Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

The two of them set out the bowls and chopsticks and sat down at the table.

Six people sat around a long table, with four dishes and a pot of seaweed and egg drop soup in front of them.

The dishes—scrambled eggs with tomatoes, stir-fried greens with garlic, stir-fried shrimp, and cucumber salad—were quite visually appealing.

Wu Jiayuan was the first to pick up her chopsticks. She took a piece of tomato, put it in her bowl, chewed it a couple of times, and nodded in satisfaction: "Not bad. It didn't turn out badly."

Lin Zhen picked up a piece of cucumber salad with his chopsticks, chewed it a couple of times, and said, "The cucumber is fine."

"Lin Lu, you're too modest. This is obviously delicious." Jiang Yining took a bite of the cucumber and praised it generously.

"Thank you for the compliment." Lin Zhen adjusted his glasses. "Looks like all those years of cucumber-shooting haven't been in vain."

Jiang Yining was amused by his dry humor.

Sun Zhuohang picked up a piece of tomato, put it in his bowl, chewed it twice, swallowed it, and muttered, "Delicious."

"Thank you, Zhuohang." Wu Jiayuan smiled at him. "You're the first person to give me positive feedback."

Sun Zhuohang's ears turned red again, and he lowered his head to continue eating.

He Xu sat at the edge of the long table, with only a small amount of rice in his bowl. He picked up a few pieces of vegetables and shrimp with his chopsticks and ate slowly.

Zhuang Wenmin sat opposite him, eating a piece of green vegetable with her chopsticks slowly, but with a calm expression.

He Xu turned his head and glanced at her.

Zhuang Wenmin noticed his gaze and looked up: "Why are you looking at me?"

"Watching you eat."

"What's so interesting about eating?"

"You eat so slowly."

Zhuang Wenmin put down her chopsticks and looked at him: "You eat too fast, which is one of the reasons why you have a bad stomach."

He Xu's fingers paused on the chopsticks for a moment.

Wu Jiayuan, who was sitting next to her, overheard this and turned her head: "Teacher He, do you have a stomach problem?"

"A little," He Xu said.

"To what extent?"

"Occasionally."

"Then you need to be careful; you can't ignore stomach problems." Wu Jiayuan's tone suddenly switched to a doctor's mode, serious but not stern. "What do you usually eat? Do you eat on time?"

Eat on time.

"Do you like spicy food? And cold food too?"

"……Occasionally."

"Don't eat that anymore," Wu Jiayuan said. "Stomach problems require a combination of treatment and care. You can't just rely on medicine; you have to control what you eat."

He Xu glanced at her, but didn't refute her, and continued to eat his rice.

Zhuang Wenmin picked up the bowl and took a sip of soup. The corners of her mouth curved slightly, a very faint curve, but He Xu noticed it.

Jiang Yining put down her chopsticks, leaned back in her chair, looked around the table, and then nodded in satisfaction: "We did a pretty good job with this meal."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

After finishing their meal, Wu Jiayuan and Jiang Yining shared the last few mouthfuls of soup, each holding their bowl as they stood up.

Lin Zhen began clearing the plates off the table and putting the leftover food into a trash bag.

He Xu and Sun Zhuohang followed their previous assignments, taking on the tasks of washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen.

Sun Zhuohang was the first to enter the kitchen. He rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, turned on the tap, rinsed his hands, and then picked up a stack of bowls to put in the sink.

He Xu followed behind him, gathered the remaining chopsticks into a bundle, and placed them on the table.

"I'll take care of the washing." Sun Zhuohang glanced at him sideways. "You can rest. I can handle it by myself."

"We agreed to do it together." He Xu picked up the dishcloth, squeezed two pumps of dish soap into his palm and rubbed it together. "You wash yours, I'll clean mine, hurry up."

Sun Zhuohang hesitated for a moment, then nodded and put the first bowl into the sink.

He Xu stood next to him, smeared dish soap on the bowl, and handed it to him to rinse.

The two worked together fairly well. He Xu handed one over, Sun Zhuohang rinsed the other, dried it, and placed it on the draining rack.

Sun Zhuohang was clearly a little nervous, probably because He Xu was standing next to him, and he washed much faster than usual.

The bowl spun rapidly in his hands, the water was rinsed hastily, and the wiping motions were clumsy.

He Xu noticed that when he held the bowl, his fingers were stuck on the rim, indicating a lack of stability.

He was about to say "slow down" when Sun Zhuohang had already reached into the sink to retrieve the third bowl.

The bowl had just been taken out of the water; it was slippery and covered in dish soap and grease.

With a flick of his fingers, Sun Zhuohang's bowl slipped from his palm, bounced on the table, and rolled toward the edge of the sink.

Sun Zhuohang lunged forward, reaching for the edge of the bowl with his right hand and bracing himself against the edge of the sink with his left.

But he reached the wrong spot, and the bowl grazed his fingertips before falling toward the floor.

Sun Zhuohang's pupils contracted, and he froze in mid-air, with only one thought in his mind—it's over.

He Xu stretched out his hand.

He was farther away than Sun Zhuohang, and his hand wasn't reaching towards the trajectory of the bowl's flight.

He shifted his body slightly to the side, his right hand slipping through the gap at Sun Zhuohang's waist, his fingers gripping the edge of the bowl when it was still half a palm's width above the ground.

It was as if they had anticipated where the bowl would fall and had already reached out to wait in that spot.

He Xu held the rim of the bowl with his fingers, scooped it up from mid-air, and with a flick of his wrist, the bowl landed steadily on the table, the bottom of the bowl hitting the table with a soft "click".

The entire kitchen fell silent for a moment.

Sun Zhuohang remained in that forward-leaning posture, his right hand suspended in mid-air, his left hand supporting himself on the edge of the pool, as if he had been put on pause.

In the living room, Wu Jiayuan was carrying a glass of water toward the kitchen, intending to ask if she needed any help.

She stood at the kitchen doorway and saw the whole thing—her mouth dropped open, she was stunned.

"Teacher He—" Sun Zhuohang finally found his voice, which trembled slightly, "How—how did you catch it?"

He Xu put the bowl back into the sink, rinsed his hands, and said in a flat tone, "I just reached out when I saw where it fell."

"Just by chance?" Sun Zhuohang's voice rose half an octave. "You're a step away from me, how did you manage to reach it so easily?"

"When you lunged to the right, the bowl rolled to the left, and there was a pretty big gap in the middle," He Xu said. "I could just reach it through."

Sun Zhuohang opened his mouth, only to find that he had absolutely no idea what to say.

Wu Jiayuan finally realized what was happening; "Teacher He..."

He Xu turned his head and glanced at her.

"You're amazing!" Wu Jiayuan's tone was full of admiration. "Your reaction speed is so much faster than most people's."

"Dancers are quick-witted," He Xu said.

"I've seen dancers, but none of them react as quickly as you," Wu Jiayuan said. "Your movement just now was like you knew in advance that the bowl would fall in that spot—it was amazing."

He Xu didn't reply and continued washing the dishes with his head down.

Jiang Yining peeked over from the living room. She hadn't seen the whole thing, only heard the sound of the bowl hitting the table and Sun Zhuohang's exclamation.

She walked over and peered into the doorway, asking, "What happened? What happened? What did you break?"

"I didn't fall," Wu Jiayuan said. "I almost fell, but Teacher He caught me."

"Caught it?" Jiang Yining turned her head to look at He Xu's back. "How did you catch it?"

"Well..." Wu Jiayuan tried to describe the scene, but found she couldn't find the right words, so she changed to a more dramatic way of putting it, "Have you ever seen a cat? You know, the kind where something's still flying in the air, and it's already stretched out its paws, waiting to take a picture."

"Ah, so Teacher He really is a cat?" Jiang Yining blinked, tilted her head to look at He Xu again, her tone exaggerated.

He Xu was rinsing a bowl with his head down, the back of his neck illuminated by the kitchen light, his shoulders slightly relaxed.

Wu Jiayuan glanced at him, then looked at Jiang Yining, and the two of them couldn't help but smile.