By the time Li Chuanmo knocked on the door to her room, Pei Yueran was dressed and ready to go. It was time for their first ever "official" date. She felt excited and slightly nervous for some reason.
Opening the door, she was presented with peonies. She smiled as she collected them. Looking up at the man who gave them to her, she gestured to the hibiscus flowers on her window sill as she said, "I thought I had gotten my day's worth of flowers already".
"The hibiscus was to tell you that I think you're very beautiful. These are to let you know that I was thinking of you, and that I'm looking forward to our date."
It was rare for Li Chuanmo to be so expressive and vocal about his feelings. He had been doing a lot of thinking and decided he had to be more outspoken about how he felt.
She thanked him quietly.
They drove to the most famous restaurant in City M, Lingzhi Gardens. It was a modern-styled restaurant with five floors. They operated the private dining style, where the dining areas were all divided into rooms.
The higher the floor, the more elegant the aesthetics, the smaller the number of rooms and the more expensive it was as well. The waiters were very experienced and polite, giving the customers an impeccable dining experience. It goes without saying that the food was amazing in taste, smell and visuals.
The whole restaurant had a wonderful ambience. It was worthy of its title as "Number One Best restaurant", and it had won a lot of awards in the past years. To be sure, reserving a room there —especially on the higher floors— was harder than seeing the president of a country.
Li Chuanmo had directly reserved the fifth floor.
Even Li Yuchen marveled at his father's extravagant display of wealth. When his father played, he definitely played big!
In Li Chuanmo's words: Anything worth doing at all was worth doing well! He wanted to make up for the awful events of their previous date.
Pei Yueran, who was oblivious to the worth of her "casual date", was very impressed with the atmosphere. She followed Li Chuanmo as they took a special elevator to the fifth floor. It was special because that elevator only went to the fifth floor and was connected to the fifth floor's kitchen.
The chefs served the guests food directly on the fifth floor. There were waiters who could help, especially if the dishes ordered were many, and they mainly stayed in the kitchen area.
They usually came to the fifth floor arrange the tables or when summoned, which was rare, because there were hardly ever guests dining on the fifth floor.
It was a true VVVVVIP experience.
The private room they sat down in looked more like a suite. There was a proper dining area, as well as a place designated as the rest area. The guests could sit there and relax before leaving.
They could also see the a wide expanse of city M through the huge reflective glass windows that occupied one side of the room. At sunset, the blinds were lowered to maintain privacy. There was a restroom as well, for the convenience of the guests.
Pei Yueran thought it was a pretty clever design.
They first sat down in the rest area while Li Chuanmo called the kitchen from the telephone provided. Together, they ordered a full dinner, with more courses than Pei Yueran could count. She absentmindedly wondered how long it would take the chefs to make and bring all these up. Wasn't it torture for them?
As she later found out, the chefs that cooked for the fifth floor did not have to attend to other customers. In other words, they were paid enormously for a job where they only had customers once in a while.
Whenever they had a guest, they were always energetic, not to mention the fact that the waiters would also help them.
Unfortunately for Pei Yueran —this lover of all things spicy— she was not allowed to order anything spicy because according to Li Chuanmo—"her private doctor slash nanny", she was still recovering.
She begrudgingly ordered other dishes, but perked up when Li Chuanmo promised to bring her to eat tongue- numbing dishes after she had fully recovered.
While the waited for the food, Li Chuanmo took out freshly squeezed juice from the fridge and served them. They were talking about their university experience and comparing studying abroad vs studying in the country.
Pei Yueran was telling him how she juggled work, parenting and studying part time for her MBA when their food arrived.
After the first knock of which Li Chuanmo permitted entrance, a stream of people entered in an orderly manner, each pushing a different kind of trolley.
At the head of the team was the main chef with a guéridon trolley. The main dish they ordered —Steak Diane— consisted of a sauce that had to be flambéed before been poured over the steak.
The main chef greeted them politely and explained the finer points of the main dishes while the team served up the meals. He then flambéed the Steak.
Li Chuanmo didn't want their private time disturbed, so he declined further service and waited for the team to leave before serving Pei Yueran.
Both of them ate elegantly, though Li Chuanmo did more of serving than eating. He felt full just looking at her eat. She ate really beautifully. Her dining etiquette was standard.
In actual fact, even if she ate like a pig and stuffed herself, Li Chuanmo would still think the same. The man was smitten.
He felt like he really needed to freeze this moment in time, so he brought out his phone and took a picture. Hearing the click of the camera, Pei Yueran looked up in surprise, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
Her look was so adorable that Li Chuanmo took more snapshots before explaining that he wanted to keep the pictures for memories.
Hearing that, she also wanted to take pictures of him. They eventually paused eating long enough to take numerous pictures and selfies from different angles. When Pei Yueran was satisfied, she resumed eating.
Pei Yueran gestured at him to eat as well, and she even cut up his steak while he was cutting hers. Both of them had a really peasant meal.
They ate until they were both satisfied, yet the table was still full. Pei Yueran glanced at it.
Noticing her distress, Li Chuanmo said the food would be boxed up and donated. Only then did she feel relieved. She then joked to Li Chuanmo that she would have to bring her friend next time. With Su Qianhua, the table would have long been empty.
After their meal, they left the restaurant, holding hands as they walked to the car. They drove to a park where they spent some more time walking around. Li Chuanmo took the opportunity to ask her questions about herself, while Pei Yueran asked him questions of her own.