Chapter 13: Men Do Not Like Women Saying They’re Little
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
When Jiang Zebei arrived in front of the furnace, Chen Mengtian finally noticed his presence.
She looked up, revealing her face. It had been washed clean just moments ago, but now, it was covered in soot.
Jiang Zebei put the lid back on the pot and looked at her dirty face. His lips twitched.
It was less than half a month since they last met, so how did she get this clumsy?
He did not know that the Chen Mengtian squatting in front of him was a modern woman of the twenty-first century.
She had never used such an ancient furnace before.
Jiang Zebei saw Chen Mengtian's aggrieved eyes and sighed softly. "Get up and go wash your face. I'll make a fire."
Chen Mengtian got up, but she did not listen to him and did not go out to wash her face.
Instead, she stood by the side to watch Jiang Zebei make a fire.
He placed weeds in the furnace before he placed dried twigs. Then, he used a tinder tube to light a fire.
He held dried twigs in his hands gently, and when the fire became stronger, he put slightly thicker branches inside.
Once Chen Mengtian saw how Jiang Zebei made a fire, she put the process to memory and walked out of the kitchen.
When she reached the entrance, she remembered something and turned around to speak to Jiang Zebei. "Little Bei, when the water starts boiling, don't forget to put the cured meat and the eggs in the bowl inside the pot."
When Chen Mengtian called him Little Bei, she did not find anything strange with it, but Jiang Zebei could not wrap his head around it.
For a while, he could not even figure out who she called.
Then, when she mentioned the things at the back, he finally understood that she was talking to him.
There was a strange look on his face, and his lips twitched a little.
With movements as stiff as a machine's, he slowly turned his head around and stared at the girl standing at the entrance.
"Wh-What did you just call me?" he asked.
Chen Mengtian tilted her head to the side and said, "Little Bei. What's wrong?"
When he heard the title again, Jiang Zebei's expression turned dark, and he said through gritted teeth, "Don't call me that!"
His attitude puzzled Chen Mengtian.
"You're younger than me by a year. Calling you Little Bei is showing that there isn't a huge difference in our statuses."
There was no problem with her explanation, but Jiang Zebei just could not accept it.
He put a few more twigs into the furnace before he got up and walked over to Chen Mengtian.
At this moment, Jiang Zebei gave off a displeased presence, and no matter how slow to the uptake Chen Mengtian was, she noticed it.
When she saw him walking over, she took two steps back and waved her hands at Jiang Zebei.
"What do you want to do? If you have something to say, just say it. A gentleman only uses his mouth, not his fists!"
Chen Mengtian looked like she was warning him not to come over and hit her. It made Jiang Zebei so exasperated that he laughed.
"Wow. I can't believe that you know that gentlemen are only supposed to use their words to solve problems, not their fists." It sounded like he was mocking her.
But Chen Mengtian did not seem to have noticed the mocking in his words and said proudly, "Of course. You're an intellectual, so you can't use your fists."
This was the first time Jiang Zebei witnessed how truly shameless this girl was.
He quickened his footsteps and soon arrived in front of Chen Mengtian.
She had nowhere to run to now, and she put on an obsequious smile. "Let's talk properly. If you don't like me calling you Little Bei, I won't."
She believed that Jiang Zebei had become unhappy because she called him Little Bei just now. Yes, that was probably it.
She also remembered something else.
No matter how old boys were, they did not like girls calling them little.
Jiang Zebei looked at the obsequious expression of the girl in front of him and reached out to her with his hand. His fingers might be long and as smooth and fair as jade, but there were thin calluses between his fingers.
Chen Mengtian stared at his outreached hand, and while she appeared to be afraid, not a single hint of fear could be detected in her eyes.
Instead, there was amusement in them.
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