Chapter Fifteen
Teng Zhi raised an eyebrow: "You're calculating so meticulously? If you drive me this way, will you charge me too?"
"If you're going to give it to me, I'll definitely accept it." Ye Yin narrowed his eyes slightly and pointed his thumb towards the service area. "It's almost noon, how about you treat me to lunch?"
Teng Zhi smiled, pursing her lips: "Okay."
The fast food restaurant in the service area had very few dishes to choose from, but luckily they had half a box of roast goose thigh left over from last night. We also ordered a few steamed dishes and two bowls of stew, which filled up half of the small table.
"Make do with this meal for now. I'll treat you to beef hot pot when we get to the city tonight." Teng Zhi handed Ye Yin disposable chopsticks with the splinters removed.
"Okay." Ye Yin took the chopsticks. "Oh, have you called your brother?"
Tengzhi's mother passed away early, and her father also left when she was in her first year of high school, leaving the two siblings to depend on each other. Her brother was five years older than Tengzhi. That year, the young man in his early twenties graduated from junior college and took over the family's beef hot pot restaurant.
They finally made it through the hardships and difficulties. Now, the Teng family's beef hot pot restaurant is quite well-known. They are not rich, but they are well-off and have no worries about food and clothing.
Ye Yin was quite excited when Teng Zhi told him about it, saying it was a good coincidence. He had asked a friend to take him to Teng's beef shop several times before, and it was known for its delicious food at reasonable prices, making it extremely cost-effective.
The decision to return to her hometown, like her affair with Ye Yin, was a spur-of-the-moment thing for Teng Zhi last night.
In the morning, she was so busy gathering evidence in the car that she quickly called Teng Jie after Ye Yin reminded her.
"Sis, didn't you see your sister-in-law's WeChat Moments? We went to Nan'ao Island yesterday! Jinjin kept saying she wanted to go to the beach, saying that summer vacation is almost over and she hasn't gone swimming in the sea yet."
Teng Jie on the other end of the phone sounded surprised. "Sis, why did you suddenly come back? Did you come back with Tiancheng?"
Teng Zhi paused for a moment before saying, "No, I came with a friend this time. He said he wanted to visit Shuishan."
Ye Yin hadn't touched his chopsticks until he heard this, then he looked up and glanced at her.
Teng Zhi whispered, "Brother, although the chances are slim, if Tiancheng contacts you, don't tell him I came back."
Teng Jie paused for a few seconds, as if sensing something, and asked in a low voice, "Sis, is something wrong? Did you have a fight with Tiancheng?"
"No... You, your sister-in-law, and Jinjin have fun first, we'll talk about it later."
Tengzhi knew how busy her brother and sister-in-law were during every holiday, and that they could only get two days off with difficulty. She didn't want to spoil their holiday mood.
Teng Jie didn't press his sister about why she suddenly came home: "...We'll be back tomorrow at noon. When are you and your friends leaving?"
"Well, my friend is only free on weekends, so he's tentatively scheduled to go back to Guangzhou on Sunday afternoon."
“Okay, then you bring your friends to have some fun first, and come to the store for lunch tomorrow.” Teng Jie added, “We can talk about anything else when we meet.”
A wave of bittersweetness suddenly welled up in Tengzhi's nose, but she gritted her teeth and held it in: "Okay, brother, you don't need to worry."
"……good."
After she hung up the phone, Ye Yin asked, "What's wrong? Did your brother go out?"
Teng Zhi nodded, her voice a little muffled: "He took my sister-in-law and niece out to play, they won't be back until noon tomorrow."
"I see—" Ye Yin shoveled a couple of mouthfuls of rice into his mouth, his cheeks full, and asked hastily, "So, are we still going back to Shuishan as planned?"
Teng Zhi asked, puzzled, "Huh? If we don't go to Shuishan, where can we go?"
Ye Yin swallowed his food and grinned, "The world is vast, you can go wherever you want."
He tapped his phone twice and pushed it in front of Tengzhi: "Here, take a look, is there anywhere around here that you'd like to go?"
The phone opened Baidu Maps, locating them on a highway, a gray-white land area connected to a light blue ocean blockchain next to it.
—This highway is built along the coast, and you can even smell the ocean in some sections.
Teng Zhi ate her food in small bites, swiping her phone to indicate their direction of travel. Suddenly, she stopped, zoomed in on the map, and asked Ye Yin, "Didn't you say you often go to this area to collect seafood?"
Ye Yin looked over and saw that Teng Zhi was pointing to Shenquan Port. He had mentioned this to her when they were chatting in the car yesterday.
Back in the 1990s, express delivery and logistics weren't as developed as they are now. You had to go to see and receive your goods yourself. On weekends or holidays, the Ye siblings would follow their father's car, traveling between the fishing villages in that area. While their father was busy with other work, the two siblings would secretly run off to swim and catch crabs.
After all, Guangzhou is not located by the sea, so it's understandable that twelve or thirteen-year-old children would get excited when they see beaches and saltwater seas.
His family's situation was somewhat similar to Teng Zhi's, but he was a little luckier.
Later, his father was accidentally disabled and lost half a leg. The pillar of the family collapsed. His mother had always been in charge of the home, and Ye Yin was still a minor at the time. The burden of supplying goods for the store fell on his older sister, Ye Zi, who was two years older than him.
A young woman who had just come of age was going to do business with people in a fishing village. She was facing a group of rough and thuggish men who would either look down on her or take advantage of her. Ye Yin was worried about his older sister and tried to accompany her on long trips until he was able to handle things on his own. Then he let his older sister take charge of the shop and he would do the heavy lifting.
This routine has continued for many years. In recent years, with the development of express delivery and logistics, and the port also having a well-established cold chain transportation system, Ye Yin still prefers to personally go to the fishing village to select goods.
"Have you been here before?" Ye Yin pushed the braised beef brisket with radish in front of Teng Zhi. "Don't just eat rice, eat some vegetables too."
It was supposed to be braised beef brisket with radish, but the stainless steel plate was mostly filled with white radish, and the beef brisket was thin and broken up. Fortunately, the radish was braised to perfection and was very flavorful. Tengzhi picked up a piece, blew on it, and shook his head, saying, "Never been there."
"Oh, you're in luck. The fishing ban just ended, and it's been incredibly lively lately." Ye Yin raised his chin, looking like a local tyrant. "The fish market is open around four or five in the morning. If you're available then, I can take you there for a stroll."
Teng Zhi was particularly interested and nodded vigorously: "I can!"
"You can do it? Sister, you can't keep your eyes open until one or two o'clock." Ye Yin laughed mischievously.
“That’s because you’ve used up too much energy,” Teng Zhi said, glancing at him.
Ye Yin raised an eyebrow: "How do you know that I won't expend too much energy tonight?"
The man had long legs, and their knees were very close together under the table. Tengzhi, her face burning, lightly bumped his leg, telling him to stop joking and hurry up and eat so they could continue on their way.
The drive from the service area to Shenquan Port only takes an hour and a half. As the car re-entered the highway, Ye Yin casually lowered the sun visor on the passenger side and said smugly, "I can drive this stretch of road with my eyes closed."
"You're exaggerating... But do you have any hotel or inn recommendations? I'll find one and book it first."
"No need, I have a friend who owns a hotel in the county, I can just ask him for the rooms."
After saying that, Ye Yin made a phone call.
The car's Bluetooth was playing a conversation on speakerphone. The person on the other end of the phone was a man, whom Ye Yin called the Eastern Dragon King, and the man called Ye the Tiger.
"Eastern Dragon King" seemed to have just woken up. He and Ye Yin exchanged a few insults and barbs, their back-and-forth banter full of sarcasm and sneers, but it was clear that the two had a good relationship.
Ye Yin asked the other party for a room: "Let's get a suite, the one on the top floor with a sea view."
Wang Longdong yawned, his voice lazy: "You're all alone, why do you need such a big room?"
Ye Yin said, "I brought a friend with me."
"Hmm?" The person on the other end perked up. "Your girlfriend?"
Ye Yin and Teng Zhi were both taken aback and looked at each other simultaneously.
Tengzhi was the first to shake her head in denial.
Ye Yin frowned slightly, but quickly regained his nonchalant demeanor. He looked straight ahead and chuckled, "No, it's just a friend who works in the food industry. He heard that the fishing ban is over and said he wanted to go to the fish market."
A feeling of unease that had been brewing since last night and persisted until this morning resurfaced in Ye Yin's mind.
This unpleasant feeling shouldn't have appeared, but it did.
Testing, avoiding, changing the subject...
Both being adults in their early thirties, Ye Yin knew that Teng Zhi had no intention of letting this impromptu interlude continue.
Because the two of them kept rambling on about other things and never talked about their relationship, they could only be vaguely described as "friends."
Not to mention how they will develop in the future.
Teng Zhi envisions a future without Li Tiancheng.
But Ye Yin might not be among the customers sitting in that small restaurant.
But Ye Yin also asked himself, would Teng Zhi be in his future?
He frowned and thought for a long time, and even as the car was about to exit the highway, he still couldn't give a definite answer.
*
The Cayenne, covered in yellow dust on the county road, stopped in front of the Fulong Hotel. Ye Yin carried their luggage and went into the hotel first, with Teng Zhi following behind with her backpack.
She could tell that Ye Yin was in a bad mood. During the drive, the two of them stopped talking. Ye Yin drove quietly, and she quietly did her own thing. The only sound in the car was Cantonese songs playing over and over again.
Tengzhi, unaware of the reason, did not ask further.
Wang Longdong had other things to do in the afternoon, so he instructed the front desk to arrange a room for Ye Yin. The two of them didn't even need to hand over their ID cards before receiving their room keys.
Fulong is the largest and most well-equipped hotel in the county, with a swimming pool and gym. The suites are on the top floor, the twelfth floor, and the windows offer a small view of the sea.
As soon as Ye Yin entered the room, he sat on the sofa and made a phone call to Wang Longdong. Teng Zhi silently opened her carry-on suitcase, took out her toiletries bag and went into the bathroom, then hung the clothes in the suitcase into the wardrobe.
Finally, she took the kettle to fill it with water, intending to boil a pot of water to rinse the hotel cups.
While waiting for the water to boil, Teng Zhi leaned against the bar counter, quietly watching Ye Yin make a phone call.
He was hunched over, elbows resting on his knees, holding a phone in one hand and playing with a lighter in the other. He looked relaxed, but his shoulder muscles were bulging.
He was making jokes and banter, but there was no smile on his face.
Occasionally he would look up, meet her gaze, and then quickly look away.
When the kettle switch clicked, Ye Yin suddenly got up and went into the bedroom, leaving Teng Zhi alone in the living room.
Teng Zhi picked at her fingers and pursed her lips.
After a while, she took the kettle back into the bathroom and poured boiling water over the two white porcelain teacups and two toothbrush glasses.
The steam rose, covering my eyes and eyelids, making them feel slightly damp.
After carefully washing the cups, Tengzhi boiled another kettle of water and put tea bags in each of the porcelain cups.
There was no more talking in the bedroom, so she walked to the door and peeked inside.
Ye Yin was looking at his phone on a chaise lounge by the window, leaning against a cushion with his feet on the bench and his slippers lying casually on the carpet beside him.
Teng Zhi walked over and asked, "Are you done making the call? I'm boiling water to make tea."
Ye Yin said in a low voice, "Yes, Wang Longdong said he's treating me to dinner tonight. Why don't you come along?"
Tengzhi picked at her fingers again: "Me? I think I'll pass."
Ye Yin knew what she was worried about: "It's okay, he's not a gossipy person."
After a few seconds, his mood worsened, and he added sullenly, "Fine, whatever you want. If you don't want to go, then don't go."
"It's not that I don't like it, it's just..."
Teng Zhi was conflicted.
Her current relationship with Ye Yin seems relaxed and free, but beneath the surface, their relationship is actually quite complicated and immoral.
She didn't want too many people to know.
With a soft sigh, Tengzhi sat cross-legged on the carpet next to the chaise lounge.
She straightened the two slippers that resembled small boats and whispered, "Ye Yin, I hope this is just a 'little secret' between us..."
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