Chapter 8 Eye Pleasing

Cherry felt sick by the sight of him. He was a hundred times more disgusting than any other paunchy man she'd ever seen.

The waiter came over and cleared the plates from their table. The man was full now and finally had the time to look at Cherry properly.

"You are indeed as beautiful as my father said," the man said grinning widely. He was probably more impressed that she hadn't eaten much.

Cherry couldn't take any more of this and said abruptly, "Sorry, I've got a call I have to take..."

She pretended to listen to her phone for a while and added, "I'm sorry, there's just something I have to take care of really quickly..."

The man ignored her and asked, "What's your job? How much do you earn in a month? How many babies do you plan to have? Do you have your own house?" He went on and on with his curiosities, asking away shamelessly...

Cherry curled her lips, trying to conceal her annoyance and drank the ice water in front of her. "I'm sorry. I really just came here today to tell you that I have a boyfriend." Her patience had run out. He couldn't even take the hint when she had pretended to take a call to slip away. She had already tried to let him down easy, she couldn't be blamed for being so brazen now.

"That doesn't matter to me," the man said confidently, waving off her rejection with his hand, "I am without a doubt better than he is in absolutely every way. Besides, your father probably introduced me to you because he wasn't happy with this boyfriend of yours."

The urge to overturn the table shot through every inch of Cherry's being. She forced a fake smile and said, "Well my father has no idea I have a boyfriend."

"It still doesn't matter. You should call him here and compare him to me. Then you will know how good a catch I am."

Call him here?

Cherry frowned.

It was already so late at night, where could she find a man at this hour to pretend to be her boyfriend?

She could ask Jonny? He would probably only make this situation worse for her...

She hesitated for a moment, when a familiar figure suddenly walked past their table.

Cherry immediately sprung to her feet and shouted, "Jacob!"

Jacob turned around, looked down at the number in his hand and looked back at her. "Not you? No."

A strange feeling ran through his heart as Cherry took his hand in hers and said, "Don't be angry. I didn't mean to promise my father I would go on a blind date."

Jacob was stunned and a rare flash of panic lit his cold eyes. He felt as though he had been seen through and found out.

"Hey." The man who was sitting with Cherry stood up, insulted, and asked, "What's going on?"

"Didn't you say you wanted to meet my boyfriend? Well this is my boyfriend. He heard about my blind date so he came over." Cherry looked at Jacob as if she had been hurt and was happy he had come to her rescue. "I'm sorry, Jacob..." she started. Her voice then softened and the man's ears turned red trying to hear her. "I won't even look at another man from now on..."

Without thinking about it, Jacob instantly knew what she meant and what must be going on.

But he wanted no part in helping her.

He pushed her away and snapped, "I think you're mistaking me for someone else? I've never even met you before."

Jacob then was about to leave.

Cherry pressed further, grabbing his arm tightly and saying, "What are you saying? Please don't be angry. I won't dare go out with another man ever again..."

The girl Donna had arranged her son to meet was near them. The commotion Cherry was causing was so loud she could not help but poke her head out and look around to see what all the fuss was about. Her eyes fell on the handsome man from the photo, being pulled by another woman.

She got to her feet upset and incredulous. Just as she was about to yell out her questions and protests, the pimple-covered man said, "Cherry, why are you holding a random guy's arm and calling him your boyfriend? Then I may as well call you my girlfriend."

"No, he really is my boyfriend. If you don't believe me, look." Cherry decided she would have to risk everything.

She put her hands on Jacob's face, pushed herself onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his.

Jacob was utterly astonished. He didn't know what to do and just stood there and let it happen.

The man was so angry he could not contain himself. "You... You really have a boyfriend... "

Turned out he really wasn't a better catch.

But the dinner had not been paid yet!

He threw the bill down hard and yelled, "Humph, you can pay the bill yourself!" He then stormed out in a fit of rage.

Cherry's hands fell around Jacob's neck and she finally relaxed.

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely. She was sweating all over. "That man was just so disgusting. Thank you for playing along..."

"Jacob!" A woman's crying voice suddenly squealed, ringing in both their ears.

The two of them turned their heads at the same time to see a woman with tears all over her face, staring at them. "You have a girlfriend? Why then, are you still here for our blind date? I hate you!" She held her face in her hands and cried all the way out of the cafe.

Embarrassed, Cherry asked, "What? Are you here for a blind date?"

"What did you think?" Jacob snorted.

He had thought his mother must have arranged for the two of them to meet. He had not expected them to both have dates at the same time, but with other people. This was a bizarre coincidence.

A feeling he could not explain suddenly spread through his body. It was warm.

Cherry had already sat down again. She appeared to have a headache and rubbed her head stressfully. "I thought that would get rid of that guy, but I didn't expect him to be so petty..." She put her hand to

her belly and said miserably, "He didn't even let me eat a vegetable salad. My father is so ridiculous. How could he be so eager for me to have a boyfriend that this is the kind of guy he set me up with?"

She called a waiter over and turned to Jacob with her head propped up on her hands. "If you're not in a hurry, why not sit and have a cup of coffee with me?"

Jacob raised his eyebrows and sat himself down opposite her.

Cherry sighed in her heart.

Her appetite had changed with her company.

She suddenly found herself extremely hungry.

Jacob ordered a black coffee and sat in silence, looking at her opposite to him, enjoying her late dinner.

She occasionally looked up and caught his quiet eyes.

His thin lips moved when he saw her raising her head.

Her heart skipped a beat.

But the words that came out of his mouth were just annoying. "That guy... was actually your customer, right?"

She decided right then to take back all the feelings she might have had for him.

She, Cherry, didn't care about him at all!

Cherry stood in front of the door to her own place and rubbed her face. She looked up again with the brightest smile she could manage on her face. She opened the door and said, "Dad."

Jerome Shen turned around and glanced at her. He noticed the smile on her face and a glimmer of hope rose within him. "What do you think of him?"

"He doesn't like me," she replied. She smiled, stepped forward and held her father in her arms. "It's a good thing, now I can stay with you a little longer."

Her father's face sunk. "A grown girl can't be kept by her father. I'm worried about getting you married!"

She stuck her tongue out and pretended not to hear him. "Well, you should know, the steak at that cafe is very delicious."

"Well, at least you got a free dinner." Jerome Shen felt a little better. He continued studying new dishes on his computer and Cherry could not help but laugh.

She wasn't going to tell her father that it was not the pimpled boy who paid, but Jacob.

He had only had a cup of coffee, and yet when she was finished eating and the bill came, he grabbed it and casually threw a card out to pay.

She sighed, thinking about how she wasn't like Adela.

She really wanted to find a man to fall in love with.

Adela stepped into the classroom.

It was full with students already sitting down and talking amongst themselves about the new university life and whatever else interested them.

She was in charge of a large group of freshmen majoring in planning this semester.

These students didn't seem all that well-behaved or respectful. Their teaching assistant was standing on the platform in front of them and still, they continued talking endlessly.

Richard Nalan was stretched out in the back row.

"Why do I have to take such a boring class so early in the morning?" He was so sleepy. He kicked his classmate beside him and asked, "Do you want to do something fun tonight?"

"No." The classmate's eyes turned red with anger. "Mr. Richard, why don't you ask your brother to take us somewhere we can have fun? He's a big star. He must have a lot of ways to have a good time!"

Richard sneered, "He's busy. Besides, my father doesn't like me spending too much time with him... Never mind. I'm not coming to this class again. I'd rather be sleeping than dealing with boring stuff!"

The person on the platform glared at them and said in a fierce, cold tone, "For those still speaking or sleeping or not coming, please, all of you listen to me carefully. I'm Adela Mei, your teaching assistant this semester. I may not be your lecturer, but I am in charge of your homework, attendance and performance. In other words, if you don't listen to me, I can make your lives very hard."

Adela pursed her lips together tightly and continued, "I used to be a teaching assistant at Z University. You can go ask them about me. I punished most of the students in the class. If anyone doesn't listen to me, I will show no mercy and not hesitate to teach that person a lesson. You will follow my rules when you step through that door into my classroom."

The class fell into a dead silence.

"First, I will do a roll call. If anyone is not here, that person doesn't need to come back in the future." She smiled slyly and went on, "Perhaps you think you can help your friend for roll call and they'll get away with it. Well you are wrong." She pulled out a facial recognition device from her bag and placed it on the table. "I'm sorry, I forgot to mention; I will be doing a facial roll call."

"Second, I will ask for your homework. If anyone doesn't hand theirs in, you might as well forget this class and choose some other as soon as possible."

"Third, there will be no talking in my class."

She clapped her hands together and said, "All right then. I have all your data recorded on this identification device. Please come up and sign in one at a time!"

Richard was shocked. "This woman... Man, she's cruel!"

Neal was dozing off beside him and added, "She is pretty though. Much more beautiful than the girls in our class, but..."

"Are you crazy?" Richard rolled his eyes at him and said, "She looks like she's already middle-aged. How can you compare her with the girls in our class? Are you an idiot?"

He kicked the chair in front of him. "Damn it. I chose this course and now I can't even skip classes," he scoffed resentfully.

His father was a professor at this university and would be paying close attention to him and his progress. This was some real bad luck.

"Richard Nalan!" The woman on the platform was calling him to 'scan his face'.

Reluctantly, he stood up, kicked the ground and several chairs, on his way up to the front of the class.