“Where is this?” Hua Jin raised her head and looked at the red lanterns hanging on both sides of the courtyard gate. The inside was oddly quiet, which would have normally meant business wasn’t doing good for normal restaurants.

“It’s a private restaurant. They don’t just accept anyone. The chefs are something else.” Pei Yan stepped through the gate, “Let’s go.”

Hua Jin only leaned on the sides of the gate before hesitantly asking Pei Yan a question: “Mr Pei, you do know I’m really only a ‘village girl’, right?”

“Didn’t you just tell me you wanted to show your appreciation? What, are you already regretting saying that?” Pei Yan almost laughed at Hua Jin’s tone, “Is my ‘kind-heartedness’ not even worth a meal?”

“Forget about treating you to ‘a meal’, even a month-worth of meals might not be enough,” Hua Jin said coyly, “But the key thing is that I personally don’t have a lot of money, so I’m afraid that I might not be able to pay the bill. I can’t afford to sully my reputation.”

“Isn’t lingering at the door and not entering already shameful enough?”

“At least it’s just slightly embarrassing and has nothing to do with money. How about I just do some tedious chores for you as repayment?”

“Isn’t there a saying on the Internet that says that a woman who offers to repay a man like that means that she dislikes him? So, to a man she likes, she’d simply say ‘yes’ to everything?” Pei Yan’s eyes narrowed into squints as he asked, “Am I right?”

“To promise to say ‘yes to anything’, especially if it involves our bodies, should require both parties to be in agreement,” Hua Jin muttered while lowering her head, “Wouldn’t making such a promise do more bad than good? Then doing such a thing isn’t repaying kindness, but is more akin to revenge, no?”

“Hmph! You’re really good at finding excuses.” Seeing that Hua Jin was still clinging to a side of the gate, Pei Yan reached out and grabbed one of arms and pulled, “Don’t worry. It won’t cost you that much.”

After the two finally walked forward, Pei Yan suddenly remembered something before glancing down at Hua Jin’s knees. He then slowed down his pace, “A chef here is incredible at cooking Shu cuisine.”

At that statement, Hua Jin looked up in amazement.

“When my grandfather was still alive, I loved the dishes he made. Since you’re also from the same province, help me judge if the dishes here are authentic or not.”

Hua Jin didn’t know what to say, “Oh.”

Although not many people were able to eat at this place, that didn’t mean that there was nobody inside. When people noticed that Pei Yan had brought a young girl with him, they couldn’t help but be surprised.

With Pei Yan’s unpredictable and fiery temper, who can stand to be with him except for a gold-digging woman? Though, even if she succeeded, she’d probably eventually suffer from mental illness if she needed to spend the rest of her life with him.

A lot of people were hesitant in going out and greeting him, but seeing ‘that’ Pei Yan taking the initiative to pull on this girl’s wrist, they all retracted their heads wisely. Because, in today’s world, only misfortune awaits those who interrupt another person’s date.

How much more for disturbing the bliss of this kind of troublesome person?

Hua Jin noticed that Pei Yan was very familiar with this place, like he often came here to eat.

After passing through a certain arch, someone came to lead the way for them into a private room, “Mr Pei, the usual?”

“Today, I’ll be eating Shu cuisine.” Pei Yan took a sip of the pre-meal tea, “I think I’m tired of eating the same thing each time.”

“Understood. Please wait for a moment.” The waiter slightly bowed to the two of them before exiting.

Hua Jin looked up the calligraphies and paintings strung up on the wall and read, “Fresh crucian carp eating silk and thick parsley soup. Shu wine is invincible and the river fish are beautiful… The poems here are so fitting.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you’re also into this,” Pei Yan said while glancing at the paintings on the wall. They were all modern reproductions, none of which were particularly exquisite.

“Of course. When I was in high school, I was the first in the school and in Chinese, I was always at least in the top three.” Hua Jin also took a sip of the pre-meal tea, “Even if you don’t understand elegance, at least try to pretend that you do to show off.”

‘Having such excellent grades, yet had to start working at such a young age?’

Pei Yan’s hand trembled slightly at this thought while he was pouring some tea. At the sight of Hua Jin’s calm expression, that feeling of irritability he’s been having suddenly reappeared. He had to look up slightly and message his chest in the effort of pushing this uncomfortable feeling back.

Though some of the dishes were served relatively quickly, some of them required quite a bit more time to cook due to Pei Yan’s unannounced visit, so they came later.

Hua Jin tasted a few mouthfuls of everything, but couldn’t really comment on the ‘authenticity’ of these dishes, though everything tasted amazing. Like heroes, the origin of a dish doesn’t really matter, as long as it is delicious.

Unconsciously, Hua Jin had already devoured two bowls full of rice, which made her sigh while patting her stomach, “Eating meat is great and all, but it’s losing the weight that makes me want to cry.”

“You’re already so thin so why do you need to lose weight?” Pei Yan poured her another cup of tea, “Take this then. It’s a tea for digestion.”

“Thank you,” Hua Jin said before taking a sip. She then remembered what happened between the two of them when they went to Jiangjiu City* and commented, “There seems to be a rumor going around on the Internet that the anonymous good samaritan was related to a certain artist. However, said artist was very smart and never really confirmed or denied anything, so he’s still in the clear even if you, perhaps, decide to own up to being the kind-hearted person who called the police and the ambulance.

*Jiangjiu City (江酒市) was wrongly translated as Jiangsu City in Chapters 13 + 14.

“Well, as long as they don’t have any screws loose, normal people usually wouldn’t take credit for something they didn’t do,” Pei Yan then took out his mobile phone to search the Internet, “Who’s this actor again? I haven’t even heard of this matter.”

“These gossip-mongering media companies really do have the audacity to boast about nothing. These pictures they posted of you sitting there are so blurry that you can’t even make out any of your facial features, and yet they keep on proclaiming that you must have been a beautiful person…”

Hua Jin felt so agitated that her grip around her teacup tightened. She felt the urge to hurl it.

“They’re even speculating about how graceful your figure was and how ‘refined’ your temperament was… how can they talk such nonsense?”

Right now, she didn’t only want to smash the teacup, she wanted to toss the whole teapot.

After perusing several other articles, Pei Yan put his mobile phone away, “This way of hyping up someone isn’t really going to amount to much as most netizens will soon forget about this issue. I don’t really care about such an unknown artist either as it is beneath me to do so.”

Although Pei Yan was playing it down, after he said this sentence, he immediately lowered his head and messaged his assistant, instructing him that they would no longer be cooperating with this particular actor after this incident. It’s normal for actors to play a character to establish themselves, but even for ordinary people, this kind of shameless clout-chasing is unseemly. A person should at least have a bottom line.

After they finished their after-meal tea, Hua Jin and Pei Yan walked out of their private room and went into the courtyard decorated by colorful lights, shining beautifully that night.

“These lights…” Hua Jin carefully inspected them, “Some of them seem to be handmade?”

Pei Yan himself tried to stare at the lamps, but he couldn’t discern any differences between the ones that were handmade and the ones which weren’t. ‘Could it be that only people who were also in the traditional arts can develop an intrinsic intuition to discern the differences?’

“Mr Pei really is so interesting. Out accompanying a friend to enjoy the lights?”

When Hua Jin looked back, she saw a bespectacled man in a suit walking towards them. When the person was near enough, Hua Jin was able to see that the man was around 60 years old and had a very serious air about him, which made her think that he was a ‘distinguished gentleman’.

For this type of person, it’s normally difficult for people to feel averse towards one, but consequently, it was also difficult to feel close too. She tilted her head to look at Pei Yan, who still looked as indifferent as ever, as if the old man coming over didn’t exist at all.

Along with Pei Yan’s indifference, the atmosphere between him and the man gradually grew colder and more awkward.

This serious-looking man didn’t seem to mind Pei Yan’s coldness at all and drew closer before nodding towards Hua Jin, “You seem a little unfamiliar, so this is probably your first time coming to this place, yes? It’s a rare opportunity, so let Mr Pei accompany you around more.”

Hua Jin felt that there was something slightly off with what he said, as if he was mocking her for never having been here before, but he also seemed to be trying to set up Pei Yan with her. A person who seems decent and serious, but in actuality, likes to talk about status and hierarchy. Hua Jin has encountered a lot of these types before due to her work, so she knew that if she didn’t want to get in conflict with one and it was better for her to just keep smiling.

“Didn’t I hear that the only seedling of Mr Xu’s family, Miaomiao, was recently jailed? Though, I’m not quite sure if he’s been released already?” Pei Yan’s mouth curved into a mocking smile, “Teenagers sure are ignorant. Perhaps staying there longer might mature them faster, no?”

“Thank you for the concern.” Taking from Mr Xu’s expression, he could hardly control himself anymore, but before he could explode in anger, Mr Xu quickly smiled politely at her before slowly walking away.

“This person…”

“The Xu Family isn’t a good one.” Pei Yan’s world couldn’t hide his disgust as he continued, “About three months ago, the little bastard of the Xu Family was drag racing with some of his friends across the city, even going as far as ignoring traffic lights. During a race, the second son of the Chen Family somehow realized that something was wrong so he purposely crashed his car into the guardrail, but the Xu bastard blew through a red light, resulting in him sending a pedestrian crossing the road straight to the emergency room. Although the victim didn’t die, he lost both of his legs.”

“That brat was spoiled rotten by the Xu Family, to the point of them blindly covering up for him even if he was clearly in the wrong. If it weren’t for the fact that the incident went viral, so they couldn’t suppress the outrage of the public, and that the victim wasn’t willing to settle out of court, how could the Xu Family ever be willing to let their precious seedling be locked up in jail?” Pei Yan sneered, “These people might dress decently, but how they handled this situation showed how dirty they really are. You’ll be encountering them more in the future. Be smart and stay as far away from them as possible.”

“Why is your face so pale?” Pei Yan noticed that Hua Jin’s turned sickly, “Are you not feeling well?”

“No worries,” Hua Jin said while shaking her head, “I feel that the pedestrian who got hit was really unfortunate.”

“One of the people who were messing around with that Xu bastard that day was Chen Jiang, though he did call the police right after. Although Chen Jiang is by no means a good person, at the very least, he still has a bottom line he wouldn’t cross: he wouldn’t play with someone else’s life.” Pei Yan snorted, “That Xu bastard should thank his lucky stars that Chen Jiang was present that day.”

Hua Jin immediately understood Pei Yan’s meaning. She then looked back at the direction the man went to just now. She suddenly felt breathless, “It’s already late so it’s probably time for me to go.”

Pei Yan glanced at her and said, “I’ll bring you.”

When it was finally time to pay the bill, Hua Jin found that their meal really wasn’t too expensive. She turned to look at Pei Yan, who was leaning against the door looking at her smugly, again. His eyes were full of mischief.

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After the two left, the staffer in charge of payment began to gossip with another staffer, “I never expected something like this to happen. It’s the first time he’s ever eaten here with a female companion. He obviously has a VIP membership card, and yet he had his female companion pay for everything. Mr Pei is already so rich so he shouldn’t need to save money at all.”

“That’s why he doesn’t have a girlfriend until now,” The other staffer replied while tallying the sales, “No one can save a man who is single by choice.”

While Hua Jin was seated in Pei Yan’s car, she received a message from Tan Yuan.

[Tang Yuan]: Hua Hua, is that Mr Pei your friend?

[Fan Hua]: Someone’s in the mood to gossip. Seems you’re fine already.

[Tang Yuan]: Not long ago, you said you would support me. It’s only been a few hours, but now you dislike it when I’m being meddlesome?

[Fan Hua]: I know you’re only doing this because you care. Don’t worry. I’m aware.

[Tang Yuan]: Based on my more than 20 years of experience in watching TV dramas, every supporting character who says they know something eventually falls into a pit.

[Fan Hua]: ……

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The Author has something to say:

Pei Yan: A man should speak magnanimously, but should also keep a careful eye on his checkbook.