The landlord has multiple personalities and wants everyone to pay him.

What does life taste like?

Some say it's the sourness of parting, the sweetness of overflowing happiness, the bitterness of striving and struggling, the spiciness of challenging the unknown, and the saltiness of enduring grievances.

It is said that life has a hundred flavors, each different from the last. Like drinking water, only the person drinking knows whether it is hot or cold; no one can truly taste the full flavor.

But at this moment, Ye Shu felt as if he had tasted it all.

The moment the spoonful of porridge, filled with Sister Zhi Qiu's deep care, touched his tongue, Ye Shu felt as if his tongue had been shocked by an electric baton, a sensation beyond the realm of taste shooting straight to the top of his head.

Is this porridge... biting me in the mouth?

Immediately afterwards, an extremely complex taste exploded in his mouth like a bomb.

A variety of extreme flavors clashed and battled in his mouth, yet strangely merged into one. This feeling reminded Ye Shu of a movie he had seen, the final scene in "Venom" where the two fought next to the rocket.

This could already be called a psychological attack. What's even more terrifying is that the porridge was as sticky as glue, making the taste linger in your mouth.

Ye Shu couldn't take it anymore, so she quickened her movements, reached for a piece of paper from the bedside table, and spat out the symbiote from her mouth.

"Little Shu, what's wrong?"

Seeing his reaction, Zhi Qiu asked with concern:

"Are you feeling unwell anywhere?"

Ye Shu spat out the porridge in his mouth, but the taste lingered stubbornly. He looked up and saw the worry on Zhi Qiu's face. The words "It tastes awful" seemed stuck in his mouth, impossible to utter.

How could he say that? How could he say such cruel things to such a gentle face?

"It's hot...it's okay, Sister Zhi Qiu...it was just for a moment, I wasn't paying attention."

"Oh dear, it's my fault, it's my fault, my sister was too anxious."

She scooped up another spoonful, this time carefully bringing it to her lips and gently blowing on it. After blowing for a while, she finally brought the spoon to Ye Shu's lips:

"Come on, little Shu, it's definitely not hot this time."

Ye Shu looked at the spoonful of substance that had been artificially cooled but whose essence remained unchanged, and spoke with difficulty, wanting to make one last attempt:

"Sister Zhi Qiu... I... I feel much better, I can do it myself... You... you should go back and rest, you don't need to stay here with me..."

"No, that won't work."

Zhi Qiu shook her head, holding up her spoon, and said:

"Little Shu is a patient now, and patients need to be taken care of obediently. Your older sister will feed you and watch you eat so you can get better faster. Come on, open your mouth, ah~"

A large, gentle blade slashed down at Ye Shu, unleashing a critical strike.

Refuse? I can't bear to, and I can't refute her gentleness either.

To confess? I couldn't bear to, afraid of seeing the disappointment on her face.

Well... then we can only eat it.

A sense of tragic grandeur welled up within Ye Shu, and some random, incoherent lines of dialogue inexplicably flashed through his mind, something like:

A head lost, but a scar the size of a bowl remains!

Eighteen years later, I'm still a hero!

Driven by a strong sense of individual heroism, Ye Shu took a deep breath, closed his eyes with a death-defying resolve, and then opened his mouth.

Seeing that Ye Shu was behaving obediently, Zhi Qiu was very pleased and fed him the spoonful of porridge...

The bowl of porridge was finally emptied.

Ye Shu lay on the bed, completely exhausted. Her eyes were vacant as she stared at the ceiling, her gaze unfocused, as if she had been drained dry.

Ye Shu felt that after drinking this bowl of porridge, he would age at least twenty days. Not the maturity that comes with age, but the vicissitudes of life that comes from being ruthlessly ravaged.

Zhi Qiu didn't notice Ye Shu's miserable situation over there. She only saw that the porridge bowl was empty and that little Shu had obediently finished the loving meal she had made for him.

She took a napkin and gently wiped Ye Shu's mouth, then touched Ye Shu's forehead with her hand, and then revealed a gentle smile:

"Yes, you're sweating. Sweating means the fever is going down. My sister always says that when you're sick, you have to eat well."

She tucked the blanket around Ye Shu and then pinched Ye Shu's cheek.

"Just lie down and rest for a while. Take your medicine later, and you'll feel better soon."

Ye Shu barely had the strength to nod, only managing a soft "hmm" in response. He just wanted the world to be quiet so he could process this heavy "love" alone.

Zhi Qiu carried the bowl towards the door, and before closing it, she didn't forget to give a final instruction:

"Stop playing on your phone and get some sleep."

Then the bedroom door slowly closed, and Ye Shu lay on the bed and let out a long breath.

When will this illness finally get better?

Ye Shu felt that if he were the male protagonist of some system novel, his status bar would definitely have several more debuffs. Besides the inherent [fever] and [weakness in limbs], there would definitely be a few more, such as [stomach discomfort], [loss of taste], [psychological trauma]...

From now on! No matter what! Absolutely! I will never let Sister Zhi Qiu cook in the kitchen again!

no way!

This is not a suggestion, not a discussion; this is a matter of life and death!

After a while of wild thoughts, Ye Shu struggled to get up and swallowed the fever-reducing medicine that Zhi Qiu had prepared in advance and placed on the bedside table with half a glass of warm water.

Perhaps because her body was already weak, or perhaps because the fever reducer itself had a sleep-inducing effect, it wasn't long before Ye Shu felt her eyelids begin to droop. Her head lolled to the side, and she drifted off to sleep.

Zhi Qiu washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen spotless. Although she wasn't good at cooking, she was excellent at housework.

Walking back to Ye Shu's bedroom, I first pressed my ear to the door and listened for a while. There was no sound inside, so I slowly pushed the door open and looked to the side.

The curtains in the bedroom were not drawn, and her little brother, Shu, was already asleep, looking a bit more fragile than usual.

He was probably too hot while sleeping, and he even stuck one arm out of the blanket.

Zhi Qiu quietly went in, carefully tucked Ye Shu's arm back into the blanket, and then tucked the corner of the blanket in.

She stood quietly by the bed, watching him for a long while. Finally, she leaned down and gently kissed Ye Shu's furrowed brows on his forehead.

Seeing Ye Shu's brows slowly relax, Zhi Qiu slowly walked out of the room and closed the door slightly again.

Back in her bedroom, Zhi Qiu realized she was still wearing Xia Qing's clothes. She went to the wardrobe, changed into her usual long dress, and finally felt completely relaxed.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, picked up the notebook on the bedside table, flipped through it, and found that the records stopped a few days ago, and the last page was Xiao Nuan's spreadsheet.

She scrolled back further and saw Xia Qing's sentence:

So, who does Xiao Shu like more?

Zhi Qiu's gaze remained fixed on that line of text for a long time.

She looked at the question, then at the form Xiao Nuan had written, and the corners of her mouth slowly curved upwards.

She gently touched the end of the line with her finger and murmured to herself:

"Who does Xiao Shu's younger brother like more?"

Her voice was very soft, as if she were speaking to herself, or perhaps asking the person sleeping in the next room, or maybe to some corner of her own heart:

"Yeah...who do you like more?"