Chapter 509 - 343: Irresistible Attraction

Chapter 509: Chapter 343: Irresistible Attraction

A sip of the scorching hot seafood soup flowed down her throat and into her stomach, warming her entire esophagus. The spicy, peppery flavor lingered in her mouth.

The strangest thing was that this pepper’s flavor wasn’t quite like the pepper she was used to; the spiciness was noticeably different.

If biting into a black peppercorn made your tongue burn, but it was relatively mild otherwise, this seafood soup made her entire mouth tingle with spice just from drinking it.

It wasn’t the straightforward heat of a chili pepper. This white pepper was more like the perilla seed powder often used in Korean stone pot soups—a single sip was unforgettable and made you uncontrollably want to drink more.

The temperature, so hot it made her shiver, completely awakened her body’s instincts. She drank sip after sip without stopping, as if afraid the soup would get cold.

She’d take a few sips of hot soup, then grab the chicken carcass and gnaw on it. Some of the thinner bones were roasted so crispy they could be crunched up and eaten like crackers.

Seeing her eat with such gusto, her flat stomach now noticeably bulging, Lin Chen smiled in satisfaction. He picked up the other half of the chicken carcass and began to eat it unhurriedly.

"Oppa, you have some too~"

Seeing that she had already finished a third of the pot, Jin Meiyan finally realized Lin Chen hadn’t had a single sip. She quickly and sheepishly offered him the spoon.

Lin Chen glanced at the tip of the bark spoon, faintly stained red with chili sauce. He licked his lips, swallowed silently, and forced himself to resist the temptation, waving his hand.

"You drink first. Just leave the rest for me. We in Great Xia don’t really have the habit of drinking scalding hot soup. We usually let it cool down until it doesn’t burn the mouth."

"Ani, ani, I’m stuffed! I can’t eat another bite. Oppa, your cooking is too good. Look at my belly! I can’t believe I’m eating more out here in the wild than I normally do."

As she spoke, she even deliberately showed off her round belly, patting it with some embarrassment while silently hiding the bark spoon she had offered behind her back.

’It was only just now that I realized the spoon had traces of chili sauce left from when I used it. How could I ask him to use a spoon I’ve already used?’

’Isn’t that a blatant hint?!’

’But then again, by refusing my spoon, he was refusing my hint.’

’He was just complimenting me on my looks earlier, and now he rejects me without hesitation. Is my charm completely lost on him?’

At this thought, her pride took a blow.

Back in South Korea, she never had to make a move. There were always plenty of men trying to get close and take advantage of her.

Now, she had made the first move, albeit unintentionally, only to be ruthlessly rejected. It was a fact that was rather hard for her to accept.

Yet, she couldn’t show her feelings, so she had to bottle them up. It was incredibly frustrating.

Lin Chen hadn’t thought that far. He simply felt he needed to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

If physical contact during the day was unavoidable, this was a situation he could actively prevent. If this got filmed, it would be impossible to explain.

He picked up the mess tin, and without using a spoon, he drank directly from it in large gulps.

After finishing the soup, he polished off the remaining overcooked shellfish and the leftover roasted chicken. Dinner was officially done.

Perhaps it had smelled the food. Just as he put down the mess tin, anxious whimpers came from the grass shelter not far away.

He hurried over, took the little wolf pup out of his backpack, checked to see if it had peed anywhere, then took out the leftover paste from lunch, added some water, heated it up, and started feeding it.

"Oppa, how about I do it? You’ve worked hard all day, you should rest for a bit~"

Jin Meiyan squatted beside him, her chin in her hands, staring eagerly at the pink little wolf pup. Her eyes were overflowing with maternal affection.

"Alright, you can do it."

He placed the wolf pup in the girl’s palm. The moment he let go, the little one instantly turned its head and, whimpering, anxiously struggled to crawl back toward him. If Jin Meiyan hadn’t reacted quickly, it would have almost fallen from mid-air.

The sudden turn of events gave Jin Meiyan a huge fright. With great reluctance, she quickly thrust the wolf pup back into his hands.

Sure enough, the moment the little pup was in his hands, it immediately quieted down.

"You’ve only fed it one meal. Oppa, do you think it sees you as its mother?"

"Uh... theoretically, that’s possible."

Resigned, he had no choice but to continue scooping up a little paste with his finger and putting it in the wolf pup’s mouth.

As it was eating, a sudden warmth spread across his palm, soaking through at an incredible speed.

His expression froze instantly. He subconsciously grabbed the scruff of the wolf pup’s neck and lifted it up.

A few drops of clear, transparent liquid dripped from between the pup’s hind legs. The little guy just stared at him blankly with its innocent blue eyes, clearly not understanding what had happened.

"Aish!"

Jin Meiyan, who had been leaning in close, shot up as if electrocuted when she saw this, then quickly covered her mouth.

"Cut that! You have to cut what I just said! It was a total accident!"

"Did the little rascal just pee everywhere?!"

Perhaps because the wolf pup hadn’t let her feed it, her tone now became a little hostile.

"Speaking of which, we don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl, and it’s already peeing everywhere. Come on, let me check!"

After the pup finished peeing, she grabbed its chopstick-thin hind legs, spread them apart, and brought her pretty face closer.

She squinted and searched for a moment, then her eyes lit up. Pointing at a green-bean-sized protrusion, she couldn’t help but giggle.

"Hahaha, it’s so tiny! So cute! But peeing everywhere still deserves punishment. Education has to start from a young age!"

Before she even finished speaking, she reached out and flicked it gently with her finger.

"Wooo~~"

The wolf pup shuddered, its four limbs flailing wildly in the air.

Lin Chen’s mouth twitched. He felt an inexplicable tightening in his own body and quickly got up to walk toward the nearby stream.

"I... I’m going to wash my hands."

Watching his somewhat panicked retreat, Jin Meiyan blinked and then suddenly realized what had just happened.

Her cheeks, already warm from the hot soup, instantly burned bright red.

"Aish!!"

’Jin Meiyan, what did you just do?!’

’Oppa isn’t going to think I’m some kind of weirdo, is he?’

When Lin Chen returned after dawdling by the stream for seven or eight minutes, she approached him with a red face. "Um, about that, Oppa, just now... My best friend had a dog, and I watched it grow up, so I know a few things about raising them..."

"It’s fine. My family has a dog too."

"Ahhh~"

An awkward silence fell over the forest clearing. Neither of them knew what to say.

Finally, Lin Chen forced himself to speak. "Nighttime is when most creatures are active. We... I mean, you should lie down and get some sleep. I’ll wake you up in the middle of the night."

"Kay~"

She also felt it was too awkward to stay there any longer, so she obediently agreed and crawled into the grass shelter she had built herself to lie down.

Lying on the soft spruce needles, she could feel her eyelids growing heavy, as if they could close at any moment. But her mind was wide awake, her thoughts already drifting to the middle of the night.

’The thought of just the two of us, Oppa and I, gliding together over the sea under the bright moonlight in the early morning... there would definitely be more physical contact.’

’I even imagined what would happen if I were swept away by a huge wave, or if I suddenly got a cramp while swimming. Oppa would definitely have to hold me and swim back.’

Just thinking about such a scene, how could she possibly sleep? She only grew more and more excited.

Yet she didn’t dare toss and turn, afraid that Lin Chen would discover her fanciful thoughts. She could only remain lying on her side in the same position.

It wasn’t until she heard footsteps nearby, followed by a rustling sound—it seemed Lin Chen had also crawled into his shelter—that everything around them fell completely silent.

Only then did she dare to gently and quietly roll over onto her back. She lay there for an unknown amount of time before finally succumbing to the day’s accumulated exhaustion and falling asleep.

「The sky gradually darkened.」

The chirping of birds in the forest gradually subsided, replaced by faint rustling sounds.

Lin Chen, however, didn’t really sleep. He only dozed for about half an hour.

This level of activity was no different from a stroll for him. Only climbing the small hill took some energy, but it was less tiring than the time he had rushed through the forest for hours with Marcia.

He was contemplating how to teach Jin Meiyan to dive that night without too much physical contact.

Or rather, it would be best if there was none at all.

Before this girl from South Korea showed up, he had been very confident in his self-control. He had seen plenty of beautiful women from all over the world during his school and work years, and his heart had never skipped a beat.

And to be honest, when he first met Erica in Panama, he hadn’t felt much either, other than a simple admiration for how pretty the foreign girl was.

It was only later, after Erica’s constant and proactive flirting, that he slowly began to lose his composure.

But now, just seeing Jin Meiyan smile at him, especially with those two dimples at the corners of her mouth, was enough to make his heart race and force him to look away. And that was before she started calling him "Oppa" over and over.

It was only now that he realized it wasn’t that his self-control was strong before; it was simply that his appreciation for the beauty of non-Asian women was limited. The Asian students around him had been mostly from the Philippines, Thailand, or Vietnam. The Da Xia people studying to be chefs were mostly men, and the few women there wore chef’s uniforms and hats, making it difficult to wear makeup.

’Or, to put it bluntly, they weren’t that attractive.’

It wasn’t until he met Jin Meiyan, witnessing up close what could be called an assault of beauty and femininity, and experiencing the power of a woman’s cute charms, that he finally understood why the men on those Korean variety shows got so excited whenever a female guest appeared.

’With that kind of power, no man could resist.’

No wonder she had been harassed at her workplace. He could even understand the mentality of those men.

If he continued to be in close contact with this girl, he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t fall for her.

Asian men just had a thing for the looks of Asian women. It was an aesthetic preference etched into his DNA; he couldn’t control it.

It wasn’t that he had fallen in love so quickly. It was just a simple attraction between opposite sexes—the impulse a man feels when he sees a beautiful woman.

The only thing he could do now was to think more about Erica, who was back home helping him cook dumplings for the construction workers, and to recall the moments he had shared with her.