Ming Yue and Chen Mei arrived at the restaurant called the "Sky Resturant". It was a large building with three floors and even had an outdoor seating in the garden in the back.
Ming Yue and Chen Mei entered the resturant with their arms linked. Once inside they immediately spotted Yao Yao sitting at a table near a window and it seemed she had already ordered for them as several dishes were placed on the table.
It was rather crowded and a low buzz of discussions, clinking tablewares, and the occasional laughter filled Ming Yue's ears while her nose were filled with scents from various varm dishes.
They moved over to their table and took a seat.
Ming Yue's mouth began watering as her gaze moved along the various delicious looking dishes. There were grilled fish, grilled chicken, beef strips, skewers, and numerous salads she didn't know the name of. It looked like Yao Yao had ordered every dish on the menu!
"Let's eat!" Yao Yao said.
"En!" Ming Yue replied and pulled off a grilled chicken leg and took a bite.
Ming Yue and Yao Yao dug in like two ferocious and starved beasts while Chen Mei sat looking down at the floor rolling her thumbs.
Ming Yue noticed her inaction from the corner of her eyes and grabbed another chicken leg and placed it on her plate. "Eat! It's really delicious!"
Chen Mei glanced at the chicken leg that was shimmering from oily juices and looked oh so delicious and nervously reached for it...
Bam!
"Right! You must eat! You're so tiny and skinny I wonder if they feed you anything over there on the third peak." Yao Yao said as she slapped down the rest of the chicken on Chen Mei's plate.
Chen Mei quickly withdrew her hands and her whole body shrunk together, almost to the point were she disappeared under the table, then her whole body began shaking.
Seeing this, Ming Yue sighed. Was there really no middle ground were these two people could meet? Yao Yao was always too fierce and Chen Mei was always too cowardly. And it seemed like the more cowardly Chen Mei acted the more fierce Yao Yao acted and they ended up in a endless feedback loop.
Ming Yue was thinking deeply as her eyes landed on the wine jar and immediately got a brilliant idea. She took a cup and filled it with wine and then grabbed Chen Mei's hands and placed the cup within them. "Drink this." She said.
Chen Mei looked at the cup and then back at Ming Yue. She gave her a pitiful look that made her look really adorable.
But Ming Yue encouragingly nodded and gave the bottom of the cup a little push with her finger as it moved closer and closer to Chen Mei's mouth. Finally it reached Chen Mei's tiny mouth and with a last little push the entire cup's contents splashed into her mouth.
Chen Mei swallowed everything in a single gulp and began coughing. Then a healthy color of red formed on her cheeks.
Yao Yao laughed racuously. "Good idea! Let's drink!" Then she grabbed the jar and filled her own cup and quickly downed it before she refilled it and downed another.
Ming Yue wanted to slap her own forehead as she felt like she had just unintentionally invited the devil to their dinner. Hopefully, Yao Yao had a high alcohol tolerance or this dinner would soon turn into a disaster based on her understanding of Yao Yao. Nobody was safe when she was sober, so how would she be once she was drunk?
Yao Yao laughed loudly then she grabbed her stool and the wine jar and moved over and sat next to Chen Mei. She filled Chen Mei's cup and then wrapped an arm around the tiny girl's shoulder and said, "After this drink, the two of us will be good friends! What do you say?"
Chen Mei looked down at her fiddling fingers and then shyly nodded as the drunken blush on her cheeks moved to her ears.
"Ha ha! Great! For friendship!" Yao Yao downed her cup and then watched how Chen Mei slowly and nervously reached for her cup and drank a few sips. "Ha ha! Not bad!" Yao Yao said and slapped her back with a little too much force so that Chen Mei felt like her lungs would fly out.
Ming Yue watched this scene and didn't know what to think. But at least the tiny shy girl had made some progress as she actually nodded and took a drink rather than just turning off completely in Yao Yao's precense.
"Come on, don't just drink and eat a little. We can't let all this delicious food go to waste." Ming Yue reminded.
"Right! Let's eat!" Yao Yao said.
"L-Let's eat." A weak, quiet voice followed. This was Chen Mei.
The girls began to dig in again, even Chen Mei began eating, and the mood immediately improved at the table.
Once they had finished eating, Ming Yue wanted to lean back and relax her full stomach but the restaurant's stools had no back, but luckily she sat near the wall and turned around and leaned against it.
She looked at the other girls and Yao Yao had also finished and had begun picking her teeth with a toothpick, meanwhile Chen Mei was still nibbling at a chicken leg.
A smile grew on her face as warm feelings filled her chest. Then her eyes turned a little dreamy as her mind drifted off toward Jun Xi. 'Wonder what he's doing now?' She thought.
Outside it had already turned into night time and a crescent moon sat in the skies along with the twinkling stars. A cool night breeze moved through the nearly deserted streets of the town as all merchants had packed up their stalls and gone home or to the inn or to their camps which they had setup further down the mountain.
A small grain of sand skipped along the ground with the breeze and then suddenly made a jump and landed on top of a cast iron pan and produced a tiny clink before jumping off and continuing down the road.
A low moan came from underneath the cast iron pan.