Chapter 1: A righteous man harbors a hint of the tenderness of a philandering bad boy. ...
What is Miss Zhou's impression of me?
Frankly speaking, this is a difficult question to answer. Zhou Jinqin has to admit that she was distracted during the hour-long international situation analysis class, her attention completely drawn to the curly-edged Morgan pompadour on the head of the eloquent lecturer in front of her.
Under the teasing of the violent air conditioner, the other party's little secret hidden under the wig was exposed, revealing a slightly grayish bald head, just like a football field forcibly laid out on a school playground, with grass covering it.
This large, thinning man, surnamed Qian, is Zhou Jinqin's last blind date of the month and her sixteenth. Analyzing the data for the month, the quality of guests in the second half of the month decreased by 14.7% compared to the first half, with the male guest accounting for a negative 15 percentage points.
Zhou Jinqin picked up the coffee on the table, took a sip, lowered her eyes, and dared not look directly at the joke. She thought for a moment and answered as generally and politely as possible: "It's very good. Mr. Qian is very talkative."
The other party was very satisfied with her answer. "I am also quite satisfied with Miss Zhou. If possible, I hope we can move on to the next step in our lives as soon as possible. After all, you are getting older." The man glanced at Zhou Jinqin's flat stomach intentionally or unintentionally. "It's good that you are not working during this period, so you can focus on preparing for pregnancy at home. If all goes well, you can have a child before you turn thirty. That way, you won't be too far from the best age for childbearing. I think the probability of having a smart baby will also be higher."
"Damn it! Who moved my 'If You Are the One' show to 600 Wanping South Road for live streaming?" The eavesdropping strategist on the other end of the earpiece was frantically asking questions. "A toad trying to eat swan meat, can't you understand what I mean?"
"A smart baby? His intelligence is so bad that even if it's not hereditary, it's bound to be contagious. You should stay away from him as soon as possible, or the school will revoke your doctoral degree."
Xiang Ziqing was indignant on the other end of the phone, her words implying that she had deprived Qian of the right to be a human being for the next few lifetimes.
Having been on blind dates for so long, Zhou Jinqin had met many chauvinistic men, but this was the first time she had encountered a man who so openly belittled and objectified women. She wondered how her mother's resources had suddenly become so scarce.
Zhou Jinqin frowned. Although she was unhappy, she didn't intend to make a big deal out of it. Thinking that it was better to avoid trouble, she took a step back to preserve the dignity of both parties.
“Mr. Qian, this is our first meeting, so it's not appropriate to discuss this topic yet.”
"What do you mean? You don't like me?" The other person raised their voice, seemingly losing their guard.
Trying to ignore his offense, Zhou Jinqin tactfully told him, "I don't think we're a good match."
Mr. Qian was clearly dissatisfied with the answer. He leaned back in his seat, crossed his legs, and displayed an exceptionally well-proportioned face. His sparse eyebrows, though seemingly serious, suggested he was ready to begin the trial.
You are twenty-eight years old this year.
"yes."
"Or is she a female PhD?"
"right."
"You resigned from the hospital due to health reasons?"
"Um."
The other party suddenly sneered: "Old, in poor health, too shrewd, in the eyes of us men, you are the worst kind of goods. To give an analogy, you are like the prepared food section of RT-Mart after 8 pm. You either lower your price to let people pick up the bargains, or you continue to be high and might miss the last chance to be eaten and end up in the trash. You have no choice either way. I don't know what else you have to be so arrogant about."
Xiang Ziqing slammed her hand on the table through the earphones: "This is absolutely outrageous! Zhou Jinqin, you're not allowed to suffer in silence, I order you to yell back at her right now!"
As she spoke, the other person began to patiently instruct her, teaching her, word by word, the art of responding with only offense and no defense.
She wasn't really listening anymore, but Zhou Jinqin wasn't going to keep putting up with it. She looked at the other woman's big belly, which was taking up a whole seat, and suddenly spoke up.
"Your belly is so big, but I haven't seen you eat much. Is it because you're carrying that child that just appeared out of nowhere? How amazing."
Suddenly the world went silent. Xiang Ziqing was the first to react, and she clapped exaggeratedly, praising, "That's it! Well done! Celery!"
Next was Mr. Qian, who was a step behind. He stared in astonishment at the calm woman in front of him, finding it hard to believe that such words could come from the mouth of such a gentle woman.
He stared blankly for a long time before finally blurting out, "What nonsense are you talking about? Don't you know men can't get pregnant?"
These words were so harmless that the flame that had just ignited in Zhou Jinqin's heart was suddenly extinguished. But the calmer and more composed she appeared, the more nameless anger surged in Mr. Qian's heart. His face darkened like that of Bao Gong, and his voice was powerful and resounding as if he were in the imperial court: "Where did you get such an unreasonable conclusion? You're supposed to be a doctor, yet you speak so irresponsibly."
“Yes.” Zhou Jinqin answered immediately. Xiang Ziqing had shared links to male-male romance novels with her quite a few times from here.
"What? What is that?" Mr. Qian asked, puzzled. He had never heard of such a thing before.
Zhou Jinqin answered all questions: "It's not a thing, it's a place to read novels. If you're interested, I can share the download link with you."
Seeing her talking nonsense with such a straight face, Mr. Qian chuckled and suddenly forgave her: "I didn't expect you to be so humorous."
"Then where did you get your conclusion about RT-Mart from?" Zhou Jinqin ignored his words and continued to press him, her expression serious as if she were exchanging cutting-edge technologies at an academic conference.
Thinking of her nonsensical words, Mr. Qian became a little arrogant. He raised his head high, almost exposing his neck: "These are all truths passed down from generation to generation."
Zhou Jinqin asked, "As far as I know, RT-Mart was founded in 1996, which is less than 30 years ago. Isn't it too fast for your family to keep updating and replacing products across generations?"
It sounds like she's swearing, but the other person has such an honest, innocent face that it makes you wonder if you're just imagining things.
"It's obvious that I was just using RT-Mart as an analogy, do you have to make such a big deal out of it?" Qian was getting a little exasperated. "With your level of comprehension, I'm really curious how you got a PhD."
Zhou Jinqin didn't care about his look of disbelief, and simply smiled and nodded: "Your conclusion is based on oral transmission. It has been proven that the transmission of oral information mainly relies on the memory of the transmitter and the understanding of the object. The transmission process is prone to distortion. In comparison, my conclusion seems to be more credible, after all, it comes from written records that are relatively difficult to change."
"Pfft..." A soft laugh suddenly entered my ears. Unlike the woman's voice laughing so unrestrainedly, it was a very seductive male voice.
Zhou Jinqin glanced to the side following the sound and saw a very handsome young man with fair skin, red lips, and a high nose. Because they were sitting side by side, she could only see his superior golden left profile.
Noticing her gaze, the man raised an eyebrow and looked over as well. Now Zhou Jinqin saw the scenery on the other side of the nose bridge mountain, which turned out to be covered in gold.
The other person has captivating eyes that seem to smile even when not smiling, and a mole at the corner of their eye that hints at the tenderness of a philandering bad boy.
But God gave him far more than just his appearance; he was also pampered to the extreme. If Zhou Jinqin had to describe it in words, it would be like the bell ringing when her most hated anatomy class was finally over.
Mr. Qian completely lost face amidst the ridicule from his fellow men. He forced himself to maintain his dignity, saying, "What are you laughing at? What's it to you?"
Liang Ming leaned back in his seat, casually repeating the other man's words: "Old, in poor health, too shrewd—in our men's eyes, you're the worst..."
He didn't continue his story. "When did you represent me? Or..." The man's voice paused for a few seconds, then he unabashedly surveyed the enormous figure before him, "You're not a man?"
"You!" Mr. Qian was choked and speechless. He couldn't think of any rebuttal for a long time, and finally he found a way to save face by going to the toilet to catch his breath.
"That's pretty extreme," Xiang Ziqing, who overheard the whole thing and knew the full story, commented honestly.
She asked excitedly, "Someone's helping you punish that idiot?"
Zhou Jinqin glanced at the man next door and murmured, "A righteous man."
"Such an upright image," Liang Minghe chuckled softly, glancing at the girl's gradually flushing face.
Zhou Jinqin didn't dare look at the other person, and instead focused on complaining to her best friend on the other end of the phone: "I'll find an excuse to leave later. If I had known it would be like this today, I would have preferred to go with you to get your nails done."
"It's not too late to go later." Xiang Ziqing suggested to her, "Here's what we'll do, I'll call you when that guy comes back, and you can just say the house is on fire and you can slip away."
“Okay.” Zhou Jinqin nodded, then looked up at the Basque cake on the table, which hadn’t been touched much, and said regretfully, “I haven’t even eaten my cake yet. Could you keep an eye on it for me and make sure the waiter doesn’t take it away? I’ll continue eating when he comes back.”
“Okay, I’ll keep an eye on him.” Xiang Ziqing was watching from a corner of the store. She caught a glimpse of Qian coming out of the restroom and immediately reported the situation, “That guy’s here, get ready to put on a show.”
Before the male guest could even sit down properly after composing himself, Zhou Jinqin suddenly stood up, holding the phone and looking anxious: "What? The house is on fire? I'm coming right back!"
She picked up her bag and said goodbye, "I'm sorry, Mr. Qian, I have an urgent matter at home and I have to go now."
Zhou Jinqin is not good at lying. Her only acting skills are learned from the nurses in the hospital, which are somewhat exaggerated. She feels even more guilty when she meets the undisguised mocking look of the man at the next table. She is distracted and trips over her chair. When she leaves, she is somewhat embarrassed and flees in a panic.
Liang Minghe's gaze lingered in the direction the woman had disappeared, but he spoke to the man who had already put the wig back in its place: "You want to cheat."
It is not a question.
Mr. Qian's eyes bulged, and his anger, which had just subsided, flared up again: "What nonsense are you talking about? I paid for it myself, so why can't I eat it? Aren't you being a bit too nosy?"
Liang Minghe's gaze fell on the man's protruding belly, and he said lightly, "I heard you offer to split the bill. Do you have amnesia?"
"You... don't let me see you again." Cowards always bully the weak and fear the strong. They are not ruthless but talkative, and they are especially good at using Sun Tzu's Art of War. Running away is always their final choice.
Only after confirming that her blind date had completely left did Zhou Jinqin re-enter the coffee shop called mini-zoo.
She had just picked up the undamaged cake when she saw the handsome guy next to her get up to leave. Zhou Jinqin quickly stopped him, saying, "Um... thank you for what you just said."
"What are you thanking me for?" Liang Minghe raised an eyebrow at her. "For not exposing your lie about reporting a fake fire?"
When they got closer, Zhou Jinqin realized how tall he was; at 1.65 meters tall, she barely reached his chin.
Zhou Jinqin felt a little embarrassed by his teasing. She explained softly, "That was just a last resort." Then she said to the man in front of her very seriously, "Anyway, thank you for speaking up for me just now."
"Hmm." Liang Minghe nodded at her, the string of black cat earrings on his left ear cartilage shimmering subtly in the natural light from different angles. "I have something to do, I'll be going now."
After thanking her, Zhou Jinqin took the cake and sat down at Xiang Ziqing's table.
The other party praised her for growing up and learning to fight back, looking like a proud mother.
Zhou Jinqin listened absentmindedly and ate the cake without tasting it.
Her ankle was a little sore; she had twisted it while fleeing. Now that her adrenaline had subsided, the pain was becoming more pronounced.
She was thinking of stopping at the pharmacy to buy some medicine on her way back, and just as this thought crossed her mind, a clerk placed a yellow paper bag with the words "Meituan Medicine Purchase" printed on it in front of her.
The waiter explained that the boy sitting next to her had ordered it for her, and an ice cup from the store was also delivered with it.
Zhou Jinqin took the package blankly. It contained only common medicines for sprains and bruises. She looked up and asked the waiter, "Does he come here often?"
The waiter shook his head: "It's hard to say, but he's a friend of our boss and comes to patronize the restaurant from time to time."
At this moment, other customers waved to her, so Zhou Jinqin didn't ask any more questions. She nodded and thanked them, "Okay, thank you. You go ahead and do your work. I won't bother you any longer."
As soon as the waiter left, Xiang Ziqing immediately approached and inquired, "She was talking about that handsome guy who spoke up for you just now, right? Does he like you? I didn't even notice you twisted your ankle."
Zhou Jinqin pushed her away helplessly: "You're overthinking it. She's just a nice person."
Xiang Ziqing smiled and said, "He's such a nice person, which proves he's someone you can rely on. Anyway, with your parents pressuring you like this, you'll have to find someone to marry sooner or later, so why not just go for him?"
"It's not that easy." The moment the ice cup touched her ankle, Zhou Jinqin felt the pain subside a little. She said calmly, "Leaving aside my feelings, what about him? He doesn't like me."
"So what?" Xiang Ziqing was very open-minded. "You know, it's a flaw if an ugly and poor person likes you, but if the other person is a rich and handsome guy, then not loving you becomes a virtue."
Zhou Jinqin looked up at her: "You don't even know him, how can you be sure he's rich?"
After all, being tall and handsome is an undeniable and undeniable factor.
Xiang Ziqing gestured for her to look at the rather large coffee shop: "Didn't you hear the waiter say that the handsome guy is friends with the owner of this shop?"
"so what?"
"Do you know what people call the owners of such large, self-operated coffee shops in prime locations in Shanghai these days?"
Zhou Jinqin thought for a moment and said, "A self-employed individual?"
“No, no, no.” Xiang Ziqing shook her index finger. “This is called, manager.”
"As we all know, the owners are all rich and leisurely second-generation people. Birds of a feather flock together, and the friends of the second generation are naturally also bound to the fate of the second generation."
With a heavy heart, Xiang Ziqing took out the two hundred-yuan bills she had hidden behind her transparent phone case and handed them to Zhou Jinqin, saying generously, "Take these to repay her and try to start a beautiful sequel to your love story."
Xiang Ziqing's money wasn't supposed to be an emergency fund. She used to always complain about her small eyes and thought about getting her eyes widened, but she wasn't willing to actually have surgery. So she started practicing some kind of unorthodox cultivation. She replaced her fancy phone case with a transparent one that she saw every day, saying that this was called "being greedy for money."
Now that the evil cultivation has failed, the money has ultimately gone where it was meant to be.
Zhou Jinqin didn't agree with her best friend's inappropriate thoughts, but she did intend to repay her friend, so she accepted the two hundred-yuan bills. Although the takeout order didn't show the price, she had checked the medicine in the takeout bag and it wouldn't cost more than two hundred yuan.
She found the female employee with the nameplate that read "Little White Iced Tea" and handed her the money, saying, "Could you please transfer this money to that gentleman's membership card?"
Xiao Bai shook his head awkwardly: "He gets everything for free at the store."
Xiang Ziqing jumped in: "Then please give the money to your boss and ask him to pass it on to that kind person."
She grabbed the guestbook next to her and quickly wrote down an eleven-digit number: "If you don't have enough money, you can contact this number and we'll try to make up the difference."
Xiao Bai stood at attention and saluted: "It is our lifelong pursuit to ensure that good people are rewarded. We guarantee to complete the mission!"
Zhou Jinqin: "..."
A note from the author:
----------------------
Happy holidays everyone! As usual, here are three chapters! [Let me see!]
Looks like someone I know is around. [doge emoji]
============
I plan to release "Don't List Your Cat on Xianyu" in March. Please add it to your favorites!
The text is as follows:
1.
Hang Sheng has a crazy black cat that usually climbs onto the roof every three days and removes tiles every two days. Hang Sheng, who is already unemployed, is often so angry that he vomits blood.
After a bottle of perfume worth a thousand yuan was broken, Hang Sheng, enraged by the failure of his mass recruitment efforts, put the cat up for sale on a second-hand platform for one cent, determined to expose the cat's heinous crime to the world.
Less than a minute after the link was posted, Hang Sheng encountered a strange person with an ugly cat avatar who bought it: "I've paid, waiting for you to ship."
Although the cat was mischievous, it was a real treasure. Hang Sheng was so frightened that he immediately said he would not sell it and quickly refunded the money and removed the link.
A few days later, the cat committed the same crime again. Enraged, Hang Sheng once again put the cat up for public display. To prevent a repeat of the previous incident, she specifically set the price at 9.99 million. However, the strange person appeared again: "[I have paid, awaiting your shipment.]"
Hang Sheng, who was unemployed at home, was extremely envious of the money: "Boss, don't buy a cat, buy me to go back to work. I'm a top-notch ox or horse, cheap, and incredibly hardworking."
The eccentric man: "I can consider it. Let's discuss it over the phone."
2.
Hang Sheng found a part-time job as a temporary caretaker for more than fifty cats, earning a daily wage of one thousand yuan.
Hang Sheng initially thought it was an unscrupulous cattery, but upon arrival, she realized she was completely wrong. The owner was clearly a kind-hearted and handsome man, after all, no one else would spoil an ugly cat like that.
As her half-month part-time job was coming to an end, Hang Sheng couldn't help but feel a little lost. She thought she would probably never find such a wonderful job again, with high pay, low workload, an attractive but not stupid boss, and ugly but not talkative colleagues.
She looked at her tall, handsome temporary boss, shook her head, and sighed, "I wish I could stay with you forever."
Fang Huaijun stared at her face, considered it carefully for a moment, and then nodded: "Okay."
"Can what?" Hang Sheng looked at him blankly.
"Didn't you want to be with me?" Fang Huaijun asked seriously. "Okay."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com