Chapter 03

Chapter 03

Zhang GuoEr hurriedly recorded Xu Lian’s golden sentence in her notebook before sitting back down to eat.

Xu Lian had long gotten used to her eccentric behavior. It didn’t take long for her to finish her meal and go back upstairs to catch up with her orders.

Halfway through, the developer in charge sent her a message asking for the progress of their order. Just as Xu Lian finished her conversation with the person in charge, she heard the wind chime on the door ring.

Because customers usually come in the afternoon, Xu Lian didn’t think much of it and continued to do her work. But Zhang GuoEr, who was sitting at the register below, suddenly got excited.

Her observation target No. 0122 arrived!

“Boss….” She subconsciously wanted to yell for Xu Lian but was interrupted by the person who entered.

“Shh.” Wei YiChen made a hushing gesture. The punk silver ring on his index finger flashed against the sunlight, “I’ll go up and find her myself.”

Zhang GuoEr closed her mouth obediently, nodding her head.

Wei YiChen moved on, heading straight to the second floor. Hearing his leather boots thump away, Zhang GuoEr glanced at his retreating back. Good, he’s gone. She quickly took out her small notebook and excitedly wrote under the header 0122: ‘Wei YiChen is so charming!’

After writing this, she reread the entire page. She felt that her words had too many personal feelings. As an observer, her recordings should be more objective and rational.

So in the end, she crossed out the sentence she had wrote ad changed it to ‘Wei YiChen is really charming’, ending with a full stop.

Xu Lian’s workshop didn’t have locks. Wei YiChen easily pushed the door open and came in, and Xu Lian immediately noticed someone entering.

“Why are you here?” She looked up at Wei YiChan, but her eyes fell back to the thermometer in her hand. She was cooling down the wax, so she didn’t dare get distracted. If the temperature dropped too much, she would have to start the heating process all over again.

Wei YiChen was somewhat dissatisfied with her indifference, but he quickly got over it and smiled. He took two tickets out from his pocket and placed them on the table: “Tickets to PUMPKIN’s revival concert, let’s go and listen to them tomorrow.”

Xu Lian scanned the tickets on the table then said to him: “You know Uncle Wei doesn’t like it when you go to these rock and roll events, and you go ahead and buy tickets to this concert. Do you want to anger him to death?”

Wei YiChen straightened and waved her words off: “When I grew my hair long last year, you said the same thing. He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

Yes, Wei YiChen had long hair last year, but it wasn’t that long. It just reached to his shoulders, and he often wore it down, with a half-ponytail. It was actually the hairdo that PUMPKIN’s lead singer Ray used to wear the most. Wei YiChen had been a fan of the band from an early age, even the two black earrings on his left ears were him imitating Ray.

This year, he finally cut his hair short. Although it was him just following Ray’s recent haircut again, his handsome short black hair was more acceptable than his long hair from before.

Xu Lian saw that the temperature had reached the right heat, so she took out the thermometer and wiped off the wax clinging to it. She then looked towards Wei YiChen and jokingly replied: “So you’re making more of an effort this year?”

(T/N: to anger uncle to death)

Wei YiChen shrugged indifferently: “The less he likes it, the more I get the urge to do it. Are you surprised?”

Xu Lian didn’t continue this line of conversation. This conflict between father and son wasn’t some one-off thing, and as an outsider, she wasn’t someone who should have an opinion about it.

“Brother Chen, let’s go!”

Outside the shop, two young boys dressed like punk rockers were sitting on a motorcycle, shouting. Wei YiChen glanced at them past the windows, gestured to them, then picked up a ticket from the table, leaving the other. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow; I have something else so I’ll go first.”

Xu Lian looked up as he hurriedly left, then looked down towards the ticket. Her eyebrows wrinkled slightly. She never promised that she would go.

Zhang GuoEr watched through the window as Wei YiChen and his younger brothers rode their motorcycles, then ran upstairs to find Xu Lian: “Boss, boss, what did brother Chen come to see you for?”

“….” Xu Lian paused for a moment, before asking: “When did you start calling him brother Chen?”

“I just carelessly….” Zhang GuoEr shook her head as she approached. She saw the ticket on the table and exclaimed: “Wow, tickets for PUMPKIN’s revival concert! And it’s VIP tickets! Brother Chen got it for you?”

“Nn.”

“Wow, sure enough, brother Chen is a great person! Do you know how much the regular tickets cost online?”

Xu Lian was puzzled: “Is this concert that popular?”

Although she also once liked PUMPKIN’s songs, they had disbanded ten years ago. Ten years was more than enough for human beings to forget a lot of things.

Zhang GuoEr replied: “Boss, you’re not giving PUMPKIN enough credit. In their heyday, they could directly compete with King Mo in terms of popularity! Besides, what do modern people usually crave nowadays? Feelings and nostalgia, ah! Just how many fans do you think PUMPKIN had.”

Xu Lian nodded thoughtfully: “When you say it like that, it makes me want to go a little bit.”

Zhang GuoEr: “…..”

Should she go to Wei YiChen and ask for a reward for this meritorious deed that she had just accomplished.

As she was seriously considering this, the wind chime downstairs rang again. Zhang GuoEr ran down in a hurry and greeted: “Good afternoon, welcome!”

After a busy day, Monster finally closed at 6:30 p.m. After packing up her things, Zhang GuoEr said her goodbyes to Xu Lian and then clocked off. Xu Lian stayed in the store for a little while longer, continuing to work. She didn’t leave until 7:00 p.m.

She didn’t know if it was because she overate during lunch, but Xu Lian didn’t really have an appetite for dinner. She decided not to order takeaway and just cook a bowl of noodles and home.

It was currently the peak period for Xiang ChangKong to do deliveries. He was so busy with takeaway deliveries until 8:30 p.m., so he could only buy something from a stall and quickly eat it by the roadside.

The area he was responsible for wasn’t in the city center, and traffic on the streets wasn’t particularly long. The pedestrians in a hurry didn’t pay attention to this takeaway boy eating on the sidewalk.

To the Xiang ChangKong whose job was to deliver meals to others every day, his own meals were done like this.

Under the streetlight, another man wearing the same uniform parked his battery-powered scooter next to him. Glancing at him, Xiang ChangKong was that it was the man he often bumped into when delivering his orders.

“Hey buddy, we meet again. Man, we’re really fated to be.” The man took out a plastic bag and walked up to stand side by side with Xiang ChangKong.

Xiang ChangKong remembered his lukewarm attitude towards the other person yesterday, but he didn’t talk and instead just nodded and responded with a faint “Nn.”

“You’re eating dinner late too; this line of business really is tiring.” As the man spoke, he opened his lunch box and the aroma of food slowly filled the air.

It smelled nice, but the presentation didn’t look so good. Seeing this, Xiang ChangKong asked: “How’d it become like this?”

The little brother patted the back of his head and smiled bitterly: “Hey, don’t even mention it. This was originally an order I had to deliver, but I fell on the way and lost some time. Before I even arrived, the delivery was already canceled. Since there aren’t any refunds, I could only buy it myself.”

After a moment of silence, Xiang ChangKong said: “When it comes to takeaway delivery, safety always comes first. Did you hurt yourself when you fell?”

“It’s just a few bruises, no scrapes. It doesn’t matter.” The little brother laughed twice and split some wooded chopsticks, beginning to eat. “If you ignore the mess, it tastes good! I usually wouldn’t dare buy such expensive food for myself.”

To say that while in the takeout business, ah. If their customer decides to cancel the order, it falls to the delivery boy to handle the meal. If any complaints are sent, the delivery boy would be hanged out to dry.

(T/N: Hang out to dry means to be abandoned. In this context, he probably won’t be getting orders for a while)

Looking at his forced smile, Xiang ChangKong passed him a bottle of mineral water that he had just bought: “I haven’t taken a sip from it.”

The little brother became stunned for a moment before showing a brighter, more genuine smile: “Thanks, buddy!”

Takeout workers are usually tanner than the average person as they had to go out regularly, and this little brother was no exception. But his teeth were whiter than ordinary people, so when he smiled, his big white teeth were exposed, making him look a little silly and a little cute.

Maybe it was because he just received a bottle of mineral water from Xiang ChangKong, but the little brother became even more talkative: “I was just unlucky today, but fortunately the customer didn’t send a complaint about me, or I really won’t have anything to do today.”

He nodded towards Xiang ChangKong as he continued to eat.

“Sometimes, I feel like this job really is miserable. It makes us constantly tired stressed.” The little brother used his chopsticks to poke at the cold noodles in his bowl as continued to complain, “If it weren’t for the chain store me and my wife wanted, I wouldn’t have already quit.”

Xiang ChangKong turned to look at him: “Chain stores?”

“Well, my wife and I wanted to open a chain store. It doesn’t need to be very big, a small store would be enough for us. But it’s expensive to open a shop and the rent even more so. So I’m working desperately to save enough money.”

“So that’s how it is.”

“My wife is also working hard, and like me, she goes to work early and gets home late every day. But well, I’m happy every time I see us getting closer and closer to our goal!” Then he turned to Xiang ChangKong and asked: “What about you, what’s your dream?”

At this Xiang ChangKong’s eyes faintly trembled, becoming spellbound: “Dream?”

“Yeah, us small takeout brothers always have dreams!”

Xiang ChangKong didn’t answer immediately. He hadn’t heard the word ‘dream’ in a long time. He remembered the letter that was torn in half and thrown in the trash at home.

A car drove past the road in front of them, the headlights momentarily blinding them. Looking up, Xiang ChangKong gazed at the night sky. It was hard to see any stars in the city. Up in this infinite sky, only the darkness remained.

“I don’t have any big dreams. I just want to send my sister to college.”

The young brother didn’t expect an answer and failed to respond right away. He stayed quiet for a couple of seconds before asking: “You have a sister?”

“She’s in senior high school this year.” Finishing his food, Xiang ChangKong threw the empty container in the garbage can beside him.

Seeing him sit on his scooter, ready to leave the little brother quickly stood up and shouted towards him: “Hey buddy, my name is Cheng Peng, what’s your name?”

As he revved the scooter, Xiang ChangKong looked back at him: “My name is Xiang ChangKong.”

A famous person once said that it meant longing for the vast sky.