Zhou Ya paused for a few seconds, repeating Fang Long’s request: “Egg fried rice?”

Fang Long nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know why, I’ve been craving it these past couple days.”

Zhou Ya raised an eyebrow slightly. “…All right.”

In less than ten minutes, the fried rice and soup were both set in front of Fang Long.

She drank a few mouthfuls of soup first to warm her stomach, then started on the rice.

It was such a simple dish, egg fried rice—Fang Long could make it herself too. In the past, whenever Zhou Ya fried rice, she’d hover around him, learning the steps and seasoning thoroughly, but the egg fried rice she made still turned out somewhat different from Zhou Ya’s.

As for exactly what the difference was, Fang Long couldn’t quite say.

Just then customers came into the shop, and Zhou Ya went to busy himself in the kitchen for a while; by the time he came back out, Fang Long had already finished off most of the plate on her own.

He frowned and walked over, knocking on the table twice. “That’s about enough. Who eats that much rice so late at night? Not worried it’ll sit heavy in your stomach when you sleep?”

Fang Long let out a genuine, satisfied burp and pushed the plate away a bit, to keep herself from giving in to temptation. “Pack the rest to go? Tomorrow I’ll heat it up in the microwave, can have it again for lunch.”

Zhou Ya didn’t respond to her, but directly picked up the plate and took it to the back kitchen.

In that short span of time, several more tables of customers had come in, and the shop suddenly got busy.

It was only then that Fang Long noticed that tonight, neither Zhang Xiuqin nor the other floor girl was there; A’Feng was juggling multiple roles, running around in a frenzy.

Fang Long caught a chance to ask A’Feng: “Why didn’t Xiuqin-jie and Xiaomei come tonight?”

“Xiuqin-jie’s feeling unwell, took the night off. Xiaomei quit.”

Fang Long was surprised. “Xiaomei quit? How so sudden? I saw her just a few days ago.”

—Xiaomei had been a waitress at the shop before, around Fang Long’s age, a distant cousin of one of the chefs, usually responsible for delivering dishes and cleaning up.

A’Feng sighed. “Ah, probably felt it was too tiring. This work isn’t suited for young girls—days and nights flipped, lots of fiddly little tasks, and you run into all kinds of customers, thin-skinned girls just can’t take it.”

Fang Long could understand.

Food stalls did business at night—might not even close until two or three in the morning, and once customers had a few drinks in them and started throwing dice, with alcohol in their bellies, the things they said and did naturally weren’t always proper. Even with Zhou Ya, A’Feng and the others keeping an eye out, female waitstaff still often ran into harassment incidents.

A’Feng went off to get busy again. Fang Long, eating away, started feeling a bit embarrassed taking up a whole table by herself, and after finishing her soup prepared to slip away.

Suddenly she heard an urgent “ding ding ding” from the kitchen pass-through window, along with Zhou Ya’s hoarse voice calling out: “Anyone there? Dishes are up!”

But A’Feng and the other staff were all up front taking orders from customers, truly unable to get away.

It was cold today, so everyone was ordering hot stir-fries, and the kitchen was steaming hot.

Zhou Ya was tossing a wok when he suddenly heard someone at the small window call out loudly: “Hey, which table are these for?”

Zhou Ya looked toward the voice—it was Fang Long.

The range hood was very loud; Zhou Ya nearly had to shout: “Why is it you? Where are A’Feng and the others?”

Fang Long shouted back too: “They’re all busy! Just tell me which table, I’ll deliver them!”

Zhou Ya paused for a few seconds before saying, “The salt and pepper prawns are for table nine, the mixed fish hot pot is for table seven, the two stir-fried vegetable rice noodles go to tables four and one respectively… can you remember all that?”

Fang Long’s tone was easy. “Piece of cake.”

Zhou Ya reminded her: “The mixed fish hot pot is very hot, remember to use a cloth to hold it!”

Fang Long muttered under her breath: “So naggy.”

She made a couple round trips, and just as she finished delivering those dishes, the pass-through bell rang again.

This time there was a hot soup. The small window was rather low; Zhou Ya bent halfway down to warn her: “The soup’s very hot, hold it steady.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t cause trouble for you.”

Fang Long, not bothering to grab a cloth, simply tucked her hands into her sleeves, using her jacket sleeves directly as padding, and picked up the large soup bowl to carry it off.

Zhou Ya rubbed the tip of his nose and went back to the stove to continue his work.

Fang Long delivered a few more rounds of dishes. A customer waved his hand, calling out gruffly: “Miss! Bring us another half-dozen beers!”

Fang Long, without breaking stride, answered brightly: “Coming right up!”

She came over carrying six bottles of Zhujiang beer, and the customer, seeing her unfamiliar face, asked curiously: “Miss, are you a new waitress here? Or a beer promoter?”

Fang Long deftly opened the bottles, smiling as she said, “Neither—A’ya’s my brother.”

“Ah! So you’re family of the owner.” The customer asked further, “How old are you, miss?”

Just then another customer waved to call her over, and Fang Long, without answering him, finished opening the last bottle, tossed off an “enjoy” and went to attend to the others.

As the night went on, more customers came. When A’Feng saw Fang Long pitching in to help, he’d initially felt a bit awkward about it, hurrying over to help her out, but later he himself got too busy to keep up, truly unable to spare any attention.

He’d originally thought this little madam who seemed rather pampered and finicky would turn out different once put to actual work—seeing her move nimbly between tables, unafraid of grime or heat, A’Feng relaxed a bit too.

Fang Long knew the work at a food stall wasn’t simple, but only by actually doing it herself did she realize just how many fiddly little tasks there were.

Having been busy like a spinning top for who knew how long, she finally got a moment to catch her breath, sitting down on a plastic stool in the corner.

Unfortunately, her seat hadn’t even warmed up before more customers wanted to check out and leave. Fang Long got up and walked over to the pass-through window to get the food waste bucket to clear the table.

Someone beat her to it.

Zhou Ya picked up the food waste bucket, his gaze sweeping briefly over the oil stains on Fang Long’s sleeve cuffs, saying, “I’ll handle the rest, you head home now.”

“It’s fine, I can see you’re short-staffed tonight, let me help out.” Fang Long’s tone carried a note of great magnanimity.

A’Feng, passing by, chimed in without thinking: “Yeah, we really couldn’t keep up just now, thank you for your help, our esteemed ancestor!”

Fang Long: “You’re welcome, you’re welcome.”

Zhou Ya didn’t respond, carrying the bucket off to clean up the mess of dishes and cups.

The table that had just been cleared was quickly claimed by new customers. A’Feng went to take their order, and Fang Long took utensils out from the sterilizing cabinet, setting them out for the customers one by one.

This group of customers was rather particular, bringing their own two packets of chrysanthemum pu’er tea and asking Fang Long to help brew a pot.

Fang Long didn’t know where the teapot was kept, and walked to the storage room, where she spotted Zhou Ya inside, his back to the door, rustling around looking for something.

“Zhou Ya.” Fang Long tried to keep her tone and voice as normal as usual. “There are customers who want tea brewed, I can’t find a teapot to use.”

Zhou Ya turned sideways, two pieces of floral fabric pinched between his fingers. He thought for a moment and said, “There’s a teapot for brewing a big pot of tea in the cabinet next to the water heater.”

Fang Long said “okay” and turned to leave.

Zhou Ya called out to stop her in time.

He held out the cloth in his hand to her: “It’s unpackaged but new, make do with it for now.”

Fang Long took it and shook it open.

It turned out to be a pair of sleeve covers, the kind used for washing dishes, white with small floral print, forgotten in some corner for who knew how long, the creases obvious, even slightly yellowed with age.

But it really was new—the fabric showed no signs of ever having been washed.

Fang Long, for a moment, didn’t quite understand: “Why are you giving me this?”

Zhou Ya’s eyelids were half-lowered, his gaze fixed on her sleeve cuffs: “Your sleeves are dirty.”

Fang Long froze, lifted her hand, leaning in closer to look, and only then saw that her sleeves really did have some oil stains on them.

Her jacket was black-gray, the sleeves also a dark color, and the stains weren’t actually that obvious.

But Zhou Ya had noticed anyway.

Her heart inexplicably began to beat faster; she didn’t move to leave either, standing right there in the storage room doorway, blocking the way.

She’d originally meant to tease him a bit, something like her usual “you’re getting up there in years but your eyesight’s still decent”—the words had already rolled up to the tip of her tongue, but suddenly took a different turn.

“Zhou Ya,” Fang Long curved the corner of her mouth, but her eyes were quite serious, “why are you always so good to me?”