CHAPTER 428: CHAPTER 428

Lunchtime found Jiang Moxi and Si Lin tending to the grill, savoring the flavorful roasted fish.

Fu Youhan, meanwhile, sat nearby on a small stool, eating self-heating rice.

Feng Yu was a hundred meters away, enjoying an assortment of picnic breads with Wei Su and others.

Jiang Moxi and Si Lin were discussing which part of the fish to season more with cumin, to enhance its flavor once it was cooked.

Suddenly, Fu Youhan approached them: "Could I warm up my crab on your grill?"

Indeed, he knew Jiang Moxi enjoyed crab, so he made a point of asking the hotel to prepare a king crab in advance, cooked and ready to eat.

Even without heating, that king crab was ready to be eaten as it was.

But Fu Youhan just couldn’t stand idly by watching Jiang Moxi and Si Lin getting close, nor could he bear being completely excluded by Jiang Moxi. So, he used warming up the crab as an excuse to get closer to her.

Naturally, Si Lin didn’t want to see Fu Youhan joining them and promptly rejected the request.

"Aren’t you already eating self-heating rice? In the wild, it’s good enough just to fill one’s stomach. Who needs a lavish feast?"

Jiang Moxi simply ignored Fu Youhan, busying herself with flipping the fish on the grill.

The area near the grill was quite hot, so Jiang Moxi had her long hair coiled up into a bun, exposing her full forehead and pink-tinged ears.

Fu Youhan rarely saw Jiang Moxi with her hair in a bun. It made her appear even more vivacious, her every frown and smile brimming with allure.

Covetously admiring Jiang Moxi’s beautiful profile, Fu Youhan said, "My self-heating rice is undercooked, tough to swallow."

As Jiang Moxi was flipping the fish, her movement momentarily paused, her peripheral vision stealthily glancing towards the box of self-heating rice.

Memories involuntarily surfaced in her mind.

Previously, when she and Fu Youhan had dined together at Tianqin Bay, she noticed that the rice brought by the hotel was always exceptionally soft and mushy.

Once, Jiang Moxi had happened to run into the hotel staff delivering food and casually asked why the rice was so overcooked.

The staff member tasked with delivering the meals replied: "Third Young Master has a serious stomach condition; if the rice is too hard, it hurts his stomach when he eats it."

Jiang Moxi desperately wanted to forget those cursed memories, but even as she busily turned the fish on the grill, the images in her mind refused to dissipate.

"What’s the big deal about undercooked rice? Back in the days of tough wilderness survival, we didn’t even have undercooked rice to eat. There’s nothing to make a fuss about..."

Si Lin knew that Fu Youhan wanting to grill his crab was just an excuse to get close to Jiang Moxi, to create an opportunity for intimacy.

So, he rebuked Fu Youhan coldly, wishing Fu Youhan would just go far away.

But just as he said this, Jiang Moxi spoke up from the other side.

"Bring it over to grill."

Si Lin looked at Jiang Moxi in astonishment: "..."

Fu Youhan, on the other hand, was overjoyed, a slight upward curl forming at the corners of his handsome eyes.

"Thank you, just give me a moment."

With those words, Fu Youhan turned to fetch the king crab from the car.

Jiang Moxi continued to check the fish on the grill to see if it was thoroughly cooked.

Yet Si Lin kept his gaze fixed on her profile, questioning her.

"He has plenty of food to eat; why the unnecessary concern? Could it be you’ve been hurt so deeply by him that you still want to be with him?"

Si Lin’s words and tone were sharp, sparing no feelings.

Jiang Moxi glanced at the distant Sakura Forest, her gaze drifting away, her voice hoarse: "I have no intention of being with him again."

She had no desire to relive that despair and helpless struggle, the heart-wrenching pain once more.

"Then why are you still showing him kindness?" Si Lin always felt that Jiang Moxi’s permission for Fu Youhan to grill his crab was a very bad beginning.

But Jiang Moxi told him, "Just think of it as a doctor’s instinct."

Yes, she was a doctor, so she couldn’t just watch as Fu Youhan, a patient with gastric problems, ate that undercooked rice.

It definitely wasn’t because she still had feelings for Fu Youhan!

Si Lin frowned, about to say something else.

But at this moment, Fu Youhan came over with the packed Emperor Crab.

The huge sixteen-pound Emperor Crab was divided into more than a dozen foil containers.

Fu Youhan arranged the foil containers on the grill, and soon the cooked Emperor Crabs began to emit an enticing aroma.

Even Feng Yu and the others nearby couldn’t help but be lured by the delightful scent.

"Smells so good, it makes one hungry just by smelling it."

"If we had known, we should have packed some stuff from the hotel when we came here earlier."

"I never knew camping could be this fancy."

Apart from Feng Yu, the others were chatting and laughing, with the boys even cracking risqué jokes.

Feng Yu, unpleased, glanced over coldly.

And so, the boy who was making the lewd jokes immediately shut his mouth.

After stopping others from possibly disrespecting Jiang Moxi with their words, Feng Yu’s gaze returned to Jiang Moxi and her group.

Especially seeing Fu Youhan snuggled up to Jiang Moxi’s grill and sharing their food, Feng Yu felt even more stifled.

He even wondered, if he hadn’t gone through with that plan back then and if Feng Ming hadn’t gotten into trouble, would his relationship with Jiang Moxi not be so strained?

While lost in these thoughts, Wei Su’s voice came through: "Are you thirsty? Here is the original flavored sparkling water you like..."

Feng Yu came back to reality and saw Wei Su had opened a bottle of sparkling water and handed it to him.

As Feng Yu was thinking about Feng Ming, seeing Wei Su made his mood plummet even further.

Because it was Wei Su who played the most critical role in making Feng Ming disappear from this world forever.

Now, every time Feng Yu saw Wei Su, he would think of Feng Ming and how his relationship with Jiang Moxi deteriorated, which deeply bothered him.

Feng Yu swatted away the sparkling water Wei Su had handed him and then stood up and walked towards the nearby Sakura Forest.

The sparkling water that was pushed aside splashed onto the ground and splattered onto Wei Su, making her quite embarrassed.

Passersby who saw this sent sympathetic glances towards Wei Su.

After all, it was obvious to anyone with eyes that Wei Su liked Feng Yu, especially after Feng Ming’s death.

However, after Feng Ming’s death, instead of her status in the Feng Family declining, Wei Su’s treatment even seemed to improve, becoming closer to the most favored Miss Xi.

So many people believed that Wei Su must be together with Feng Yu.

After all, every time Feng Yu arranged a gathering or outing, Wei Su was always by his side.

But Feng Yu’s almost merciless attitude towards Wei Su just now made people doubt whether Wei Su had ever been involved with him.

Yet Wei Su acted as if nothing had happened, simply tidying herself up a bit, then continued to chat and laugh with others.

It’s just that whenever her gaze inadvertently caught Jiang Moxi, it was as if poisoned.

On the other side, after grilling crab on Jiang Moxi’s grill, Fu Youhan was busy non-stop.

He shelled two containers of crab, putting the crabmeat into another foil container, then took a pair of practice chopsticks out of his shirt pocket and handed them to Jiang Moxi.

"Xixi, eat it while it’s hot. This one is garlic-flavored, and this one is sauce-flavored."

But Jiang Moxi, nibbling on a freshly cooked grilled fish, responded without lifting her head: "No need, thank you."

"Just consider it as compensation for using your grill, you don’t have to be polite with me," Fu Youhan persisted.

He had packed all of Jiang Moxi’s favorite foods from the hotel today.

Because he noticed that Jiang Moxi had indeed lost a lot of weight recently and needed to eat well.

But Jiang Moxi had been staying in the Feng Mansion before, avoiding meeting Fu Youhan, and he hadn’t found an opportunity to nourish her with food.

Now that he finally had such an opportunity, Fu Youhan certainly didn’t want to miss it.

But Jiang Moxi didn’t soften this time either, saying: "If you still want to heat up your stuff, then don’t bother me."

After speaking, Jiang Moxi picked up her half-eaten grilled fish and walked towards the lake.

Just as Fu Youhan was about to follow with the container of crabmeat, Si Lin suddenly snatched it away.

Fu Youhan turned around to see Si Lin using the practice chopsticks Jiang Moxi often used, bringing the crabmeat to his mouth...