Zhu Qingyue swore that in her life, besides the red-braised pork made by her classmate's dad during her student days, this was the best stir-fried rice noodles she ever had.
Clearly, it was just ordinary rice noodles, ordinary beef, ordinary vegetables, and even who-knows-what-quality rapeseed oil, but when cooked by Li Younan, it made her very happy.
With a smile, Zhu Qingyue said to Li Younan, "I didn't expect you to know how to cook."
Li Younan picked up a bite of the stir-fried rice noodles he made, blew on it, and sent it into his mouth, savoring it carefully.
After a moment, he also had a satisfied expression: "It's really quite good."
Before actually tasting it, Li Younan himself didn't know how the stir-fried rice noodles made by feeling would turn out.
But undoubtedly, he had somewhat underestimated the level of a professional chef.
One has to say, the feeling of making food for oneself, with an added sense of anticipation, is really quite nice.
Li Younan couldn't help but leisurely fantasize about the next step of camping in the west, modifying some kitchen equipment in the car trunk, driving to some riverbank or prairie, leisurely cooking a meal for himself, then setting up a small table and a folding chair, eating while watching the sunset and sipping tea.
He slowly brought his attention back and secretly observed Zhu Qingyue and Sweetness.
Zhu Qingyue was eating very focused, very earnestly; after she gave a compliment, she became completely immersed in eating.
Every bite Zhu Qingyue took was large, and she looked very satisfied and happy, evoking a sense of enjoyment and appetite just watching her eat.
And Sweetness on the other side hadn't rushed to eat.
She took out her phone and kept snapping photos of the stir-fried rice noodles.
When Sweetness put down her phone and was about to eat, Zhu Qingyue on the other side had already finished eating.
Sweetness was about to start eating when she suddenly remembered something and said to Li Younan, "Oh, don't forget to send me the photos."
Li Younan handed the camera to Sweetness and said, "The photos are in the camera; you can transfer them yourself."
Sweetness nodded: "That works too."
She fiddled with the camera for a bit, got into transfer mode, and was ready to eat the noodles.
Lowering her head, she found that her plate of stir-fried rice noodles was already gone.
She was stunned for a moment, then looked up to see Zhu Qingyue indulging in a second serving of the stir-fried rice noodles.
Sweetness' mouth twitched slightly, about to say something, when Zhu Qingyue glared at her discontentedly and said, "Didn't you say you wanted to lose weight?"
Sweetness opened her mouth; she did indeed say that while having a late-night snack yesterday, but wasn't this dinner?
Watching Zhu Qingyue enjoy her food, Sweetness said pitifully, "But having a little dinner shouldn't matter, right?"
Li Younan couldn't help but burst out laughing.
The owner, watching with a smile, said, "I'll send you another serving for free."
The owner was very enthusiastic and started cooking without hesitation.
Before long, a serving of the owner's original stir-fried rice noodles was brought to the table.
By this time, Zhu Qingyue had almost finished Sweetness' plate of noodles.
She looked up at the owner's stir-fried rice noodles, and suddenly that feeling of having no appetite came rushing back.
Sweetness, however, was eating happily... she was genuinely hungry.
After the noodles, it was time to say goodbye.
The three of them walked to the intersection together, where their paths were going to part ways.
Zhu Qingyue hesitated for a moment and asked, "Where do you plan to go next?"
Li Younan thought for a moment and said with a smile, "I haven't decided yet, maybe Peng City or perhaps Lin'an City."
Zhu Qingyue nodded slightly, hesitated again, and smiled as she asked, "Will we see each other again?"
Li Younan looked at the traffic going back and forth, each going towards different destinations, smiled and said, "Not sure, but haven't we connected on WeChat? Let's share more in our Moments, like each other's posts more, ha... If we see each other going to interesting places, there will always be a chance, right?"
Zhu Qingyue also laughed, nodding as she said, "Yeah, you're right, see you then."
Li Younan nodded: "See you."
In the glow of the setting sun, Zhu Qingyue looked back once more to see Li Younan's shadow stretched long.
In this bustling big city, people were bustling around in a fast-paced rush.
The two young women and a young man, however, slowly walked in their respective directions, with the crowd rushing past them.
This summer was really a long one.
...
After saying goodbye to Zhu Qingyue and Sweetness, Li Younan returned to the hotel. There were still some things to handle.
The photos of those two girls in cheongsams would be taken by them for post-processing. As for the staged photos he took for Sweetness, Li Younan had no intention of doing the post-processing for her.
Li Younan flipped to the last photo, then extracted it to put in the computer.
Looking at this photo, Li Younan crossed his arms in front of his chest, his lips slightly upturned, revealing a satisfied smile.
In fact, this was the photograph he was most satisfied with today. But this was not a staged photo, but a candid shot.
It was still the scene from the Republic of China pavilion, an old street scene.
In the picture, the blurred passersby were a few girls in cheongsams, looking perfectly blended into the era's setting.
But they were not the focus of this photo. The focus was a girl in modern attire at the center of the picture.
This tall girl seemed to have heard something behind her, slightly turning her head, her eyes revealing a confused glow.
The modernity in her appearance and the emotions revealed in her expression clashed intensely with the Republic of China setting.
The entire scene and characters served to highlight this girl's image, while that kind of crossing a century, interwoven with the old film time dreamy atmosphere, strongly seemed to overflow from the photograph.
The person in the photo was obviously Zhu Qingyue. It was when Li Younan saw her in a daze, quickly grabbed his camera, and captured this scene.
Li Younan didn't even need to do much post-processing; it was already a very good piece of work.
But after thinking about it, he decided to refine it a bit with some color correction and fine-tuning.
Although he only acquired photography skills, post-processing is another skill tree.
But it's okay, Li Younan graduated from the prestigious Binhai University, knowing quite a few capable classmates.
He scrolled through his friend list and quickly found a pro. It was a girl's avatar dancing lightly on roller skates.
Li Younan sent her a message: "Xiaojing, are you free to help me edit a photo?"
She replied almost instantly: "Senior, of course, I'm free, send it to me."
When Li Younan sent her the photo, she sent back a confused emoji: "Who's this girl?"
Li Younan evasively replied: "Just learning photography recently, took a quick candid of a passer-by at the Jinling Museum."
She promptly sent an astonished emoji: "Jinling Museum, you've come to Jinling City?"
Li Younan curiously asked, "Why?" Then blinked and sent, "Don't tell me you're also in Jinling City."
She instantly replied with a giggling emoji, then said: "It's a bit late today, I'll come find you tomorrow, you haven't left yet, right?"
Li Younan quickly replied, "No, I haven't left."
Her efficiency was high; within half an hour, she sent back the finely edited photo.
Seeing the photo with top-notch composition and lighting shooting techniques, plus professional retouching, it was entirely comparable to commercial photos in photographic magazines.
The more he looked, the more satisfied Li Younan became, then he forwarded it to Zhu Qingyue along with a message: "Sorry, although you told me not to photograph you, your turning back was too atmospheric, I couldn't resist capturing it, hope you don't mind."
Having done that, Li Younan began discussing tomorrow's meeting with the junior who helped him edit the photo.
Naturally, Li Younan wouldn't know that at this moment, Sweetness and Zhu Qingyue were lying on their beds resting.
When Zhu Qingyue picked up her phone and clicked on the photo from Li Younan, she was first stunned, then her breath slightly paused.
She gazed at herself in the photo, confirming she had never had such a beautiful picture taken.
It was completely natural, entirely unwitting, with no pretension or deliberately posed.
And the photo had such an atmosphere that she instantly felt the urge to treasure it.
At this time, Sweetness was using a photo-editing app on her phone, nodding in satisfaction.
Suddenly, she noticed her best friend grinning foolishly, and out of curiosity, leaned over to peek at Zhu Qingyue's phone screen.
Then she saw the photo that was obviously a few levels higher than her own photo's beauty.
In an instant, Sweetness felt as if the sky had fallen.