Chapter 3: The Older Lover – 3: I Can’t Stand Seeing People Starve

There were no spare chairs in the room, so the two of them simply stood by the rice cooker, each cradling a bowl, and ate.

Honestly, the meal had been thrown together too hastily: the ingredients were too plain, the seasonings incomplete. No shrimp or shredded meat in the mushroom porridge, no vinegar or bird’s-eye chili in the wood ear salad. Luo Yan kept thinking it couldn’t taste all that good.

But when he scooped up his first spoonful, he was genuinely stunned:

So fragrant!

The new rice had cooked to exactly the right point; the porridge was thick and rich, giving off that mellow aroma unique to grain, blended seamlessly with the shiitake’s distinctive flavor.

Even hot as it was, you couldn’t help slurping it down.

The wood ear salad, dressed in nothing but a little soy sauce, was fresh and slippery, salted to perfection. The ideal companion for porridge.

Luo Yan wasn’t actually hungry at all and ate rather daintily. Yan Qinghan, standing beside him, ate bowl after bowl without pausing for breath.

Soon, Yan Qinghan’s bowl was scraped clean.

He set it down gently on the table and said quietly: “It’s delicious.”

Luo Yan quickly took his bowl: “Another helping, then?”

Yan Qinghan glanced at Luo Yan’s half-empty bowl and said softly: “I’m full.”

Luo Yan guessed the boy was worried there wouldn’t be enough left for him, and hurried to say: “My stomach’s weak. I can’t eat much. One bowl is plenty for me.”

With that, before Yan Qinghan could protest, he ladled out another bowl and pressed it into the boy’s hands: “Eat it while it’s hot. It won’t smell as good once it’s cold.”

So the boy wordlessly set about the second bowl with big spoonfuls.

Watching Yan Qinghan eat with such appetite, Luo Yan felt a wave of satisfaction, a real sense of accomplishment.

Sipping his own porridge slowly, he chatted idly with the System:

“Not to toot my own horn, but this porridge really is amazing!”

“Is it the ingredients, or does my cooking get a buff inside a Small World? How did it turn out this good?”

The System said: [Host, you could already cook before this?]

Luo Yan said: “Mm, yes. I quite enjoy it.”

System: [Oh. Then by the Main System’s rules, the fact that you drew the ‘Steward Card’ probably has something to do with that skill. And once inside a Small World, the skill gets further enhanced along with your identity, so pretty much anything you cook is going to smell amazing.]

So that was it.

Luo Yan decided this skill suited him fine. Once he’d finished running the plot, he could spend his time in this Small World honing his cooking and making a few more good meals.

Yan Qinghan downed three bowls of porridge in one go and emptied the rice cooker outright.

Luo Yan studied the boy’s face and noted with satisfaction that his cheeks had been flushed pink by the hot porridge, and that there was a new spark of life in the eyes hidden behind his bangs.

Looks like I’m doing pretty well on this Main Quest!

Did that mean he could just let the plot run on, kick back and coast, or even fast-forward straight to the ending?

Right at that moment, Luo Yan received a notification:

[Main Quest Progress: Yan Qinghan has eaten part of the Mid-Autumn Gift.

Please follow the plot and get Yan Qinghan to eat ALL of the Mid-Autumn Gift.]

[New Points earned: 100]

Staring at the notification, Luo Yan froze. Eat ALL of it?! That’s not what it said a minute ago! Since when did the quest change?!

He collected himself and grabbed hold of the System:

“Hey, hey. There’s a good five kilos of rice in there! Even if Yan Qinghan were a bottomless pit, you can’t seriously expect me to make him eat five kilos of rice in one sitting!”

System: […Is it possible that you’re meant to feed him these foods in batches, over multiple visits?]

Batches? Multiple visits?!

Luo Yan frowned: “Doesn’t that mean I’ll have to come back and cook a whole bunch more times?”

System: [It seems… so, yes…]

Luo Yan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: “I thought this quest was a one-and-done! How is it a long-term, ongoing assignment?!”

Five kilos of rice; even if Yan Qinghan had a hearty appetite, that was close to a month’s worth.

The System’s voice sounded a little baffled too:

[I thought it was one-and-done as well. Novice quests generally don’t run this long.]

[But look at it this way: one bowl of porridge earned you 100 Points. My guess is your Points go up every time he eats something. Say he eats thirty times, that’s 3,000 Points!]

[Under normal circumstances, a tool character’s entire novice quest only pays out 5,000 Points! You’re making an absolute killing!] the System declared with rock-solid confidence.

Oh? Rewards that generous?

Keep in mind, Points couldn’t only be exchanged for skills inside Quest Worlds. They could also be converted in the Main World into all sorts of rewards and leave, and might even let an employee retire early. They were the thing Transmigration Bureau employees craved most.

Besides, Luo Yan glanced at the well-fed Yan Qinghan; the feeling of having stuffed this kid full was pretty nice in its own right.

After all, Luo Yan had never been able to stand seeing anyone go hungry, least of all a boy this age.

So Luo Yan turned it over in his mind, concluded he’d come out way ahead, and cheerfully set about cleaning up the pots and dishes. Yan Qinghan, standing nearby, wasn’t idle either; he volunteered to wash the dishes. Luo Yan hurried to stop him, telling him to leave it and go back to his books.

Once everything was tidied away, the boy spoke:

“Sit a while longer. At eleven the factory loudspeakers go off outside. I’ll walk you to the night bus.”

At that, Luo Yan couldn’t help laughing: “You’ll walk me to the bus, Young Master Qinghan?”

With that frail little frame of yours, I could probably outrun you walking backwards.

At the undisguised smile on Luo Yan’s face, the corners of Yan Qinghan’s mouth visibly sank.

Realizing his laughter might have come off as rude, Luo Yan hurried to say: “Ah, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just thought, what kind of steward gets seen off by the young master—”

The corners of Yan Qinghan’s mouth sank further still, and something gloomy even crept into his face: “I told you. My name is Yan Qinghan. Don’t call me ‘young master.'”

Luo Yan blinked, then apologized: “Sorry, that slipped my mind. Then may I call you ‘Qinghan’?”

Yan Qinghan said slowly: “Fine.”

Luo Yan added: “Okay, Qinghan. But I definitely won’t let you see me off. Once security starts patrolling, I’ll go catch the bus myself.”

Yan Qinghan said: “Then… sit for a bit.”

But in this tiny room, where exactly was he supposed to sit? On the bed?

Yan Qinghan clearly realized the same problem.

Hugging a thick book to his chest, he went and sat down on the edge of the bed himself, saying to Luo Yan: “You take the chair.”

Luo Yan had meant to decline, but then thought: it wasn’t even ten yet. If he really had to stand here for a whole hour, Yan Qinghan would only feel more awkward. So he obediently sat.

Neatly arranged on the writing desk were various study materials, all of them, on closer look, rather worn, like secondhand books someone else had used before.

The draft notebook lying open was filled front and back, every character written with careful, even strokes.

Luo Yan couldn’t help thinking of the draft notebooks of his own school days: pure chicken scratch, margins doodled full of little figures, sometimes an entire page devoted to his homemade comics.

Tsk. So that was the gap between a top scholar and a slacker.

He glanced at the problems on the page, discovered he couldn’t solve most of them, and promptly lost interest in the books, pulling out his phone to pass the time instead.

This Small World lagged a notch behind the Blue Star Main World Luo Yan came from, roughly the Blue Star of the early twenty-first century. Here, the internet was still a novelty, smartphones hadn’t caught on, and there were no apps on Luo Yan’s phone to scroll. He could only play old games like Pac-Man and Snake.

After gaming for a while, the blare of factory loudspeakers and a faint hubbub of voices drifted in from outside. The shift change, presumably.

Luo Yan was just getting up to leave when the sound of rain came pattering down outside.

Raining? Of all the luck?

Yan Qinghan heard it too. He walked to the window, pushed it open, and held out a hand, which was instantly soaked through.

He drew his hand back and shut the window, looking troubled: “It’s raining… and pretty hard…”

Luo Yan said quickly: “No problem. Just lend me an umbrella.” Perfect. Tomorrow he’d have an excuse to return it, and cook another meal while he was at it.

But Yan Qinghan lowered his head, his voice faint as a mosquito’s whine: “…I don’t have an umbrella.”

“No umbrella?” Luo Yan was startled. “Then how do you get to school when it rains?”

Yan Qinghan was silent a moment. “I used to have one… then I didn’t.”

…Didn’t? Did it break, or get lost? Umbrellas were a necessity either way. Had he really been trudging to school in the rain all this time?

Just picturing the boy walking to school soaked through under his schoolbag made Luo Yan’s chest tighten.

Yan Qinghan bit his lip and began rummaging through the old wardrobe, apparently hoping to dig out a jacket that could keep off the rain.

But Luo Yan saw at a glance what was inside: one spare school uniform, one half-old padded winter coat. Not even a decent jacket.

“Qinghan,” Luo Yan called out to stop him. “Stop looking. I’ll head back once the rain lets up.”

Yan Qinghan looked at his bare wardrobe and shook his head: “After half past eleven, once the factory finishes changing shifts, those punks might come back out. This area won’t be safe again.”

Luo Yan knew perfectly well that he was in no danger; he could take ten of those punks at once. But he obviously couldn’t say that out loud.

So he thought for a moment and simply said: “It’s fine. Worst case, I’ll bed down here for the night? By morning, those guys are bound to have given up.”

Yan Qinghan nodded slowly: “Alright.”

Luo Yan said: “Settled, then. I’ll text the Old Steward to let him know. He won’t mind.”

Yan Qinghan had no better idea either, and the rain outside was only getting heavier, so that was that.

At first, Yan Qinghan insisted on taking the floor bedding himself. There was no way Luo Yan would let the kid sleep on the floor, so he said, half in jest, half in earnest: “If the Old Steward finds out I made you sleep on the floor, he’ll dock my wages for sure.” Only then did Yan Qinghan obediently agree to take the bed.

After a quick wash-up, Luo Yan took off his crisp three-piece suit, draped it over the chair, and burrowed under the covers.

The bedding was old, but clean. It had clearly been sunned over the summer, and still carried a faint scent of sunlight.

Lying on the pillow, Luo Yan let drowsiness build while making small talk with the System: “Oh right, System. Why doesn’t Yan Qinghan even own an umbrella? Isn’t that a daily necessity too?”

The System said: [Let me check the earlier records—]

[Ah. There really is an entry.]

[But information at this level counts as a ‘Detailed Plotline.’ It can’t be pulled up freely; Host can only learn it through a Query.]

[In this Small World, Host may use Query Details no more than ten times in total. Does Host wish to proceed with a query?]

Only ten in total? What if they ran short later?

But he was a nameless, faceless tool character. Once this one-line plot was done, he probably wouldn’t need the function again anyway.

Luo Yan weighed it for a few seconds, then told the System: “Query it.”

[Very well. Retrieving details for you.]

[As it happens, Yan Qinghan did have an umbrella. A while back it kept raining, and his homeroom teacher launched a ‘show your love for sanitation workers’ campaign, ordering everyone to donate money or rain gear.]

[Yan Qinghan had no money, and only the one umbrella. At first he refused to donate, so the teacher called him out in front of the whole class, said he’d never seen such a stingy, heartless child, then tossed his own umbrella at him, announcing that he knew he couldn’t bear to part with his, so he’d count this as compensating him for it…]

[So the boy donated. Naturally, he never touched the teacher’s umbrella.]

[And from then on, Yan Qinghan couldn’t bring himself to buy a new one.]

By the time he’d heard this detail, Luo Yan was ready to explode: “What is wrong with this teacher?! That’s public humiliation, plain and simple! Yan Qinghan can barely feed himself. On what grounds should he donate?! He never did anything wrong!”

The System said, somberly: [Oh, that teacher is a distant relative of Yan Qinghan’s stepmother. The stepmother most likely asked him to take good ‘care’ of Yan Qinghan.]

Luo Yan’s chest grew tighter still.

He let out a long sigh and sat up from his floor bedding, glancing at Yan Qinghan, who was just pulling off his clothes. The boy hadn’t grown into his frame at all: all jutting bones, not an ounce of flesh on him.

He was pitifully thin. It felt like anyone off the street could come along and bully him.

Maybe… if I fatten this kid up a little, he’d get bullied less?