Chapter 66

While the two were talking, Lian Yijian's phone received another call. It was from Dong Dawei, the delivery manager of Beijing Smart Internet Headquarters.

The two of them talked on the phone for almost half an hour before Lian Yijian hung up the phone after he said, "I'm busy right now."

Dong Dawei called Lian Yijian for two reasons. One was that this delivery manager was parachuted in from Sucheng District. He just knew about it after he saw the entry approval process that informed him. The other was that Sucheng District suddenly parachuted in a delivery manager without any warning. He was afraid that Lian Yijian could not bear being deliberately targeted by Wang Dayu, so he called to comfort him.

Having just been in the workplace for over a year, Xia Zhongqin has experienced the intrigues and deceptions in the workplace as an observer.

In the previous company, Xia Zhongqin's direct supervisor always disagreed with the company's general manager, and later the general manager undermined her leadership power.

The general manager first recruited a delivery manager to take over her leader's work, and then transferred her leader to the company's pre-sales position. Finally, her leader could not stand the general manager's blatant targeting and finally resigned in anger.

Under the leadership of this new delivery manager, the benefits of the delivery department where Xia Zhongqin worked were greatly reduced, the morale of the entire team was very low, and the team atmosphere was also very bad. Many people resigned one after another. Later, she also resigned and joined Beijing Smart Internet Company on the recommendation of Guan Huijun, the channel manager of Beijing Smart Internet Company.

The new delivery manager of the Sucheng Delivery Department is undoubtedly a chess piece used by Wang Dayu to check and balance Lian Yijian. Next, a bloody storm is inevitable. Xia Zhongqin has witnessed the cruelty of workplace struggles, and the worried look on her face deepened.

"Brother Yi Jian, everything except life and death is trivial. I will always be by your side."

There was a hint of worry in Xia Zhongqin's words of comfort.

Lian Yijian placed his free hand on top of their clasped hands and said, "Zhong Qin, please don't worry too much about me, okay? Workplace struggles like this happen everywhere. Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes. I will handle it. The worst-case scenario is that I'll just quit this job."

"Even if you don't have this job, your brother Yi Jian can still support you by taking on outsourced projects."

Xia Zhongqin had seen Lian Yijian's abilities and skills before, and since he had said so much, she nodded and did not continue the topic.

The two stayed in the spa pool for almost two hours before it was time for lunch.

There are five or six restaurants in the water park, offering Chinese food, Western food, fast food and barbecue, so there are quite a lot of choices for tourists.

Lian Yijian asked Xia Zhongqin what she wanted to eat.

As she became more and more familiar with Lian Yijian, Xia Zhongqin was no longer as shy in front of him as before, and she chose fast food.

There are three fast food restaurants: Wallace, KFC and McDonald's.

In the end, the two of them chose Wallace in unison, simply because Wallace was economical and affordable, and had a half-price promotion for all items on weekends.

Lian Yijian ordered two orders of French fries, two hamburgers, two fried chicken legs, two servings of nuggets, and two glasses of iced Coke.

While waiting for the meal, Lian Yijian received a video call on WeChat from his mother Huang Caihua.

Lian Yijian answered the call in front of Xia Zhongqin without any hesitation.

Xia Zhongqin and Lian Yijian were sitting side by side.

As luck would have it, when Lian Yijian answered the video call, he was sitting very close to Xia Zhongqin.

Half of Xia Zhongqin's body appeared squarely in the WeChat video call between Lian Yijian and Huang Caihua.

Following Huang Caihua's words, "Dabao, who is the woman sitting next to you?"

Xia Zhongqin was shocked and quickly distanced herself from Lian Yijian.

Lian Yijian didn't get angry when he saw this, but just smiled and replied, "Mom, her name is Xia Zhongqin, she's my girlfriend."

When Xia Zhongqin heard Lian Yijian calling the other party "Mom" and introducing her identity to the other party without deliberately concealing it, she realized that her reaction was not very polite. She slowly moved closer to Lian Yijian and adjusted her mood. Her greeting had not yet come out of her throat.

She had already received a greeting from the other end of the video.

"Hello, girl. Come to my house with Dabao next time. Auntie will cook Northeastern cuisine for you."

Huang Caihua's voice was warm and polite, without a hint of aloofness. Xia Zhongqin looked at the person in the video again. He had kind eyes and a gentle demeanor, and looked like an approachable elder. She was no longer so reserved. "Hello, Auntie. Thank you, Auntie. Brother Yi Jian and I will go back to see you next time."

As soon as Xia Zhongqin finished speaking, someone on the other end of the video chat was already laughing so hard that they couldn't stop. Then Huang Caihua replied, "Okay, girl, have fun with Dabao. Bye."

After answering the video call, Lian Yijian gave Xia Zhongqin a big thumbs up.

"Brother Yi Jian, I didn't say anything wrong in front of my aunt just now, did I?" Xia Zhongqin suddenly said.

"I thought our Zhong Qin would be so nervous that she would be speechless. It's so rare that she behaved so gracefully when meeting her mother-in-law for the first time." Lian Yijian replied with a smile.

When Lian Yijian said these words, he was not serious as usual. In Xia Zhongqin's eyes, there was even a hint of joking. She raised her fist uncontrollably and lightly hit Lian Yijian's chest.

"Brother Yi Jian, you are making fun of me again."

Lian Yijian did not stop her actions, but just looked at her with eyes full of doting, allowing her little fists to hit his chest and his heart again and again.

It was not until two minutes later when Xia Zhongqin heard the front desk calling out their meal numbers that he stopped what he was doing. Lian Yijian smiled and stood up to go to the front desk to pick up the meals.

Lian Yijian had just brought the dinner plates from the front desk to their table when another video came on his phone. It was from none other than Lian Pandi, his second sister and the one with whom he had the best relationship among his three sisters.

Lian Yijian didn't answer this time, he just hung up, and then sent a voice message in Northeastern dialect.

Lian Yijian: Second sister, we are having dinner now. I will video call you later.

Lian Panddi quickly replied with a two-word voice message "OK".

"Zhong Qin, can you eat ketchup?"

"OK."

After receiving Xia Zhongqin's affirmative answer, Lian Yijian took a packet of ketchup, tore open the package, squeezed it on Xia Zhongqin's French fries, and fed her a French fry dipped in ketchup.

Xia Zhongqin also picked up one and fed it to Lian Yijian.

The two of them passed the fries back and forth, feeding each other the entire serving of French fries.

The behavior of the two attracted envious glances from people around them from time to time: this couple has a really good relationship, and they kept showing off their love the whole time.

Half an hour later, the two finished their meal.

Just as the two stood up and prepared to leave the table, they saw two familiar figures coming towards them.

There were many people dining at Wallace Restaurant in Sioux City Water Park, and there were only a few empty seats near the innermost part of the restaurant where the two of them were.

When the two of them walked in, they saw two people sitting on the dining chairs with their plates on the table completely empty.

"Sister, what a coincidence, you and Mr. Lian also came to the water park today." Ji Yue, who was wearing a pink swimsuit, spoke first to greet them.

As Ji Yue uttered the last word "了", before Xia Zhongqin had time to respond to Ji Yue, she saw a young woman holding a child coming in from outside and heading towards where they were.

Lian Yijian also saw it. He hurriedly took Xia Zhongqin's hand and they both stood up from the dining chairs. Before he could finish his reminder, the woman holding the child in her arms had already reached them.

The child in the woman's arms saw the man holding Ji Yue's arm and called out "Dad" in a baby voice.

Because they were facing the direction of Wallace's gate, neither of them noticed the young woman holding the child. It was not until they heard the child's voice that they both looked back at the same time.

In full view of everyone, a slap landed quickly and hard on Ji Yue's left cheek.

As if one slap was not enough to satiate the young woman, who had already put the child on the ground, swung her hand again. However, as soon as the slap was slapped out, it was blocked by Zhang Xiaoshan, who was holding Ji Yue tightly in his arms.

The woman slapped Zhang Xiaoshan hard on the back.

The woman was none other than Zhang Xiaoshan’s ex-wife, Lu Xiaojuan.

The little boy standing on the ground was frightened by this scene and burst into tears. The little boy was Lele, the son of Lu Xiaojuan and Zhang Xiaoshan.

The whole process was filmed by a busybody and posted on Douyin or WeChat. The tags were: the original wife slaps the mistress, the scumbag protects the mistress, and the child is too innocent. That night, the video became a hot topic on Douyin.

"Zhang Xiaoshan, do you have any humanity left? I invited you on Friday and asked you to take the kids to Sucheng Water Park on Sunday. You said you had to work overtime and couldn't come. You don't know how disappointed Lele was when I told him you couldn't come with us."

"Now that you've brought this vixen here, you've got time. You're really not a human being..." Lu Xiaojuan became more and more excited as she spoke, and in the end, her voice was completely choked with sobs.

Those who were watching the excitement naturally understood what was happening. With morals declining, such incidents became more common and people just treated them as jokes. No one came forward to speak up for the woman.

Xia Zhongqin didn't want to stay even a minute longer in such a heart-wrenching situation. She gently shook Lian Yijian's arm twice and said, "Brother Yijian, let's go."

"Okay." Lian Yijian replied.

When passing by Lu Xiaojuan, Xia Zhongqin saw Lele still crying, so she took out an orange-flavored lollipop from her skirt pocket and gently placed it in his hand.

Before the age of six, children’s favorite thing is lollipops. As long as they are given a lollipop, they will stop crying immediately. Xia Zhongqin didn’t know all this, but when she was sad, she liked to eat delicious food and lollipops.

When she went out today, she put four lollipops of different flavors in her skirt.

From the time she left home until now, she hasn't had the chance to eat the lollipops in her group. Because Lian Yijian is with her, her mood has gradually changed from gloomy to sunny.

Lele looked at the lollipop in her hand and stopped crying. She said to Xia Zhongqin politely, "Thank you for the lollipop, beautiful sister."