Showbiz Scandal: The Official Announcement of My Ex and Myself-Chapter 292: Driven Mad by Hunger

Yu Xia was not unfamiliar with the Ice-breaking Festival.

When they were deeply in love, they had planned to go to the Ice-breaking Festival together, but after a fight, it was tacitly understood that it wouldn’t count anymore. Even if they made up, they both became busy with work and never had the time, so it was never brought up again.

This time, with the mention of it again, Yu Xia’s interest in the Ice-breaking Festival was piqued further.

"Are we picking wild vegetables to take back and eat? Are we eating all these kinds?"

Xie Qingci responded with a simple "Mm".

"Shepherd’s purse dumplings, cold mix of bracken, plantain boiled in water, dandelion congee. If we come across bamboo shoots, we’ll pickle them, and also there are things like fish mint and Toona sinensis. At this time of year, wild vegetables usually have the effect of clearing heat and detoxifying, and the elders at home follow the tradition of eating wild vegetables for a few days."

She asked again, "Is it tasty? Isn’t it particularly bitter?"

"If cooked well, it won’t be bitter," he said, "I’m used to eating them, so I don’t find them bitter."

She pulled up the last shepherd’s purse plant, counting the current stock, estimating it wasn’t enough to make a meal for two.

"How do you say wild vegetables should be cooked to taste good without being too troublesome? Simply boiling them wouldn’t be tasty since we don’t have any seasonings."

Xie Qingci thought for a moment, "Stir-frying with eggs tastes better."

"Then we just need two eggs now, that’s one of our short-term goals." She clapped her hands, deciding to find a way to get the eggs next.

But where to find them? The most convenient way is to find a place where people live and buy them.

Yu Xia was full of energy, and when she encountered a steep slope to climb, she didn’t need Xie Qingci to pull her up, grabbing a branch and rushing upward herself.

"Climbing up this slope should be high enough for us to see where there’s a river and where there might be settlements. I want to buy eggs. Tsk, if only I hadn’t let go of that nest of duck eggs by the river last time."

Xie Qingci: "..." She’s still thinking about that nest of duck eggs.

They climbed up and passed through a patch of forest, and then the view opened up.

It wasn’t devoid of trees, but the place had earth ridges, pine trees, and parasol trees growing by the path, with areas delineated into plots where walnut trees were planted close to the mountains.

Although the walnut trees looked like they hadn’t been tended to for years, there were many decayed black walnut shells in the piles of fallen leaves.

"Signs of human planting, there might be vegetable patches nearby!"

They circled around the earth ridge from the south side of the hill to the north.

Here they found developed land with dried sugarcane planted.

Yu Xia, holding a photo, stood between two pine trees on the earth ridge overlooking the distance.

Comparing it against the photo for a moment, Yu Xia exhaled and pointed towards the left front side to tell Xie Qingci, "I found it, over there. Although the photo angle isn’t exactly what we see, that row of shelterbelt is very conspicuous."

Xie Qingci also came over for a look, "Yes, that should be it. The river happens to be over there, and though there’s a mountain obstructing our full view, settlements are generally located near the river."

Living by the mountain and alongside water remains a longstanding practice in choosing residential areas.

Having finally found their destination, both of them breathed a sigh of relief.

Judging by the sun’s position, it was already past noon, and they hadn’t had lunch, saving water as well; they were both hungry and thirsty now.

Xie Qingci’s sharp eyes caught sight of fruit trees down the hill.

"It should be a local specialty—adjacent plots also have these fruit trees planted. There’s even one tree with two red fruits left on it."

They weren’t exactly sure what kind of fruit it was, but judging by the plant, it seemed to be some type of citrus.

Yu Xia licked the corner of her mouth, "Let’s go over and take a look."

The path down was not as difficult, and they could slide right down if the pants were tough enough, all the way to the bottom.

Down below were several plots of citrus trees, with short plants and lots of wild grass among them, perhaps because this citrus was abundant and not valuable, so the owner hadn’t maintained them much.

She and Xie Qingci had a clear goal, circling the remaining two "Canghai Yizhu" for two minutes, much like two dogs around a big bone.

Xie Qingci squeezed one of them, "This one is already dry, can’t eat it."

Yu Xia poked the other one, though slightly shriveled, it seemed still edible.

"I think I’ve eaten this before, a type of orange." She licked her lips again and carefully picked off the orange, asking Xie Qingci for a knife.

"Let’s cut it open and see."

The skin of this orange was thin, and when cut open, the flesh inside had a tinge of blood-red, quite familiar.

She said, "I have indeed eaten it, blood orange, higher nutritional value than regular oranges, antioxidant and can also improve anemia and whatnot. My brother bought me a box before, it was quite expensive."

During that period of slimming down, she could only eat some fruits, vegetables, and tasteless chicken breast, and He Ci sourced high-nutritional-value fruits for her from around, just when her brother bought her this one.

Very tasty, fragrant, and every peeled peel was stored by her in the fridge as a deodorizer—the kind of innate fragrance was indeed pleasant.

A small blood orange was cut into four pieces. She skillfully held a piece, with her fingers on both sides of the peel, pushed the fruit upwards, the pulp separated from the peel, and the juicy red pulp was fed into her mouth.

Before swallowing, she gave Xie Qingci a thumbs-up.

Xie Qingci didn’t touch the remaining three pieces, but reminded her, "Eat slowly."

Once she swallowed, Yu Xia felt like she should be moved to tears, rewarding the encounter with this Canghai Yizhu.

"It’s so sweet that I want to sing a song to express my emotions about the ups and downs experienced in life before."

Xie Qingci: "...That might not be necessary."

She sniffed and sighed deeply.

"The production crew is really harsh, pushing me to the point where I have the thought that ’this is the world’s most delicious fruit’ about an almost spoiled orange."

Saying this she reached for the second piece.

Upon realizing that Xie Qingci didn’t have the intention to eat, she lifted her chin and said, "Why aren’t you eating? It’s really sweet."

He didn’t particularly like eating fruit, especially the more troublesome and sour ones. But this blood orange, which was ripe to the point of rotting, was truly sweet, plus it was already cut open, so it was relatively convenient to eat.

"No need, you have it." He sat beside, peeling a tree branch, with a feeling of wanting nothing.

"A teammate is to share blessings and hardships, if I eat, you have to eat too."

Seeing him completely motionless, she simply peeled the orangish flesh and stuffed it into his mouth.

"Ah, open up, you must eat."

Caught off-guard, Xie Qingci was fed straight into the mouth. All he could do was tilt his head to receive it, as his teeth hadn’t opened in time, the red juice from the flesh flowed along the corner of his mouth.

Due to the tilted head posture, the juice flowed quickly, instantly sliding from the corner of his mouth down to his neck, past his up-and-down Adam’s apple.

Yu Xia stared at it for a few more moments.

After swallowing the fruit, Xie Qingci lowered his head again, the red trace from his mouth to his neck made him look as if he just sucked blood.

"Sweet?" Yu Xia asked.

He nodded, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "Sweet."

"Then have another piece," she picked up another slice and handed it to him, "Quick, eat."

Xie Qingci looked at her, somehow feeling her gaze was a bit fiery.