27 Chapter Twenty-Six
"You didn't want it yourself."
"What? You're going to work at the Little Art City?"
Gao Dian shouted excitedly, his chopsticks freezing in mid-air. He looked up at Li Yingqiao in disbelief, then glanced at Yu Jinyang unconsciously. The latter didn't react much, leaning back on the sofa and slowly picking up a piece of fish from his bowl, his head slightly tilted, as if listening, yet also as if not.
"Let me put this out in the open: I absolutely welcome you back." Gao Dian, looking overwhelmed with information, put down his chopsticks and said, "But why? If you weren't happy at your previous company, just quit. With your abilities, you can find a job in Beijing. Why come back to Fengtan to work?"
Li Yingqiao was gnawing on a duck foot when she heard this. "Surprised? Didn't Meow also give up the outside world and come back?"
“That’s different. Meow will be back sooner or later. Brother Siyi has to come back to take over such a big business. Besides, Meow is here because—”
"Did Secretary Li call you?" Yu Jinyang interrupted, putting down his chopsticks and turning to ask her. He then casually pulled out a tissue and handed it to Gao Dian, signaling him to shut up for a moment.
Gao Dian didn't react immediately: "Who's Secretary Li?"
“Li Boqing,” Li Yingqiao said, raising her eyes, “the one who went to the Guangdong Toy Fair all by himself back then and secured the first wooden toy order for Fengtan. He even sent us a congratulatory message after the college entrance exam results were released.”
Li Boqing is quite a legendary figure. Back then, he used the first wooden toy made by an old man in the town as a trial run, which unexpectedly opened up the Fengtan wooden toy market in Guangdong. So he returned and recruited people and raised funds to set up a factory. Indeed, many people in the town became rich as a result, and Yu Renjie was one of them.
In an era when even households with 10,000 yuan were rare, under Li Boqing's leadership, the entire town achieved sales of nearly one million yuan a year. With the advent of e-commerce in the internet age, orders were even exported overseas.
Li Boqing believes he was born with a mission. He has a deep affection for this land and wants to not only make money for himself but also help everyone else make money.
Back then, anyone in the town who knew a little woodworking skills owned several wooden toy factories. But things are different now. The Fengtan wooden toy industry has become a dead but not dead industry, and it is already a sunset industry.
Even Yu Renjie, whose annual income was less than the dividends from a single hotel, still had to give Li Boqing considerable respect, not only to Yu Renjie but also to the leaders of the Fengtan government.
When their college entrance exam results were announced, Li Boqing was stunned. Although they had all moved to Xiaohuacheng, Li Boqing still considered them his juniors, since the town had never produced so many students from prestigious universities.
In 2016, four of them emerged in one go. Those kids that year really made Li Boqing proud and gave him a lot of confidence, so he paid special attention to the movements of Li Yingqiao and the others.
The year the pandemic broke out, he had people call each of them to inquire about their development in other places and whether they wanted to consider returning to their hometowns if things weren't going well.
Li Boqing offered very generous terms back then, but now that the economy is down, the terms are naturally not as good as before. However, Li Yingqiao has decided to come back, and he still sincerely says that he will welcome him back and will do his best to protect him.
Li Boqing truly loves this land deeply, but his style is old-fashioned; he often expresses his love for his hometown by writing poems on his WeChat Moments.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Gao Dian also remembered, “He often posts poems on his WeChat Moments, and Miao likes every single one of them.”
Li Yingqiao, with a duck's foot in her mouth, glanced at Yu Jinyang in surprise, "I didn't realize you were licking it like that, meow."
Yu Jinyang ignored him, picked up a piece of fish, lowered his head and pressed it against the table to spit out fish bones, and after a long while he finally spoke: "He asked you to work at Xiaohua City? What for? As a scenic area manager?"
Li Yingqiao got back to the point: "Pretty much. He said I could do whatever I wanted. It's Xiaohuacheng, after all, I know it best."
Yu Jinyang chuckled: "You moved away when you were in elementary school. Xiaohua City has been renovated several times over. Are you sure you still know it well? When are you starting work?"
"Next week, after the current operations manager leaves, I'll go check in." Li Yingqiao countered, "When did your studio open?"
“Last year, I think,” he leaned back, pulled out a tissue to wipe his hands, and reached for his phone. “WeChat, I’ll scan your QR code.”
"Oh, oh," Li Yingqiao paused for a moment, holding her chopsticks, then reached for her phone with her other hand, muttering, "How can we not have WeChat?"
He finished smirking, then gave a sarcastic smirk, his tone unusually mocking: "I'm asking you, why?"
Gao Dian also picked it up and scanned it, squinting as he said, "Damn, a pure-hearted dung beetle doing the cha-cha? No way, idol, this isn't your work WeChat, is it?"
Li Yingqiao accepted their friend request: "Of course not, I have other work arrangements. This is my private WeChat."
Yu Jinyang looked at the pop-up chat box, suddenly remembered something, turned to her and asked, "Did you add me before?"
"No, I don't think so," Li Yingqiao also forgot, "maybe I did search for your QQ number for a while, but you didn't accept it back then."
Yu Jinyang tossed his phone onto the table, turned his head, and stared at her speechlessly for two seconds. Seeing Li Yingqiao looking at him innocently, he couldn't help but laugh first: "You didn't save it in your contacts, and the address is still in Andorra—"
Li Yingqiao had almost finished eating. She put down her chopsticks and looked at him with a cold gaze, saying, "Fine, it's not your fault, it's mine."
"How could I dare?" He lowered his head to send a friend request and chuckled.
When Li Yingqiao returned this time, she realized that Yu Jinyang had grown taller and his facial features were more symmetrical and superior. She used to think that his eyes were too big—in fact, they were not standard phoenix eyes, which seemed to take up too much space on his face when he was a child.
Now, the proportions are quite good, with the outer corners of the eyes slightly upturned, but not the narrow and long type. When they were younger, they looked more delicate. Now that they have shed their childishness, the lines and contours of their faces are clear and smooth, and the straight and thick sword-like eyebrows make their eyes look more restrained and spirited.
He used to joke that he was a Transformer because many car headlights were modeled after the shape of phoenix eyes. When she and Gao Dian asked him if he was a Ferrari or a Porsche, he said he was a Koenigsegg. Later, Li Yingqiao actually saw a Koenigsegg in Beijing and realized that he was just talking nonsense and that he wasn't actually designed with phoenix eyes.
It must be admitted that the classic handsome face of that cool guy under the baseball cap is indeed attractive at this moment.
The private bar was dimly lit. Yu Jinyang could still sense Li Yingqiao's blatant gaze. He had actually noticed it a long time ago and had initially intended to pretend he hadn't seen it, but she kept staring at him without any intention of looking away. Such a long gaze, if he ignored it, would make him seem guilty. So he turned his head slightly and met her gaze openly. She didn't say anything, just stared at him frankly. The awkwardness they had felt at the beginning when their eyes met and they instinctively wanted to look away was gone.
He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but the way Li Yingqiao looked at him was like she was looking at an old T-shirt that had suddenly been pulled out of the closet during the change of seasons. There was a sense of regret that had been washed by the years, and curiosity about whether he could still wear it.
"Are you full?" he asked.
I'm full.
As soon as he finished speaking, Gao Dian, holding his phone without looking up, said, "Two customers came into the shop. I have to go back and be a scumbag. You two can catch up. By the way, idol, if you really decide to stay, please patronize my business more often. The people living in that scenic area of Xiaohua City are not good people anymore. You will definitely need my help."
After saying that, he ran away in a flash.
Li Yingqiao's perfect and respectable facade, maintained all day, finally crumbled at this moment. She turned around and yelled at his back, "You damned Gao Dian, don't curse me!"
After yelling, he turned his head and caught a glimpse of someone next to him with a slight smile on their lips and a crescent-shaped corner of their eye.
"Yu Miaomiao!"
"Why."
Stop laughing.
"I wasn't laughing." Instead of dodging, he met her resentful gaze with the same directness he had shown her earlier, even defiantly.
He even showed her the back of his head, which he always treasured, and asked, "What's this, Li Yingqiao?"
Li Yingqiao: "...Are you that annoying?"
Yu Jinyang then stopped smiling, and his voice turned cold: "I just can't stand how resigned you are. The nonsense you were talking about with Gao Dian just now made you seem even more resigned than my great-grandmother. The old lady can still have some cyber entertainment from time to time, and she can even play the straight man for someone occasionally."
He suddenly remembered the long chatter his great-grandmother had given him a couple of days ago: "Li Yingqiao, let me test you, what do you usually say to compliment a man's physique these days?"
Li Yingqiao: "..."
Yu Jinyang didn't think there was anything wrong with what he said, but when he saw Li Yingqiao's dumbfounded look, he belatedly realized what he had said. His ears turned bright red instantly, and the redness spread to his neck at a visible speed.
Like prawns thrown into boiling water, they turned bright red instantly.
He quickly coughed, "—No, I didn't mean anything by it."
Li Yingqiao laughed instead, "What do you want to say?"
After she finished laughing, he glanced at her through the glasses under his hat brim, his tone unhurried: "I really didn't mean anything by it, I just wanted to say that the way you scolded Gao Dian just now was just like you."
Li Yingqiao was taken aback, then beckoned to him and said loudly, "Then come closer, if you're itching for a beating, just say so."
He seemed to see right through her, remaining motionless: "Stop acting, the more you act, the less convincing it becomes."
"Really?" Li Yingqiao raised an eyebrow, teasing him. "Yu Miaomiao, according to your plan, do I have to perform a chest-breaking boulder or a brick-splitting act when I make my entrance? Otherwise, I wouldn't be Li Yingqiao, right?"
“Anyway, you’re not,” he teased her.
"Then who are you talking about? What kind of person is Li Yingqiao?"
"That Li Yingqiao probably still hates me."
"nonsense."
"Then you're not that Li Yingqiao."
"Then you're not Yu Jinyang either. After all, Yu Miaomiao once said she would be my dog."
He didn't look at her again, picked up his phone and stood up. His face under the brim of his hat was unreadable. He turned his face slightly away and said in a low voice, "You didn't want it yourself."
“I’m back now.” She didn’t move, but sat there looking at him.
"This offer will expire soon."
[Author's Note]
See you tomorrow.
Thank you all for your birthday wishes. I also wish you all a happy and healthy Dragon Boat Festival.
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