Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 77

Is It Possible to Become Gay Later in Life?

Su Ruixi hadn’t expected that she could sleep for so long. She had originally just planned to lightly nap for a bit, rest for ten or twenty minutes at most. She was very confident in herself; even without setting an alarm, she’d definitely wake up quickly.

But the reality was, she’d had a dream and slept for over two hours straight.

Su Ruixi still hadn’t fully come back to her senses yet. She still maintained the posture of lying prone on the desk, one arm across the desk, her chin resting on it, while the other hand was raised, fingers tucked into her hair, smoothing down the hair on the other side.

The wonderful atmosphere from the dream still lingered around Su Ruixi. That feeling of worldly warmth was so distinct, as if, were she to go home right now, she would definitely see someone standing in the kitchen, cooking delicious food for her.

And not just ‘someone’… that person was specifically Sun Miao.

She recalled what her assistant had said before; the underlying meaning of her words clearly suggested she thought Su Ruixi was dating Sun Miao. But herself—dating a woman? Su Ruixi frowned immediately, subconsciously feeling that such a thing couldn’t possibly happen.

Just as she’d told Hip-hop Mei in her youth, she was somewhat sapiosexual¹, attracted to highly intelligent people. But if asked who specifically she liked, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, and she hadn’t dated any boyfriends over all these years.

Because she truly felt that most men were quite stupid.

Even with genuinely intelligent men, she wouldn’t consider them potential partners; instead, it was like a lion seeing another competitor daring to invade its territory.

Even so, she had never thought she might one day fall for a woman.

But if this ‘certain woman’ was specified as Sun Miao, Su Ruixi felt she could accept it. Although Sun Miao didn’t seem that smart. Sometimes, she even found Sun Miao a bit simple and naive.

For example, initially outside the hospital, Sun Miao had unhesitatingly stood up for the little nurse. Su Ruixi would think—Sun Miao had courage but lacked strategy. What she did was indeed brave and kind, but it wasn’t necessarily a good thing for Sun Miao.

If she got entangled with that kind of man because she helped the little nurse, that would be really unlucky. And indeed, that’s what happened; after failing to harass the little nurse, he immediately chose to slander Sun Miao. Without her own help, Sun Miao probably would have had a headache over it for a long time.

Another example was the recent incident with Zhang Qiang. Zhang Qiang was someone with significant influence; if she really wanted to, she could keep causing trouble for Sun Miao. Sun Miao acted that way just because she wanted to vent Su Ruixi’s frustration…

These weren’t the actions of a clever person, completely misaligned with her own criteria for a partner, yet Su Ruixi still felt that if the person were Sun Miao, it would be quite nice.

It wasn’t just because Sun Miao’s cooking was delicious that Su Ruixi felt she would be a good choice, although that was part of the reason. But more importantly—Sun Miao’s personality and way of handling things. She liked this Sun Miao, especially her warm smile and the atmosphere when she cooked.

Thinking of this, Su Ruixi couldn’t help but pause: How had she started seriously considering the possibility of Sun Miao being her partner?

“I must be crazy…” Su Ruixi sighed, pressing a hand to her forehead.

She lifted her head, straightened up, ready to continue working, trying to bury that strange feeling in her heart with work. But as she worked and worked, when she needed to use a search engine, her fingers tapped the keyboard, typing out: Is it possible to become gay later in life?

The moment before the answer popped up, she closed the entire browser window. At this moment, Su Ruixi could hardly deceive herself anymore: She was, indeed, a little moved by Sun Miao!

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Sun Miao was rinsing rice, preparing to soak it, when she suddenly sneezed. The System even showed concern for her: 【Host, please pay attention to resting. Otherwise, if you get sick, it could very likely affect your stall operation.】

“If you know how to talk, say more; if not, shut up.” Because she hadn’t been in high spirits these past two days, Sun Miao’s words were a bit barbed, especially towards the constantly sharp-tongued System.

But the System wasn’t wrong. After soaking the rice, she didn’t have much else to do anyway, so she simply went to her room for an afternoon nap. She set an alarm, planning to sleep for only forty minutes. Generally, a forty-minute to one-hour nap is best; sleeping longer than that often leads to dizziness and grogginess.

Not long after lying down on the bed, Sun Miao fell asleep.

Strangely, she dreamed again of the Su Ruixi version of the cotton doll, and the setting was still her stall from this morning. Only, where Su Ruixi had originally stood, there was now the cotton doll. Compared to Su Ruixi’s own hesitant expression, the cotton doll looked pitiful.

It floated in front of the little stall, so short it could only prop itself up on the counter with both hands. Its eyes were like two sunny-side-up fried eggs, but brimming with tears. It accused Sun Miao from over there: “Why are you so mean? Why did you suddenly become so cold to me? Why didn’t you save any for me?”

“Do you know, I didn’t even eat dinner yesterday, wuwuwu!”

Good heavens², aside from the last point, Sun Miao hadn’t really done anything! Becoming cold towards Su Ruixi or anything like that was even more out of the question.

Sun Miao didn’t actually know if Su Ruixi had eaten dinner, but as the saying goes, dreams reflect one’s inner thoughts. Perhaps subconsciously, she was just worried Su Ruixi hadn’t eaten properly last night.

If she hadn’t eaten dinner, would her stomach ache from hunger? Would her stomach problems act up again? Sun Miao subconsciously thought of these things, but her dream-self was still being stubborn. Especially when seeing Su Ruixi, she thought again that she couldn’t let herself fall any deeper.

They could be ordinary friends, but they absolutely couldn’t cross that line. Although Su Ruixi would definitely find her sudden change baffling, what she was doing was indeed not quite right. But the human heart is hard to control; she was afraid that if they continued to be close, she would end up utterly defeated.

Sun Miao was silent for a moment, then just said to the cotton doll: “Then remember to eat dinner properly today.”

Call it selfish, call it cold-hearted, she couldn’t continue like this, and even less could she let Su Ruixi detect her feelings. Otherwise—Su Ruixi herself would be very troubled.

Hearing Sun Miao’s cold, emotionless voice, the cotton doll paused, then cried even louder. It looked so pitiful, sobbing and sniffling. Even Hip-hop Mei and Yabi Mei behind it turned around to reproach Sun Miao: “Little Boss Sun, how could you treat Susu-jie like this? You’re really too much!”

But the problem was, the cotton doll wasn’t Su Ruixi! It was a cotton doll!

But dreams don’t make sense anyway. Sun Miao didn’t know how it happened next, but she ended up placing the cotton doll in front of her, letting it sit on her counter, and then made changfen, portion by portion, for the subsequent customers.

The customers in the dream were blurry, their faces indistinct; only the cotton doll in front of her remained vivid and lively. When her stock was almost sold out, Sun Miao also had a feeling: she was about to wake up.

At this moment, the cotton doll also seemed to sense something. It scrambled up from the counter and floated right in front of Sun Miao, throwing its tiny body, the size of a booger³, onto Sun Miao’s face, making Sun Miao almost go cross-eyed trying to look at it.

“Sun Miao, don’t you… don’t you like me anymore?!”

Sun Miao woke up startled from the dream, raising a hand to cover her face: “What kind of mess is this…” Sun Miao gave a wry smile, but she had to admit: she liked her, she still liked her. She still yearned for Su Ruixi, only now she knew more clearly that there was no possibility between them.

“Besides, even if I like her, I don’t like you, you little booger.”

The image of Su Ruixi’s cotton doll reappeared in her mind, protesting internally. Sun Miao shook her head, got up, and started making her own dinner. Lately, her staple food had mostly been rice; tonight, she planned to make some simple noodles.

The simplest noodles were tomato and egg gravy noodles.

The landlord had tomatoes in their field, though they were small ones. But that was fine; they could still be used, just wouldn’t produce as much sauce. She mentioned it to the landlord, who told her to go ahead and pick as many as she wanted. The landlord’s family didn’t have many people, but they grew a lot of vegetables—more than they could eat themselves, not to mention they also felt the small tomatoes they grew weren’t very tasty.

Sun Miao wasn’t that picky; she went straight out and picked a small basket of tomatoes. After washing them, she started slicing. She snuck a small piece while cutting—no wonder the landlord didn’t like them, they were quite sour.

Just like her mood, sour.

Sun Miao finished slicing, beat two eggs, and then started stir-frying in the wok. Because the small tomatoes didn’t have a strong enough tomato flavor, Sun Miao added some tomato sauce⁴ and also added an extra spoonful of salt. She already felt so heartbroken⁵; eating something sour on top of that would make her heart die.

After stir-frying, she first set a portion aside, added water to the rest, waited for it to boil, then added the noodles. Once the noodles were cooked, she could scoop them out, then top them with the other half [of the sauce] and start eating.

“What I made is actually really tasty,” Sun Miao couldn’t help remarking. Just then, the cotton doll popped up again: “Well, have you considered what I ate for lunch and dinner today?”

Sun Miao paused, then continued eating her noodles, pretending nothing had happened.

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The next day, when she went to set up her stall, she kept looking left and right, her eyes seemingly searching for something. But the first to arrive were still the Hip-hop and Yabi duo. Yabi Mei even asked brightly: “Little Boss Sun, what are you looking for?”

“Yeah, Boss, snap out of it! Hurry up and set up the stall, make us some changfen!”

Sun Miao didn’t spot Su Ruixi, and hearing the two urge her on, she agreed, set up the stall, and then made food for the two of them. The duo was no different than before, eating there and getting more to take away. While they were eating, locals who lived nearby arrived, along with a batch of students who had gotten up particularly early.

This even surprised the lemon tea stall owner next to her: “Wow, your changfen is really something! You definitely don’t understand what it means for students to get up this early just to buy breakfast!”

“It means they might have an 8 AM class.”

“…”

Sometimes, Sun Miao really was impervious⁶. However, students with 8 AM classes and those who got up exceptionally early were ultimately a minority. After a short while, the front of Sun Miao’s stall emptied out. Mainly, for the student crowd, Sun Miao’s thirty-yuan-per-portion changfen really wasn’t something they could eat every day; coming occasionally to try the taste was about it.

In terms of cost-performance, the six-yuan portions further ahead were better.

But even after they had all left, Sun Miao still hadn’t seen Su Ruixi.

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