Chapter 42: An Unexpected Encounter

  Xiao Mei poured tea after going to arrange dishes.

  Staring at the room on a starry night, it's very ordinary and almost hasn't been decorated before. No matter how you look at it, it doesn't seem like a restaurant.

  "Huang Ge, you're not being honest, are you? You brought us here just to meet your girlfriend!" Jia Kai teased Huang Tao.

  Huang Tao chuckled and felt a bit embarrassed, "Not entirely, the food here is indeed good, I just came to take a look at Xiao Mei along the way."

  "Huang Dagei, his father doesn't want to see you, right? I just heard from Xiaomei that it's quite miserable." Xingye's gossip spirit was also stirred up.

  When she said that, Huang Tao smiled self-deprecatingly and said, "I'm just a poor boy who doesn't have a proper job, which family would be willing to give their daughter to me?"

  Looking at Huang Tao under the starry night, he is only 24 or 25 years old, and he looks quite spirited. His speech and actions also have a few clever points, but thinking about his profession, it's understandable that the old man would think this way. After all, which parent wants to see their daughter marry a husband who can't even support the family?

  "I and Xiao Mei are neighbors and classmates, we played together when we were young, she knows everything about me, but doesn't despise my poverty and lack of ability, it's just that her family members don't agree with our association." Huang Tao seemed to have opened up his mouth, also wanting to chat with someone to vent the unhappiness accumulated in his heart.

  Xiao Mei and a girl brought in dishes, "Try this eight-treasure stew, the name doesn't sound good, but it's the most particular about the fire, this dish needs to be stewed for six or seven hours. This is glutinous rice chicken, which is different from Cantonese-style glutinous rice chicken. There's also lotus leaf cake, which is most suitable for eating in summer..."

  Xiao Mei introduced several dishes in detail, Xing Ye took a look and found that the color, fragrance, and shape were all good. She took a bite of the stir-fried dish and put it in her mouth, the flavor was rich and the texture was crispy, it was indeed not bad. Now Xing Ye has learned cooking from Mei for half a year, she can be considered as a semi-professional. After eating just one bite, she knew that she didn't come here for nothing.

  "It's really delicious, I almost swallowed my tongue! Is this a family secret recipe of yours, Little Sister Mei? Unfortunately, I won't be able to learn how to make it." Xing Ye thought to herself that she really wanted to see how others made it, but knew that these kinds of private dishes were never shared outside the family.

  "It's okay if you like it, but this is a secret transmission, even I, as the daughter, am not allowed to learn it. In our family, only my brothers and cousins are taught." Little Mei explained.

  In this day and age, spitting out such nonsense, it's not even worth spreading to outsiders, yet you still go on about passing it down to sons but not daughters, what if you don't have a son?

  Xiao Mei left with a deliberate glance at Huang Tao without saying anything, and Huang Tao understood and told Jia Kai to go to the bathroom, also following him out of the house.

  The dishes were indeed delicious, and Xing Ye and Jia Kai ate to their heart's content. They knew that Huang Tao's mind was not on the food, but rather he had come purely for social reasons. He didn't return after going to the restroom, which wasn't taken seriously.

  "You still dare to come, when what I say doesn't even count?" A loud male voice came, and Xing Ye and Jia Kai stood up at the same time.

  "Uncle, I'm here with a friend for dinner." It was Huang Tao's voice.

  "Dad, he really has guests coming over for dinner." Little Mei said hastily.

  "Look at the kind of friends you've made, they're all riffraff. I don't welcome them here, get out... You won't leave? Fine... Don't blame me for taking action, Xiaomei step aside." A commotion of voices and footsteps erupted.

  Xing Ye Jia Kai heard that they were going to take action and hastily opened the door to go out.

  Just then, Huang Tao was seen hiding behind Xiao Mei's back, a man in his fifties, holding a kitchen knife with a stern expression, looking as if he would have rushed forward to chop someone if he hadn't been held back.

  "We really came here to eat, you see, and now you've scared all my friends." Huang Tao emerged from behind Xiao Mei, pointing at Jia Kai and the others.

  Jia Kai deliberately kept Xing Ye behind him after coming out, stick in hand, don't get mistakenly hurt.

  "Boss, we really came here with Huang Ge to eat," said Jia Kai.

  The man holding the knife was Xiao Mei's father, who was also the boss of this store. He looked at Kai and them, they were young, but their clothes and demeanor were good, not common, and he couldn't guess what for a while. His words were better, "Look at your young age, don't be cheated by this kid, he's been doing all sorts of deceitful things since childhood, I've seen him grow up, he's never done anything decent, it was his dad who was also annoyed to death..."

  This sentence obviously touched Huang Tao's reverse scales, and looking around the room, many guests were watching. Huang Tao was also angry: "I'll call you Uncle for Xiaomei's face, but it's not that I'm afraid of you. Let me tell you, I just like your daughter, and your daughter likes me too. What can you do? You can't beat me to death this time, and I'll come again next time."

  "You're good... I won't hit you to death" was provoked by Huang Tao, and then Manager Tan wanted to rush up and take action again.

  "Dad, don't hit him, Huang Tao, you apologize to my dad quickly!" Xiaomei stood between the two again, one side was her father who gave birth to her and raised her, and the other side was her childhood sweetheart, she was the most painful.

  "Are you protecting him? Fine, I don't have a daughter like you anymore. Watch me take care of both of you..." Xiaomei's father got even angrier seeing Xiaomei protect Huang Tao.

  "Mom, someone is fighting!" A seven or eight-year-old little girl came in from the outside and called out to her mother. A beautiful woman in her thirties with a furrowed brow came in, saw the commotion in the courtyard, and pulled the little girl into her arms, probably afraid she would get hurt.

  "Alright, Old Tan has something to say. With so many guests here, put the knife down first." A man in his 40s came out of the main house on the north side, with a square face, thick eyebrows and long eyes, now frowning and standing there, exuding an air of authority without being angry. A young man beside him stepped forward and took the knife from Old Tan's hand.

  The little girl called out "Dad" and rushed over.

  "Be careful, don't fall," the man immediately changed from a majestic leader to a loving father.

  "Hong Hai, what's going on?" The young woman also walked over.

  "It's nothing, Mr. Tan has some family matters, come on, take Yaoyao in first." The man said calmly.

  The woman also didn't say much and led the little girl into the room first.

  "Secretary Zhang, look?" a man in his forties with a stout build carefully approached and said.

  "Go take a look, it's nothing big, after all, it's someone else's family affair." After instructing, he also turned around and went into the room.

  Staring straight at the man under the starry night until he entered the room.

  Is it him? It's him, Honghai, Secretary Zhang, Zhang Honghai, the name that frequently appears in his mother's diary, the man who gave himself life but didn't give himself or his mother any love.

  I didn't expect to see him in such a situation, and even more unexpected was that I could recognize him at once, my knowledge of him being just a twenty-year-old photo.

  A sour feeling spread from the bottom of my heart, why do I have this feeling, wasn't the decision already made?

  Xīng yè wú fǎ jiě shì wèi hé xīn li huì yǒu zhè yàng yì cháng de gǎn jué, nán dào zhè jiù shì xuè yuán ma? Xiǎng dào tā duì nà xiǎo nǚ háizi de hū hù yǔ té ài, bù, xīng yè jù juě zì jǐ qù xiǎng nà xiē, bù duàn gào jiè zì jǐ nà xiē dōu yǔ wǒ wú guān, luó xīng yè nà xiē dōu bú shì nǐ xiǎng de.

  "Starry night, starry night", Jia Kai's hand was on Xing Ye's face, and only then did she wake up. She found that everyone had dispersed, Huang Tao stood by with his head hung low like a defeated rooster, while Xiao Mei and her father were nowhere to be seen.

  "Xīng yè, are you okay? Were you scared?" Jiā Kǎi asked with concern, seeing Xīng yè's pale face.

  "I'm fine" quickly gathered his emotions overnight.

  Jia Kaila returned to her room at night and poured a glass of water for Xing Ye. Xing Ye grasped the cup, but didn't drink from it.

  "Sorry about tonight, you guys didn't get to eat well either, this meal is on me." Huang Tao also followed in.

  "We're fine, we've been eating well, how about you?" Jia Kai looked at Huang Tao with some concern, although they didn't have much of a relationship, after all, he was the one who brought him here, and his impression of this person wasn't bad either.

  "Well, I won't be polite to you guys anymore. You're all good friends, and if you head down this alley, you can reach the street corner. Taking a taxi back will cost less than 10 yuan. Sorry, but I have to leave first." Huang Tao also felt too ashamed to stay any longer, so he turned around and left.

  Jia Kai gazed at his departing figure and sighed, turning back to look at the starry night, but couldn't help furrowing his brow again.

  "Starry Night" Jia Kai took the cup from Starry Night's hand, looking at her fingers which had turned white from gripping the cup too tightly, "What's wrong?"

  The fingers moved in the dark of night, hehe smiled, "Nothing, nothing, watching this show makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, oh, I'll go to the bathroom."

  Before Jia Kai could respond, she quickly walked out of the room. Jia Kai furrowed his brow, unable to understand what was wrong with her.