The sickly one in F4 was the group's darling.

Shen Tinglan stood at the kitchen door, wearing that six-figure black silk nightgown.

His hair was more disheveled than when Bai Ci woke him up by climbing out the window, and his face was colder than before.

Shen Tinglan squinted, as if she had just been dragged out of a deep sleep, exuding an aura that said, "You'd better have a good reason."

His gaze swept casually across the kitchen: there were faint water stains on the stove, a pot of noodles was on the table, and the boy was sitting barefoot on a high stool by the table, eating noodles with his head down.

Bai Ci, with noodles in her mouth, looked up at him.

The two stared at each other silently. Bai Ci hurriedly swallowed the mouthful of noodles, swallowing so quickly that his eyes reddened, but he dared not cough and held it in.

"Good evening," he said.

"Are you cooking noodles?" he said.

"Mmm." Bai Ci's voice was so soft it was almost inaudible.

"In the early morning, when everyone is asleep."

"……Um."

"Use one pot."

Bai Ci glanced down at the small stainless steel pot in front of him, unsure whether he should acknowledge this obvious fact.

"And a bowl." Shen Tinglan's gaze drifted to the stainless steel bowl on the stove.

Bai Ci pursed her lips, unsure of which response to give.

Shen Tinglan took a deep breath, as if he was trying to convince himself that being woken up by a bowl of noodles in the middle of the night wasn't the most outrageous thing in the world.

"You climbed through my window at night," Shen Tinglan said in a calm tone, but the pauses between each word were precisely timed to match Bai Ci's heartbeat, "and made a huge commotion in everyone's kitchen in the early hours of the morning, making us think a thief had broken in."

"It wasn't an explosion," Bai Ci explained softly. "The bowl was knocked over, but the pot didn't."

"The pot hasn't been overturned." Shen Tinglan repeated these three words, as if chewing on something hard to digest.

"You think that's a defense? You mean, you did spill a bowl, but you expect me to praise you because the pot is still intact?"

Bai Ci opened her mouth: "It's not broken."

Bai Ci put down her chopsticks and said to Shen Tinglan, "I'm hungry."

These three words were spoken with confidence, but the tone was soft and weak, as if stating an irrefutable fact: I am hungry, so I want to eat noodles. This is the law of nature, not my fault.

Shen Tinglan glanced at the stove, then at the water stain on the floor that Bai Ci hadn't had time to wipe up.

His gaze fell back on Bai Ci, and he suddenly paused.

Bai Ci followed his gaze and looked down. Her two feet were on the crossbar of the bar stool. The insteps of her feet were so thin that you could see the thin blue veins. Her toes were slightly curled up because of tension, and the soles of her feet were covered with dust brought up from downstairs.

"You're not wearing shoes."

Bai Ci pulled her feet back slightly: "...I forgot."

"I forgot." Shen Tinglan repeated, "You walked down from the second floor, through the corridor, past the dining room, and into the kitchen to cook noodles, without realizing you were barefoot the whole time."

Bai Ci opened her mouth, then closed it again.

He wasn't telling the truth. It wasn't that he forgot; his shoe had been kicked off under Shen Tinglan's window. He had been in such a mess climbing out of the window that one shoe had slipped into the bushes and the other was stuck in the gap between the drainpipe and the wall. When Shen Tinglan pulled him in while he was hanging on the windowsill, he hadn't even had time to pick it up.

"You were clearly afraid of getting caught again if you went back to pick up the shoes," Xiao Qi's voice drifted into my mind. "When you were hanging them on the windowsill just now, you almost flew away the moment Shen Tinglan turned on the light."

"Don't say it," Bai Ci replied in her mind.

"...He left in too much of a hurry," he said, changing his wording.

Shen Tinglan neither said she believed him nor disbelieved him. Her gaze shifted from his face to the pair of feet tucked behind the horizontal bar, pausing for a second.

"Okay, I'll let that go for now. But I'm curious, did you step on the glass?"

Bai Ci was stunned for a moment.

"Ji Huaizhou broke a cup here last week, and the cleaning lady swept it up, but yesterday the robot vacuum cleaner cleared up another piece of glass from the corner of the restaurant. It's right on your way downstairs."

He looked down at Bai Ci's feet, which were tucked into the horizontal bar.

"Looks like you didn't step on it. Otherwise, with your guts, you'd still be sitting on the stairs, not cooking noodles here."

Bai Ci curled his toes slightly: "...I didn't see the glass."

"Yes, of course you didn't see it," Shen Tinglan nodded, "the lights weren't even on."

He leaned against the stove, arms crossed over his chest.

"Going downstairs in the dark, navigating around broken glass, opening the refrigerator in the dark to precisely retrieve eggs, and cooking noodles in the dark—you're quite suited for nighttime work."

Bai Ci pursed her lips, thinking that this probably wasn't a compliment.

Shen Tinglan didn't continue the topic; he glanced at the entrance.

"There are slippers and your usual shoes in the shoe cabinet by the door. Turn right when you enter."

Bai Ci followed his gaze to the entrance, then looked away: "...I didn't notice."

"Hmm," Shen Tinglan said, "there are quite a few things you haven't noticed."

Shen Tinglan didn't say anything more. He walked to the stove, turned the knob to check the fire, and then leaned against the stove, staring at Bai Ci.

Bai Ci felt a chill run down her spine from his gaze, but the noodles were still in the pot and would clump together if she didn't eat them, so she had no choice but to lower her head and continue eating.

He didn't eat very well; he kept his head down, and he wasn't very skilled with chopsticks, occasionally dropping a few strands of noodles on the table. But he ate very attentively, one bite after another.

Shen Tinglan just watched.

"You know what," he suddenly said, his tone as if stating an interesting observation, "the way you eat looks like some kind of small animal digging for food."

Bai Ci paused for a moment.

"In other words," Shen Tinglan paused, "their eating manners were rather unrefined."

Shen Tinglan walked over and sat down opposite Bai Ci. Bai Ci was stunned; he hadn't expected Shen Tinglan to sit down.

Shen Tinglan glanced down at the noodles in the pot. A poached egg, a slightly overcooked clump of noodles, and the broth was just water and salt, so bland it was almost transparent. The only redeeming quality of the whole pot of noodles was that it was actually hot.

"You're going to eat this?" Shen Tinglan asked.

"Hmm," Bai Ci said, "the eggs in the refrigerator."

"There's ham, cheese, vegetables, and handmade chocolate in the fridge," Shen Tinglan listed them one by one, her tone as if listing a crime, "You only took the eggs."

"The others aren't mine," Bai Ci said.

Shen Tinglan paused for a moment, then glanced at Bai Ci with a complex look in his eyes, as if he were looking at a rare species, someone who would climb out of a window in the middle of the night, smash bowls in the kitchen, but who felt that the ham in the refrigerator did not belong to him and therefore did not touch it.

"The things in the refrigerator," Shen Tinglan said, emphasizing each word, "are for public use. The note says, 'Please take only what you need.'"

Bai Ci blinked.

"You can't read?"

"……know."

Bai Ci glanced at the noodles in the pot, then at Shen Tinglan. Shen Tinglan sat opposite him, showing no intention of leaving. He leaned back in his chair, the collar of his robe slightly open, his hair falling down to cover half of his brow bone, exuding an aura of "I was woken up by you, so you won't have an easy time either."

Bai Ci picked up his chopsticks and scooped up a mouthful of noodles. Under Shen Tinglan's watchful gaze, he put the noodles in his mouth and chewed them twice.

"Is it good?" Shen Tinglan asked.

Bai Ci gave a vague "hmm".

"Boiled noodles with an egg," Shen Tinglan said, "and you call that delicious?"

"I added salt," Bai Ci corrected him.

Shen Tinglan closed her eyes briefly. Bai Ci wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but Shen Tinglan's lips seemed to twitch slightly, so quickly that it was barely visible.