Became a National Couple with My Ex Chapter 25: The Rain Stopped, the Sun Came Out, and Bian Xu Said He’s Fine Again

Cheng Nuo widened her eyes in disbelief. "Mr. Bian, claiming credit for something you didn’t do is really not cool."

Bian Xu rubbed his ear like he wasn’t sure he heard her right. Then he shook his head like the whole thing was ridiculous, clearly not interested in wasting time on unrelated nonsense. He went back to the couch, sat down, picked up a magazine, and glanced toward Liang Yixuan.

She happened to look back at him too. Whatever he was hoping to see in her expression, she just gave a calm glance and looked away.

Of course Liang Yixuan knew Bian Xu wasn’t the type to take credit for something he didn’t do.

But still—until just now, she would’ve rather believed it was the production team looking out for her. She really couldn’t picture Bian Xu being thoughtful or caring.

Back when they were together, she had Achilles tendinitis too. It was a chronic case, so the symptoms weren’t too bad. The most "considerate" thing Bian Xu ever did was not sleeping with her that night—they just slept under the same blanket.

Now, with Liang Yixuan showing no reaction at all, Bian Xu’s little "confession" came off like someone offering warmth and getting a cold shoulder in return.

His eyes dimmed. He cracked his knuckles but didn’t say anything else.

Guests started coming downstairs one by one, and Cheng Nuo’s crepe cake was almost finished.

Everyone gathered at the dining table—except Bian Xu, who stayed on the couch flipping through his magazine like he didn’t even notice.

Liang Yixuan came out of the kitchen carrying a stack of plates and forks.

Shen Ji took the dishes from her and helped set the table.

Lin Xiao Sheng grabbed juice and cups from the fridge and started pouring drinks.

Cheng Nuo placed the cake on the table with a dramatic sigh. "Ah, there’s just something charming about a man who actually does stuff."

Duan Ye, who had been playing on his phone nearby, looked up. He glanced at Shen Ji and Lin Xiao Sheng busying around, then looked over at Bian Xu still sitting on the couch doing nothing. After a moment of thought, he lowered his head and went back to his phone.

Cheng Nuo was annoyed. "Are you a corpse or what? Learn from the good ones, not the lazy one."

"Ugh." Duan Ye flipped his phone over and sighed, then stood up to cut the cake.

With the three guys pitching in, the female guests had a chance to relax.

Pan Yu looked over at the couch and said gently, "Mr. Bian, come have breakfast."

Bian Xu didn’t move. It was like he hadn’t heard her at all.

Shen Ji tried too. "Mr. Bian?"

Still no reaction from Bian Xu.

A full thirty seconds passed.

By now, Liang Yixuan was complimenting Cheng Nuo’s cake—sweet but not too much, light enough to enjoy first thing in the morning. Lin Xiao Sheng and Shen Ji chimed in too, and the topic of "should we invite Bian Xu to join us" quietly died off.

Another half-minute later, Bian Xu finally responded with a faint "mm," then stood up and walked over.

In the center of the table, the cake had been sliced into eight pieces. Two were still left.

Bian Xu sat down, picked up a plate, and got up to grab the cake knife.

Just as his fingers touched the handle, a hand slapped his away.

He looked up, part amused, part annoyed— What, he couldn’t even have a piece of cake now?

"I washed my hands," Bian Xu said through clenched teeth, looking at Liang Yixuan.

"Oh." She glanced at him and said nothing else—not even a nod to let him take a piece.

Ever since that game of Truth or Dare, the other three guests (besides the already-in-the-know Shen Ji and Cheng Nuo) had more or less figured out the situation between Bian Xu and Liang Yixuan.

Lin Xiao Sheng’s blunt gaze kept bouncing between the two of them, practically screaming serves you right.

Bian Xu gave a stiff nod, set the plate back down, pushed his chair back, and walked back to the couch. He picked up the now half-worn magazine and started flipping through it again.

A little while later, the phone on the coffee table buzzed.

Bian Xu looked up—

Liu Peng:「Um, Mr. Bian… your book is upside down.」

"……"

Not long after breakfast ended, everyone’s phone buzzed with a group message:

「^^ To welcome our upcoming fourth female guest, let’s all work together to make a hearty lunch! Lunch will be divided into three parts: washing, chopping, and cooking. A drawing box has been placed at the entrance—please draw a colored slip to determine your team. Guests with matching colors (one male, one female) will form a team and be responsible for one part. P.S. The male guest who draws the heart slip will drive to the subway station to pick up our fourth female guest!」

Shen Ji went to the entrance and brought back two drawing boxes—one blue, one pink—and placed them on the living room coffee table, calling everyone over to draw lots.

Bian Xu, having only had a glass of water all morning and still stewing over Liang Yixuan, walked over impatiently and pulled out a slip without even looking at it.

He was about to toss it aside when his eyes caught sight of Liang Yixuan and Duan Ye both holding orange slips.

In a flash, Bian Xu nudged Duan Ye with his elbow.

Duan Ye turned, then casually moved his hand (with the slip) behind his back.

Bian Xu smoothly took Duan Ye’s slip and slipped his own into Duan Ye’s hand instead.

From the control room, the directors—watching from a godlike overhead angle—witnessed the silent, smooth, and completely shameless switch between the two men. Not a blink. Not a blush.

Back in the villa, Liang Yixuan looked at the orange slip in Bian Xu’s hand and sighed deeply.

So they were teammates now. Fine. But honestly, she had no idea which part of "wash, chop, or cook" this pampered young master could possibly handle.

Cooking? He’d probably blow up the kitchen.

Chopping? One wrong move and that insured hand of his gets cut—then the producers and she would be torn apart by his fanbase, and maybe even sued by the Bian family.

Liang Yixuan forced a smile and said to the group, "If no one minds… I’ll take the washing part?"

Seeing what she was doing, Bian Xu raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed. "Makes no difference to me."

Liang Yixuan nodded without expression and muttered, "Yeah, doesn’t matter. You’re equally clueless about all of them."

"……"

In the end, she still chose to wash—figuring washing ingredients was the safest option.

Since washing came first, when the show notified them that "fresh ingredients have been delivered to the entryway," Liang Yixuan immediately went to get them.

Bian Xu followed behind her. But before either of them could pick up the groceries, their eyes were drawn to a dark green-brown ceramic jar.

They leaned in to look—and both froze.

Bian Xu stared silently for a full ten seconds at the writhing mass inside, then said in a calm, flat voice: "...These are ornamental fish."

Liang Yixuan’s scalp tingled, but she was still more clear-headed than he was. "...They're loaches. For eating."

"……"

The show really wasn’t kidding—fresh ingredients, indeed.

Another ten seconds passed.

Bian Xu glanced at the jar of clear water. "Well, they look pretty clean already."

"...They’re not. You have to gut each one and clean out the insides."

Another long pause.

The fingers of Bian Xu’s hand—hanging by his side—twitched slightly. "Isn’t that… part of the chopping step?"

"Probably not…"

"So you know how to do it?"

Liang Yixuan shot him a look. "What do you think?"

Since the cooking and chopping teams hadn’t been called in yet, the show sent the other guests to the rooftop "to get more footage," leaving just Bian Xu and Liang Yixuan in the living room.

After hauling the jar of loaches into the kitchen, Bian Xu stared at it for another thirty seconds. Then he walked over to the nearest camera and tapped on the lens.

"Who’s gonna eat this crap? Y’all doing this on purpose?"

The director team gave no reply. Strategic silence.

A heavy, almost visible gloom settled over the kitchen.

"Forget it," Liang Yixuan muttered, crouching down. "I’ll give it a try."

"You’re gonna try just like that? What if it bites you?" Bian Xu’s face turned grim as he pulled her up by the arm.

Liang Yixuan, annoyed, straightened her now-wrinkled shirtdress. "Well, someone’s gotta do it. Or do you want to?"

"No need. Don’t be so stubborn. If anything happens, I’ll take the heat."

Liang Yixuan rolled her eyes and turned to check the rest of the groceries, mentally figuring out which task she could safely hand off to Bian Xu. Just as she was concentrating, something dark blue suddenly dropped over her head.

She looked down—it was an apron.

Bian Xu had come up behind her and slipped the apron on.

She stiffened instinctively as his arms reached around her from behind to tie the straps.

Bian Xu lowered his eyes, looped the strings, and tied a knot behind her waist. His thumb lightly brushed over the knot, his Adam’s apple moving slightly.

For a second, the same memory flashed through both their minds.

Liang Yixuan quickly stepped away to the side.

Bian Xu looked down at his now-empty hands, then turned his gaze elsewhere.

There weren’t any more live creatures in the shopping bags—just vegetables and meat that needed washing.

Liang Yixuan handed Bian Xu the easiest task: washing bok choy. She told him to fill a basin with water, add salt, submerge the bok choy, separate the leaves, focus on cleaning the roots, then rinse everything again in the sink.

Bian Xu watched her demo once, rolled up his sleeves, and shook his head before getting to work.

Liang Yixuan moved to the sink to wash potatoes. After glancing over at him a few times and confirming that—aside from moving at the speed of a grandma embroidering—he wasn’t messing anything up, she turned back to peeling.

Things were peaceful for a while.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, Liang Yixuan saw something strange. She looked up—just in time to see Bian Xu pick up a bunch of bok choy and dump it into the trash like it was toxic waste.

"What are you doing?!" she asked, shocked.

Bian Xu looked even more surprised than she was and pointed at the vegetables. "This stuff’s poisonous. We can’t eat it."

"？"

"A worm just crawled out of the vegetables—this thick, this long."

"……"

Liang Yixuan looked up at the ceiling, clearly losing patience.

"It’s normal for there to be bugs in leafy greens. That’s why we wash them in salt water—to get the worms out. Just rinse it off, it won’t kill you."

"Wait... does that mean the vegetables I’ve eaten before…"

"Yep," Liang Yixuan said flatly, nodding. "Those probably had bugs crawling all over them too, Young Master Bian."

Bian Xu’s face darkened.

Liang Yixuan glanced at the perfectly good bok choy he’d just tossed into the trash, now spoiled by food scraps. She sighed and pointed off to the side.

"Stop washing. Just stand over there."

What kind of bad karma was this? First dog poop, then loaches, now worms—and now he was being benched for messing up one thing.

Bian Xu leaned against the wall, completely baffled.

Was this really a dating show… or some kind of personality boot camp?

He tugged at the collar of his shirt, brows furrowed. A while later, he heard chaotic footsteps coming from upstairs—it sounded like the others were coming down from the rooftop.

Lin Xiao Sheng was the first to come around the staircase and glanced toward the kitchen.

"Why’s Miss Yixuan working all by herself, Mr. Bian?"

Bian Xu said nothing, face still like stone.

Lin Xiao Sheng grinned. "Since you’re just standing around, did you at least eat the breakfast you missed earlier?"

Bian Xu’s empty stomach gave an angry grumble.

Lin Xiao Sheng added, "If you’re hungry, there’s still some in the fridge. It was really good—the mille-feuille had fresh mango inside."

Bian Xu’s eyes suddenly flickered, and he looked straight at Liang Yixuan.

She stayed silent, quietly sorting through vegetables.

Bian Xu thought back to how she’d slapped his hand away during breakfast. Slowly, a smirk appeared on his lips.

"Oh, right—I couldn’t eat it anyway. I’m allergic to mango. Severely allergic."

Lin Xiao Sheng choked a bit on that.

Bian Xu, now in a very good mood, pushed off the wall, straightened up, and walked over to stand beside Liang Yixuan. He leaned down slightly, smiling.

"Is there anything else I can help with?"

Liang Yixuan took one look at his smug face and felt her blood pressure rise. She frowned and looked down.

"Then go deal with the loaches."

Once this man’s in a good mood, he’d reach for the stars if you let him—so what’s a jar of loaches?

The very next second, Bian Xu nodded without hesitation.

"Alright."