"Hurry up and eat. The spicy hotpot is only fragrant when it's hot. Aunt Wang's cooking is very delicious. The students and office workers nearby like to eat here. Try it," said Su Yu.
"Alright," said he. Pei Jinyu looked at the young girl who had already started to eat and suddenly felt very hungry. He lowered his head and picked up a piece of food with his chopsticks, sending it into his mouth.
The sweet potato was soft and flavorful in the hotpot soup, while the bean sprouts were crisp and delicious, offsetting the spiciness. He had never eaten this kind of food before and surprisingly thought that it was not bad. The corners of his mouth unconsciously lifted into a smile and his tense body relaxed a lot. The viciousness in his eyes receded a little as well.
After a few bites, Pei Jinyu sat up straight and asked casually, "Did you often come here to eat spicy hotpot in the past? You seem to be very familiar with the owner."
Su Yu was in a good mood after eating the spicy hotpot that she had been longing for. She said, "I don't come here often. I only come here once in a while to have a bowl to satisfy my craving. Aunt Wang used to help out at the Su family's house. After she stopped working there, she came here to set up a stall.
"The meat and vegetables in her stall are the freshest from the market, bought every morning. They are washed clean before being skewed, thus more hygienic than many restaurants."
This was the first time Pei Jinyu had heard Su Yu mention the Su family. He stared at her deeply. Just as he was about to speak, the expression of the young girl sitting across from him suddenly changed. She put down her chopsticks, pursed her lips, and said, "You eat first, I'll be back soon."
After that, she walked toward the tricycle.
Pei Jinyu's back happened to be facing that direction, so he turned around to look. It was only then that he saw a few hooligans dressed in gaudy clothes surrounding the tricycle, jumping around the neatly arranged vegetables.
"Didn't I just give you three hundred yuan a few days ago? You spent it all again?" Before Su Yu could walk over, she heard Aunt Wang sounding helpless.
Among the group of hooligans, there was a young man whose voice was changing due to puberty. He impatiently said, "What can we do with that little money? Mom, give me more."
"No!" Aunt Wang pushed her son's hand away from the wallet and said, "This is the money for your dad's hospitalization. I can't give it to you!"
The teenager with the quacking voice obviously retracted his hand and there seemed to be some hesitation in his eyes.
At this moment, the hooligans who had come with him started to jeer, "Hey, Wang Yan, how old are you? Why are you still listening to your mother? Just because your mother said no, you don't dare to take the money?"
"All of you, shut up!" Wang Yan shouted but the hooligans were obviously not afraid of him. They continued to mock him. "If it were me, I wouldn't care what the money is for. I'd just take it. It's my family's money, why not give it to me? Your family's business is so good and you're still short on money?"
"Besides, your dad has been in the hospital for more than a year. What's the point of wasting money? Why don't you just take him home and wait for his death? Come on, man!"
The teenager with a quacking voice suddenly pounced forward and gave the hooligan two punches.
"I said, shut up, shut up!"
The other hooligans didn't expect their usually timid follower to dare make a move. They surrounded him, ready to attack together.
Aunt Wang couldn't bear to see her son being bullied, so she couldn't care about the stall at this time. She went around the tricycle and rushed over.
"Don't hit him, stop."
"Stinky old woman, get lost!"
Just as Aunt Wang approached the hooligans, one of them grabbed her collar and was about to punch her in the face.
At the same time, a slender hand reached out and grabbed the hooligan's fist, pulling her behind him. "I see that some trash didn't obediently stay in the garbage dump and decided to come out."
Wang Lian was stunned for a moment. When she steadied herself, she realized that the person in front of her was Su Yu. She was shocked and called out in panic, "Yu?"
"F*ck! Where did this meddlesome little girl come from? Hurry up and get lost or I'll beat you up as well!" The hooligan whose wrist was grabbed by Su Yu shouted.
Aunt Wang came back to her senses and quickly pushed Su Yu, saying, "Yu, leave quickly. Don't worry about me. They're all hooligans. Don't provoke them."
Su Yu didn't care about these little punks at all. She pointed at the ruined vegetables on the ground and asked, "Did you guys do that?"
The hooligans were stunned for a moment and then burst out laughing. "Tthat's right. We did that. What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing," said Su Yu coldly. "Just compensate!"