Love, Chef. - A Chen Qing Ling/Modaozushi Fanfic

Chapter 18

Jiang Cheng:

"Ah, this is heaven." I said as I flopped on the bed.

I picked up my phone and started scrolling through messages that I have received from literally everyone I knew. Only a few were replied to because others were just simple condolences and it left a sick taste in my mouth to even think about it.

I threw my phone away at the coffee table beside my bed and stared at the high ceiling, soon, memories of my parents started to come back to me. I could feel the warm tears on the sides of my face, I let my tears just fall shamelessly, I needed it. One incident that happened a decade ago still haunts me, those people still made my life a living hell.

As I squirmed in bed because of the pain that was so overwhelming, a sudden memory popped up in my head.

Five Years ago:

I came back to my lonely apartment as usual, at this point Wei Wuxian and I had started living apart from each other because he started traveling the world on order to learn more, cook more and just explore while I stuck to one place and kept working in the same place till I had a small restaurant of my own.

I started this restaurant almost a year ago, I wanted to live in peace and Paris was a country where I had to begin from the scratch. This small restaurant was a place where only regulars would come to and seldom did we have new customers but it was enough to live a good life.

Just like usual, I brewed myself some tea and brought out the fudge cookies that I had baked last weekend. I just turned the heat on and settled the tea kettle on it while I freshened up, much to my dismay, I heard a bell. Because I wanted to isolate myself from the world, I had only handful of colleagues but no friends so it was rather surprising for someone to visit me at dinner time. I had just concluded that Wei Wuxian must have come back to Paris.

I opened the door and saw two faces I did not think I would see for another 2 months, which was until new year celebrations.

"Mom....dad...? What...."

Before I could finish my sentence mom came in and took me in her embrace and said "thank god you're safe" while sniffing.

I couldn't understand what was going on and even dad's face was all solemn. Dad closed the door and looked at my face before he spoke.

"Is Xian-xian here?" He asked.

I shook my head in reply, to indicate that he wasn't.

"Good. We need to talk to you without any interruption."  Dad said, his face still solemn.

Mom jerked herself from my embrace, still sniffling, looking up at me with her tear stained face.

"A-cheng, let's have a seat and talk."

I smell trouble.

We sat down in the small lounge and the awkward silence hung there while I served them some tea with leftover cookies. I sat on the sofa chair with a flop and decided to break the silence.

"Okay, so what's going on?"

There was a small pause before dad opened his mouth only for mom to shut him up.

"Jiang Fengmian, I will do the talking."

She said before she turned to me, stared dead into my eyes and said.