26 Chapter Twenty-Five
"Youthful arrogance is all in the wine."
As the typhoon approached, the gale-force winds, like a beast breaking free of its cage, rampaged through the streets. Trees on both sides of the road were torn apart by invisible claws, their leaves swirling in the air. Trash cans flew close to the ground, and pedestrians' umbrellas were blown inside out, the fabric even running away, leaving only the bare ribs.
Five minutes later, in the corridor of the rooftop bar of a five-star hotel, someone carrying a bare umbrella rib rushed into the corner of the bar, spraying bullets like Japanese soldiers entering a village. As soon as he reached them, the two exchanged a glance and clapped at him with identical expressions of pity for a mentally challenged child.
Gao Dianzhi plopped down smugly, then the next second, he couldn't believe his eyes: "Who is this?"
"Your bridge, haven't we met before?" Yu Jinyang said with a teasing smile, casually tossing over the menu he had brought up from downstairs. "She just ordered two dishes, you order two more."
"No, I know Qiao. I'm talking to you, who are you? What's with that hairstyle?" Gao Dian grabbed the menu and disdainfully moved to sit opposite Li Yingqiao. "Linda's not here? Didn't I tell you—if Linda's not here, you should leave."
Yu Jinyang was half-leaning on the back of the sofa, his back to the two of them. His long legs were casually propped up on the ground, making him noticeably taller than the two of them. He hadn't formally taken his seat because he was waiting for Gao Dian to finish ordering and go downstairs to tell the head chef about dietary restrictions.
"You went with him to buy a hat even though he's so ugly?" Gao Dian looked up from the menu incredulously at Li Yingqiao, who was already seated across from him, and said, "You've finally grown up and become more worldly-wise, huh? During the high school entrance exam, his face was swollen like a pig's head, and neither you nor Zheng Miaojia wanted to walk with him."
Yu Jinyang was too lazy to reply. He grabbed the hat he had just bought and put it on his forehead. He silently lowered his head to reply to someone's message. Sun Taihe asked him if he wanted to go to the badminton hall to play badminton that night.
“Anyway, I’m just killing time,” Li Yingqiao leaned back on the sofa, took a sip of her drink, slowly swirled the ice in her glass, and glanced at Yu Jinyang sitting next to her. “It’s alright, not that bad, just a bit messy. Like a little curly-haired guy.”
"That's because you two haven't seen each other for too long. You'll understand once you compare," Gao Dian said, flipping through the menu with a click of his tongue. "A few years ago, he was devastatingly handsome. But his life has been quite something since he went to university—"
Yu Jinyang finally couldn't help but turn around and give him a cold glance, "Are you going to order or not? People downstairs are waiting."
Li Yingqiao couldn't help but ask curiously, "Really?"
"That was quite a spectacle. There was even a woman who jumped right off the old green train for him—" Gao Dian said, beaming with excitement.
They're getting more and more out of control.
Yu Jinyang was speechless. He tilted his head back, turned to the side, and snatched the menu back from his hand. "Don't order."
"Is he alright?" Li Yingqiao asked, looking bewildered.
“It’s alright,” Yu Jinyang said, flipping through the menu. “It’s not what you think. Just listen to half of what Gao Dian says.”
Gao Dian realized he had spoken too quickly; Yu Jinyang had warned him many times not to bring that up. So he looked around and changed the subject, saying, "I'm not eating anymore, how about I have some wine?"
The top floor is a private bar owned by Yu Renjie, which is basically not open to the public. Now he himself doesn't come here much anymore. Most of the time, it's just a few young guys like Yu Jinyang and Gao Dian who occasionally come here to drink and chat.
"Who would mix your drinks?" Yu Jinyang said without even lifting his eyelids.
"What's in her cup?" Gao Dian didn't believe it.
"Rio, bought downstairs."
Gao Dian: "What about the glass bottles outside?"
Yu Jinyang: "I ate it."
"..."
Li Yingqiao then smiled and pointed to a wall of brightly lit wine cabinets: "Over there, there's a fruit wine that's about to expire."
As Gao Dian stood up, he said, "Meow knows how to mix drinks, let him do it."
Yu Jinyang didn't have time to pay attention to him. He was carefully scanning the menu and asked Li Yingqiao, "...Would you like to order another beer-braised duck?"
"...Do you have foie gras?" Li Yingqiao asked.
Yu Jinyang glanced at her. "So picky about food? No, the Western chef hasn't been working these past two days."
Li Yingqiao's eyes began to scan Yu Jinyang up and down. "Meow, looking at you this way, you do have some looks. Your hairstyle is really ugly, but you look much better with a hat on."
Yu Jinyang slammed the menu on the table without a word, stood up, and strode away to order food downstairs.
Li Yingqiao clicked her tongue, looked away, and said jokingly to Gao Dian, "I can see that Miao has indeed developed the image of a handsome man now that he's grown up."
Gao Dian sipped his fruit wine casually, watching Yu Jinyang's retreating figure, and said leisurely, "Maybe he's just shy. You'll see in a bit; his ears will definitely be red."
"That can't be true," Li Yingqiao said in surprise, turning back to look again. He was already gone, and she only heard the elevator "ding," meaning he had entered. "Could he have never been in a relationship before?"
“I haven’t asked him that,” Gao Dian said after thinking for a moment. “A few years ago, Miao was studying in Chicago, and I didn’t keep in touch with him much. I only found out this year when I came back that he was actually in Fengtan. I thought he was still abroad. But I think he should still be a virgin.”
"Pfft—" Li Yingqiao almost spat it out.
"Really? I've been back for almost two months now. Besides work, Miao either plays ball with me or goes back to the countryside to stay with his great-grandmother. His life is so monotonous. Don't let his good temper fool you; he seems like he can be won over by any girl's persistence. He's actually quite difficult to deal with—"
Gao Dian never held back when he spoke, and Li Yingqiao, not wanting to hear about Yu Jinyang's 18+ content, quickly changed the subject, saying, "Is he working at Uncle Yu's company now?"
"No, Brother Siyi still holds all the power himself. But the company will eventually be handed over to him. It's just that Fengtan Wood Toys isn't as popular at home and abroad as it was back when we were in school. Back then, Brother Siyi's business was booming. Now, it probably doesn't even earn as much as the hotel's dividends every year. So last year, he opened his own design studio to design toys. It's right next to my place."
"Didn't he study business administration?"
"He went to Chicago to study design. He initially studied mechanical watch design. Didn't he tell you that?"
Li Yingqiao shook his head. The sound of the hairdryers whirring in the barbershop filled the air, and the two barely exchanged a few words. By the time they left the barbershop, they felt like they'd been blown away by a typhoon. When they went to buy him a hat, they didn't chat much either, focusing instead on choosing a hat for him. The shop assistant even gave them two gua sha boards, which Li Yingqiao was still carrying in his pocket.
Gao Dian sighed: "Did you know that Brother Siyi almost went bankrupt one year?"
Li Yingqiao thought for a moment, "Was it during the senior year of high school? Uncle Yu and Aunt Tang were going through a divorce, and Yu Jinyang's grades even dropped."
“It wasn’t that time. That time, it was Brother Siyi’s own doing. I don’t know the specifics, and he didn’t tell me in detail. It was another time later,” Gao Dian put down his wine glass. “It was when Miao was in Chicago. That time, he almost went bankrupt. All of Brother Siyi’s accounts were frozen. Miao didn’t receive living expenses for about a year. He worked part-time and studied for a year. At that time, he was hanging out with an underground street dance group called SWG in Chicago. During the day, he did street performances under the Michigan Avenue Bridge to earn some tips. At first, it was pretty normal, but at night, he was tricked into going to a club to dance striptease for rich women.”
“Wow, him…” Li Yingqiao’s expression was meaningful.
"Miao refused, so he didn't get the money and almost offended someone. At that time, he really wanted to go home, but then the pandemic hit."
"...So how did Uncle Yu resolve the crisis later?"
“Brother Siyi is upright and has nothing to hide. He’s an honest businessman. You should pretend you don’t know anything about this. Brother Siyi has always thought it was your uncle who was behind it.” Gao Dian remembered, “Oh right, Miao has a little sister. She’s in Chicago, and she was born during the two years of the pandemic. She’s three or four years old now, and her name is Ice Cream Cone. She’s incredibly cute. So Brother Siyi bought a piece of land near Little Art City and wanted to develop a children’s playground for Ice Cream Cone. Miao found an architectural design team and plans to design it himself.”
Li Yingqiao felt ashamed for having felt sorry for Yu Jinyang for a second just now. Even a starved camel is bigger than a horse. Yu Renjie's family is so big and powerful that even if a piece of flesh fell out of their belly, they wouldn't starve.
***
When Yu Jinyang returned, Li Yingqiao was talking to Gao Dian about some nonsensical things.
"People should learn to avoid prophecies and not say just anything. For example, do you know why incense is always offered in three sticks? It's actually a math problem. Another example is the Taoist saying, 'One begets two, two begets three, three begets all things.' There's also the Christian concept of the Trinity, and in ancient Greece, there was a school of thought that considered three to be a perfect number. If you delve deeper, you'll find that many things in theological fields are related to three, six, and nine. That's also a math problem—"
"You understand now, this world is very strange," Li Yingqiao concluded.
Gao Dian, of course, didn't understand. He had the same expression as Zhao Benshan scratching his head. "Why are you suddenly researching these things? I remember after the college entrance exam, you and Miao were arguing about these things."
Li Yingqiao glanced at Yu Jinyang, who had just sat down next to her. He had brought back a plate of peanuts. She picked one up and popped it into her mouth: "Oh, did you? I forgot."
“Yeah, isn’t Brother Siyi superstitious about these things? He takes the cat to Mount Wutai to pray before every major exam. You think it’s a waste of time, that you should use that time to do more practice problems. You two even had a fight about it,” Gao Dian said.
Yu Jinyang glanced at him sideways and said expressionlessly, "You're drunk. I've never argued with her over something so trivial. Why don't you get up and walk a few steps now? Can't you walk in a straight line?"
Gao Dian slapped his forehead and remembered, "Absolutely! And I remember when Miao said he wanted to change his application to R University in Beijing, you refused. You called him a tagalong! He insisted on sticking to you, and you two had a huge fight. Miao was so angry that we canceled our National Day trip. Anyway, you two were always arguing during your senior year of high school, like two firecrackers. Don't pretend you've forgotten, or I'll call Miao Jia right now, and she'll definitely remember."
“…Young and impetuous, young and impetuous.” Li Yingqiao smiled, touched Yu Jinyang’s water glass with her wine glass, and without waiting for him to drink or not, she drank it all in one gulp. “It’s all in the wine.”
For some reason, after so many years, Yu Jinyang felt that Li Yingqiao had become much more "kind".
Although this word doesn't match her age, or rather, it's much gentler. In the past, she had nothing to do with gentleness.
Based on Yu Jinyang's understanding of her since childhood, although Li Yingqiao seemed very attached to Li Shuli, she actually harbored a restless little boat in her heart, yearning for distant places. Moreover, she was impulsive and reckless, not even allowing anyone to prepare enough provisions for her. She took a few Wangzai steamed buns and a tattered oar, and set off on a sunny morning—she wouldn't turn back before hitting an glacier, and even if she did, she would try to see if she could break through it.
Even if she suffers hardships and tribulations outside, she will never mention it when she comes back. Instead, she will talk endlessly about the adventures in her life. She will talk to you about the pink sand beaches she has seen, the strange and beautiful clouds and sunsets, or the moonlight in the depths of the Tonga Trench. She will never tell you that she was hit by a glacier, that her small boat sank to the bottom of the sea, that her oars were already broken into pieces, and that she could not find her way home.
She would only come back triumphantly and tell him, "Yu Miaomiao, the outside world is truly wonderful!"
After finishing her drink, Li Yingqiao was thinking about how to tell them that she had actually started working in Fengtan after returning from her trip back home.
She remembered everything, and she also remembered that after receiving the admission notice, they all made copies and burned them for Tan Xiujun. Yu Jinyang was still because of what Li Yingqiao said at the time—"Stop making trouble, just stay in Shanghai and enjoy everything your family has given you."
There was also an element of defiance involved, so he said he would only return to Fengtan after he had made a name for himself.
However, over the years, Li Yingqiao had felt the same way. She had always wanted to return because the outside world wasn't exciting at all. Fengtan was so much better; she had Shuli and so many of her old friends there. But the thought of Yu Jinyang owning a house in Shanghai, and with his abilities and looks, probably doing very well—it's easy for men, especially with someone like him starting from such a high point—made her unable to swallow her pride. She was determined to buy a house in Beijing before returning.
I just didn't expect him to come back first.
With such a good start, why would he come back?
Li Yingqiao turned her head to look at Yu Jinyang and found that he was also looking at her from the side, seemingly thinking about the bold words he had uttered in his childhood. His eyes seemed to be asking her, "Why did you come back?"
The two stared at each other blankly, as if they were competing or pondering how to fabricate a story that would convince the other that they had truly made a name for themselves.
As they thought about it, they realized they knew each other too well. As soon as their eyes met, they knew what mischief the other was up to.
The air froze for half a second, and the two of them almost simultaneously lowered their heads and burst out laughing.
[Author's Note]
See you Friday and Saturday!!
Two hundred red envelopes~
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