"Eleven thousand and twenty-one..."
With a pause in his steps, Chen Yang stopped moving.
The heavy rain had been pouring for over an hour without signs of stopping. The sky gradually turned gloomy as the vision can't stretch beyond a hundred meters.
The name "Big Stomach King Buffet Hot Pot Restaurant" reflected in Chen Yang's eyes like awakening from a dream, slowly he returned to his senses.
Did he finally arrive?
He wanted to ask Right Hand, but despite his tentative calls to "Officer Ross", he received no response.
Did he fall asleep again?
A sigh of relief escaped from Chen Yang, having finally gotten rid of the shackles of constant surveillance, he could now even enjoy the small pleasures of being human. Although this joy was not long-lasting every day, that made him cherish it even more.
Having walked for over an hour, Chen Yang felt even hungrier. After a slight hesitation, he still entered the hot pot restaurant shielding himself with an umbrella.
"Sir, how many reservations?"asked a young waitress in her twenties who greeted him immediately.
"Um, my friend should be here already."
Scanning left and right, he found seven or eight tables already occupied by customers in the restaurant. Thus, the lone man sitting by the window was particularly conspicuous.
That would be Zhu Junchen, the one who invited him for the meal.
At the age of twenty-five, wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses with a slightly plump body, he was pondering something with his eyes fixed on his mobile phone.
Chen Yang walked over with his umbrella. "Old Pig, you're already here?"
Zhu Junchen looked up, "Damn, why are you so late?"
Got held up a bit."
Folding his umbrella and putting it aside, Chen Yang sat down.
"Alright, I've invited you for a hot pot buffet. Feel free to help yourself."
Several plates of food had been placed next to the table. Seeing Chen arriving, Zhu Junchen poured all the plates into the hot pot.
"It has been a while since we last met, right?"
"Mhm, it's been some days." Chen Yang nodded slightly.
"What have you been up to these days? Have you found a steady job?"
Zhu Junchen passed the sauce dish to Chen.
"I did try out a few jobs, but I wasn't satisfied. So, I resigned and stayed at home."
Chen Yang took the sauce dish, "I've opened a small noodle shop, just getting by."
"Oh, you've opened a noodle shop?"
Zhu Junchen was surprised. "Well, not bad. You're financially capable of running a noodle shop now."
"It depends on the location. My place..."
Chen Yang shook his head.
"Well, having your own noodle shop and being the boss isn't too bad, at least it's better than us office workers. At least you're not abused by superiors. You might not know how intense the job competition is now..."
Zhu Junchen started to vent his frustrations the moment he brought this up.
Chen Yang ate calmly, agreeing with Zhu Junchen's words while quickly picking up food from the hot pot. When Zhu Junchen realized what was happening, Chen had already devoured all the crispy sausages and tripe.
"Hey, you're quite cunning, not even leaving a bit for me."
Zhu Junchen laughed a few times before making a complaint, then picked up another plate of food and dumped it in the pot.
He could still laugh now, but he would not be able to in a while.
Seeing Chen Yang wolfing down his food, Zhu Junchen put his own chopsticks down, "Mr. Chen, how long has it been since you last ate?"
"What, what?"
Engrossed in his bowl of food and looking at the food in the pot, Chen Yang was too engrossed in his eating to pay much attention to what Zhu Junchen was saying.
"I mean, Mr. Chen, did you just come back from a tour of the shantytowns in Africa? Are you starving?"
The buffet hot pot allowed customers to take whatever they wanted, which made it appear generous. But in fact, if you did the math, the boss would not suffer a loss because you could not always eat enough food that sold at the wholesale price of fifty yuan.
Many people came to the buffet hot pot with the idea that they must eat their money's worth. They were full of confidence before entering the restaurant, but after eating for half an hour, they were so full that they regretted drinking too much alcohol. In fact, even if they didn't drink, they could eat at most seven or eight plates of food each.
But suppose one person ate twenty plates of food and continued eating without a care in the world, as if they were eating two plates, not twenty. Then, no one could ignore it.
Now, Zhu Junchen was infinitely grateful that it was a buffet hot pot. If it had been an ordinary hot pot restaurant with Chen Yang's eating habits, it would not have been able to handle it without spending five hundred yuan.
He felt relieved, but the manager who happened to witness this scene didn't feel the same way, thinking, "Damn, we have a real glutton here today."
"Ah, the food at this hot pot restaurant is really good."
After finishing his 25th plate of food, Chen Yang took a sip of beer and contentedly patted his not-so-inflated stomach. Ok, that was a lie. At this point, he could down seven or eight bowls of plain rice without batting an eye.
"Really? Next time, I'll treat you to something else..."
Zhu Junchen's voice lacked conviction and he felt unsure.
"Alright, Old Pig, tell me why you wanted to meet."
Chen Yang put down his beer, looking at Zhu Junchen. There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world, and he didn't believe Zhu, who he hadn't seen in half a year, would invite him to dinner on a whim.
"Uh, actually, I just wanted to ask if I could borrow some money."
Zhu Junchen hesitated a bit.
"Borrow money?"
Chen Yang frowned. He had a bad feeling about this. If it was only a few hundred or a few thousand, there was no need to invite him out just for that.
"How much do you want to borrow?"
"Not much, just a hundred thousand."
A hundred thousand?
Chen Yang couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh. With only four thousand left in his bank account due to Right Hand's spending, even if he hadn't been spending so much, he still wouldn't have had that much money.
Noticing that Chen Yang suddenly stopped speaking, Zhu Junchen started to understand, and, bitter, he took a sip of beer. "Ah, a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand! It's really fucked up. Why does one have to buy a house to get married these days? Can't get married without buying a house..."
"You're getting married?"
Chen Yang frowned.
"Yeah, the bride's family insists I have a house before we can get married. Even after pulling strings to borrow 1.5 million, I'm still short by over 500,000."
Chen Yang let out a bitter smile: "Sorry, Old Pig, but I've run into some problems recently, so I really can't spare that much money."
"It's fine, even if you could lend me a hundred thousand, I still wouldn't know where to find the remaining 400,000."
Zhu Junchen said, seemingly not caring.
"Actually, you could consider taking out a mortgage."
Chen Yang suggested.
"Heh, a mortgage..."
Zhu Junchen seemed unwilling to discuss it further, changing the topic: "By the way, there is a high school reunion next Saturday, are you going?"
High school reunion?
Chen Yang thought back... Sorry, but he had almost forgotten most of his high school classmates' faces, let alone their names.
"Why... Would there suddenly be a high school reunion?"
Chen Yang was puzzled.
"That's what I'm saying, ah,"
Zhu Junchen said helplessly, "Most high school classmates have been in society for two years now. Organizing a reunion, what do you think it's for? To reconnect a bit, help each other out. What else do you think? Do you really think it's just to maintain relationships? How much is a school friend worth these days?"
Chen Yang immediately understood. He hadn't yet entered the workforce, so he hadn't thought of this.
"Then I won't go. No one would care about my broke ass anyway."
Chen Yang continued to eat heartily, refusing outright.
"Heh, didn't you have a crush on Lin Qingyue in high school? What, too scared to confess by the time we graduated, now you don't even want to see how she's doing?"
Zhu Junchen was a little bit provocative.
Lin Qingyue, these three words immediately brought up an image in Chen Yang's mind.
"Time, place?"
Chen Yang put down his saucer and simply asked.
"Hmph, I knew you couldn't resist."
Zhu Junchen said, "Next Saturday, at seven p.m. at the Purple Cloud Hotel. I'll give you more details later."
Chen Yang had mixed feelings. Six years had passed and he didn't have the same feelings for Lin Qingyue as before. Time has a way of dimming our memories and dulling the impact of hormones. After some time, the passion fades and we move on.
Though he was no longer smitten, Lin Qingyue was the first girl he had a crush on, and a complicated mix of feelings made him want to see her.
Maybe his high school goddess can't even remember his name. (Please recommend, many of my readers have bookmarked the story but haven't recommended it. I'm not demanding recommendations, just if you have spare votes, please vote for me. Thank you.)