Chapter Text
Jin Ling clutched his school bag as he went to school. He did not want to bump into anyone this morning. More specifically, he did not want to bump into Xue Yang, A-Qing, Zizhen, or Jingyi. He was so deep into looking out for his friends that he didn't even notice who he bumped into.
Jin Joo.
He can't even remember the last time he bumped into her, she seemed like she was going to do something so big. Then she came so lamely.
Jin Ling tried to pretend he didn't see her but before he could even take a step she smirked, "If it isn't Jin Ling."
Jin Ling did not want to deal with this right now.
"What?"
"I heard that things have been a bit hard between you and Lan Sizhui. If you know what I mean."
Well, look who's late to the party. The gossip she somehow heard from her friends is like so 10 hours ago.
"Nothing is wrong between us. Didn't you get in trouble or something? Go get in it again."
Jin Ling allowed himself the enjoyment of her smirk slowly fading.
"Well, I have some news for you."
"Well, I don't want to hear it."
"Doesn't matter. Either you hear it now or from your parents."
Jin Ling moved past her and headed forward, "Then I'd rather hear it from people I actually want to talk to."
Jin Ling didn't even notice A-Qing running toward him. He was too frustrated with his life getting more and more complicated.
"Jin Ling! Did she do something? She's still in my proximity. I'll make sure she doesn't come near your proximity if you want me to."
"Nah. Don't bother with her."
A-Qing's face warped into something creepy, "So, Jin Ling... Nice turtleneck."
Jin Ling tried not to flinch under her gaze, "Why thank you."
"Did I tell you that your soccer match is today?"
What?
Jin Ling completely forgot he had the practice match today!
"I-I know."
A-Qing didn't even try to be subtle about her all-knowing smirk, "You excited to run in a turtleneck with a faulty back?"
"My back is amazing."
"By keeping up with him, I guess it is."
Jin Ling couldn't take it anymore, as he entered the university he wanted to run to his class but he couldn't. That meant still dealing with A-Qing. They opened the doors and luck must have hated Jin Ling since the two noticed Zizhen, Xue Yang and Jingyi standing right there.
"Jin Ling...!" Xue Yang laughed, "I knew my advice would work!"
Jin Ling scowled, "How do you know I even used your trashy tips?"
"Or how else would you have gotten laid?"
Jin Ling flew his hands to signal Xue Yang to shut up, "Be even louder, why don't you?"
Zizhen sent a pitting smile, "Cut him some slack. Yesterday his parents came over and he got drunk somehow, probably because of Senior Wei. And you guys won't believe what he accidentally sent me-"
Jin Ling hoped he just had hearing problems and did not just hear what he just heard.
"I sent that to you!?"
"Hey don't be mean!"
Jingyi, far too delightedly, pushed, "Continue!"
"He texted me that he and Sizhui were doing it and his uncle called in the middle of it!"
His friends were laughing so hard that students around them began staring. His friends kept on poking at him with random remarks.
"Guess Senior Wei loves to know everything that happens doesn't he?"
"Jin Ling, how do you feel right now?"
"I bet Sizhui was as calm as ever!"
"Shut up!", Jin Ling rushed to the bathrooms to cool his overheated face.
...
Throughout the day things didn't turn more normal, his aggravating friends still teased him. While the car he was in drove him home, he wondered if his parents were still there. Well, they were his parents, they probably have been there since morning.
Jin Ling slowly opened the door, seeing that it was already unlocked. He took off his shoes and saw his dad and his two uncles fighting, while his mother and the Lan brothers giggled.
His dad growled, "Are you stupid? You don't add chilli powder to cake!"
Wei Ying threw another shot of powder, skillfully dodged by Jin Zixuan, that hit the counter.
"Stop! You're making me waste my chilli powder on the counter!"
"Good! No one ever wants to eat it anyway!"
Jiang cheng grabbed the bowl from the LanLing head, "That doesn't mean you can put any amount of vanilla essence in it too!"
"Why? It brings flavour to everything! A-Li told me so!"
"Too much leaves a bad aftertaste and gives a pinch of this weird alcoholic flavour."
"I'm giving the exact amount!"
"It says 1/4 of a tablespoon! Not 1/4 of a cup!"
"It's a small difference!"
"No, it is not!"
"You have a huge sweet tooth! A-Ling told me so! The vanilla extract should never be optional! I'm adding more in!"
"Hell no!"
Wei Wuxain crawled to the other side, trying to initiate a sneak attack. However, when he tried to pour it in, Jiang cheng shoved the bowl into the oven.
"I was so close!", he grunted.
Jin Zixuan snorted, "You idiot. You put it in a cake pan first! Even I knew that!"
"Because of you two, the cake batter won't even reach the oven in a normal state! It'll be better with melted plastic than what you guys are trying to add in!", his Jiujiu screamed.
Wei Wuxain screeched, "Get it out! My beautiful bowl! My stunning oven! The plastic will melt!"
Jiang cheng groaned, "Are you blind? The oven isn't even on!"
Wei Ying could feel his face slightly heating up, "It looks like it's on..."
Jin Zixuan laughed.
Wei Ying yelled, "Shut up!"
Jin Ling stood there in shock, mostly horror, at what they were doing. Until finally, his father noticed him, he came over and announced, "Ah. My son. Help me convince your Jiujiu that we need to add more Vanilla extract."
Jin Ling didn't even know what to say. Jiang cheng slowly and carefully pulled the bowl out of the oven and showed it to Jin Ling.
"A-Ling? Tell him we need more of it in the vanilla cake."
Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxain both placed arrogant grins at the same time, "Looks like he doesn't agree with you."
Jin Ling's mind blanked for a second and asked, "That's a vanilla cake?"
Wei Ying lost his smile, "Yeah it is. Don't be judgemental, something special is happening today."
Jin Ling scrutinized the brown cake.
"The batter is brown."
"Mr. Know-it-all here," he pointed a finger at Jiang cheng, "Put some random thing in and the batter turned brown and nobody here knows why!" His dad's voice stemmed with disappointment as he explained.
"It's only because I was way too busy fixing your mistakes!", his Jiujiu defended.
Wei Ying motioned everybody to calm down, "It's fine. Jin Ling, it's a chocolate cake now, not vanilla."
Jin Ling could not believe that his uncle so naturally changed that. What if some type of poison was added in?
Jin Ling barely muttered out, "You didn't taste it yet?"
Wei Ying only lit up, "Great idea! Let me taste it!"
His father and his uncle rushed toward his Jiujiu to taste a bit of the cake.
"Tastes like you added something weird into it. It's not very sweet", Wei Ying complained as he washed his hands.
Jin Zixuan rushed toward the vanilla essence, "Finally you said something reasonable for once, it needs more sweetness!"
"We can't make it both sweet and spicy. You two know that right?", Jiang cheng reasoned.
Wei Ying almost looked like he was thinking for a moment, "Sweet or spicy? Neither, just make it kinky!"
Jin Zixuan's face warped with disgust, and for good reasons. "Stupidity has no limits with you. How the hell do you make cake kinky?"
Wei Ying began listing all the ways to make a cake kinky, which obviously, weren't reasonable to do to a cake.
"You can't add a sex toy to a cake!"
"It could be sticking out! That'd increase the kinky levels."
"Kinky levels–? That would increase your insanity levels!"
Jiang cheng just groaned and pulled out the cocoa powder, trying those two morons he was related to, "Then that brown thing I added must have been some kind of spice. It's fine. I'll just add some cocoa powder."
Wei Ying taunted, "Now look who's added 'disgusting' spice"
"Now look who's adding sweetness to the cake batter", humphed Jin Zixuan.
"Well, I do it for good reason. Now come on, before you guys do something stupid and I'm at my wit's end. Give me the cake pan."
Wei Ying pulled out the cupcake pan from his bottom kitchen drawer. It wasn't a normal cupcake pan either, the cupcake pan had weird Thanksgiving designs. A turkey, maple leaf, and more. How was the cupcake going to even come out of there?
Wei Ying held it up as if it were some kind of trophy, "Won't this work?"
Jiang Cheng dug into the drawer with his hand and found an actual cake pan and sent him a deadpan glance, "Why don't you pre-heat the oven already? At this rate, Yanli won't ever be able to eat the cake and they'll have to leave for the meeting."
That sent Jin Ling back.
"Wait. What meeting? I thought you guys came here to see me."
Jin Zixuan fiddled with the piping bag, "We did. But we wouldn't come this early. We just have to settle things with some of your relatives who live close to here."
Jin Ling could feel the dread of the word before he even spoke it.
"Jin Chan?", he asked with bad memories already rising at the back of his head.
"Mhm."
His father nonchalantly went back to the cake arguing about the time they should set it to.
How could his father just agree to meet with Jin Chan so casually? Well, they are related to him somehow but they've never really gone to their place for anything other than work-related reasons. And Jin Ling rarely went with them!
Yanli finally caught her breath after laughing so hard and headed to Jin Ling.
"A-Ling, wear some nice clothes won't you?", she told him as she helped his father and uncles pre-heat the oven.
Wei Ying grabbed the chilli powder last minute and sprinkled some last-minute when Jiang cheng wasn't looking. He took a spoon and lightly mixed it and went back to pretending that nothing happened.
Jin Ling didn't even bother to tell his Jiujiu or dad, they could figure it out the hard way. What he needed to figure out is how to get out of this! He didn't have much time either. He could faintly hear a cheer from downstairs that the cake finally entered the oven without being an infectious biohazard.
The more he thought about it the more he realized that he couldn't get out of this. Jin Chan's parents are very judgemental, if Jin Ling decided to not come they'd probably take the joy to stab in a few comments about it during their conversations. He also had no excuse to not come either. Before he arrived here he had texted his mom that he had no big things to do today since she wanted to go somewhere. If he knew that somewhere was over to Jin Chan's then he would even have pulled out essays!
He put on something nice, something covering the marks Sizhui has made. Or they'd probably start making accusations about that too.
He sulked on his bed for more than an inconsiderate amount of time but finally headed down and he saw the cake. Yes, the brown cake. It was slowly being covered by buttercream then designed with frosting. Who would have thought his father and his uncles could make such a thing look so appealing?
On the couch he saw Sizhui, he sat beside Lan Xichen, talking about something important judging by their concerned expressions. He noticed Jin ling from the corner of his eye and gave a little wave returning to his discussion.
Jin Ling slumped on a table chair and watched his mother cut the cake into perfect pieces. Jin Ling already knew that We Ying discreetly added his favourite flavour to the cake.
The piece was given to Jin Ling. He hesitated to try it but after taking a glance at his Jiujiu's eyes he couldn't bear to deny it. He slowly lifted the spoon to his mouth. And dear god, vile wouldn't even begin to describe it.
The cake contained not one but two spices, one being with an unknown one but he had a feeling it was nutmeg powder, and second, his uncle mixed in some chilli. The frosting did taste good but the flavour of the cake just ruined it.
He held it in his mouth for a minute and swallowed it. The creator of the cake swarmed him with questions about whether it was good or not. Jin Ling knew if he lied that it would make his father and uncles feel better but he wasn't some angel like Sizhui.
"No, that tasted foul."
They stared at him then took turns tasting the cake piece that sat on Jin Ling's plate.
His father furrowed his brows and complained, "I told you. It's not sweet enough. It tastes like curry with frosting mixed in. Must be that weird spice you added in."
"Nope. I tasted it before it went in the oven, it didn't taste this bad. And is it just me or is there this chilli pepper flavour to it?", Jiang cheng glared at Wei Ying.
Wei Wuxain just smiled feigning his innocence, "Nope. I think it's far too sweet. I can't be the only one thinking that the peacock messed up on the measurements of sugar, can I?"
Jiang cheng just sighed and asked his sister, "What should we do with it? It's not even edible!"
Yanli packed some up in a take-out box and headed toward the door, "I'll take some of your delicious treats home with me, but we should head out now. Or we'll be late."
Jin Zixuan took off the apron he was wearing and put back on his Rolex watch, "You're right. Come on Jin Ling. And A-Li, please don't take that box."
Yanli just squeezed her husband's arm as if she was trying to get him to take a hint, but we all know how good he is at that.
Jin Ling didn't even want to go. But it seems like no one could help at this point. The worst part is he doesn't even know what is going to happen. Maybe he should have heard Jin Joo out. But what's done is what's done. He already is inside their car and has been driven to the fancy place Jin Chan stays.
Jin Ling pulled out his phone, he tried to find which one of his friends was online. He needed help, it doesn't matter from who. The good thing was two of them were online. The bad thing is it was the two people that would probably laugh at Jin Ling than help him, but they've helped him before. Hopefully, they can help him now.
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