Tang Man was a bit surprised that Xie Li knew Bei Ling. She subconsciously blinked and hesitated for a while before nodding.

“You know him?”

Xie Li turned his face slightly. His expression was neutral. Only when he heard Tang Man’s words did he casually mention, “We met once at a summit before.”

Tang Man thought of Bei Ling’s paternal family and had a sudden realization. She hummed in understanding. Like father, like son was hard to avoid.

After that, it quieted down again. Tang Man couldn’t figure out the meaning behind Xie Li bringing this up just now. Since she couldn’t understand, she was too lazy to waste effort. She never felt she could guess Xie Li’s thoughts amidst these subtle musings.

In the soothing music playing in the car, Tang Man opened her phone and subconsciously connected to the Bluetooth. She had used Xie Li’s car quite a few times. The Bluetooth could connect automatically, as familiar as her own car.

She changed to a different song.

As they passed an intersection, Xie Li seemed to suddenly remember something. He turned his head to look at the woman earnestly swiping on her phone screen and asked, “What do you want to eat for dinner?”

Hearing the question, Tang Man thought for a moment and found that her appetite was normal. So without lifting her head, still looking at her phone screen, she said casually, “You decide. You know what I don’t eat.”

In the past, when she let Xie Li choose the restaurant, it was basically according to her preferences, considerate and thorough. One good thing about eating with Xie Li was that she didn’t need to worry. In any case, he wouldn’t step on any landmines.

Xie Li glanced at Tang Man and hummed in response without saying anything more. But at the next intersection, he turned the steering wheel and headed towards an unfamiliar section of road.

The result of letting Xie Li decide this time was that he took her on a long detour to an old noodle shop, and this old noodle shop was even in an alley where the car couldn’t drive in at all. So they could only park the car on a nearby road and walk in together.

At first, Tang Man thought Xie Li had recently discovered some kind of hidden gem restaurant where the aroma of wine wasn’t afraid of deep alleys. When they stopped, she realized it was a noodle shop.

The aroma of noodle soup could be smelled from afar.

This old noodle shop had been in business for many years. The signboard above was already stained with a layer of grease and blackened smoke.

However, at this time, quite a few people were already seated in the shop, including the elderly and children. The entire shop was noisy and boisterous.

This was the first time Xie Li had brought her to such a place. Tang Man was a bit surprised. She followed Xie Li’s footsteps into the shop and found that besides selling noodles, they also made meat sandwiches. Basically, people who came to the shop would order a bowl of noodles and add a meat sandwich, which cost no more than a dozen yuan, enough to eat until very full.

While waiting for the noodles, Tang Man looked at the man who had taken off his suit jacket and was only wearing a shirt. He had rolled up his sleeves, and the top button of his collar was undone. Even his hair was a bit disheveled, but there was a strange softness to it. Looking at Xie Li like this, she couldn’t help but speak up, “This is the first time you’ve brought me to a place like this to eat.”

She had also attended university and mixed around in high school, running around shamelessly in the streets and alleys, sitting at greasy tables drinking beer and eating skewers with friends. But Xie Li had never shown this side of himself in front of her.

He seemed to always be trying his best to hide himself, even though she knew some things about Xie Li’s past from others. It was very difficult to associate that past with the man in front of her eyes.

“I grew up in this area. This is a shop I used to frequent when I was young.” Xie Li helped Tang Man unwrap a pair of disposable chopsticks, smoothing out the splinters on the edges before handing them to her. “When I was a kid, a bowl of plain noodles was the cheapest, with nothing added, just one yuan and fifty cents. A flatbread was only two yuan. But now the price has gone up. A bowl of plain noodles is three yuan, increasing by one yuan and fifty cents in over a decade.”

Tang Man listened to Xie Li while taking the chopsticks, softly thanking him. Then a bowl of steaming hot noodle soup was brought over by the auntie in the shop and placed in front of Tang Man.

Her bowl of noodles had beef added, almost covering the entire surface of the bowl. It was the first time Tang Man had seen such a substantial beef noodle soup. She began to feel there was a reason this old noodle shop could survive with such modest prices.

Xie Li’s noodles were also served, a bowl of plain noodles, but with a layer of kelp on top.

She glanced at Xie Li, “Why not order a bowl with meat?”

“Used to it.” Xie Li smiled, “When I was young, I lived in a residential building over there, on the fifth floor. My mother worked every day and often worked overtime. When she came home late at night, she would give me five yuan. So my breakfast and dinner every day were this, for a full seven years. Sometimes when my exam scores were good, I would reward myself with a meat sandwich.”

“Tang Man, this is my past. When I was eating plain noodles, even a meat sandwich was a luxury. But you were attending a private school, had someone pick you up and drop you off every day, had an auntie at home to bring you meals. The school had a high-end cafeteria where you could have many choices, while I only had that one choice.”

“No, I didn’t even have a choice back then.”

For him, dissecting his inner heart in front of Tang Man was a very difficult thing. He had never felt that he lived a lesser life than others before, but in front of Tang Man, he seemed to become more and more inferior, more so each time.

Tang Man scooped a spoonful of soup with the soup spoon and took a sip, but accidentally scalded the tip of her tongue. She let out a hiss, her brows furrowing involuntarily.

She was about to speak when the cup of untouched cool boiled water in front of Xie Li was placed in front of her.

“This is claypot noodles, it might be a bit hot. Eat slowly.”

Tang Man hummed in response and took a sip of the cool boiled water, but still couldn’t help turning her head to look at the man sitting to the side. In the narrow space, this man was still at ease.

She couldn’t help but become a bit curious.

“Xie Li, are you really determined to become a live-in son-in-law of the Tang family?”

“Do you like me that much?”

Xie Li lowered his head, not answering under Tang Man’s gaze. When Tang Man felt she wouldn’t get an answer and had already retracted her gaze, taking a bite of noodles, only then did she hear a soft hum from beside her.

Barely audible.

It immediately dispersed in the noisy shop, like a gust of wind. If Tang Man wasn’t certain she had heard it, with her gaze falling on Xie Li’s composed face, she would have thought that barely audible hum was her illusion.

One disadvantage of claypot noodles was that they easily created steam. Sometimes it would give rise to illusions, especially in slightly cold weather. When a man and a woman sat together, it was easy to create an illusion in this warm atmosphere, that the person across from you liked you, and you also liked the person across from you.

But now it wasn’t winter, nor was it cold weather. Instead, it was a bit warm. Eating claypot noodles in this kind of weather was a bit hot.

In this permeating steam, Tang Man raised her head to glance at the man beside her who had some thin sweat on his forehead. Her gaze lingered on his fluttering eyelashes for several seconds. She unexpectedly also had a hint of an illusion, suddenly feeling a bit caught off guard by being moved. She felt that getting engaged or even married to Xie Li wasn’t something unacceptable.

She calmly ate a mouthful of noodles and drank a mouthful of soup. In these short few dozen seconds, she made a decision, and in these few dozen seconds after, she showed no signs of regret, which was already a certain omen. So she spoke up very calmly.

“Then let’s get engaged.”

The person beside her suddenly froze.

Tang Man said, “Xie Li, let’s get engaged.”