# Chapter 19: The Mysterious Dumplings
Hello, wonderful readers! It's me again, your humble narrator, ready to guide you through another gripping chapter of "The Untouchable Ex-Wife." How has your day been treating you? I hope you're all buckled in because today's chapter is a delicious blend of jealousy, suspicion, and dark questions lurking beneath an innocent plate of food. Trust me when I say that those innocent-looking dumplings are about to stir up a storm in this hospital room!
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The sterile white walls of the hospital room had grown familiar over the past several days, their clinical coldness a stark contrast to the warmth that now radiated from the steaming bowl placed before Stefan Hunt.
"Mr. Hunt, here are your dumplings. Have some while they're still warm!" the nurse said cheerfully, carefully setting the porcelain bowl down on the table beside him.
Stefan nodded his thanks, and perhaps it was the years of conditioning, or perhaps it was simply the intoxicating aroma wafting upward from those plump morsels—but he found himself nearly salivating. Funny how the human mind works, isn't it? Habits shape us in ways we never expect, and despite only having eaten these dumplings for four days, the taste had already lodged itself into his palette, and his stomach now demanded them with an almost possessive urgency.
He reached for his chopsticks, ready to enjoy his meal.
But alas, the universe had other plans.
From across the room, Seraphina's sharp eyes narrowed with suspicion. Her gaze locked onto that steaming bowl like a predator spotting its prey, and the air in the room suddenly grew taut with unspoken tension. She had been lounging in her bed, feigning nonchalance as she scrolled through her phone, but now she straightened up with a sudden alertness that would've made a watchdog proud.
"The nurse then placed the bowl down," she repeated in her mind before letting her voice slice through the silence. "Where did these dumplings come from? Isn't it Aeos cuisine? Can I have some too?"
Her words were honey-coated, but her eyes—those calculating eyes—were pure venom.
The nurse froze, a deer caught in headlights. "Uhm... No!" she blurted out, and the refusal came far too quickly, far too defensively. Of course, how could she possibly explain that these weren't hospital fare at all? That Joan—*that woman*—had specially purchased them? The poor girl was caught between a rock and a hard place, and her face flushed crimson as she scrambled for a plausible excuse.
A knowing, bitter smile curved Seraphina's lips. "Why not? Could it be that you've been personally making these for my fiancé? Aren't you being a little too considerate then?"
The accusation hung in the air like a guillotine blade, and the nurse's mouth flapped open and closed, utterly inept at forming a coherent response. "No... I... I—"
Stefan's deep voice cut through her stammering. Always the protector, always quick to come to someone's defense. "You're still recovering, and seafood is prohibited."
The nurse's eyes lit up with renewed hope, gratitude washing over her panicked features as she latched onto his lifeline. "Yes, yes! Eating seafood may affect wound recovery, which might leave scars on your skin." She let out a relieved breath, amazed by Stefan's quick thinking.
But Seraphina was far from satisfied. Her chin lifted defiantly as she fixed her gaze upon her fiancé's handsome face. "Sure, I won't eat it," she conceded, though there was nothing remotely gracious about her tone, "but can you tell me *where* these dumplings came from?"
Silence.
She pressed forward with dogged determination, well aware that in this world, any woman could pose a threat to the relationship she'd fought so hard to secure. "Nowadays, any woman in Stefan's life could potentially pose a threat to their relationship, so she had to be careful, so very careful not to let any of them get their way with him."
"Our food court provides these for our Aeos patients." The nurse's voice was stiff, wooden—as if she were reading lines from a script she hadn't properly rehearsed.
"Really?"
"Y... Yeah!" The lie practically tripped over itself on its way out of the girl's mouth.
A knowing gleam entered Seraphina's narrowed gaze. She wasn't buying it—not for a single moment. Leaning forward with an air of innocent curiosity that was about as genuine as a counterfeit bill, she said sweetly, "Then I'd like a portion of these seafood dumplings now. I can at least smell it if I can't eat it, right?"
The nurse's face went pale. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again like a landed fish gasping for water. "Ah, well... uhm..."
The poor woman was drowning, and this time, Stefan could not stand by any longer. His imposing figure shifted as he turned toward the nurse, his deep voice carrying the weight of authority. "Alright, alright, stop messing with the girl. She's been putting a lot of effort into caring for you too."
He then waved his hand dismissively at the nurse. "You are dismissed. I can handle her."
The nurse didn't need to be told twice. She practically scurried out of the room like a mouse freed from a cat's clutches, leaving behind the two of them in that charged, suffocating silence.
Seraphina was far from appeased. Her head snapped away from him sharply, her whole body rigid with indignation as she refused to even glance at his face. The expensive hospital room suddenly felt too small, too constricting for two people with so much unspoken tension crackling between them.
"What's wrong?" Stefan's tone softened as he moved toward her, the patience of a man well-versed in handling a woman's moods evident in his voice. "You're not mad at me over some dumplings, are you? I can always stop if you don't like me eating them."
A stung sound escaped Seraphina's throat, and her pout became even more pronounced. "Not that! I just... I think that nurse is trying to seduce you!"
Stefan blinked. Made a sound between a snort and a laugh. "How is she trying to seduce me?"
"Innocent, are we?" Seraphina finally turned to face him, cheeks flushed pink and eyes blazing with accusation. "These dumplings smell traditional, so there's no way they came from a hospital food court, let alone one in a foreign country! There are barely any Aeos people here; how could they possibly make something like this for you?"
"Mm." He nodded slowly, a gesture of concession rather than full agreement. "And?"
His tone had sharpened, a subtle warning embedded in its depths. But Seraphina charged on regardless, her suspicion spurring her forward like an unstoppable tide.
"So it's very possible that she's trying to seduce you and made this for you personally! You know what they say—the way to a man's heart is through his stomach! Just look at how much you're enjoying them!" Her pointed finger accused not just the nurse, but Stefan himself, as if he were somehow complicit in some nefarious plot of culinary seduction.
Stefan exhaled a heavy breath, his patience clearly being tested. But he kept his voice gentle, soothing, as one might calm a frightened child. "Haha, Seraphina, you're overthinking. They're just dumplings." He paused, then added with emphasis, "How could they possibly replace you?"
His words hung there, intended as a balm to her wounded ego. But as he turned back to the bowl, picking up his chopsticks and lifting a golden dumpling to his lips, a shadow of doubt crossed his sharp features. His expression flickered—barely perceptible to anyone trained less than his own adversary—and those eyes of steel darkened with a nagging question he'd been suppressing.
'Are these dumplings really from unknown sources?'
The thought burrowed into his mind like a splinter that refused to be dislodged. For four days, they had arrived without fail, each batch warm and fresh, prepared with a care that seemed far too personal to be standard hospital fare. The nurse's earlier flustered behavior had done little to quell his curiosity; if anything, it had only exacerbated it.
Just who was sending these dumplings?
And more importantly—why?
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## Reader's Impressions & Star Rating
What a wonderfully tense scene! I absolutely relished the dynamic between Stefan and Seraphina in this chapter. Watching Seraphina's theatrical jealousy unfold was both entertaining and revealing—her protective instincts over Stefan are clearly born from deep insecurity, and the way she mentally framed every other woman as a potential predator was telling. Meanwhile, Stefan's smooth handling of the situation shows a man walking a fine line between compassion for his fiancée and a growing recognition that something about this whole situation doesn't quite add up.
The nurse's flustered reactions practically leap off the page, and I couldn't help but chuckle at poor Stefan being blindsided by a simple bowl of dumplings. The subtle hint that Stefan himself has started to question the origins of these mysterious meals adds a wonderful layer of intrigue that promises bigger revelations ahead. The writing captures the complex, fractured relationships between these characters with sharp precision, and I find myself completely invested in discovering the truth behind those dumplings.
I'd rate this chapter a solid **⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.8 / 5 Stars**—engaging, wonderfully character-driven, and layered with mystery that keeps me hungering for more.
## Next Chapter Prediction
Given the cryptic scene with Joan purchasing those dumplings and the nurse's flustered reaction, I suspect that the next chapter will finally reveal whose hands are truly orchestrating these thoughtful deliveries. Could Joan be making her move behind the scenes? And how will Stefan react when he inevitably pieces together the truth? I predict some dramatic confrontation is brewing, and when Stefan discovers the mysterious sender of these dumplings, the very foundation of his relationship with Seraphina might just shake to its core!
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