Part Fourteen

Part Fourteen

Translator: Ryne

Ye Meng Ling answered somewhat awkwardly, “I’m your manager.”

Shocked, Lin Jian Yin blurted out, “Eh?! The female ghost from last time?” The moment he finished speaking, Lin Jian Yin knew that he had put himself in a bad position. Would he have to change managers for the seventh time?

“Uh, that’s right. I’m precisely the female ghost from last time.” Ye Meng Ling smiled a little awkwardly, but she didn’t seem to mind it that much.

Lin Jian Yin observed Ye Meng Ling for a moment. Upon seeing no signs of anger, he asked cautiously, “You’re not mad?”

Ye Meng Ling scratched her head and laughed as she replied, “I’m not angry. Just recently, I met someone with an even more poisonous tongue than yours. Um… I’m not saying you have a poisonous tongue. What I meant was…”

Lin Jian Yin shrugged. “It’s alright. I know I have a poisonous tongue.”

Ye Meng Ling forced a smile onto her face and quickly changed the topic. “Mr. Lin, I never would have thought that you were the type to buy groceries yourself.”

“Just call me Jian Yin. Xue Chen told me to buy these. He cooks really well, and he even said that he would make chicken soup for me,” Lin Jian Yin bragged. If only that guy Bai Xue Chen were a girl. He could stand his poisonous tongue and could even cook well. He really was his ideal type. It was a pity was that his gender was male.

“Chicken soup?” Ye Meng Ling asked doubtfully, pointing at the item in the cart. “Using this?”

“Yup, it took me a long time before I could find the plumpest one,” Lin Jian Yin answered proudly.

Ye Meng Ling gave a wry smile, saying, “But, this isn’t a chicken. It’s a duck.”

Lin Jian Yin stared at the thing she called a duck with wide eyes, and then took the thing he had been the most unsure of out of the cart. He tried asking, “Is this a gherkin?”

Ye Meng Ling answered truthfully, “Nope, that’s a cucumber.”

I was wondering if gherkins were this large! Lin Jian Yin muttered to himself, and then he held another item up, asking, “This is a mackerel pike, right?”

“… That’s an eel.” Ye Meng Ling’s mouth was twitching, and she thought to herself, Isn’t this too much of a difference?

Lin Jian Yin stared at the shopping list in his hands for quite a while. He questioned with some misgivings, “Then, which of these did I actually get right?”

Ye Meng Ling stuck her head over, her eyes bouncing back and forth between the shopping list and the cart to check. She finally exclaimed, “This one, you got the pork slices correct.”

Lin Jian Yin spoke up after a short moment of silence, saying, “That’s because the two words ‘Pork Slices’ were printed on the wrapping.”

After a long period of silence between them, Lin Jian Yin placed one hand on Ye Meng Ling’s shoulder and used his other hand to thrust the arm-long shopping list in front of her eyes. He made a grave request. “Help me pick them out, and I’ll treat you to tea at the very least.”

Looking at the shopping list, which was as smelly and long as a grandma’s feet bindings, Ye Meng Ling calmly replied, “It’s too long. At least include a slice of cake.”

“Deal.”

Ye Meng Ling snatched the shopping list from his grasp, gave it a glance, and started expertly sorting out the wrong items from Lin Jian Yin’s cart, while adding in the correct ones. She went from the fresh produce section to the general items section, passing by the seafood section, and lastly reaching the cashier, having gone around the supermarket exactly once. Ye Meng Ling looked at the items in the cart full of satisfaction, before handing over the shopping list to Lin Jian Yin. He had followed her around dumbly from start to finish, while staring in amazement at how she had gone around the place with so much familiarity, as if it was her own house. She clearly knew where everything was.

“Already done?” Lin Jian Yin asked, surprised. He had shopped for more than an hour earlier, yet Ye Meng Ling had used less than ten minutes to finish buying everything.

Ye Meng Lin shrugged, saying, “Yeah, I also finished my shopping alongside yours.”

“You sure are efficient,” Lin Jian Yin praised. At the same time, he felt lucky that this woman happened to be his manager.

“Thanks for the compliment. It’s my first time actually hearing something like that from you.” Ye Meng Ling smiled faintly.

Lin Jian Yin simply answered, “That can’t be helped. You’re too hard to compliment.” Right as the words came out of his mouth, Lin Jian Yin wanted to bite off his tongue once and for all.

“Seems like I should really appreciate the compliments this time, then.” Ye Meng Ling smiled, but her expression had become colder, and she continued politely, “I’ll go to the other register to pay. The line here is too long.”

“Okay.” Lin Jian Yin didn’t dare to say anything more, in case he said something wrong again.

Ye Meng Ling was leaving already, when she suddenly turned around, saying “Oh right, forget about the tea and cake from earlier. I was joking.” Without waiting for Lin Jian Yin’s answer, she left without another look to queue up in the other line, having said her piece.

Lin Jian Yin gazed fixedly at Ye Meng Ling’s slightly stiff back. She is angry, after all, huh. At least, she hadn’t run away sobbing. He didn’t want to lose such an excellent manager so quickly.

Having failed his second attempt at getting along with Ye Meng Ling, Lin Jian Yin was growing a bit discouraged. Why couldn’t he just control his own tongue? Although the way that woman dressed was full of problems, he could still have pretended not to see.

He finished paying dispiritedly. Bringing with him two large bags of food, he had just stepped away from the registers when he saw his manager, also carrying two large bags, in conversation with a man and woman. When Lin Jian Yin glanced at Ye Meng Ling’s face, he noticed she looked uncomfortable. Her smile was also very trying.

Did she meet someone she dislikes? Lin Jian Yin guessed. He looked at the man and the woman. The man looked passable, but as he was just a guy, Lin Jian Yin simply made a quick judgment. The woman, however, was quite pretty. The way she dressed was also quite tasteful.

Lin Jian Yin walked slower and slower, drifting closer to the three unconsciously. He kept his ears sharp and caught a few fragments of their conversation.

“Your ex-girlfriend? Oh my, isn’t this a bit too…”

“No, she wasn’t this sloppy back then.”

“Jian Yin!”

Lin Jian Yin suddenly heard his own name, and upon turning his head, saw Ye Meng Ling staring intently at him. Having been caught eavesdropping, he felt embarrassed and quickly clarified, saying, “I was just leaving.”

However, Ye Meng Ling interrupted him, saying, “Weren’t you going to treat me to tea?”

Lin Jian Yin blinked. Didn’t she just say to forget about it?

The beautiful woman next to her laughed out loud, sneering, “You want to ask her out for tea? Her? Haha,” while giggling uncontrollably.

Ye Meng Ling’s expression turned darker, and noting Lin Jian Yin’s silence, her heart sank. Putting on a cold front, she said, “I’m sorry, I must have misunderstood you. I still have something going on, so I’ll be taking my leave first.” As soon as she finished speaking, she left without another glance.

At this moment, hearing Ye Meng Ling’s cold voice, Lin Jian Yin glared at the still laughing woman. She suddenly didn’t look so pretty. A raging fire lit in his heart and he scolded her sternly, “What are you laughing at? What does my asking her out for tea have to do with you?”

Ye Meng Ling stopped abruptly and turned back, slightly surprised. The woman, however, after a brief moment of shock, fought back, saying, “I just like laughing. Can’t I do that?”

Lin Jian Yin shouted, “If you like laughing that much, then go to the side and laugh until you die! Just don’t laugh at her.”

The woman was startled, but she wasn’t satisfied leaving things as they were. She pulled her boyfriend closer for support and snapped back, “Wearing such a tasteless knitted cap, thinking yourself so handsome by putting on silver sunglasses with it, ending up being neither like this nor that—only useless guys like you are able ask that kind of women out.”

“That kind of woman? In my eyes, she is better than you by a hundredfold.”

Lin Jian Yin mocked, and as if he felt it wasn’t enough, he boldly took off his knitted cap and silver sunglasses, slightly adjusted his hair and displayed a perfect smile. Using a deep and alluring voice, he asked, “Do you recognize me?”

“Don’t…” Ye Meng Ling never would have thought that he would take off his disguise in such a public location, so she was a step too late to stop him. She looked at the crowd around them. A lot of people had already had their attention on them because of Lin Jian Yin’s shouting, but now those people had all stopped in their tracks and were looking at Lin Jian Yin, who had shed his disguise.

The woman, astounded, nodded and answered in a monotone, “Lin Jian Yin.”

Pleased, Lin Jian Yin nodded his head and asked, “Then, I’ll be taking her out for tea now. Do you still have a problem with that?”

The woman stared, not knowing what to do. At this moment, Ye Meng Ling rushed to their side and dragged Lin Jian Yin away. Her petite body exerted endless power and pulled Lin Jian Yin, who was a full twenty cm taller than her, running. Lin Jian Yin couldn’t react in time and was almost unable to follow Ye Meng Ling’s pace. But when he almost tripped and spied the crowd chasing behind them out of the corner of his eye, the long line of people made Lin Jian Yin realize what he had just done.

Having realized the severity of the situation, Lin Jian Yin immediately started running in earnest, using his long legs to escape for his life. When that happened, it was Ye Meng Ling who nearly couldn’t keep up with his speed. Lin Jian Yin grabbed Ye Meng Ling’s hand and half-dragged, half-pulled her along with him.