Wishing you a long and lasting relationship!
Wen Dai rolled up the sleeves of her long dress to the elbows. This dress cost over 100,000 yuan; she didn't want it to die before it even got off the ground. She carefully kept her distance from the greasy table. "Why did you only order wontons?"
Chen Sizhe, who had taken his bag off the chair, glanced at her and asked, "Then why did you order just tomato and egg noodles?"
Slightly taken aback by his retort, Wen Dai leaned forward, standing just inches away from the edge of the table, and with her head held high, she threw the question back at him with a matter-of-fact tone: "I asked you first, so just answer me."
With both bags strapped to his back, Chen Sizhe glanced at Wen Dai, who seemed determined to get to the bottom of things. He tugged at the corners of his lips, his tone flat: "No particular reason, I just wanted to see what a forty-eight-yuan serving of wontons looks like. What about you?"
With a sigh of relief, Wen Dai leaned back, her shoulders slumped, and her gaze drifted away. "I also want to see what this 68-yuan tomato and egg noodle dish is all about."
Before the waiter brought the food, Wen Dai seized the opportunity to vent her surprise. She bent her arm, holding up her loose sleeve to prevent it from touching the table, and pointed at the menu. "The dishes she just recommended: stir-fried beef with yellow peppers for 368, spicy chicken for 288, and steamed sea bass for a roundup of 500. I admit I have double standards. If it were a five-star hotel or a long-established restaurant, I could accept those prices, since the service and ambiance are excellent, and the food is beautifully presented. But—"
She withdrew her arm, straightened her posture, and took in the surroundings of the store with a glance.
The dark brown oil tables looked as if they had been oiled, and they were arranged in a barely neat manner; the walls were plain gray and white, with a few patches of peeling paint that had not been repaired, and a few specks of oil and soy sauce stuck to the walls; the stools and chairs were a mixed style, with red plastic stools mixed with wooden chairs and crossbeams, and the conversations at the neighboring tables were loud in the small shop.
All that's missing is to put a sign indicating that it's a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.
The waitress brought the food out from the kitchen, carrying wontons in one hand and noodles in the other. Her advantage was that she didn't stick her fingers into the bowls, but merely supported them at the bottom, and even though she walked quickly, the soup didn't spill out. Her disadvantage was that when she hurriedly put the bowls down on the table, the soup almost splashed onto Wen Dai's dress.
Startled, she instinctively sprang to the side from her chair, landing frozen in place. Her eyes met Chen Sizhe's gaze, and as she looked at the waiter who had placed the food down and left decisively, she sighed again, "Is this what it means to pay for a lesson?"
A low chuckle escaped Chen Sizhe's lips, a mischievous smile playing on his foxy eyes as he spoke with a hint of gloating: "At least it gave you some practice in your agility, so I think it was worth it."
Wen Dai rolled her eyes at her. She took a tissue from the box on the table and carefully wiped the seat and the edge of the table before sitting down. She picked up her chopsticks and stirred the bowl of tomato and egg noodles in front of her. Looking at the swaying eggs, she comforted herself, "They gave me quite a lot of eggs, and the tomatoes look fresh. The noodles are golden yellow, so they must be handmade."
Chen Sizhe, who was slowly scooping up his wontons, glanced at the person who was muttering, his upturned fox eyes curving up under his drooping bangs, and a smile spreading across his face.
The smile vanished in an instant, because he had eaten a mouthful of noodles.
With a furrowed brow, Chen Sizhe looked down at the pale pink wontons. He put the wontons back in the bowl and stirred the dough with a spoon, only to find that the filling was smaller than half a fingernail.
Wen Dai, who had been silently watching the whole thing, giggled, causing even the chopsticks stuck in her bowl to tremble.
Glancing sideways at the smiling person across from him, Chen Sizhe slightly furrowed his brows and said in an unfriendly tone, "...Are you possessed by a goose?"
Tiger teeth and dimples appeared on Wen Dai's face, and she took a slight breath, pointing her gaze at his bowl. "Your behavior just now was hilarious. How about it? Forty-eight yuan for a serving of wontons is quite special, isn't it? Luckily, it's not the emperor's new meat."
So Wen Dai, who had spent 68 yuan on a bowl of tomato and egg noodles, felt smug and pleased with herself.
She barely managed to fill her stomach, thinking that Chen Sizhe, being such a picky eater, would rather starve than give in, but to her surprise, he frowned and finished the noodles in his bowl. Wen Dai took advantage of his inattention to pay the bill on her phone, saying, "Don't worry, I'm not the kind of person who lets you work for free. This meal is on me."
Chen Sizhe, who had slung two bags over his shoulder again, glanced at her and sneered, "Hmph, it's a shame I didn't hear what you're saying last night."
Rather than the idea that misfortune and fortune are intertwined, Wen Dai, who has always believed through experience that misfortunes never come singly, once again felt this way, except that it seemed that she was not the one who was experiencing misfortunes alone.
Summers in the south seem to be longer, and the current season is the most pleasant. Wandering through the ancient architectural complex, the Taihu stones standing by the lake are slender and translucent, allowing the occasional breeze swirling from the lake to pass through their stone caves.
Suddenly, an elderly woman carrying a bouquet of jasmine flowers jogged up in front of them and blocked their way. The woman had her hair styled in a bun and wore a floral shirt that was different from what other women her age wore. Her overall look was quite fresh. She held out the bouquet of flowers and looked at Wen Dai and Chen Sizhe. “Hey, want to buy a bouquet? This is the last one. Once it’s sold out, I can go eat.”
Wen Dai had barely raised her hand to wave twice, her polite refusal barely revealed, when the old lady quickly set her sights on Chen Sizhe. She offered a few words of advice, then forced a blessing: "Young man, buy your girlfriend a bouquet of flowers; Jasmine, Mo Li, buy a bouquet of jasmine, wishing you a long and happy life together. I only need this last bouquet; once I sell it, I can go out to eat. If you don't want it… sigh, I don't know how long I'll have to keep selling them."
Just as Wen Dai was waiting for this stingy lawyer to use his words to persuade the old lady to go back, she heard him ask, "How much?"
Surprise made her turn her head. This was an old trick of moral blackmail that even she could see through. However, Chen Sizhe reached into his pocket and took out his phone.
The old lady's outstretched hand paused noticeably for a moment, then she shoved the bouquet directly into Chen Sizhe's arms, holding up the QR code tag hanging in front of her, "Oh, just for good luck, ninety-nine, wishing you a long and happy marriage."
Witnessing the miser hand over ninety-nine without a second thought, and only after the old lady had made her way away did Wen Dai finally manage to snap out of her disbelief. She walked alongside him, glancing at the jasmine bouquet in his arms, and said with feigned interest, "Why don't you say she's a fraud now? It's just a few flowers, and she gave away ninety-nine!"
The last syllable of her voice abruptly stopped, and Wen Dai tilted her head, watching him warily. "You wouldn't actually have ulterior motives towards me, would you? Let me tell you, the only thing that can last between us is money. Forget about it, unless you're willing to give me your share of the fortune-telling fee..."
"Wen Dai," he called her calmly.
"Hmm?" She frowned, puzzled.
Chen Sizhe put his phone back in his pocket, then pointed to the lake beside him. He glanced at Wen Dai and said, "If you don't know your place, you can stand over there and look at yourself. Do you know the Reverse-Haired Demon from the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons? You look quite like it now."
Her peach blossom eyes widened immediately, and Wen Dai raised her hand to cover her head; she felt a little uneasy, the wind here was indeed strong. After some hesitation, she couldn't resist running to the lakeside and looking at the water—her waist-length hair was unusually well-behaved, not at all like the "rebellious hair ghost" Chen Sizhe had described.
After being tricked by him, her lost intelligence finally returned. Even if she wanted to take a picture, couldn't she just hold up her phone and take one?
Wen Dai gritted her teeth, her mouth and cheeks radiating annoyance. She walked back to Chen Sizhe's side and swung her fist, which she had been holding back all the way, at his arm. "Are you crazy? Can't you be a little more mature?"
"hiss."
His displeased gaze lingered on her face for a moment, then Chen Sizhe, holding the flowers, sneered, "Do I need to point out who's being childish? I was just saying it offhand, who knew you'd actually go for it. Be careful when you go out, I think your IQ and reaction time are pretty dangerous."
"You're bringing this up now? How much better are you? You're just as bad as I am. You fell for such an obvious scam. When you're with me, you keep calling me a fraud and saying you'll send me to rehab. Why didn't you say anything about that old lady? Her price gouging was unreasonable too. You can't just let it slide because she's old, can you? You're so hypocritical." She retorted defiantly.
After an eerie silence, Chen Sizhe murmured, "My grandmother likes jasmine flowers."
Wen Dai, walking beside him with her arms crossed, assumed this was just a made-up excuse and said disdainfully, "Even if your grandma likes it, there's no need to buy such an expensive bouquet here. It might wilt by the time you get back to Lizhou. You might as well wait until you get back to Lizhou and buy another bunch. Please, at least come up with a more reasonable excuse. It's not so humiliating to admit you were cheated."
“…My grandmother has passed away. She loved jasmine flowers. I was just thinking of her. When she was alive, she told me to be kind.” Chen Sizhe blurted out the extra sentence without thinking, then instinctively shut his mouth. He pursed his lips, looked away, and suppressed his frustration, waiting for Wen Dai's mockery.
However, the silence shifted to Wen Dai. Her gaze towards him held surprise, followed by a sense of inevitable desolation.
Yes, no one is lucky enough to be able to transcend life and death; few can escape the pain of separation and death.
"I'm sorry. I don't know if you're still sad right now. You've probably told yourself those lines you use to comfort ordinary people, saying that the deceased are in another world. Hmm... even kindness shouldn't be blind kindness, but you're probably rarely blindly kind—because you're also rarely kind." Wen Dai lowered her voice at the end.
The heavy atmosphere was hard to dispel; stubborn memories threatened to unpack and open the box that belonged to her parents. Wen Dai clenched her fist, then casually changed the subject: "But seriously, I'm getting PTSD from the phrase 'forever and ever.' I really don't understand why they think that a man and a woman standing together necessarily mean they're a couple. They could be siblings or something. Maybe the man is gay and the woman is lesbian. And these days, aren't many mothers well-maintained? Maybe..."
Just as Wen Dai was about to verbally gain the upper hand against Chen Sizhe, she was stopped. The man clicked his tongue and glanced at her speechlessly, saying, "There's no such thing as a certainty."
They strolled along the long street, finding nothing particularly interesting beyond that; most visitors here were carrying cameras. Wen Dai quickly took in the scenery and left. She and Chen Sizhe turned back, and as they passed the path where the old lady had stopped them earlier, they coincidentally stumbled upon her stopping a couple.
The old lady, her back to Chen Sizhe and Wen Dai, was unaware that her actions had been exposed. She continued with the same explanation she had given them earlier: "This is the last bouquet, all fresh jasmine. It's fate that we met. I need to go eat after I sell this one. Young man, why don't you buy a bouquet for your girlfriend? Jasmine Moli, it's ninety-nine yuan a bouquet, wishing you a long and happy life together..."
Similar to Wen Dai and Chen Sizhe's previous reactions, the girl hesitated and tried to politely decline, but the boy took out his phone. The difference was that the boy held the girl's hand, turned his face to the side with a gentle, sweet smile, handed her the bouquet, and then used his phone to scan the QR code to pay.
After the old lady left, the lovers, their fingers intertwined, stood still, exchanging a smile. The afternoon sunlight seemed to perfectly capture the warmth of their passionate love, and the dewdrops on the jasmine petals shimmered.
Subconsciously, Wen Dai raised her head to look at Chen Sizhe beside her, just as he turned his head—
He looked down, she looked up.
But what they got in return was not a smile.
The cold snorts rang out simultaneously, and even the swift turning of their heads towards the opposite ends was synchronized.
-
The warm orange-yellow lighting blended with the white light reflected on the computer screen, filling the entire screen with the live stream page. Wen Dai, sitting at the table, read through the scrolling bullet comments one by one.
She rested her arms on the table with her elbows bent, and a small nightlight, which she had bought after much deliberation as a practical person, was placed under a glass dome, providing soft illumination.
"Why did the broadcast stop before... Oh, because I was busy with other work."
[Screen Temperature: Teacher, does the male protagonist of an otome game really possess an energy body?]
In the sparsely populated live stream room, most of the people who stayed for a long time were Wen Dai's old fans. Suddenly, a question she had never seen before popped up. She glanced at the person's ID, her slightly raised lips hesitated for a moment, and then she smiled and said, "Of course you can."
"But I don't recommend you connect with so-called psychics or fortune tellers. Nine out of ten are scammers. You won't be able to connect, darling. The one you do connect with is more likely to be a balding old man or some kind of spirit. Everyone knows the data about male protagonists in otome games, but it's actually quite hard to say. Some people might generate energy even if they don't put their heart into it. You need to feel this energy with your heart. Don't connect with people who claim to be psychics or fortune tellers. Don't do these things."
Her brow furrowed unconsciously. Although she rarely concerned herself with such matters, since someone had brought it up, she didn't want to give them any more chances of being deceived.
[Screen temperature: Oh no, teacher, I've already found someone to link it. I've been feeling really uncomfortable lately.]
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
