CH 23

The cafe Luo Qin was sitting in closed at 9:30.

After coming out of the cafe, Luo Qin stood outside the restaurant door. The large sign of the hot pot restaurant next door barely blocked his figure from those inside. So he clearly heard Qin Zhe’s confession and Lin Zhixia’s reply.

Qin Zhe had deliberately asked such a question, knowing that Luo Qin could hear. 

Luo Qin glared at Qin Zhe coldly, thinking that this man was very naive. Not only Luo Qin had been rejected just now but Qin Zhe also. What was this man so happy about?

However, although Qin Zhe’s scheme was childish, it was also effective. Lin Zhixia’s words of ‘what does this have to do with Luo Qin’ were very hurtful. 

Luo Qin was once again helplessly confronted with the fact that Lin Zhixia didn’t like him. Lin Zhixia’s gentle demeanor and small smiles were just pretend, a way to compromise and let Luo Qin into their son’s life. 

Luo Qin felt frustrated.

He had never experienced this kind of frustration before. After all, Luo Qin was the proud son of heaven. Since his early childhood, he had attracted nothing but positive attention and praise. His life had gone smoothly and it was rare for him to face trials and tribulations. 

Even in his complicated past with Qiao Ruxu, Luo Qin had never been so frustrated. 

But then there was Lin Zhixia. 

This young man may look soft but his inner strength was more than most. 

Lin Zhixia’s inner fortitude was shown during the divorce. He told Luo Qin he was leaving him and then he really disappeared. 

All these years, Luo Qin had thought that he had cast aside the memory of Lin Zhixia and felt that he had been relieved of a large burden. He didn’t expect that Lin Zhixia had planted a small seed in his heart. 

After their reunion, Luo Qin expected to still despise Lin Zhixia as he had before. But he couldn’t control his sudden attraction to this new Lin Zhixia. After realizing that he had misunderstood Lin Zhixia’s actions before, that small seed grew into a sprout. 

Qin Zhe and Lin Zhixia were still talking inside the restaurant but Luo Qin couldn’t hear them clearly anymore. He saw Lin Zhixia turn towards him and subconsciously ducked further behind the hot pot sign. 

It wasn’t a very good hiding spot but because Lin Zhixia had been drinking alcohol and he was dealing with a sudden confession of unrequited love, he didn’t see Luo Qin. 

Luo Qin peeked back around the sign and saw that Lin Zhixia had his back to him again and was holding a sleeping Lin Keai. Qin Zhe came up and stood next to them, side by side.

Luo Qin stood there for a long time and then left. 

The next few days, Luo Qin didn’t go back to the cafe but not because of Qin Zhe’s warning. A few of his projects in another city required his presence and he had to leave Tongcheng. 

Although Luo Zhengyan hadn’t made any moves since the incident, Luo Qin was still wary. He couldn’t guarantee what his father would do next so Luo Qin approached Xiao Qi and asked him to look after Lin Zhixia and Lin Keai. And to immediately get in touch if something happened. 

Because of this request, a strange customer suddenly began appearing in Lin Zhixia’s restaurant. 

He arrived at nine o’clock in the morning, ordered a cup of tea and then started clicking around on his computer. For lunch, he ordered fried rice at noon and sat for more than an hour, not actually eating.

The cashier girl approached Lin Zhixia and said, “Boss, look at that person. Isn’t he acting strange?”

Lin Zhixia looked over and noticed a guy who seemed to be at most twenty years old.

The young man was extremely thin, his skin pale and bloodless. He was wearing headphones, looking at the computer screen intently, with a plate of untouched fried rice beside him.

He did seem strange but Lin Zhixia wasn’t worried. He said, “Go and refill his tea.”

The cashier girl nodded and went over to him. The young man said thank you to her and they spoke with the cashier girl pointing to Lin Zhixia. He looked up and smiled at Lin Zhixia and he smiled back.

Suddenly, there was a scream from the table at the innermost part of the store and then a cacophony of rowdy noises.

“Boss! Why do you have cockroaches in this dish?!”

“Holy shit, I just ate that dish! What kind of fucking restaurant is this, with such poor hygiene?!”

At the table sat three middle aged, stout looking men. Lin Zhixia didn’t recognize any of them as familiar faces. They looked angry and intimidating. 

Embarrassed by the accusation, Lin Zhixia walked over to their table and leaned forward to look at the dish they were yelling about. Before he could get a clear look, the table was overturned with a loud ‘BANG’ and the plate was smashed on the floor. 

Lin Zhixia was stunned. Lin Keai, who was playing with toys nearby, was so frightened that he started to cry. Lin Zhixia hurriedly sent the baby to the back kitchen for the chefs to take care of him. 

As he walked out again, he was surprised before he could say a word. One middle-aged man suddenly shoved Lin Zhixia and he took a few steps back, almost falling. 

“What’s that look for? This is your fault!”

Another man continued to speak, trying to incite the other tables to take their side, “The sanitation of this restaurant is too disgusting! There was such a big cockroach in that dish. Who knows what is in the rest of them. This explains why I had such bad diarrhea after the last time I ate here! No one should eat here again!”

The diners started to talk amongst themselves and one nice aunty frowned and spoke up for Lin Zhixia, “We often eat here in Xiao Lin’s restaurant. The food is always clean and tasty. Nothing like this has ever happened before!”

The middle-aged man glared at her and crossed over to bring his hand down on her table with a loud slap. 

“What are you saying? You think I’m running some kind of scam?!”

The man naturally had a fierce look and his glare only intensified how intimidating he was. The nice aunty was immediately silenced, shrinking away from his looming form. The rest of the customers didn’t dare to say anything and one by one began paying at the register and leaving. 

Soon, only the three middle-aged men and the strange young man were left. 

The young man hadn’t moved from his position and he lowered his head to send a text on his phone. 

*

Before Luo Qin arrived at the airport, he received a text from Xiao Qi. 

‘Brother Luo, someone is making trouble for sister-in-law.’ 

Luo Qin immediately sat up straight and said to the driver, “Turn around.”

*

Lin Zhixia stepped forward, “I’m very sorry for all this trouble. Let’s go to the hospital for a check up. I’ll pay for you to see the doctor.”

“Go to the hospital?” The middle-aged man shouted harshly, “I didn’t eat anything before I saw it! What is the doctor going to check?”

There seemed to be no winning against these men. 

Lin Zhixia understood then that he was being faced with an impossible and delicate situation. 

He had owned this restaurant for so long and the customers were all the surrounding residents and college students from the university. He had never had any problems with the food he served. So the first time he encountered this kind of thing, he was a little flustered.

“Then what do you want to do?”

“I want compensation! Don’t you understand how mentally damaging this situation is?”

The middle-aged man rolled his eyes impatiently and then sat on the seat in front of Lin Zhixia, with his legs wide open. He had the aura of a gangster, “I came here to have a good time and eat a good meal and now my mood is completely ruined! You have to pay!”

Lin Zhixia was speechless for a moment and then asked, “How much compensation do you want?”

The middle-aged man stretched out two fingers and shook them at Lin Zhixia, “Twenty thousand.”

Lin Zhixia thought that if this situation could be solved with money, it would be fine. He would pay whatever compensation needed. But the amount this person threw out really made Lin Zhixia take a shocked breath. He couldn’t believe it and repeated the figure in a daze, “Twenty thousand?”

“Yes, that much,” the middle-aged man cleaned out his ear with his little finger, “I can see your business is not good so I’ll only ask for such a small fee.”

“Twenty thousand?” The strange young man suddenly laughed, “you didn’t even eat the cockroach and you’re asking for that much?”

***

t/n: ◉︵◉ I really wish the cashier girl had a name…