Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 260

Beneath the Starry Sky

Eating meat is just a very satisfying thing. This was especially true when the meat was exceptionally delicious and the setting was as vast as heaven and earth. The instincts of a carnivore were awakened, and she took bite after bite without a moment’s rest.

The meat was tender to the extreme; with one bite, it felt like the juices were bursting forth. The scalding fat and meat juices mingled together, making one feel they could simply never get enough. Then, the flavor from the meticulous seasoning swept in, and the myriad tastes left Su Ruixi wanting more and more.

After finishing one rib, Su Ruixi felt it wasn’t enough. She licked her lips and looked toward the adjacent table. On the camping table was a large stainless steel platter holding the rack of lamb that Sun Miao had just taken off the grill. The rack, now with two ribs cut from it, lay there, and even its cross-section was enough to make one’s mouth water.

The outermost layer was reddish-brown with a hint of char, but having just eaten a piece, Su Ruixi knew it wasn’t burnt in the slightest. That char, a product of the charcoal fire, carried a smoky aroma that harmonized perfectly with the meat itself.

Below that, the color was a slightly tender pink. And because it had been sliced, some of the juices had burst out and were trickling down, making the lamb look even more soft and alluring.

Just one glance was enough to remind Su Ruixi of the explosion of flavor in her mouth moments ago, and her saliva began to flow anew. But Sun Miao hadn’t finished eating yet… Su Ruixi wasn’t one to only think of herself, so she shifted her gaze to Sun Miao.

Compared to her own wolf-like gnawing, Sun Miao had an air of calm composure, likely because she had already anticipated what it would taste like and thus wasn’t in a great hurry. She even had time to use a knife to carve the meat from the bone, cut it into small pieces, and eat it slowly after dipping it in chili powder.

Sensing Su Ruixi’s gaze, Sun Miao looked up, smiled at her, and pushed her own plate toward Su Ruixi. “Susu-jie, this is already cut, you have it first.”

Su Ruixi was a little greedy cat¹, but Sun Miao had only had a few bites herself. She immediately refused and pulled Sun Miao over to eat with her. As Sun Miao dipped her meat in chili powder, Su Ruixi grew envious. The scar heals and the pain is forgotten; she had already forgotten the miserable experiences of eating spicy food the last two times, her eyes now fixated on the chili powder.

When it came to Su Ruixi, Sun Miao was usually indulgent. She thought to herself: If Susu-jie really wants to try the chili powder, that should be fine. This powder isn’t like chili paste, the spiciness isn’t as intense, and it has other seasonings mixed in that can balance out the heat.

But just as this thought emerged, she remembered the time Su Ruixi ate the beef chili sauce. That had even less spice—Sun Miao didn’t even think it was spicy at all—but Su Ruixi, who couldn’t handle spice, still ended up with red-rimmed eyes, turning into a little rabbit with a teary nose.

The moment she thought of this, Sun Miao resolved not to let Su Ruixi have any chili.

Su Ruixi licked the corner of her mouth, speared a piece of lamb with her small fork, and tried to reach for the dipping bowl in Sun Miao’s hands. Fortunately, Sun Miao had been watching her the whole time and, quick of eye and swift of hand, snatched the bowl away.

At this, Su Ruixi’s eyes instantly widened.

“Miaomiao! You can’t be this stingy, not even letting me have a little dip!”

Sun Miao was completely unmoved. “No, Susu-jie, this is chili powder. You can’t eat it. Later you’ll get red eyes and a teary nose, and you’ll say I’m laughing at you again.”

“I won’t! This chili powder of yours doesn’t even smell spicy. I definitely won’t say it’s spicy!”

They went back and forth for a few rounds, but Su Ruixi was ultimately defeated. Fuming, she muttered “stingy” while channeling her sorrow and indignation into her appetite. She devoured all the lamb Sun Miao had portioned for her and then had Sun Miao continue to cut more for her.

Sun Miao wasn’t idle either. While eating, she didn’t forget to prepare other things. Skewers of beef and zhangzhongbao² were turning on the grill, and the tin foil snacks she’d made earlier were also ready to eat. To accommodate both their tastes, Sun Miao had made different versions of everything.

One spicy, and one not.

Su Ruixi absolutely loved the vegetables cooked in the tin foil containers—garlic enoki mushrooms³, wawa cai⁴, and silken tofu; she ate in rapt silence. She didn’t even know how to describe the silken tofu. When scooped up with a spoon, it was like eating steamed egg custard, its surface so delicate it seemed it would break at a touch. This one had no garlic, only scallion oil, and its aroma was intoxicating.

The end result was that she ate too much again. The two of them still couldn’t finish that large rack of lamb. Even after eating for a very long time, probably more than two hours, they had barely managed to eat half of it between the two of them.

Sun Miao put the leftover lamb away, covered it with plastic wrap, and cleaned up all the other trash. While she did these things, Su Ruixi was like a little fart-following bug⁵, right behind her, keeping her company as she bustled about.

But cleaning up was clearly not Su Ruixi’s forte; she could only follow Sun Miao’s instructions, handing her things.

Once everything was finished, Su Ruixi huffed and puffed as she dragged a very large chair out of the camper van. Seeing her, Sun Miao immediately rushed over. Su Ruixi wasn’t very strong, and she worried that Su Ruixi might not be able to lift the chair and would drop it on her own foot.

After dragging it out, it still had to be unfolded. But once it was all set up, Su Ruixi jumped into the chair and patted the spot next to her, telling Sun Miao to come sit.

It looked almost like a sofa bed and seemed incredibly warm. The moment Sun Miao got close to the chair, she was pulled over by Su Ruixi, landing flat on her back. Su Ruixi instinctively wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her in an embrace.

In that instant, Sun Miao felt her entire heart grow still, a sense of tranquility washing over her.

She also reached out, wrapped an arm around Su Ruixi’s shoulders, and held her tightly in return.

Su Ruixi was quiet. Both were wearing warm hardshell jackets⁶, so they couldn’t actually feel each other’s body heat, but their heads were very close. In this intimate little space, only the sound of their breathing flowed between them. The nearby fire provided warmth, making their whole bodies feel toasty.

After some time, Su Ruixi’s voice finally came. “Miaomiao, look up. Look at the stars.”

Following Su Ruixi’s words, Sun Miao lifted her head.

The starry sky in the desert was not merely a black curtain adorned with billions of stars. The horizon was bright, with a slight glimmer that revealed a hint of pale white, as if lit by stars so distant their boundaries were unknown.

From this pale layer, the color slowly rendered into light blue, then blue, then deep blue, before finally dissolving into an inky black.

Upon this gradient canvas, one by one, countless stars shone brightly. It was like a handful of diamonds scattered across the backdrop, each one so brilliant it was impossible to look away.

Looking further out, that pale white horizon disappeared beneath the continuous, curving sand dunes.

Sun Miao found it hard to describe such beauty. She lacked literary grace; she only felt that her entire being had become very calm, like the sky after a heavy downpour, leaving only a limpid blue.

Sun Miao couldn’t describe it, nor could she spontaneously come up with any words to express her feelings, but Su Ruixi could.

In the exceedingly quiet world, the nearby bonfire emitted a few soft crackling sounds, pipa, and the soughing wind would pass by before vanishing to who knows where. It was at this moment that Su Ruixi’s slightly cool voice rang out leisurely.

“If a person loves a single, one-of-a-kind flower among the vast stars, then just by gazing up at the starry sky, that person will feel incomparably happy.”

Su Ruixi’s voice was very soft, as if it might be carried far away by the wind, yet it landed in Sun Miao’s heart, beat by beat, making her head feel a little dizzy. She didn’t know where Su Ruixi’s words came from, whether it was a quote or her own spontaneous feeling, but she felt that what Su Ruixi said was absolutely right.

When she was a child in the orphanage, she too could look up and see a sky full of stars.

The suburbs didn’t have the severe pollution of the city center, and back then, there were far fewer factories than there are now. She and a few other children would occasionally slip out of the bedroom at night when the director wasn’t looking, bring small stools into the courtyard, and gaze up at the stars.

At that time, she only thought they were pretty and had no other thoughts.

Later, the more she understood, the less she sought out the stars. She never had the leisure to gaze at the stars or the moon. Even when she worked day and night, wearing the stars and moon, she never had a single second to lift her head and look at the sky.

Even if she did see a brilliant starry sky, she wouldn’t have felt happy. She would only have thought that the stars in the sky were all in clusters, able to rely on each other, while she was curled up in a corner of the city, without a place to return to or a place she came from.

But how immensely fortunate she was to have met Su Ruixi.

So she could gaze at the sky and feel a field of peace in her heart, could feel an incomparable happiness.

Su Ruixi knew she most likely didn’t know the source, so she took the initiative to explain. “That line is from 《The Little Prince》, a very classic children’s book.” She spoke softly, sharing her heart as well. “When I read it as a child, I didn’t understand it at all. Why would seeing the starry sky make you incomparably happy just because you loved a flower?”

“I didn’t understand what was so good about loving a flower, didn’t understand what was so happy about the starry sky.”

“Even after I grew up, I still didn’t understand. When I saw the stars, I could think of many poems and descriptive phrases, but only because I thought the stars were beautiful. Even before, when I came to the desert for stargazing, I saw the river of stars, I saw a meteor shower that you’d be lucky to see once in fifty years, and I took so many pictures, but I still felt nothing else.”

She didn’t finish. For Su Ruixi, saying this much was already a huge challenge. If she had to say the rest, she would probably blush so hard she wouldn’t be able to speak to Sun Miao.

But that was okay. Sun Miao already knew what Su Ruixi wanted to say.

She spoke only three words: “I am, too.”

Sun Miao’s “I am, too” was not about the beauty of the stars, nor was it about her own lack of understanding. It was her way of telling Su Ruixi:

I am, too. To be able to love you, to love the one-and-only you, to be able to hold you beneath billions of stars, at this very moment, I also feel incomparably happy.

Hearing Sun Miao’s words, Su Ruixi, whose arms were around her waist, couldn’t hold back. The corners of her mouth lifted, her eyes curved, and she smiled with great joy.

Beneath such a starry sky, they didn’t kiss, nor were there any further touches. They just held each other tightly. Just like two little animals, they were together from head to toe, their very tails tightly intertwined, unwilling to part.

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