Beef noodles at 4 a.m.
After a small mistake earlier that day, Zhiming messages his girlfriend Chunjiao and orders her to bring ingredients over at four in the morning to cook beef noodles as an apology. She comes. In the silent kitchen she prepares the ingredients, slices the meat, and tends the broth while he sits in the living room criticizing every move. When he enters to complain that the beef is too thick, she turns off the stove and asks what gives him the right to summon her as a servant at 4 a.m. He lashes out. Calmly, she removes her apron, says this is the last bowl she will ever cook for him, and leaves. His threats earn only a tired, resolute goodbye. Alone in the empty kitchen, he finally sees the bowl no one will bring to the table: what has been ruined is not the beef, but his last claim to being loved.