Page 56 of From Beijing, With Love

Ping turned a shade redder than he already was. Mumbling an apology, he got up and took a seat on the other side of the table, leaving Jack to take the empty seat next to Daniel.

“That was …” Daniel turned to Jack. “Kind of amazing. Thanks.”

“Don’t mind him. He doesn’t mean anything bad by it. He’s from the middle of nowhere and hasn’t quite learned to let go of his farmer mentality, as I call it,” Jack said with a shrug, loud enough for Ping to hear from across the table. He clanked his beer bottle against Daniel’s. “Drink up.”

Yang had to admire Jack’s effectiveness at dressing someone down. With the Ping situation diffused—or smothered with a heavy hand, rather—Yang looked to the birthday girl. “This is different from the usual birthday affairs.”

“Now that I’m officially more than halfway through my twenties, I’m instituting some changes.” Meiwen’s face perked up like she’d been waiting for Yang to bring this up. “To mark the occasion, I just wanted an intimate soirée with my closest friends …”

“And me,” Daniel added, drawing a laugh out of Meiwen.

“I have a timeline to keep up with,” Meiwen said. Jack moved back to her side at the word timeline, draping an arm around her shoulder like it was part of a choreographed dance. “PhD by twenty-seven with an industry job lined up in Beijing.” She looked pointedly at Jack. “Married by twenty-eight. Pregnant by twenty-nine. Fraternal twins because I want a boy and a girl and there’s no way I’m doing the pregnant thing more than once. And don’t tell me that it’s not up to me, because I’m the one getting a PhD in bioinformatics.” She ended her speech by patting Jack on the hand.

“Happy with this timeline?” Yang asked Jack as he took another swig of his beer. The question was rhetorical, as he knew that Meiwen’s timeline was set in stone—immovable and boyfriend independent.

“Do I have a choice?” Jack laughed as he planted a kiss on Meiwen’s cheek. He raised his beer and everyone followed suit.

Under the table, Yang rested his knee against Daniel’s, liking the pressure. Daniel’s eyes met his, a tad hazy from the rounds of beers. Leaning in a bit closer, Yang whispered, “You haven’t eaten much. Just take whatever you want from these plates and drop them in the hot pot. The red half of the pot is spicy, and the white half is a bone broth infused with rice wine.”

“What if I don’t cook it right? Food safety and stuff, you know,” Daniel said, his eyes darting across the plates of raw meats.

“I’ll give you a tutorial.” Yang pointed to each plate one by one. “The meats are sliced razor thin; they just need thirty seconds in the pot. Seafood takes a couple of minutes. Noodles take longer. Five minutes, give or take. And the veggies and tofu are completely up to you.” Yang dropped a few things into the boiling pot. “But the secret to hot pot is that you just take what others have already put in the pot, so you don’t have to wait.”

Yang filled Daniel’s bowl with things he thought Daniel would like—beef slices, sweet potato vermicelli, enoki mushrooms, and tofu puffs. When he presented the bowl to Daniel, he was more proud than he had a right to be, since he’d done none of the cooking.

“But be careful, it’s—”

“Hot!” Daniel squealed and fanned his open mouth. Judging by the way he reached for his beer, he didn’t just mean the temperature. Downing the rest of his bottle in two gulps, he broke into a coughing fit. Yang doubled over in laughter, which earned him a reproachful look from Daniel. Leaning in, he patted Daniel’s back in contrition.

“Shagua.” The word slipped out of Yang’s mouth as he rubbed Daniel’s back in gentle circles. Luckily, it was buried in the ruckus of the dinner in full swing.

The air carried the punch of spice and the tang of beer. The server came by with a tray of shot glasses. Daniel stared at the baijiu like he was meeting an old nemesis. When he tossed back the shot, the table erupted in cheers. Yang threw back his own shot and felt a warmth bloom in his chest, all the while not able to take his eyes off Daniel.

Somehow, amongst Yang’s peers, Daniel managed to hold his own.

“Let’s have another.” Jack patted Yang on the back. The server was at the ready with the tray, which had magically replenished itself. “Loosen up. We’ve got all week to write the proposal. Just relax a little tonight.”

We. Yang sobered up at Jack’s words. He shouldn’t have been surprised that Jack had made it onto the short list for the postdoc. Jack was a good researcher, and his competitive nature meant that he fit right into Dr. Sun’s lab.

“I didn’t know that you also applied for the fellowship,” Yang said as Jack pushed the shot glass into his hand. Yang had assumed Jack was going to get an industry job after graduation, given that he wanted the degree more than he wanted a career as an academic. Hadn’t Jack said as much in the past after a few too many drinks?

“Change of plans.” Jack flashed Yang a half smile before clinking his shot glass against Yang’s. “May the best man win.”

Yang swallowed the liquor, feeling its sharp burn all the way down his throat.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURDaniel

Of all the places in the world, Daniel would never in a million years have imagined himself here—crowded around a bubbling cauldron with a bunch of young academics in Beijing. The cook-it-yourself concept behind hot pot reminded Daniel of the Dutch gourmetten, which swapped the boiling pot for a tabletop grill. Though gourmetten didn’t come with gold-veined marble bowls served under an open skylight.

This meal challenged Daniel’s perception of his own spice tolerance, which was apparently zero. He’d gone through a phase where he put sriracha on everything, but that was nothing compared to that first bite of tofu. After that, he stuck strictly to the nonspicy side. He was in the minority (in more ways than one).

“It’s Chengdu hot pot, you have to go for the spicy stuff,” Jack said as he slurped noodles drenched in red. It was a miracle he hadn’t gotten a single drop of red on his white T-shirt.

“Spicy is overrated.” Yang fished food out of the nonspicy side for Daniel. He had spent more time making sure that Daniel was fed than talking to the birthday girl. Meiwen hadn’t seemed to notice, given that she was the center of everybody else’s attention, especially that of her doting boyfriend.

Daniel flashed Yang a grateful smile before digging into the bowl Yang had just presented him. It had everything that he liked—beef balls, vermicelli noodles, lotus roots, and enoki mushrooms—as if Yang had been taking mental notes. As Daniel bit into the beef ball, soup unexpectedly gushed out of its molten center.

“Sorry,” Daniel apologized to no one in particular as he wiped the dripping soup from his chin.