Chapter Three: Solid-State Germination

"Not at all, not at all!" Mrs. Ning said at once, warmly ushering him inside. "Everyone's in the living room chatting. You go join them!"

Huo Yan looked toward the living room. Several people were chatting there, and they all nodded to him in greeting. He merely inclined his head in return, still holding the food container, looking as though he did not know whether he should go over and sit down or do something else entirely.

"You're surnamed Huo, right?" Mrs. Ning was rather curious about her daughter's new colleague whom she was meeting for the first time. She sized him up as she handed him a drink. "I've heard Xiao Yi mention you before, saying her new colleague was especially impressive. Now that I've met you, I can see your bearing really is quite good."

Huo Yan pressed his lips together, a little restrained, and took the drink with both hands, still standing straight as a rod. "You're too kind, Auntie."

Ning Shuyi could hardly bear to watch. Anyone who knew better would think he was visiting her home for a casual chat with her mother; anyone who did not might think he was receiving an audience with some high-ranking official.

She stood and beckoned to Huo Yan. "You're planning to return the container to my dad, aren't you? Come on, I'll take you to the kitchen!"

Huo Yan nodded, and at the same time let out a quiet breath of relief.

He seemed to be having a hard time fending off Mrs. Ning's kindness and enthusiasm.

In the kitchen, Father Ning was wearing a chef's uniform, standing before the stove with the bearing of a great general on the battlefield, his manner exceptionally dashing. Ji Yuan and Kang Ge were helping out.

When they saw Huo Yan being led in by Ning Shuyi, they greeted him briefly as well.

Only then did Father Ning notice another unfamiliar face. After Ning Shuyi introduced him and he learned this was that remarkable new colleague, he also noticed Huo Yan's effort to conceal, though wholly unsuccessfully, the stiffness in his whole demeanor.

"You're here! Just leave the container there. Can you slice vegetables?" He was perfectly unguarded with Huo Yan, speaking to him in a familiar tone from the very first words, and immediately assigning him work. "If you can, help me cut all those cucumbers into thin slices!"

Huo Yan was slightly taken aback, but he nodded, set the container aside, rolled up his sleeves, and went to the sink to wash his hands and prepare to cut vegetables.

Ning Shuyi, curious, stood by and watched. To her surprise, Huo Yan picked up the kitchen knife with practiced ease; his movements were swift and precise, and in no time the cucumber beneath his blade had become a neat pile of evenly sliced rounds.

"Oh! Not bad, young man! Trained before?" Father Ning saw it too and was quite astonished. "You cut beautifully!"

"Back then, to temper my patience, I helped out in the cooking squad for a while," Huo Yan answered honestly enough.

Father Ning laughed. "Then that makes us half-colleagues! A man with many skills never hurts for it. Keep cutting, then—help me slice the carrots too!"

As he spoke, he turned and spotted Ning Shuyi. "Off you go! Out there and talk with the others! What are you doing hanging around in the kitchen, girl?"

With Huo Yan's unexpected help, Father Ning's pace picked up even more. Before long, all the dishes were ready, and everyone in the living room was called to the dining table to begin feasting.

The other people from the police team were so familiar with Father and Mother Ning that they might as well have been their own parents; none of them were the least bit restrained. They ate and chatted at the same time, and the atmosphere was very lively.

Only Huo Yan, by nature a quiet and solitary man, appeared especially out of place in such a setting.

Mrs. Ning was probably worried that if Huo Yan felt left out by himself, he would become even more guarded, so she several times wanted to call out to him. But each time Father Ning stepped on the top of her foot beneath the table, and in the end she did not.

Father Ning, on the other hand, while eating and chatting with the others over the course of the meal, unobtrusively used serving chopsticks to pick up food and place it into Huo Yan's bowl.

Huo Yan was a little startled, but after silently glancing at Father Ning, he said nothing. He simply bowed his head and ate, finishing every last bite in his bowl.

Seeing this, Mrs. Ning understood at once. After that, she did not actively call out to Huo Yan either, but quietly followed suit and placed a few dishes into his bowl from time to time.

Just as the gathering was growing easy and cheerful, a thunderous crash suddenly came from overhead, startling everyone at the table.

"Uncle, are they renovating the apartment upstairs?" Zhao Dabao patted his chest. "That sudden burst from an electric chisel nearly scared the life out of me!"

Father Ning's expression darkened as he waved a hand. "What renovation? It's just that this time we ran into a bunch of unreliable tenants. In broad daylight they keep making noises every now and then, giving everyone a fright!

"The worst part is there's no pattern at all. Sometimes it goes off and keeps going for ages; sometimes it comes out of nowhere with one sudden bang, and your heart jumps straight into your throat! You think it'll keep making noise, so you wait, but then there's nothing. Just when I think it's probably over, hey—there it goes again!"

No sooner had he spoken than, as if deliberately confirming Father Ning's words, another deafening series of electric-chisel sounds came from above, making everyone flinch once more.

Ning Shuyi frowned. She usually left early for work and came home late, so she had assumed those people were making a fuss upstairs in the room above her bedroom only late at night. But from what she was hearing now, noises from electric hammers and chisels were clearly often ambushing them even during the day!

"I'm going upstairs to talk to him!" Zhao Dabao said with a furrowed brow. "There are elderly people living in the house, and those renters dare start renovation work right above the landlord's head without so much as a word?!"

"Come on, I'll go with you!" Luo Wei had just been in high spirits when the noise startled him too; now he was annoyed as well, and he immediately stood up to follow Zhao Dabao out.

Father Ning and Mother Ning could not stop them.

"Xiao Yi, go out and take a look too. Don't make trouble for your colleagues!" Mother Ning said apologetically. "Anyway, in a little over half a month, the lease upstairs will be up. We've already agreed not to rent to them again. They probably won't be staying much longer, so there's no need to let them make a scene and upset us."

Ning Shuyi nodded and got up to follow.

She had only gone down half a flight when Luo Wei and Zhao Dabao had already knocked on the door upstairs.

The door was opened by one of the young men. Seeing someone had come, he did not panic in the slightest, but smiled and asked, "Who are you looking for?"

"People from downstairs," Zhao Dabao said sternly. "Do you know what day it is today? It's the weekend. What are you doing up here, making such a racket? Renovating? Did you get the owner's permission? Open the door and let me see whether you've damaged the structure of the place!"

"No, no!" Even with people coming to his door, the man remained as shamelessly unruffled as before. He stepped aside from the doorway and grinned, pointing into the apartment. "Bro, we're engineering students. Isn't practice the only way to learn? We can't just study—we've got to know how to do it in real life too! So we got a few stone slabs back to practice on!

"What gives? Was the noise too loud and bothered you? Oh dear, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! That's my fault! We won't do it anymore! Is that all right?"