Chapter 16: Small Fish Pancakes

After patiently waiting for Su Tao to finish speaking and calming her emotions, Ye Zhen carefully considered reminding her mother that Rong Cheng Jue is not aware of her relationship with Ye Yi. And assure her mother that she would find a way to keep her distance from him so that there would be no unnecessary complications or difficulties arising from their relationship.

“All right, I’ll listen to you. Mom knows you like to see things through to the end. I won’t pressure you to quit now. However,” Su Tao tried to cooperate while expressing her concern, “If you find anything wrong, just come back home quickly. Don’t let yourself suffer, okay?”

“Don’t worry, Mom. Your daughter is smart, when has she ever suffered a loss~”

Su Tao nodded hesitantly and sighed, “Originally, I didn’t want to bring up the past. I didn’t want you to join Rong Cheng Entertainment, but you insisted on challenging me…” With that, her words went around in circles again.

Luckily, Old Feng arrived in time to save Ye Zhen.

However, when she thought about the person still lying in the room, Ye Zhen’s headache returned. When she entered her house and opened the door, she saw that Rong Cheng Jue had already taken off his clothes, revealing his naked upper body, and was lying on the sofa with a panda pillow, fully exposing the large area of his red back…… while taking selfies with his phone.

Seeing Ye Zhen return, Rong Cheng Jue immediately put down the phone and began to whine softly, “It hurts, oh, ah…”

Ye Zhen raised her foot and stepped over his big lump of a body, taking the Wan Hua oil for treating burns from the room and handing it to him. Rong Cheng Jue pretended not to see and grimaced, turning his face inward and continuing to cry out in pain.

Ye Zhen couldn’t bring herself to retaliate, so she reluctantly applied the medicine to his burn with a wooden expression. She also found a cultural shirt from the Academy of Sciences for him to wear.

Raising his hand, Rong Cheng Jue reluctantly put on the cheap cultural shirt, tugging at the hem and criticizing, “The blue letters printed on the chest are so tacky. It didn’t match his glamorous CEO image at all.

“Just now, thank you,” Ye Zhen ignored his playful antics, trying to push away distracting thoughts, and continued, “Also, I’m sorry for leaving you behind. But these are all old family matters, so I can’t really explain anything to outsiders.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Rong Cheng Jue said, then settled down again, “The ointment helped, I feel much better now. Mmm, just a little hungry.”

“The area you burned on your back is quite large. Even though it hasn’t blistered, you should still be careful and take care of it to prevent inflammation. What’s Ah Zhan’s phone number? I’ll have him come over to pick you up?”

“Ye Zhen,” Rong Cheng Jue stretched his tone, “I’m hungry.”

Ye Zhen paused for a moment, held out her hand, and continued, “Give me Ah Zhan’s phone number, I’ll ask him to bring you something to eat on the way.”

“I want to eat small fish pancakes. It’s been a long time since I had them.”

“I don’t have it—”

“I just checked, the fish soup was spilled, but the fish is still in the thermos, it can be cooked again, and I want to eat it.” Rong Cheng Jue sniffed and looked pitiful, “In a few days, it’s my grandmother’s death anniversary again, oh~ it hurts.”

She knew he was pretending, but when Ye Zhen saw the thermos box back on the table and the relatively clean floor that was mopped, she couldn’t bring herself to be too hard on him. “You’ll eat and leave?

“Just eat and go.”

“Good.” Ye Zhen picked up the thermos and went to the kitchen.

The small fish pancakes that Rong Cheng Jue wanted to eat weren’t really a complete dish. The name was even coined by him, and the first person to make this dish was actually his grandmother.

He was brought up by his grandmother. Six years ago, his grandmother passed away, coinciding with the time when Ye Zhen was tutoring him. According to rural customs, in the days between an elderly person’s death and her burial, their filial children and grandchildren take turns staying by the coffin, burning paper offerings, and bowing. Rong Cheng Jue had a deep affection for his grandmother, and he hardly slept during those days.

Ye Zhen knew nothing of this. She sent messages on QQ asking Rong Cheng Jue to submit his assignments, but after several days of no response, she got frustrated and decided to take on the role of a strict senior sister. She called him to scold him, but to her surprise, Rong Cheng Jue started sobbing uncontrollably on the other end of the line. Between sobs, he cried and complained, “What kind of senior sister are you? Do you have any compassion? My grandmother has passed away and you’re scolding me.” He sounded so hurt. At that time, Ye Zhen was still quite young and didn’t have a strong presence. She immediately softened, apologized, and made all kinds of promises. The result was predictable – apart from hearing a bunch of stories like “I was the most mischievous troublemaker but my grandmother loved me the most” she ended up making a lot of haphazard promises.

According to his description, one of the things his grandmother excelled at making was the small fish pancakes he wanted to eat.

“Small Fish” refers to small, miscellaneous fish caught in rice paddies and canals in the countryside when the water is drained. “Pancakes” refers to thin pancakes made on a traditional clay stove using an iron spatula. The process involves cleaning various small fish, stirring them with scallions, ginger, garlic, and peppers in vegetable oil with the iron spatula, and then adding dark soy sauce, cooking wine, and bean paste. A few spoonfuls of well water are added, and the mixture is simmered until cooked. This dish represents the rustic flavors of the countryside.

On a summer evening, his grandmother and he would sit around a low table under the old locust tree, picking and eating the fish. They would dip the fish broth and eat it with the pancake, which was Rong Cheng Jue’s earliest childhood memory.

Listening to his description, which was filled with a sense of sadness, Ye Zhen’s mind went blank for a moment. She had actually learned how to cook this dish and had asked Professor Lin to bring it with him when he visited Rong Cheng Jue’s house to offer his condolences.

She never thought he would remember it to this day.

“Here,” Ye Zhen presented the finished small fish pancake and a portion of egg-fried rice. “My kitchen is small, and I have limited ingredients, so the taste might not be too authentic. If there’s not enough of the dish, there’s also rice. Go ahead.”

Rising from the sofa, Rong Cheng Jue eagerly approached the table and started eating the fish. “Mmm, this taste, it’s delicious…”

Ye Zhen lowered her head and ate her portion of fried rice in silence.

When he finally finished eating and was about to retire to the sofa, Ye Zhen walked over and directly lifted the sofa cushion and said, “You said you’d leave after eating.”

“En,” Rong Cheng Jue nodded. “I’m waiting for Ah Zhan to pick me up.”

“Did you really contact him?” Why hadn’t she heard a sound? 

“Show me the record.” With the experience of the last time they stayed in the hospital together, Ye Zhen had no doubt that he could find excuses to stay another night.

Sure enough, Rong Cheng Jue waved his phone in front of her and said, “Not for you to see.”

“Rong Cheng Jue!” Finally, Ye Zhen couldn’t hold her temper anymore because of his antics. “Either give me Ah Zhan’s number or…” She reached out to grab it, “Give me your phone!”

Unexpectedly, Rong Cheng Jue stretched out his hand and held up his phone high, then he said, “Why don’t you ask me how I found this place?”

Although she didn’t care much about this matter, she had only given him the address of the residential area. “How did you find this place?”

“The security guard in the residential area recognized me and told me himself. He also mentioned that you live alone,” Rong Cheng Jue said. “Ye Zhen, did you intentionally mislead me because of your family situation—-”

“President Rong Cheng,” Ye Zhen interrupted him, “My rejection of you earlier and my mother’s emotional outburst are two unrelated matters. Please refrain from making connections and don’t take yourself too seriously.”

“Then, why……”

“Why do you care about the reasons?” All the logical reasoning, all the things she relied on to keep her composure, went out the window. At this moment, all Ye Zhen wanted was for the person in front of her to disappear quickly. “Rong Cheng Jue, are you even a man? Don’t you have any self-respect? Can’t you see that I am pushing you away? You had the audacity to cram four years of study into nine months! Are you not satisfied after being scalded by hot soup? Do you want me to use something to throw you out?!

I told you to go!!!”

The air suddenly became heavy.

“All right,” Rong Cheng Jue dropped the deliberately playful mask, took a half step back, and returned to his usual public demeanor – somewhat proud, somewhat determined. “I’ll leave.”

With that, he stopped looking at Ye Zhen. He turned around, picked up the dirty clothes he had thrown on the floor, put them in a plastic bag, and walked over to the shoe rack by the door. He kicked off his slippers and bent down to put on his own leather shoes. Perhaps due to his injury, his posture was a bit unsteady.

Ye Zhen stood still.

Rong Cheng Jue walked away.

Outside the window, the daylight was dim.

After a while, Ye Zhen loosened her grip on the sofa cushion and slowly walked to the door, subconsciously glancing down the corridor.

Slowly, someone emerged from the shadows and approached her. In a low voice, they asked, “Are you looking for someone? Is it me?”

Immediately, Ye Zhen wanted to retreat back into the room.

In a flash, Rong Cheng Jue reached out and grabbed the doorknob, then lowered his head to plant a kiss on her face and said, “All right, this time I’m really going~”

“……”

I searched the pancakes in the internet for no reason, but all I found was bungeoppang (Korean fish-shaped pastry) and Taiyaki. Bungeoppang originated from Taiyaki, so they are very similar. I’ve had Bungeoppang before and they were really tasty. It’s red bean filling was so good.