TA •Chapter 97

After hanging up, Cheng Ke stood dazed for a long time. It was only when Jiang Yuduo pressed a cup of iced milk tea against his face that he came back to himself.

"From your shop?" He took the milk tea and glanced at it.

"What are you thinking?" Jiang Yuduo said. "My shop only has cement and tiles right now."

"You bought it from next door?" Cheng Ke smiled.

"Given to us by next door," Jiang Yuduo said in a lowered voice. "A woman runs that place. Chen Qing’s already gotten friendly with her."

"Chen Qing’s pretty good at that," Cheng Ke said, looking over at the shop next door. Chen Qing was sitting at their counter, chatting with a woman. "Didn’t realize he was this friendly before."

"Friendly my ass. The woman’s daughter just started college this year. She’s home on vacation now, and comes over to help sometimes," Jiang Yuduo said. "If not for that, you think he’d say one extra word to her?"

"So your shop has one too? A girl, not bad-looking?" Cheng Ke asked.

"Pretty good…" Jiang Yuduo stopped halfway through. "Young master, you’re fishing me for information, aren’t you?"

"Am I that petty?" Cheng Ke said.

"How the hell would I know? Since I’ve been with you, this is the first chance I’ve had to hang around a girl," Jiang Yuduo said. "How would I know whether your mind’s broad or narrow on this kind of thing?"

"Pretty narrow," Cheng Ke said. "I am, after all, someone who’s been mentally aging several years and is almost forty."

"The girl is pretty good-looking," Jiang Yuduo said.

"Oh." Cheng Ke nodded and took a sip of his milk tea. "Then why doesn’t Chen Qing go after the girl in his own shop? He sees her every day. Right place, right time, right people."

"I don’t know." Jiang Yuduo looked at him.

"I’ll tell you. I know," Cheng Ke said with a laugh.

"I don’t want to hear it." Jiang Yuduo narrowed his eyes. "I fucking know what kind of crap you’re holding in."

Cheng Ke laughed so hard he nearly bent over. He pointed at him. "Watch your language, Boss Jiang."

"Say one more word and I’ll beat you up, and I won’t even count the rounds for you," Jiang Yuduo said.

Cheng Ke sat down under the sun umbrella with a smile and slowly drank his milk tea while looking at the materials in the shop.

"Who called you just now?" Jiang Yuduo came over and sat beside him. "You were spaced out for ages. I called you and you didn’t even hear me."

"Huihui called me," Cheng Ke said, frowning. "It sounded like Xu Ding just brought… my dad to the restaurant."

"Your dad?" Jiang Yuduo froze. "Is Xu Ding really that close with him?"

"They weren’t close before," Cheng Ke said. "Whether they got close later, I don’t know."

"What’s he trying to do?" Jiang Yuduo asked. "Did Xu Ding defect?"

"Impossible. Xu Ding isn’t that kind of person," Cheng Ke said, lighting a cigarette and holding it in his mouth. "Didn’t they say some backer had sent the restaurant some high-end potted plants? Xu Ding never told me who that backer was either."

"Then your dad’s the one defecting?" Jiang Yuduo turned his head. "Damn, if he makes a move like that, will Cheng Yi let you off? Things had finally calmed down."

"I don’t know how my dad handled things afterward. I haven’t really been in contact with home either," Cheng Ke said.

"Did you let him hear the recording?" Jiang Yuduo asked.

"No," Cheng Ke said. "He didn’t actually not know. Whether he heard it or not, he could guess what Cheng Yi was thinking. He just… probably wanted this kind of effect. Competition."

"Ask Xu Ding then," Jiang Yuduo sighed. "What exactly is your dad trying to do? Seriously, if Cheng Yi comes looking for trouble again, I really will beat him until he’s useless."

"So cocky, Third Brother," Cheng Ke said with a smile.

"Save it. After meeting you, I’m basically fit to compete for an Outstanding Resident award in our community," Jiang Yuduo said, frowning as he bent his head and took big gulps of milk tea. "Don’t make me find the chance."

Cheng Ke laughed and ruffled his hair.

Xu Ding had never brought up the backer to Cheng Ke, but Cheng Ke never asked either. On the first of every month, Xu Ding came to the theme restaurant meeting to listen in, so there was always a chance to see him.

Cheng Ke waited until the first. After the meeting on the small terrace on the second floor ended and everyone had left, he and Xu Ding stayed seated, neither of them moving.

"You’re awfully patient," Xu Ding said with a smile after taking a sip of tea.

"I was just wondering what’s gotten into my dad," Cheng Ke said.

"Before he came to me," Xu Ding said quietly, "he’d already been here several times. You just never noticed."

"…When did he come?" Cheng Ke was startled. He came to the shop almost every day, but he had never noticed his dad coming by.

"I wasn’t sure about the earlier ones. The most recent was last month. Business was really booming then, wasn’t it?" Xu Ding said. "So he came to me again."

"Did he pay?" Cheng Ke asked.

"Money grubber," Xu Ding laughed. "He asked me what style the place was going for. I told him Xiao Ke wanted it to be unpretentious, high quality but grounded."

"Mm." Cheng Ke nodded. "That’s the idea. If it’s too put-on, people who really know won’t like it, and people who are just pretending to know won’t dare come in."

"President Cheng thought that line of thinking was right," Xu Ding said. "I also told him you wanted to expand lately, and that you were looking for another suitable place to open one more branch, so he told you to come take a look here."

Xu Ding put a business card in front of him.

Cheng Ke glanced at it. He didn’t recognize the name, but he was very familiar with the address on the card. It was a newly developed commercial plaza his dad had built last year. More precisely, it was the project where he’d been framed by Cheng Yi and kicked out of the house.

"I can’t afford the rent," Cheng Ke said.

Xu Ding just smiled without speaking.

"Is he trying to provoke Cheng Yi or me?" Cheng Ke sighed. "Either way?"

"Probably neither," Xu Ding said. "This location is the best in the city. I think it’s a peace offering. You’ve been out for so long already, and he probably figured you had no intention of lowering your head."

"What head do I even have left to lower?" Cheng Ke looked at Xu Ding. "Did he say anything else to you?"

"What could he say to me? He was completely in the stance of an investor," Xu Ding said. "Not a single extra word… Oh, he did say not to tell you."

"So I just keep pretending to be stupid? Pretend I don’t know?" Cheng Ke said.

"Pretend," Xu Ding nodded.

Cheng Ke picked up the card and gave it a shake. "He even gave me this. Am I still supposed to keep pretending?"

Xu Ding stood up with a smile. "Do whatever you want. I only have one request, make more money."

The renovation of Meow’s place went very quickly. Maybe because the total area was so small, it was finished in less than a month. By the second time Cheng Ke went over, the lucky cat figurine lady was already in place, and there was even a cat tree in the corner.

"Is this prepared for Meow?" Cheng Ke asked. "When did you buy it? I didn’t even know."

"This is…" Jiang Yuduo hesitated, then pointed at the girl standing with Chen Qing by the shop entrance, holding up the sun umbrella. "That one bought it."

"Oh." Cheng Ke looked at the girl.

She was indeed fair-skinned and delicate-looking. When she worked, she seemed much more efficient than Chen Qing.

"Is Chen Qing…" Cheng Ke stared for a while and felt like Chen Qing’s gaze was glued to her face, never leaving.

"You noticed?" Jiang Yuduo immediately leaned over. "He doesn’t even go to the woman’s shop next door to freeload milk tea anymore."

Cheng Ke laughed. "Do you think there’s any chance?"

"No chance." Jiang Yuduo shook his head without even thinking.

"Yeah, I thought so too," Cheng Ke said. "After all, the girl’s here for the boss."

Jiang Yuduo clicked his tongue and took a rag to wipe the tables.

When the girl came into the shop and saw Cheng Ke sitting at the counter, she froze. "We’re not open yet."

"Does he look like he’s here to drink milk tea?" Jiang Yuduo said.

"Oh." The girl smiled a little awkwardly.

"This is Sun Qinqin," Jiang Yuduo introduced her to Cheng Ke. "Our shop’s only technical support."

"No, no." Sun Qinqin hurriedly waved it off.

"This is my…" Jiang Yuduo pointed at Cheng Ke.

The moment Cheng Ke saw that expression, he already had a feeling what Jiang Yuduo was going to say.

Even so, when Jiang Yuduo actually said it, he still felt a little dazed, a little excited, a little satisfied, and a little… hard to describe. He realized, to his own surprise, that he had actually felt shy about this sort of thing.

"My boyfriend, Cheng Ke," Jiang Yuduo said.

"Oh." Sun Qinqin didn’t seem especially surprised. "Brother Ke, right? I always hear Chen Qing talking about you."

"Mm." Cheng Ke smiled.

Even Jiang Yuduo found Sun Qinqin’s composure surprising. He turned and looked at her.

"At the fried chicken place where I used to work," Sun Qinqin said while tidying the cups behind the counter with a smile, "the owner was also a guy. He had a boyfriend too. They’d been together for years. They fought every day and still never broke up."

"Ah." Jiang Yuduo gave a reply.

"This box of cups doesn’t have the Meow logo on it," Sun Qinqin said. "We can make some stickers and put them on. It’d be such a waste to not use them. We were planning to make stickers anyway, weren’t we?"

"Sure." Jiang Yuduo nodded.

After saying a few more things to Sun Qinqin, Jiang Yuduo and Cheng Ke went outside the shop. The moment Chen Qing saw them come out, he hurried into the shop.

"There’s not much to do here this afternoon," Jiang Yuduo said. "Let’s go to the mall. I want to buy clothes."

"Aren’t you the type who buys clothes at the wholesale market?" Cheng Ke said.

"Not this mall," Jiang Yuduo said, pointing down the road. "Keep going that way, there’s a clothing wholesale market. Chen Qing found it. He said the stuff was so cheap it was basically being given away."

Cheng Ke sighed. "No. Let’s just buy them at the mall."

"Do you think I’ve got money now just because I opened a shop?" Jiang Yuduo said. "Young master, it hasn’t even opened yet. I’ve been counting money going out the whole time, and not a single dime has come in."

Cheng Ke said nothing. He took out his wallet and rummaged through it for a long time before finding a one-jiao coin that had been sitting there unused for several months.

He took Jiang Yuduo’s hand and placed the coin in his palm. "One jiao. It came in."

"Fuck," Jiang Yuduo laughed for a long time. "Fine, fine, fine. The mall. This mall it is."

They only spent half an hour at the mall. Cheng Ke had just picked out two T-shirts for Jiang Yuduo when his phone rang.

He took it out and looked at it. "It’s the restaurant calling. Don’t know what for."

"Brother Cheng," as soon as he answered, Huihui’s voice came through. "President Cheng came by two minutes ago."

"Which President Cheng?" Cheng Ke didn’t react for a moment.

"Your dad," Huihui said, then after a pause repeated herself, "your father."

"Oh. Is he alone?" Cheng Ke almost laughed.

"Alone, on the second floor," Huihui said. "Sister Fang went upstairs to take the order."

"Is there a performance on the second floor this afternoon?" Cheng Ke asked.

"Mm, it’s already started," Huihui said. "He’s probably watching it right now."

"Okay, I know."

Cheng Ke hung up and looked at Jiang Yuduo. "I have to go over. My dad’s at the shop."

"I’m going too," Jiang Yuduo said.

"Mm." Cheng Ke nodded.

His dad had gone there alone, probably because he wanted to find him but couldn’t bring himself to say it directly, so he could only do it by chance. If Cheng Ke didn’t go now, his dad would probably just leave. Whether there would be another chance encounter after that was hard to say.

Because his dad definitely knew the people at the shop would notify him. If Cheng Ke didn’t go, his dad might get angry enough to pull back the storefront he had already started having people design.

"I’ll just stay outside later and not go in," Jiang Yuduo said as he drove Chen Qing’s private little electric car toward the restaurant with Cheng Ke. "I’m worried your dad will be annoyed if he sees me."

"Why would he be annoyed?" Cheng Ke said.

"I’m still on medication," Jiang Yuduo frowned.

"You weren’t scared of him before treatment," Cheng Ke said. "Now that you’re getting treated, why are you scared?"

"I don’t want to affect how he sees you. This is just starting to turn around," Jiang Yuduo said.

"My dad and I," Cheng Ke pinched the bridge of his nose, "with or without you, whether I try hard or not, there’s no way we’ll ever be close like a normal father and son. We’ve never been close like that all these years. As long as we can avoid being completely cold to each other, that’s good enough. Some things were missed, and some things happened. They can’t be made up for."

"Mm." Jiang Yuduo answered, and it was hard to tell whether he really understood.

"If you don’t want to talk to him, just have something to drink on the first floor," Cheng Ke said.

"Okay, then I’ll stay on the first floor," Jiang Yuduo said.

The car stopped in front of the restaurant and parked in their own employee parking spot.

This was the first time Cheng Ke had ever used that parking spot. He didn’t have a car, and no one at the shop did either. When Xu Ding came, they’d stop there briefly, but usually customers used it.

The two of them got out. Jiang Yuduo glanced at the side. "Wouldn’t it have been better to take a taxi? Why did we have to drive Chen Qing’s car?"

"…I don’t know," Cheng Ke said, looking at Chen Qing’s tiny car, only about half the size of the one next to it. "I…"

"Your dad’s coming out." Jiang Yuduo suddenly lowered his voice and said it quickly.

Cheng Ke froze, then turned to look toward the shop entrance.

Sure enough, he saw his dad standing at the door, looking at the two of them and the car with an expression that was impossible to read.

"Dad," Cheng Ke said, taking two steps forward to greet him. "Why are you here?"

"You ask as if you don’t know." His dad walked over and frowned at Jiang Yuduo.

"Good afternoon, Uncle," Jiang Yuduo said.

That familiar greeting probably dragged up some not-so-pleasant memories for Cheng Ke’s dad. Cheng Ke saw his brows knit even tighter.

"I’m going in first," Jiang Yuduo said, then quickly walked into the shop.

"Let’s talk for a bit." His dad stared after Jiang Yuduo until he went inside, then turned back to Cheng Ke and said that.

"Mm." Cheng Ke hesitated a moment, then opened the car door. "Let’s talk in the car."

"In the car…" His dad was visibly shocked.

Cheng Ke didn’t look at him. He got into the car.

It took several seconds before his dad seemed to make up his mind and sit down too. His first words were probably impossible to hold back. "This is your car?"

"No." Cheng Ke lowered the window and looked out sideways. "It’s Jiang Yuduo’s friend’s car."

"That skinny little guy who led the car blockade last time?" his dad said.

"Mm." Cheng Ke nodded. "The car’s pretty good. New energy, and there’s a subsidy."

His dad looked at him for a long time before saying, "Are you trying to piss me off?"

"No." Cheng Ke turned back. "I wasn’t planning to buy one."

After a moment of silence, his dad cleared his throat. "That other place, the chain or the branch, has it started yet?"

"It’s being designed. The space over there is bigger, and we’re still discussing some functional areas with the designer," Cheng Ke said.

"Mm." His dad nodded. "You… don’t think I have some kind of ulterior motive."

"I never thought that." Cheng Ke smiled.

"And don’t think Xu Ding is hiding anything from you. It’s only been these past two months. I didn’t know him before, just knew there was such a person," his dad said. "When it comes to cooperation, trust still matters."

"I know." Cheng Ke looked at his dad. For his dad to say these things was extremely rare. It was the first time in his life he had heard his father explain anything to him.

"Your boyfriend…" His dad looked toward the shop entrance, then froze. "Why did he come back out again!"

"Hm?" Cheng Ke also froze, then hurriedly looked over.

Jiang Yuduo was walking over with two large mugs. He came all the way to the car door, put the mugs on the roof, and directly pulled open the door on his dad’s side.

"Want something to drink?" Jiang Yuduo asked.

His dad stared at him and said nothing.

"Good afternoon, Uncle," Jiang Yuduo said.

Cheng Ke felt like his dad might explode.

Jiang Yuduo wasn’t like this with other people. Only when facing his dad did he seem tense enough to have no smile at all. Other people might not be able to tell, but Cheng Ke could feel it. Jiang Yuduo was nervous.

He looked exactly like a black-hearted shop owner who forced sales on you, and if you didn’t buy, he’d send you walking out sideways the next second.

"Drink. What are these two?" Cheng Ke hurriedly stepped in.

"Watermelon juice." Jiang Yuduo took the mugs off the roof and handed them in.

Cheng Ke took both cups, then passed one to his dad. "Dad, have some watermelon juice."

"Mm." His dad took the cup and lowered his head for a sip.

Jiang Yuduo slammed the car door shut with a bang and turned to leave.

Startled by the completely unbuffered, soundless explosion of a slam, Cheng Ke’s dad nearly stood up, coughing for a long time.

"He…" Cheng Ke was also startled. He took the cup from his dad. "He’s a little nervous."

"I can see that," his dad said, frowning. "Not much to boast about."

Cheng Ke said nothing.