Actually, Chen Zui wasn’t really that hungry, but hospitality is hard to refuse. With Wuchi Yun’s repeated persuasion and Jiang Feiwan’s support, she ate a few pieces of vegetables and two beef meatballs.
Wuchi Yun kept looking at her.
It was just… That kind of very direct gaze: she would stare at her while picking up food, stare at her while eating food, and still stare at her when adding more food into the hot pot.
Did she get oil on her face when eating the king crab legs earlier?
Chen Zui blankly rubbed the corner of her mouth—it was fresh and clean, with nothing there.
Chen Zui felt awkward being stared at so much. Plus, the other person was Jiang Feiwan’s friend, so she couldn’t call her out and could only blindly dodge the gaze.
Finally, Wuchi Yun had seen enough and nodded with great satisfaction: “Sis, are you of mixed heritage?”
Thank goodness it wasn’t a magic attack.
Chen Zui nodded, “Yeah, pretty obvious, right?”
“Mhm! Women of mixed heritage really are uniquely charming,” Wuchi Yun agreed heartily. “I notice most mixed-race people have a fifty-fifty Eurasian look, but you look more like a seventy-thirty split, with Asian taking seventy and Western taking thirty.”
This was the conclusion she had observed from the moment she walked in the door.
Chen Zui’s face perfectly combined the strengths of both Eastern and Western features: an enviable nose bridge, a brow bone that wasn’t too prominent, and eyes with just the right amount of depth, their pupils faintly tinged with light blue. If they were standing under direct sunlight right now, this hint of blue would probably be even more obvious and clearer.
At first glance, Chen Zui was undeniably mixed-race. At second glance, you’d feel that using the word “mixed-race” to describe Chen Zui’s facial features wasn’t quite accurate; “exquisite” was more like it.
And that slightly short, layered wolf tail haircut added a touch of sharpness to her delicate features.
“Have you always had short hair?” Wuchi Yun was curious.
Chen Zui recalled: “Not really. It was a bit longer when I was in school, though not too long—just past my shoulders. I only cut it short later because of work needs.”
“I bet with long hair you’d totally be that kind of cool, domineering yujie type!” Wuchi Yun imagined.
Chen Zui: “Haha…”
She wouldn’t dare imagine that. She was someone who hadn’t even worn a skirt from childhood to adulthood. If you asked her to bat her eyelashes or something…
Thanks, her toes were curling into the floorboards from second-hand embarrassment.
But she wasn’t a total tomboy either, just leaning toward a more neutral style.
“Hey! By the way, what do you do for a living? How’s the pay?” Wuchi Yun was simply too curious about this person named Chen Zui.
After all, for the past four or five years, she had only ever heard her name without ever seeing her face.
Nearby, Jiang Feiwan finally couldn’t help it anymore: “Wuchi, are we not eating hot pot anymore?”
Wuchi Yun grinned: “Eat, eating, eating.” She hadn’t eaten her fill yet.
Chen Zui secretly glanced to the side, the corners of her lips curving up. Using public chopsticks, she picked up a piece of mutton boiled in the extra-spicy red oil broth, placed it into Jiang Feiwan’s bowl, and replied, “I opened a coffee shop in Qingzhou, making a bit of rent money.”
“Wow! You’re the boss!”
“Can’t really call myself that, just a corporate drone.” Chen Zui picked up another piece from the spicy broth for Jiang Feiwan.
Wuchi Yun was single-mindedly focused on her questions and didn’t notice anything else at all. “Why do you have so many tattoos? They don’t look like the non-mainstream patterns tattooed by street punks either.”
Chen Zui’s hand holding the chopsticks paused for a split second, and she subconsciously glanced at the tattoo pattern on her right hand.
The tattoos on her arms weren’t actually very regular; looking closely, they were a bit chaotic. That kind of chaos where many layers piled on top of each other, each looking like a complete photograph.
From graduation until now, every dangerous place she had been to was on there.
“Just personal preference, I personally like tattooing these things.” Chen Zui pulled back her thoughts and continued putting food in Jiang Feiwan’s bowl.
She kept adding meat to Jiang Feiwan’s bowl, so Jiang Feiwan’s bowl was never empty. One could say she couldn’t keep up with Chen Zui’s speed of putting food in, her tongue was slightly burning and numb from the spice, and the drink beside her hand had already hit the bottom.
Jiang Feiwan helplessly called out to her, “Chen Zui,” and reminded her: “No more.”
“Ah, okay, okay.” Chen Zui reacted belatedly, put down her chopsticks, and stopped feeding her.
Wuchi Yun had overly sharp ears and caught that phrase: “What’s okay? What’s okay?”
“Ah!” She saw Jiang Feiwan’s bowl, which was already rimmed with a circle of red chili oil. “You can’t—”
“Do you want a drink?” Jiang Feiwan interrupted her, casting a bland glance at her. “I’ll go get it.”
Wuchi Yun shut her mouth, unable to stop a trace of worry from slipping out.
Soon, Jiang Feiwan came back carrying two bottles of milk, putting one beside Chen Zui and keeping one for herself, then leisurely finished eating the rest of her food.
There were still two living ancestors down at her own place, so Chen Zui didn’t stay long. Clutching her unfinished milk, she said goodbye to Jiang Feiwan multiple times.
The door at the entryway closed, and Wuchi Yun suddenly turned her head, her scrutinizing gaze completely undisguised: “Alright, Jiang Feiwan, you lied.”
Jiang Feiwan didn’t admit it: “How did I lie?”
“You said you guys weren’t in contact anymore!”
“The truth.”
“Then what about just now? I refuse to believe someone came all this way just to borrow a phone charger!” Wuchi Yun put her hands on her hips and went back into the kitchen to help clean up.
Jiang Feiwan’s brows knitted slightly, her bowl-collecting movements trembling imperceptibly: “She lives downstairs.”
“What?!!!!” Wuchi Yun cried out in shock, “Downstairs?!! Downstairs?! So she didn’t come up to borrow a charger?”
It was because she heard the sound of the glass cup shattering, so she came upstairs to check?!
Wuchi Yun was too excited to speak; this guess was very bold, and she didn’t dare run her mouth too much.
Jiang Feiwan had already placed a batch of bowls and chopsticks into the kitchen. When she walked back out, she braced herself against the wine cabinet, the fingertips pressing against her upper left abdomen turning pale, and she gently closed her eyelids.
The moment Wuchi Yun saw her looking like this, she let out an “Aiya” and rushed over: “You knew you couldn’t eat spicy food, yet you still ate everything she put in your bowl. Look at you! Feeling uncomfortable now, aren’t you?”
She helped Jiang Feiwan over to sit on the sofa, ran to pour warm water, handed it to her, and blamed herself: “It’s my fault. If I had paid attention earlier, I wouldn’t have let you eat it.”
“It has nothing to do with you,” Jiang Feiwan smiled faintly, struggling to smooth out the space between her brows. “I was just craving it.”
Wuchi Yun didn’t believe it at all: “Because she put it in your bowl, even when I reminded you, you still ate it, right?”
Jiang Feiwan smiled without answering, only feeling that the burning sensation in her upper abdomen wasn’t too hard to endure.
When Chen Zui got back home, Li Li and Han Ling had almost finished eating, leaving a portion of everything for Chen Zui. Seeing Chen Zui holding milk in her arms with oil stains still lingering at the corner of her mouth, Han Ling put on a sarcastic tone: “Sister Li Li, we’re too kind. Someone sneaks out to eat secretly without bringing us, dumping us at home to eat takeout~ so cruel.”
Li Li glanced at her: “What did you go out for? Was there an emergency?”
“Girl, I just made a phone call.” Chen Zui calmly used a tissue to wipe her mouth.
Li Li pointed at her phone left on the dining table: “Did you make it with a landline?”
Chen Zui: “I’ve discovered the two of you have teamed up in a gang-up kind of way.”
Li Li: “Speak properly, you’re the one who ditched us and ran off alone.”
“Loyal words are hard to the ear.” Chen Zui took a sip of milk. “Planning to stay at my place all afternoon?”
Han Ling rolled with the words: “She’s chasing you away.”
Chen Zui balled up her tissue and threw it over: “I want to chase you away too.”
Han Ling dodged: “She wants to chase me away.”
Chen Zui: “Shameless.”
“Bullying me for not reading Chinese books since I was a kid.”
Chen Zui laughed at her: “She’s praising you for being pretty.”
Li Li couldn’t hold it in and chuckled out loud: “She’s tricking you.”
Fine, her good friend was elbowing outward.
Chen Zui couldn’t be bothered to entertain them, slid her phone over, hugged her milk, and sat down on the sofa.
She sent a message to Jiang Feiwan: [Remember to mop the dining room floor, watch out for glass shards.]
After waiting for a while, the other side didn’t reply. Chen Zui spun her phone around—should she go back up again?
Forget it, the person had a friend over; it would be quite presumptuous to keep bothering her as an outsider. She dismissed this absurd thought.
The milk was rich and mellow, leaving a lingering sweetness at the root of the tongue. Chen Zui glanced at the milk brand and ordered a box of the same kind online, with next-day delivery.
Soon, she saw a pop-up on her phone where Jiang Feiwan replied: [Okay.]
Alright.
As long as she remembered.
Whether it was because of people checking in after the cafe became popular or not, when Chen Zui went back to the shop, there wasn’t even a place for her to sit down. Even An Qi wasn’t irritable when she saw her, blindly and busily working away in the trenches.
Seeing this scene, Chen Zui was slightly surprised. She originally thought that the hype had a certain time-sensitive shelf life—once the online hype died down, the visitors might not be as numerous as before. Who would have known that it currently seemed to still be in its rising phase, and the incoming crowd was increasing instead, tiring the little firecracker into a mute firecracker.
She went into the staff room to change clothes and came out to help. When there were enough people making coffee, she came out to help serve coffee, finally delivering the coffee that had been howling for delivery on the counter to the corresponding customers.
An Qi voiced out: “I summarize the heartfelt wishes of all employees in this shop: Boss, please hire a few more people, the staff are practically broken…”
Chen Zui didn’t even think: “I think so too. Tonight I’ll go post some recruitment notices and let them come to the shop to interview with you.”
“Not doing it, I have to make coffee and interview people too,” An Qi refused.
“Then I’ll do it.” Chen Zui didn’t force her.
Hardly finding a gap for a break, An Qi’s blank, exhausted brain suddenly thought of something, so she took out her phone and sent a message: “Right, yesterday a guy asked about something. He probably wants to cooperate to turn ‘Have a Cup’ into an internet-famous cafe. I didn’t ask much, I’ll push his WeChat to you.”
Chen Zui didn’t even lift her head: “What, think you’re not tired enough? Have three heads and six arms to make 800 cups of coffee in a day by yourself? Next time there’s someone with commercial motives this obvious, just reject them outright.”
She had no intention of making a coffee shop big and strong.
If the vast majority of people coming here to drink coffee were just holding a phone to order a cup of coffee, taking a photo to post online, and adding a tag to gain two or three likes, she’d rather not have so many people knowing about her shop.
Coffee was supposed to be a very cozy beverage. It could be a breathing space to stop and rest when passing by with tired legs, a seasoning to take a sip of at a certain moment in plain daily life, or a slacking-off time when you could pick it up and take a sip while working overtime—the only thing it shouldn’t be was an internet-famous check-in spot.
When Chen Zui agreed to Li Li to settle down in Qingzhou and open the coffee shop, she had a bit of selfish motive.
She didn’t consider herself the founder of this coffee shop; she was also just a resting traveler passing by when tired. How could a cafe not be a seasoning that couldn’t be ignored in her 29 years of somewhat bland, or arguably bitter, life?
However, the word “settle down” was still too big; she was always prepared to pull out and leave at any moment.
Jiang Feiwan’s face flashed abruptly through Chen Zui’s mind. Her heart trembled inexplicably, and the decent cup of coffee she was holding spilled entirely onto her ice sleeves, staining them with brown water marks.
Tsk.
Clumsy.
Chen Zui told herself she wasn’t clumsy, took off her ice sleeves, and stuffed them into the apron pocket in front of her, completely unaware that quite a few camera lenses were already aimed at her from the surroundings.