ryethenovel Chapter 66 Belated Praise
Chapter 66 Belated Praise
"If you pay attention, you'll naturally see it..."
Su Chen chewed over these words repeatedly, his voice so faint that only he could hear it.
These words were like a spell, easily piercing through the armor he had built up over the past twenty years, reaching the unhealed wounds deep within his heart.
Su Chen's vision gradually blurred.
The wooden tabletop in front of him transformed into water, rippling and taking him back to the summer when he was ten years old.
That summer was defined as "useless".
That was Su Chen's first time working with wood carving.
Ten-year-old Su Chen would often hide alone in a secluded garden pavilion, staring blankly at the falling withered leaves.
One day, he picked up a leaf and was drawn to its intricate veins.
He felt that every line on it was so moving and full of life.
So, without his parents' knowledge, he secretly used his pocket money to buy a set of carving knives and a small piece of walnut wood.
For a whole month, aside from eating and sleeping, he devoted almost all his energy to that piece of walnut wood.
"One cut, two cuts..."
Xiao Su Chen's fingers were quickly rubbed raw and blistered.
Wood chips got into my fingernails, causing both pain and itching.
But he didn't care about any of that. He patiently examined the photo of the withered leaves, rubbing and scraping them bit by bit.
He still remembers that the most difficult thing to deal with was the slightly curled, withered look at the leaf tips.
He experimented repeatedly to simulate that arc.
He even tried slightly soaking the wood in water and then repeatedly rubbing it with fine sandpaper.
When the pendant was finally completed, Su Chen felt as if he had accomplished something earth-shattering.
He held the fragrant leaf, convinced that this time, he could finally prove himself.
He could finally receive even a fleeting, complete glance from his parents, just like his older brother did when he won the gold medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad.
He rushed into the study with great joy.
"Dad, Mom, look!"
Panting, Xiao Su Chen opened his palm, in which lay the Leaf Pendant, the culmination of a month's worth of his efforts.
Due to excessive tension and excitement, fine beads of sweat still clung to the tip of his nose, and his eyes shone with an unprecedented light of hope.
Su's father put down his pen and, through his gold-rimmed glasses, recognized the item in Su Chen's hand.
"This?" Su's father asked in a very calm tone.
Su's mother sat on the sofa beside her, not even putting down the fashion magazine in her hand, and only sighed softly:
"Xiao Chen, have you been hiding in your room all this time, just fiddling with this?"
"Mom, I've been carving this for a month! Look at the patterns on it..." Su Chen eagerly tried to explain.
"Alright," Su's father interrupted him, his voice becoming impatient.
"Xiao Chen, the Su family doesn't need craftsmen."
You can find tons of this stuff in any shopping mall; it's practically worthless.
You have this one month, why don't you go and learn some useful things from your brother?
Why are you wasting your time grinding wood here?
"Don't bother with all this useless stuff."
This useless remark shattered all of Xiao Su Chen's pride and sense of accomplishment.
He looked at his fingers, which were covered in scars, and then at the pendant that his parents considered "one of many."
Suddenly, I felt it was so ridiculous and so shabby.
From that day on, Su Chen never shared his wood carvings with anyone again.
He even considered throwing it away, but in the end he couldn't bear to part with it and hung it around his neck, hiding it in his clothes.
He thought he had grown up and had long since let go of this denied past.
But, until this moment.
Hearing the words "If you're attentive, you'll naturally be able to tell" from a complete stranger's chef.
The pent-up resentment that had been suppressed for over a decade, which he thought had long since disappeared, suddenly surged forth like a flood bursting its banks, violently assaulting his nasal cavity.
Su Chen lowered his head, staring intently at the shredded pork with garlic sauce in front of him.
At that moment, he felt a sour and spicy aroma mixed with a touch of gentleness, frantically penetrating into every pore of his body.
He felt his eyes burning intensely, and a sour feeling quickly spread.
It made him unable to control his facial expressions.
He didn't dare to look up.
He was born into the Su family and was taught from a young age that men should not shed tears and that members of the Su family should not be weak.
"Su Chen, remember your place. Don't be like those ordinary kids."
Tears are the cheapest and most useless thing in the world.
My father's stern face flashed through my mind.
He tried desperately to hold it back and maintain his composure.
However, the more you try to suppress it, the more intense that bittersweet feeling becomes.
"Clatter".
A warm tear fell from his eye and quietly dripped onto the wooden table.
The sound was very soft.
But to Su Chen, it was like a thunderclap out of nowhere.
That was the sound of his pride shattering.
Su Chen's heart clenched suddenly.
He felt a deep sense of panic and shame.
In his mind, he must look extremely pathetic right now and be seen as a weakling.
He held his breath, his whole body stiffened, and his peripheral vision darted furtively to Lin Muyuan beside him.
Lin Muyuan was eating noodles with gusto.
This guy, who's usually so carefree and a chatterbox, seems to be completely immersed in the world of food right now.
He was struggling to finish the shredded pork with garlic sauce in front of him, and the sound of his chewing was particularly loud in the quiet shop, drowning out Su Chen's movements.
Lin Muyuan didn't turn to look at him, but mumbled indistinctly, "Ugh, the boss's cooking is so good it'll make your tongue fall off..."
Seeing that Lin Muyuan hadn't noticed anything amiss, Su Chen's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled down a little.
He quietly raised his hand and quickly and discreetly wiped his face with his sleeve.
Su Chen picked up his chopsticks.
He looked at the plate of shredded pork with garlic sauce again.
He recalled what Chen Feng had just said—"Once it gets cold, the 'qi' in the dish will dissipate."
He picked up a large piece of shredded meat with his chopsticks and stuffed it into his mouth.
Sour. Spicy. Salty. Umami.
And that "heartfelt" warmth that Chen Feng personally added.
This warm scent was like a strong, comforting hand gently soothing the wounds in his heart.
He began to swallow large gulps.
He forgot table manners, like a little animal that had been starving for a long time.
He felt that the sour and spicy flavor was gradually dispelling the long-standing gloom in his heart.
"Useless thing..."
"You can find them everywhere..."
Those sounds seemed to grow increasingly blurred and distant with each chewing motion.
Instead, Chen Feng offered a belated compliment.
Su Chen felt that a courage he had lost and then regained was slowly returning to him.
Gradually, his breathing became steady.
My previously tense shoulders gradually relaxed.