Chapter 8: The Hongmen Banquet Who said I wanted to pursue her?
After entering the lobby, someone guided them to their seats. Not long after, a young lady with curly hair in a high ponytail and wearing a waitress uniform came over with a menu. Fang Qingzhuo gentlemanly gestured for the lady to place her order.
Luo Shu was not reserved either. She took the menu and ticked the boxes for the dishes she liked with a serious expression as if she was doing an exam. When choosing the soup base, she subconsciously chose the shuangyuan hotpot.
There were only two of them eating. Luo Shu symbolically selected a few must-have hotpot dishes: beef, shrimp balls, and a three-piece set of tripe. She then handed the menu to Fang Qingzhuo: "I've ordered a few random dishes. What do you think you'd like?"
When Fang Qingzhuo was flipping through the menu, Luo Shu shush started to feel uncomfortable and hurriedly made up an excuse to go to the bathroom.
As soon as she left, Guan Siqi couldn't contain his excitement and rushed down from the second-floor private room. He stepped over the long wooden bench and sat down next to Fang Qingzhuo. "Are you guys starting now? I heard she's hard to date."
Compared to Guan Siqi's excitement, Fang Qingzhuo was unusually calm. He slowly turned his face away to avoid the excited saliva that was sprayed out by someone's incessant chatter.
"Let's have dinner tonight, go on a movie date tomorrow, and try to win her over in one go. Then, dump her mercilessly and tell her that all this is her own fault. She won't even have time to cry, hahahahaha."
Fang Qingzhuo: "Who said I want to pursue her?"
Guan Siqi's laughter suddenly stopped: "?"
The empty table held only a pot of cold tea. Fang Qingzhuo poured himself a cup, but before he could even sip, Guan Siqi ungraciously took advantage of his success. "So, where's our battle plan? Where's that strategy for controlling women I painstakingly devised last night?"
It would be fine if we don't mention his crappy guide to controlling women, but as soon as Fang Qingzhuo is mentioned, I am powerless to complain. It is clearly a guide to being a dog licker.
He didn't care and reached out to pick up an empty cup and refill it: "Take it one step at a time."
It would have been better if he hadn't said anything. Guan Siqi drank the whole thing in one gulp, grabbed the menu in front of him, took a look, and burst out laughing: "You finally treated the girl to a meal, but this is too shabby."
He picked up his pen and started scribbling, "Brother will spend some money for you, order all the bad food, and I will disgust her to death."
The first floor was packed, mostly with students from the nearby university town having a meal. As one group left, another arrived like raindrops, making the noise unbearable. Fang Qingzhuo glared at him, pressing his temples. He'd ordered five servings of lettuce alone. "Can you finish that much?"
"Who knows what she hates to eat?" Guan Siqi said as a matter of course.
Fang Qingzhuo: "She seems to be unable to eat spicy food."
Guan Siqi understood what she meant, with a cunning look in his eyes. He then resolutely crossed out the soup base of the double-flavor hotpot that Luo Shu had ordered in advance and circled for extra spicy.
The waitress with the ponytail came to take the menu and saw the extra spicy hot pot on the hot pot page. She asked, "Excuse me, is this the extra spicy hot pot?"
Fang Qingzhuo squeezed out a nonchalant "Hmm."
The waiter forced a formal smile and said in a gentle voice, "But most people can't handle this level of soup base. I really don't recommend ordering it."
Fang Qingzhuo: "That's not wrong at all."
The young lady wanted to persuade him again, but a sudden, angry male voice pierced through the hot steam of the hot pot. It was probably her name. She took a deep breath and strode towards the cashier at the door, shouting "I'm coming."
In the women's restroom, Luo Shu's words came true. She had actually arrived early that afternoon to reject Duan Ran's flimsy excuse. A flurry of mumbling drifted in, faintly from the Cricket boss behind her. He was talking about how opening a shabby branch was no big deal, how he looked like a beast in human form, and how she'd make him pay when she finished her studies. The staff were good, she asked for help.
"Miss, could you please buy that for me?"
The other person obviously didn't expect that there was someone in the bathroom, and the air was still for a moment.
Her silence put Luo Shu in a dilemma. Not only did it delay her work, but it was also a thankless task. "It's not free, it's paid. Can you help me?"
Unexpectedly, the other party replied straightforwardly, "Oh, I thought it was my colleague who loves to tell tales." Then he said, "It's nothing, it's just a piece of cake. Wait for me for a moment."
Back in the main hall, what caught Luo Shu's eyes was a table piled high with plates and dishes. The original shuangyuan hotpot had been replaced with a nine-grid hotpot sprinkled with devil chili and Sichuan peppercorns.
While he was wondering, Fang Qingzhuo brought him an apple slice stuck with a toothpick.
She took it: "Thank you."
Fang Qingzhuo: "Have you heard of the parable of Adam and Eve?"
Luo Shu took a small bite of the apple and said, "I've heard of it. It's in the Bible."
"Legend has it that God created Adam and then took one of Adam's ribs to create Eve. Before leaving, God repeatedly warned them not to touch the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. But in the end, they were still deceived by the snake and ate the forbidden fruit, and were expelled from the Garden of Eden."
Fang Qingzhuo held the cold tea in his hand and tapped the wall of the cup with his fingers, one after another, making a crisp sound.
"So, tell me, was it the serpent that tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, or was it her own fault for lacking self-control? For believing the slander?"
After asking the question, Fang Qingzhuo looked at her slightly confused eyes and stopped talking. The spicy aroma just came out of the oil pan and all of it was aroused. He picked up the serving chopsticks and threw the instantly cooked duck intestines and beef into the middle grid. While throwing the shrimp paste into the cross grid, Luo Shu spoke.
"As bystanders, we can never empathize with others from their perspectives, nor are we qualified to judge who is right or wrong. Instead of blaming others and dwelling on who is at fault, it is better to accept reality calmly."
It's a smart-sounding answer.
While others are talking about everything, you are talking about everything; while others are pointing east, you are running west; the multiple-choice questions are made to look like essay questions.
Fang Qingzhuo felt both naive and ridiculous, and really hoped that she would continue to think this way in the future.
The red pot was boiling again. He picked out a piece of fat beef and put it into the oil dish in front of Luo Shu: "Try it."
Luo Shu picked up the chopsticks with great joy, but as soon as the food entered her mouth, the smile on her face froze. She coughed uncontrollably a few times, and a few tears came out of the corners of her eyes. Her tongue felt like it was on fire, and it felt like it could reach the top of her head when she inhaled.
Fang Qingzhuo watched the whole thing from a distance, his expression cold and indifferent. It wasn't until her eyes sparkled that he forced out a suggestive smile and poured her a cup of cold tea. "Isn't it tasty? It's a shame for all the dishes I carefully selected. How about we go to another restaurant?"
After saying this, he pretended to leave.
"Delicious." Luo Shu was so choked up by the spiciness that she didn't know which way was which. She was drinking some cold tea to relieve the heat, but when she heard him speak so openly from the heart, she swallowed her grievances decisively, sniffed, and felt a little uncomfortable.
He treated her to a meal with good intentions, and she must not be ungrateful.
Fang Qingzhuo raised the corner of his lips triumphantly, using the tactic of retreating to advance with ease. He picked up the serving chopsticks and scooped up a few more pieces of meat. This time, he didn't put them into the oil dish but into her bowl: "Then eat more."
Luo Shu gritted her teeth and swallowed the pieces of meat that Qingzhuo had picked up for her, so that in the second half of the meal she could only bury her head in eating white rice.
The bottom of the pot was about to dry up, and the waiter came several times to ask if he wanted more soup, but Fang Qingzhao refused every time. The dishes on the table were hardly touched.
He leaned back in his chair with his arms folded, gazing at Luo Shu leisurely. If she had been more attentive and noticed his clean dishes and the third empty cup, she would have realized that this was a Hongmen Banquet.
Twenty minutes later, as soon as Guan Siqi stepped out of the hot pot restaurant, he pointed a finger at Fang Qingzhuo, who was waiting on the side of the road, and said, "Fang Qingzhuo, are you still a human being? You picked up girls and asked me to pay for you."
Fang Qingzhuo tilted his head, put his left hand in his pocket, and held a cigarette between his right fingers. He had been standing outside for a while, and the cigarette was half burned. After hearing Guan Siqi's condemnation, he took a casual puff, his arm hanging naturally at his waist, looked back and pulled out his hand from his pocket, touched his lips with his index and middle fingers, and blew out the smoke at him.
Under the illumination of the street lights, the light and shadow outlined Fang Qingzhuo's superior appearance. The smoke rising from his waist slowly rose and swirled around him with the floating air. The picture was extremely pleasing to the eye.
Guan Siqi couldn't help but curse in his heart: Damn it, he's pretending again.
Following behind Guan Siqi, Liang Anqi, who was wearing an international high school uniform, rolled her eyes as usual after witnessing her brother's envious and jealous face. Before she could retract her eyes, she was slapped on the back of her head.
"Don't call anyone yet."
Liang Anqi touched the spot where she was hit, glared at Guan Siqi unhappily, and then greeted Fang Qingzhuo, "Hello, Brother Qingzhuo."
Fang Qingzhuo nodded with a curved lip, and moved the cigarette behind him unnoticeably: "I heard from your brother that you ran away from home again?"
"No." Liang Anqi pouted and looked around, "Where's Brother Gu Yang? Why isn't he with you guys?"
Upon hearing this, Guan Siqi made another fake move of raising his arm, which frightened Liang Anqi so much that she covered her head and shrank back.
Seeing her frightened look, Guan Siqi laughed and flicked her forehead: "Old Gu Yang, Gu Yang, who is your real brother?"
The imagined pain turned into nothing. Liang Anqi opened her eyes, straightened her messy bangs, and said confidently: "Ask what's wrong."
Fang Qingzhuo, however, gave the answer calmly: "I was in a car accident and am recovering at home."
Liang Anqi was panicked: "Is it serious?"
"It's none of your business whether it's serious or not. Go home now, right now." Guan Siqi stopped a taxi, grabbed Liang Anqi's schoolbag and stuffed her into the passenger seat without saying a word. After telling the driver the address, he slammed the car door and waved goodbye.
During this break, Fang Qingzhuo smoked a cigarette and inadvertently caught a glimpse of a familiar figure across the street. Across the zebra crossing, Luo Shu, who should have been back at school, crouched under a tree like a stray cat, her knees hugged, her presence invisible. The entire row of shops was almost completely closed, and the only light came from the bus stop a few meters away. Without a closer look, she would be completely invisible.
After a while, another girl came to my ear and answered the phone. I looked around for a while and finally found her under the tree.
At this time, Guan Siqi called another car, got in the passenger seat, fastened his seatbelt, and glanced at the scene outside the car window: "What are you standing there for? Didn't we agree to go to Yangzi's place?"
After watching the hunched back being helped and finally disappearing from the clinic, Fang Qingzhuo withdrew his gaze, extinguished his cigarette, and then leaned forward and sat in the car.
The author has something to say:
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(Shakes his head and sighs) Fang Qingzhuo, ah Fang Qingzhuo, Ni Xiaozhi is not planning to have a wife anymore. I guarantee you will regret eating hotpot today.
I originally received a comment about this chapter, saying that if the plot always centers around the heroine being wronged and wronged, please let me know and abandon the story. Unfortunately, my reply was deleted right after I replied. I don't know if my reply triggered some banned word or something else, but I'd like to mention it here. First, thank that person for their attention to the two of them. Secondly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The heroine will be wronged, but not always. There will be some grievances, and I wouldn't want to see too many of them. There's no explanation from the hero's perspective, and later in the storyline, the full storyline of the heroine's deception will be gradually revealed. Furthermore, the heroine's storyline is quite realistic; she'll inevitably face the hardships of love along the way. Every cause has its consequences. Don't be fooled by the hero's current complacency and his all-powerful attitude in the game, but he'll eventually become a lower-class person in his relationships.
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