke up at six to make all these tangyuan on your own, didn’t you?"
Leyan didn’t answer back, but the silence alone was enough of an answer for him as he slowly got up from his seat again.
"Babe, I love you."
"W-Why are you being so romantic all of a sudden?" Leyan questioned as she pushed him away a little.
"Co on, say it back. I want to hear it from you." Xiaoyun suddenly requested as he remained standing right next to her.
"I... I love you."
"I can’t hear you. Can you say it louder?"
"I love you! There, you happy?" Leyan said out loud as her face blushed red like an apple, unable to look back at him in the eyes.
"Happy as a clam on the high sea. Muah!"
The kiss on the cheek caught Leyan a little offguard, but her brain quickly ca back to her senses as she stared him in silence.
"What are you looking at like that for?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"Nothing... You’re behaving a little weird." Leyan answered as she inched a little away from him.
"I was about to say that—Oh snap, ti’s up."
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