⌈”Then take a bite.”⌋
Since they had already moved in, Lu Ran didn’t put on any airs and spent the night on the second floor without fuss.
After finishing his work, he finally relaxed and slept like a log, deeply and peacefully.
However, upon learning that Lu Ran had gone upstairs to the second floor, Shen Hongyuan and Madam Shen spent half the night on edge.
They feared that as soon as they closed their eyes, they would hear someone singing, “Oh, the boundless horizon, my love…”
The next morning, Lu Ran packed his schoolbag to head off to school.
As he checked his belongings and was about to zip up his bag, his brow furrowed.
He took out the lunchbox he used to store his nutrition assignment.
Opening it, he found it empty.
Lu Ran’s expression instantly darkened.
Although every member of the Shen family was a bit eccentric, only one person was capable of doing something as absurd as stealing homework.
Stuffing the lunchbox back into his bag, Lu Ran stepped out of his room and went straight upstairs to the third floor.
Once he reached the third-floor hallway, he kicked open Shen Xingran’s door and got straight to the point:
“Where’s my homework?”
Inside the room, Madam Shen was helping Shen Xingran pick out his outfit.
When Lu Ran barged in, Madam Shen instinctively took a step back. Hearing what he said, she found it utterly ridiculous.
“You can’t find your own homework, so you come looking for Xingran? You’re a college student—who would steal your homework?”
Lu Ran didn’t bother listening to her and pushed her aside, rummaging through Shen Xingran’s room like a bandit.
Shen Xingran had prepared himself for something like this.
But seeing Lu Ran toss his expensive belongings onto the floor as if they were trash made his face turn visibly green.
“Brother, what are you doing?” Shen Xingran asked.
Madam Shen muttered, “This is outrageous!”
But in the end, she didn’t dare get too close.
Lu Ran searched for a while and spotted a snack box near Shen Xingran’s schoolbag.
He opened it to find rows of light-yellow pastries neatly arranged inside.
Surveying them carefully, he pinpointed one with a small dog design imprinted on it and picked it out with precision.
“Found it. My homework,” he said.
Shen Xingran looked at him, half-laughing and half-exasperated, then turned to Madam Shen. “Mom, aren’t these my pastries?”
As he spoke, he picked up another piece, took a bite, and showed it to Lu Ran.
Madam Shen, equally baffled, frowned. “What nonsense are you talking about? These are the mung bean cakes I bought for Xingran yesterday. How could they possibly be your homework?”
Then, she pursed her lips and added, “If you wanted to eat some, you could’ve just said so. Why go through all this trouble?”
“You’re talking nonsense! I said it’s my homework,” Lu Ran insisted.
Seeing him ready to walk off with the piece of pastry, Shen Xingran became anxious.
He looked at Madam Shen pitifully and said, “Mom… that’s the pastry you waited in line to buy for me!”
Madam Shen’s heart softened immediately.
Like a protective mother hen, she stepped forward, pointed at Lu Ran, and shouted, “Stop right there! Give Xingran back his pastries!”
“Bullshit! This is clearly the nutritional science assignment I made in the lab!” Lu Ran retorted.
Madam Shen faltered, feeling a twinge of intimidation.
It wasn’t her fault—Lu Ran’s past antics had left her psychologically scarred.
But then, she remembered: they were on the third floor now.
The place was spotless and Lu Ran didn’t have that dog of his with him.
Without any “weapon”, what was there to be afraid of?
At that moment, some noise came from the hallway.
Everyone turned to look.
It was Shen Xingyu.
He was coming up from the second-floor staircase, his hair slightly disheveled and his eyes still heavy with lingering exhaustion.
His usually pristine white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, giving him an uncharacteristically casual appearance.
“What’s going on?” he asked in a low voice.
Shen Xingyu had been under a lot of stress recently. The chaos of moving things around last night had kept him up half the night.
This morning, he had finally managed to get some rest, only to be woken up by the commotion upstairs.
Seeing Shen Xingyu come up, Madam Shen immediately lost even the slightest trace of panic.
She pointed at Lu Ran and accused him, “He’s gone crazy early in the morning, insisting on stealing Xingran’s pastries, claiming they’re his homework!”
Shen Xingyu’s brows furrowed deeply.
“He’s bullying Xingran like this and you’re just letting it happen? If this keeps up, won’t he end up completely lawless in the Shen family?” Madam Shen’s tone was sharp and relentless.
“This is my nutritional science assignment. It’s due this morning,” Lu Ran said, lowering his head.
Shen Xingyu glanced at the pastry in Lu Ran’s hand and then at Shen Xingran.
His gaze was calm, without the kind of incredulous expression Madam Shen had when she realized Lu Ran was holding a pastry.
Under Shen Xingyu’s steady gaze, Shen Xingran couldn’t help but swallow nervously.
At this moment, even Shen Xingran wasn’t sure whose side Shen Xingyu would take.
But when Shen Xingyu’s gaze shifted to Madam Shen, he let out a soft sigh.
The contemplation and hesitation in his eyes faded away.
Looking down at Lu Ran, he said, “Put it back. It’s just a piece of pastry. What’s there to fight over?”
Madam Shen immediately displayed a triumphant expression.
Shen Xingran also lowered his gaze, suppressing a smile at the corner of his lips.
Lu Ran likely didn’t understand that their eldest brother never really cared about the truth.
Just as Madam Shen and Shen Xingran were expecting Lu Ran to explode with anger, they saw him calmly holding up the pastry with the dog design in his palm.
Staring coolly at Shen Xingyu, he asked, “You’re saying this is a pastry?”
“Stop messing around. I have things to—”
Before Shen Xingyu could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by the pastry suddenly thrust toward his mouth.
“Then take a bite,” Lu Ran said.
Shen Xingyu paused.
He lifted his head to look at Lu Ran, expecting to see emotions like grievance or rage on the boy’s face.
Unexpectedly, what greeted Shen Xingyu was a pair of dark, calm eyes, as if they had seen through everything.
The college freshman in front of him, with a voice unique to youth—clear and composed—spoke to him.
“This thing in my hand, whether it’s Shen Xingran’s pastry or my assignment, you don’t really care, nor do you want to investigate.”
“All you’re thinking about is how to quickly settle this matter without disrupting your work or rest.”
“You find Madam Shen troublesome when she causes a scene, fearing it might delay your work, while I’m easier to deal with—you can make it up to me in your own way afterward.”
“That’s why you chose to side with Madam Shen and Shen Xingran, asking me to return this.”
“Even though you know very well that the thing in my hand is most likely my assignment.”
“Just like at the banquet the other day—you also knew it wasn’t me who pushed Young Master Fang.”
The boy spoke at length, his thoughts sharp and his reasoning clear.
Shen Xingyu was momentarily stunned, first by the boy’s direct use of “Madam Shen” instead of “Mom”, and then by the calm, methodical analysis.
For the first time, Shen Xingyu’s gaze toward Lu Ran shifted, becoming truly serious.
Gone was the helpless indulgence one shows a child.
Shen Xingyu’s lips moved and he spoke with difficulty, “You…”
But just as he began, the “pastry” in Lu Ran’s hand was pushed closer to his mouth.
Shen Xingyu lowered his gaze.
He remembered when this boy, who once barely reached his thigh, used to grin and say cheerfully.
“But, Young Master Shen, every action has a price. You can’t expect me to obediently follow orders without you lifting a finger.”
“Let’s do it this way.” Lu Ran sighed. “I won’t turn in this assignment either. Since you say it’s a pastry, take a bite and eat it. I promise I’ll leave without another word.”
This time, Shen Xingyu finally dropped his gaze to the pastry in Lu Ran’s hand.
Its appearance was delicate, complete with intricate patterns.
It looked no different from the peach-skin mooncakes sold in pastry shops.
Madam Shen and Shen Xingran exchanged doubtful glances.
Although, due to Lu Ran’s history, they couldn’t help feeling a bit uneasy…
That thing, no matter how you looked at it, appeared perfectly ordinary.
Shen Xingran had the same thought.
When he snuck the “homework” out of Lu Ran’s bag amidst the chaos last night, he even gave it a sniff.
On the surface, it smelled just like the fragrant aroma of freshly baked pastries.
Shen Xingyu paused, then reached out and took the pastry.
He hesitated for a moment, but remembering Lu Ran’s earlier words—that it was a nutritional science assignment—he figured it wasn’t likely to be anything outrageous.
So, with a slight frown, the eldest Shen opened his mouth and took a small bite.
The moment Shen Xingyu bit down, Lu Ran let out a sigh and began grumbling.
“My elective course instructor is really something else,” Lu Ran complained.
“The assignment he gave us required extremely high nutritional content for some components—take mine, for instance, where the protein requirement was ridiculously high.”
“Not only that, but the budget for materials provided by the lab was pathetically small… I spent nearly two weeks experimenting with suitable ingredients.”
Shen Xingran, listening to Lu Ran’s words, felt like laughing.
Why was he saying all this now?
Had he been driven mad by Shen Xingyu?
But Lu Ran’s tone suddenly turned cheerful. “Finally, I figured it out! I can use mealworms and Dubia cockroaches!”
What worms?
Dubia what?
The three people in the room froze in unison.
Shen Xingyu, who was in the middle of eating the “pastry”, was also stunned.
But he had already bitten into it. His teeth, propelled by inertia, came together.
The moment he bit down, he felt a slight resistance in his teeth, followed by a crisp crunch.
Then, a gush of sweet yet metallic-tasting liquid burst into his mouth.
Meanwhile, Lu Ran continued to lament thoughtfully.
“But when I looked into it, Dubia cockroaches were so expensive! That didn’t stop me, though, because their close relatives, American cockroaches, are super cheap and everywhere.”
“So, I caught a whole net full of them.”
American cockroaches?
To be honest, for a moment, Shen Xingyu’s mind completely blanked out.
Shen Xingyu slowly began to process what “American cockroach” meant as a technical term.
Gradually… very gradually, he lowered his head.
He looked at the “pastry” in his hand, which now had a bite taken out of it.
The light-yellow, delicate, and adorable exterior was broken, revealing a filling that was decidedly not mung bean paste.
Through the bitten opening, the half-eaten corpse of a cockroach was oozing fluid.
Next to that half-corpse was another cockroach, barely alive as if it had finally found an escape route. Its antennae twitched as it poked its head out.
Surrounding these two cockroaches were countless red mealworms, writhing and squirming furiously.
Shen Xingyu stood there, staring intently at the cockroach corpse in his hand and the other cockroach, which was still alive and crawling.
He watched as the living cockroach slowly freed itself from the pastry shell and began crawling onto his fingers.
It wasn’t until the cockroach finally made contact with his hand that Shen Xingyu, who had been nearly petrified, seemed to wake up from a nightmare.
With a sudden jolt, he threw the thing in his hand as far away as possible!
Lu Ran, however, was prepared. He swiftly caught it mid-air.
Still brimming with excitement about his experiment, Lu Ran explained enthusiastically.
“Because proteins break down easily under high heat, I used a low-temperature baking technique. Look, even the cockroach uncle inside is still alive!”
Shen Xingyu, now realizing the lingering taste in his mouth, turned visibly green.
He bent over, preparing to spit out the bite he had taken.
But Lu Ran raised the pastry in his hand and pressed it back toward Shen Xingyu’s mouth, his tone sharp.
“Spit it out? Who said you could spit it out? Do you know how much effort I put into developing this formula over two weeks?”
“And you dismissed it as a pastry?”
“Pastry, my foot! Eat it! Eat it now!”
Shen Xingyu found himself smeared with the “pastry” as it shattered on impact.
The pastry shell broke apart, spilling mealworms onto the floor in all directions.
Two cockroaches flew out.
One landed on the ground, full of vigor, scuttling wildly.
The other fell directly into the collar of Shen Xingyu’s shirt.
Madam Shen let out a piercing scream on the spot.
Shen Xingran’s face also turned pale.
Did Lu Ran actually put that thing in his pastry box?
And just now, he had eaten a piece from the box?!
Sensing the chaos escalating, the two immediately tried to flee the room.
But before they could, Lu Ran wiped his hand across Shen Xingyu’s pristine white shirt, kicked the door shut with a loud bang, and sneered.
“Run? Not a chance!”
With those words, Madam Shen and Shen Xingran watched in horror as Lu Ran pulled two identical pastries out of his pocket as if by magic.
He smirked coldly at them. “How could I let you two miss out? These are your shares!”
Without hesitation, Lu Ran crushed one pastry in his hand and shoved it directly into Madam Shen’s mouth.
Then, spinning around, he grabbed Shen Xingran by the hair.
“Your mom bought you this pastry? Oh, I’ve been waiting for this moment!”
“You just can’t help yourself, can you, Shen Xingran? I knew you’d stir up trouble while I was busy trying to earn my credits!”
Shen Xingran froze. “You… You mean you already knew—”
“Idiot!” Lu Ran’s eyes curved into a mischievous smile. “You didn’t seriously think I spent weeks in the lab making only one piece just for you to steal, did you?”
“Oh, by the way,” he added gleefully, “the outer shell can’t skimp on protein either. But since my budget was so tight, I had no choice but to extract bacterial corpses from animal feces, freeze-dry them, and grind them into powder to make the crust.”
Before Lu Ran could finish, a loud gagging sound interrupted him.
Shen Xingyu, standing to the side, finally broke. He vomited.
Now, in this once-spacious and exclusive room of Shen Xingran’s, chaos reigned.
Mealworms squirmed across the floor.
Cockroaches flew around wildly, some even pausing mid-flight to deposit large egg sacs.
Outside the door.
Shen Xingzhuo, who had just returned home for a rare visit, heard the commotion on the third floor and decided to investigate.
When he opened the door, he was greeted by utter pandemonium.
His usually composed eldest brother was in total disarray, his face smeared with grime, shaking two cockroaches out from his shirt.
Quietly, Shen Xingzhuo shut the door.
Without a word, he bolted downstairs at breakneck speed and dashed out of the Shen family home, never looking back.
