Winter Returns

Chapter 24 The Walls Have Ears (Bonus Chapter, Please Vote!)

The proprietress quickly smiled apologetically and said that she was only working with her boyfriend today and was too busy to handle everything, and that she would go and urge him again...

As soon as Du Kang put down his chopsticks, he was about to look in that direction, but Ruoping stopped him:

"Eat your food, why are you arguing with these kids?"

Du Kang let out a frustrated sigh:

"That kid is just urging us, why does he keep dragging us along? Does he really think that just because he's next to Gu Qiumian, no one will dare to say a word? If I were at school... never mind," he muttered, biting into a piece of rib, "we're all classmates."

"Classmates?" Ruoping sneered. "We treat her as a classmate, but she may not treat us as one."

Zhang Shutong couldn't tell whether she wanted to quell the fire or fan it.

"I think you've been a good person for nothing, Shutong. The other person is perfectly fine and even has the mood to come out for dinner."

Zhang Shutong roughly understood what she meant. Although Ruoping herself didn't greet Gu Qiumian, she had helped her out a little during the long break, but Gu Qiumian still had this attitude, which made Ruoping a little angry.

Zhang Shutong wanted to say that his being a "good person" had little to do with Gu Qiumian herself;

To be honest, it's more like clearing away obstacles for one's future life. Even if the murderer is being found, it doesn't stop one from having a meal together.

But if I told them, they would press me about what the obstacles were, and he'd had enough of hearing about "a man's mission." He really didn't want to hear about "a man's obstacles," so he simply got each of them a piece of pork rib.

"Eat it while it's hot, it's on me today."

"Offering favors for no reason," Ruoping said, while taking small bites of a rib.

"There's no need, let's just do it the same as before," Qingyi also refused.

"Brother, you should have said so earlier! If you had, I would have ordered two more dishes!" Du Kang was the most spineless.

"Just consider it a chance for me," Zhang Shutong said with a smile. "Anyway, the three of you still owe me a KFC meal."

His reason for suddenly wanting to treat everyone was very simple—

For him, this was probably the first time in eight years that the group had gotten together for a meal. During those eight years, he was the first to lose contact with them. Although there were reasons for it, he inevitably felt he had let down his best friends.

It was probably during my second year of high school. A few of them wanted to come to the provincial capital to visit me, but he didn't go out much anymore, so he bluntly refused. He couldn't remember exactly how he replied.
All I remember is that after that, it seemed like everyone talked less. That group chat with its ridiculously cheesy name went from chatting tirelessly until midnight every day to not having a single message pop up for half a month, and was eventually hidden at the bottom of the message list.

One day, Zhang Shutong suddenly wanted to see what they were talking about back then. It was a small group of only four people. What interesting things could have made it worth talking about for so long? But he had changed his phone by then, and he had even lost the chat history.

Fortunately, Qingyi didn't call it Dragon's Nest or give it any strange titles, otherwise one day the corpses of the four dragons would be buried underground along with their little nest, and thinking of that name would be very sad.

Zhang Shutong picked up a few more bites of food. He was a man of few words, so the others couldn't tell if his mood had changed. The meal was eaten very slowly, and in the end, they were idly prying sugar cubes off their plates.
Gu Qiu Mian's table, however, was quite lively. Men and women were laughing, some deliberately making a fool of themselves, while the main character at the table was still typing with one finger, occasionally glancing up.
Zhang Shutong noticed that the boys and girls behaved differently. The girls were genuinely trying to find topics to talk about, while the boys seemed to be deliberately trying to get her attention. Every time Gu Qiumian glanced in one direction, the boy would become more smug.

Being a trainer seems to be a very demanding job.

Regardless of what Miss Gu and her henchmen do, it's time for our side to leave.

Zhang Shutong told the others that he needed to go to the restroom.

As they passed Gu Qiumian's table, she was holding up her cup, which still had a little more yogurt left. The rim of the glass was held above her nose, level with her beautiful eyebrows and eyes. Their eyes met briefly again, and then Gu Qiumian indifferently lowered her gaze, looking only at the yogurt in her cup.

Yeah, we're not familiar with each other after all.

Zhang Shutong thought to himself.

These were words spoken by Gu Qiu Mian herself—passed on to her secretary during her morning reading. She didn't know if her secretary had fully grasped the spirit of her words, but she herself had.

Zhang Shutong couldn't find the bathroom door at first and almost ended up in someone's private room, so he wandered around the restaurant for a while.
I just noticed that there was only the owner's wife in the shop, and the person cooking in the kitchen was probably the owner. But it's reasonable to say that a restaurant of this size is just a husband and wife business and they're too busy to handle everything, yet I didn't see any waiters.
It can only be said that business was terrible.

The restaurant only served two tables during the entire lunch break. This restaurant is already quite famous on the street, but it was not immune to the demand.

But then I realized that although I had fewer orders, I had a lot of clients.

Of course, this doesn't include the four of them, but Gu Qiu Mian's spending alone is enough to cover several tables, not to mention that the private room has already been booked.

He just noticed that it was almost lunchtime and the people in the private room hadn't arrived yet.

Zhang Shutong pushed open the toilet door and found that the toilet was very close to the kitchen. He remembered that Du Kang had once said that the shops on this street originally did not have toilets. If you needed to relieve yourself, you had to go to the public toilet on the street. Other businesses were fine, but it was very troublesome for restaurants not to have toilets.

So the restaurant owners have gradually made some changes. For example, this fish restaurant has a rectangular kitchen, and they took a corner of the rectangle to use as a toilet.

There were no separate men's and women's restrooms, and there weren't even proper walls; they were just made of plywood. When things got busy, you could hear the sizzling sound of cooking next door...

Anyway, Zhang Shutong didn't really want to recall the tense situation in detail. For example, right now, he could even hear the proprietress going to the kitchen to urge the food to be served.

"Is it still not ready? The other table is already asking for it!"

“Then let them wait,” a man with a deep voice replied. The boss cursed, “What a damn bad luck! I knew there was only one table at lunchtime…”

"...You won't even let them into the private room, and you deliberately delay cooking... It's all the same who's doing business..."

What do you mean?
Zhang Shutong was about to wash his hands when he paused.

Is there more to the story about the private room?

When the food was served, he thought the proprietress was giving them extra attention because they were regular customers.

Just then, QQ vibrated. Zhang Shutong quickly silenced her phone and looked down. It was a message from Ruoping asking what flavor of milk tea she wanted, saying she would buy it for her. Zhang Shutong casually replied with "pearls".

I told her that she and the others should go out for a walk, that I had diarrhea, and that I would come find them after I paid the bill.

Ruoping then said, "How can I really let you treat me?"
Zhang Shutong thought to himself, "I invited you guys to dinner before simply because I wanted to, but now I can't let you come back."

He wanted to take the opportunity to listen in a few more words, because if Ruoping and the others called for the bill, the proprietress would have to run out again.

He then sent a grinning emoji and said he'd rip off everyone at KFC this weekend.

Upon hearing this, Ruoping didn't stand on ceremony with him and finally gave up.

He was still worried that it wasn't enough, so he sent another message to Qingyi. At this time, Qingyi was the most reliable person, so there was no need to explain further.

Zhang Shutong then told the other party, "Take the two of them and go first, I have something to do."

The other party simply responded with an "OK" gesture and didn't ask any further questions.

After doing all this, Zhang Shutong quietly pressed himself against the partition to listen.

The landlady kept rambling on:
"Why do you have to be so obsessed with money..." the man retorted angrily.

"That bastard is the one who made me so obsessed with money!"

"...I'm just stroking your fur a few times and you're really getting worked up, aren't you? Let me tell you, Lao Mo, you can curse a few times and that's it, but you absolutely can't get involved in that matter..."

"What did I get involved in..."

"It's best not to get involved. We're just ordinary people..."

What does "that matter" refer to?
Demolition compensation?

Zhang Shutong was frowning when he heard someone shout loudly outside the toilet—

"Bill, please!"

"Coming, coming!" the proprietress replied hurriedly, and quickly ran out.

Zhang Shutong slammed his fist on the sink, thinking that what he feared most was exactly what was happening. He managed to calm Ruoping down, forgetting that there was another table over there.
Unable to obtain any further information, he left the restroom and sighed.

When he returned to the table, he found that most of the fish strips were left. He asked for a bag and packed them up. There shouldn't be any "Clean Plate Campaign" yet, and Zhang Shutong wasn't a particularly frugal person. He was just taking them back for dinner.

When they arrived at the front desk, the boy who had shouted for the bill finally arrived late. It turned out that he was the same boy who had argued with Du Kang. He was probably a lower grader, otherwise he wouldn't have called Gu Qiu Mian "Sister Gu". He thought about the title and found it quite humorous.

Come to think of it, their table hadn't even had all the dishes served yet, so why were they in such a hurry to pay the bill? And then there was that guy with a stack of hundred-yuan bills in his hand, casually tossing them around. The only explanation is that the young lady has a very unique style.

The young man was also a restless fellow. He grinned and said to the proprietress, "Let's settle our bill first. You'll feel more at ease once we have the money. Hurry up and serve the food."

"Oh no, oh no, we're just too busy..." the proprietress explained.

On the surface, it appears that this group initiated the trouble, but the actual situation is the opposite.
Zhang Shutong didn't know what to say, so he patiently waited for the proprietress to finish calculating the bill.

At first glance, the meal cost over a hundred yuan.

It's really not cheap. By the way, why is Nutritional Express still five yuan?
He was still thinking about the information he had just heard. He was already lost in thought when the boy started yelling about why he hadn't settled accounts with him first, making a huge racket next to him.

Zhang Shutong just wanted to leave as quickly as possible. She frowned subconsciously, took out her phone, and casually asked:

Where is the payment code?

"What code?" The proprietress was taken aback.

It's a QR code for receiving payments—he wanted to use a different word, but when he looked up to find the blue-green QR code, he couldn't find it. Then he looked at his phone screen and realized he didn't even have Alipay installed, so there was no point in talking about codes.

It's 2012 now.

Zhang Shutong wasn't sure if he had enough change on him.

It's best if it's enough.

He turned every pocket he could find inside, and a fifty-yuan note brought him a sigh of relief, followed by two ten-yuan notes and a twenty-yuan note…

He had to carry the plastic bag in one hand while making change, so he didn't have enough hands.
At this point, the proprietress also noticed something was wrong. She forced a smile and said, "Don't rush, don't rush, take your time looking." For some reason, the young man also came over and asked very familiarly:
"Hey buddy, you're Sister Gu's classmate?"

Zhang Shutong nodded absentmindedly.

It seems I don't have enough change...

He even took out the coins he used to make change when he ate his sandwich in the morning.

Ninety-five, ninety-six... one hundred and one, it stopped at this number and didn't move anymore.

No way, it would be a bit embarrassing to not bring enough money on my first time treating someone to a meal.

Zhang Shutong bit the soft meat in his mouth.

"So, what's your relationship like?" the boy continued to ask.

“Normally…” Zhang Shutong looked up at the proprietress, “Could you round it down to zero?”

The proprietress's smile faded.
“Child, you ate a total of 125 yuan. Auntie can even wipe off those five pieces for you, but this…”

Zhang Shutong was prepared to make a very embarrassing phone call.

At that moment, the boy patted him on the shoulder:

"So we're not familiar with each other. No wonder I'd never heard of you before. I was thinking of asking you to help her out if she needed anything in class, but you've made things difficult for her over just one meal. Oh well, I'll pay for it. After all, she's Sister Gu's classmate. We'll get to know each other better after a while, and we'll be buddies from now on."

He then generously pulled out a twenty-yuan note and slapped it on the counter.

"No need," Zhang Shutong refused, frowning.

It wasn't a matter of how much money or how much face to ask; he could tell whether the person genuinely wanted help or had an ulterior motive. He could always have Du Kang ride back and deliver it.
He said to the proprietress:

"I'll make a call to my classmate, please wait a moment."

"I already told you, I paid for it, why are you being so stubborn, buddy? You really don't need my help? Then I'm really not going to help you?"

Zhang Shutong was genuinely annoyed.

Why is this kid chattering away like a fighting rooster, as if he's determined to win something over him? He couldn't be bothered with him, so he found Du Kang's phone number, dialed it, and waited for the other end to answer.

"Alright, you go first. It's not that I'm making things difficult for you, it's just a small business, otherwise we'd really lose money..."

"Just ignore him, let's settle our bill first. We can't even scrape together twenty to eat out..."

Amidst the noise around me—the boy laughing, the proprietress laughing, but their smiles carried different meanings—a sweet female voice came from the other end of the phone: "Sorry, the user you are calling is currently busy..."

Zhang Shutong turned around to go somewhere else.

But a clean, white hand reached out from the side of the shoulder, and its owner raised a finger, causing several red banknotes to float lightly onto the counter, making the laughter pause for a moment.

"What, twenty?"

A girl's calm voice sounded from behind:
"I'll treat him to that meal."

I've written 7000 words today, I'm really exhausted! Also, please vote for me with your monthly tickets, thank you so much for your support!
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(End of this chapter)