Ian Shaw looked at Carina Sanders's fair hand, then hesitated and shook his head.
Carina Sanders wasn't offended. "There seems to be a house up ahead. Let's go take a look!"
Margaret Jennings watched as her own precious daughter stood close to Ian Shaw. After a moment of hesitation, she decided not to approach.
Naomi Kenway had a terrible personality, but her son was a poor little thing, completely lacking his mother's malice.
Naomi Kenway watched Ian Shaw's group walk away. Seeing their small figures recede into the distance, a smile touched her lips.
'I'm so glad my son is willing to spend time with these other kids,' she thought. 'People need friends at every stage of life, and childhood is no exception. Maybe interacting with friends more will help him open up.'
Ruby Preston called out to Naomi, "They're handing out the phones. Let's go."
Naomi snapped out of her thoughts and smiled at her. "Okay."
Ruby Preston froze for a second. She had never seen someone with such a beautiful smile. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find another face like Naomi Kenway's in the entire entertainment industry; she was a natural-born beauty. In the past, Ruby would have jumped at the chance to work with a woman this stunning, but thoughts of Naomi's reputation for terrible acting and diva behavior made her dismiss the idea for now.
Naomi received her phone from a staff member. In this fast-paced era, it had only been about a day without her phone, but to Naomi, it felt like a lifetime ago.
After she turned it on, there were no messages other than trending entertainment news notifications. Her agent handled all her work, and her relationship with her family was incredibly strained. For the first time since her "awakening," Naomi felt a pang of loneliness.
However, she didn't let the negative feeling linger for long. She had important things to do.
She recalled Ian once mentioning that the knife-cut noodles Ethan Shaw took him to eat were delicious.
'Should I ask Ethan to contact the chef for the recipe?'
Thinking of the expectant look in her son's eyes, Naomi immediately found Ethan Shaw's number and sent him a text. It was almost laughable—they had been married for years, yet they weren't even friends on WeChat.
She considered sending a tentative, "Are you there?" but knowing that such useless pleasantries might get her instantly ignored by Ethan, Naomi got straight to the point:
"Ian said the knife-cut noodles at the restaurant you often take him to are delicious. Could you send me the chef's contact information? I want to learn how to make them."
Ethan Shaw seemed to be busy; a reply only came ten minutes later: "You're going to make knife-cut noodles for Ian?"
In reality, Naomi knew how to cook, and she was actually quite good at it—far from the disaster the rumors claimed her to be. Before her awakening, she had been forced to follow the plot and display her "incompetence" to serve as a foil for the female lead. Now that she was self-aware, she no longer had to pretend to be a terrible cook.
Afraid Ethan wouldn't trust her, Naomi quickly sent a guarantee: "I'll be the first one to eat it, I promise I won't use Ian as a guinea pig! Please give me the chef's contact info!"
Naomi wanted to send a pleading emoji, but texting didn't have that function, so she had to manually type out the word "please."
Naomi sat on a stone bench in the plaza. While waiting for Ethan's reply, she kept herself busy by searching online for videos on how to make knife-cut noodles. The process looked quite intricate.
In fact, Naomi had taken a two-year culinary course. It had been her idea for winning Ethan back when he first moved out. Of course, it hadn't worked.
As for Ethan, Naomi had come to terms with the situation. Their relationship was broken, and the end of their marriage seemed inevitable. Naomi had never been one to force matters of the heart. The best-case scenario would be for her and Ethan to continue living together as partners, giving Ian a complete family. But if Ethan grew tired of this arrangement or found someone he loved one day, Naomi wouldn't cling to him. Life after her awakening was too precious to spend it begging for affection.
Naomi had plenty of savings—enough to support herself and her son for several lifetimes. There was no need for her to live so humbly.
The two-year course had taught Naomi a lot, but she had never tried making knife-cut noodles. It looked like she would have to learn from scratch.
The sun grew stronger. Naomi shielded her eyes with her hand, then walked over to a gazebo and sat down. The other guests were also resting there.
Still no notification sound. Just as Naomi was thinking Ethan wouldn't reply, a new message popped up.
It was a string of numbers.
Naomi realized it was the chef's contact information from Ethan. She let out a small sigh of relief.
'But besides the number, there wasn't a single extra word or punctuation mark. That Ethan really doesn't want to talk to me.' Still, getting the contact info was a good thing. Naomi sent a quick "Thank you."
Naomi didn't expect another reply from Ethan, so she immediately went to add the chef on WeChat.
The friend request was accepted almost instantly. Before Naomi even had a chance to say anything, a message from the chef arrived:
"Mrs. Shaw? Hello."
"President Shaw mentioned you needed the recipe for knife-cut noodles. As it happens, the braising sauce I use is my own secret recipe."
He followed up with a long block of text containing an exceptionally detailed recipe for the knife-cut noodles.
After that came a video, which the chef had recorded specifically for her, demonstrating how to prepare the dish.
Naomi thanked him sincerely.
The chef on the other end seemed almost flattered and told Naomi she could ask him anything if she had more questions; he would hold nothing back.
After the chat ended, Naomi was still a bit dazed. 'So, does this mean Ethan contacted the chef for me ahead of time?' she wondered. 'But his message was so cold.' She really couldn't figure Ethan out, so she decided to let the difficult question go.
After that, Naomi threw herself completely into studying how to make knife-cut noodles. She was determined to make a version her son would love.
The other guests sat resting on a stone bench not far away, their phones beside them. None of them were using their phones to look up information. After all, the dishes they had drawn weren't difficult and didn't require any research.
Margaret Jennings watched Naomi, who was busy doing research, and remarked, "I didn't expect Naomi to be so dedicated. I'm already getting restless just sitting here."
Chelsea Raines, still resentful about how Naomi had snapped at her earlier, sneered, "She has to try that hard to avoid embarrassing herself. But knife-cut noodles aren't your average noodle dish; they're incredibly difficult to make. I tried to be nice and look out for her, and she just chewed me out for it. I'd like to see how she's going to get out of this one!"
The hostility radiating from Chelsea Raines was a bit much, and Margaret Jennings discreetly shuffled a little farther away from her.
A dark glint flashed in Renee Jennings's eyes. She thought Naomi's behavior was nothing more than a desperate, last-minute cram session.
'Naomi is a terrible cook,' she thought, 'while I'm the exact opposite. I even won first place in my school's cooking competition.'
'This time, I'm definitely going to win back the pride I lost to Naomi!'