**Key note: 1) Yeye = grandfather 2) wai gong = grandpa 3) wai po= grandma 4) da jiujiu = shiyi's eldest uncle 5) xiao jiujiu = the youngest uncle 6) jiuma = aunt 7) ge = older brother
At Tan Ji.
They ordered their usual, "two beef noodle soup, please" Jiang Shiyi says to the waiter.
Ye Nanchen wipes the chopsticks for both of them and places a pair in front of Jiang Shiyi.
It didn't take long for them to serve the food to them.
The noodle place is near the campus, so Jiang Shiyi would come here often. So the boss and workers know Jiang Shiyi.
"Why are you here today?" Jiang Shiyi asks him and slurps the noodles.
Ye Nanchen didn't plan to keep it away from her, and told her everything.
Jiang Shiyi almost choked on the food after hearing it. Ye Nanchen quickly passes her tissues and water. "Didn't expect you to be this excited," he says with a chuckle.
Jiang Shiyi gives him an eye, "I'm relieved, all right! Good thing starting this semester I'm a junior," she says with a relive that there's no military training for her.
Ye Nanchen faintly smiles. He still remembers the time she whined about the training, and how much torture it is.
As they finished their meal and headed out, Ye Nanchen got a call from his superior.
Jiang Shiyi knows that he has to go back to work, and so she puts her hand out. "Give me the money for boba. Don't think you can run away from it," she says.
Ye Nanchen shakes his head while smiling, and gives her some cash that's more than enough for three cups.
Jiang Shiyi smiles as she sees the amount he gave. "I didn't ask for this much. Don't expect I'll give the change back," she added.
Ye Nanchen rubs her hair, "just take it," says gently.
"Thank you so much!" Jiang Shiyi exaggerates and gives a little bow.
… …
An hour later, Jiang Shiyi arrived back home with two cups of boba in her hand.
"I thought you went back to get a replacement card. How come it took you so long?" her mom asks.
Today both families from her parents side decided to have a family dinner together. So both of her parents stayed home to wait for her.
Her dad saw the bubble tea in her hand, and so did her mom.
"Shiyi, didn't we say not to drink bubble tea for a week? Did you already forget what happened two weeks ago?" her dad gently says.
Maybe because Shiyi was so happy that she forgot about it.
"I forgot," she quietly says.
Two weeks ago…
It was one of the hottest weeks of the month, and Shiyi couldn't take it anymore so she ate three ice creams and two popsicles while having the ac on. And in the middle of the night, her stomach hurt so bad that she had to go to the emergency room…
"I'm sorry, but I do feel much better now. I think one cup should be fine?" Shiyi says with a smile as she carefully looks at both of her parents.
When her mom gets angry, even her dad can't save her sometimes. "Jiang Shiyi! Don't let me say it again. Put that drink down." Her mom says with an angry tone.
Even though Jiang Shiyi didn't want to, she listened and put it down by the table.
"Speaking of it, I remembered that you only brought a 20 out," her dad says.
Both of her parents know how much she could spend on food and other things, so they limit her allowance.
"Ughh, I have other savings," Shiyi says with an awkward laugh. She didn't want to give away Ye Nanchen. It's not that she doesn't want him to get in trouble, but mainly because of the money he gave her.
Jiang Shiyi thinks that there's no need to betray him after being so generous today.
"Since Shiyi can't drink it, let me have it," her father says and reaches for it. But before he could do it, his hand got slapped away by his wife.
"You can't have it too. Don't you forget how high your sugar level is!" His wife scolds him and takes both milk tea away.
The poor father and daughter give each other a look, and then both burst into laughter.
… …
Soon dinner time arrives.
Both families book a room at a restaurant since the family is quite big.
Starting from her dad's side. Her dad, Jiang Yanmu has a younger brother called Jiang Yanshan but right now he's out of the country for a business trip. Her grandmother had passed away when she was 5 and only left with her grandfather, Jiang Shuchuan. She has a cousin that's around the same age as her called Jiang Han.
On to the next, Jiang Shiyi's mom, Su Jinshi is the youngest in her family. She has two eldest brothers, Su Jinyue and Su Jinyun. But so far only her eldest uncle, Su Jinyue, is married. His wife is Lin Xin and they have a son named Su Cheng. Both of her grandparents are still alive. Her grandpa is Su Zheng and grandma is Meng Li.
At the restaurant…
Her grandfather and cousin, Jiang Han, were the first two there.
"Yeye!" She went up to hug her grandfather, and sat down next to him. And then greets her brother, Jiang Han.
"Shiyi, how are you feeling right now," Jiang Shuchuan asks as he kindly looks at her.
"Yeye, I'm all better!" She says with a warming smile.
"That's good!" he says with relief.
Jiang Han looks at them talking and knows already that he's being left out again. But he's already used to it.
"Jiang Han, I heard that you are opening a business with a few friends?" Jiang Yanmu asks his nephew.
"Yes, we're planning to open…"
A few minutes later, Su Jinshi's family came.
"Wai Gong! Wai Po!" Jiang Shiyi went up to greet them and gives them a hug.
Both Su Zheng and Meng Li smile happily as they see their youngest grandchild.
They then went to greet Jiang Shuchuan.
"Da Jiujiu! Jiuma! Xiao Jiujiu!" She happily greets her uncles and aunt.
"Ge!" Jiang Shiyi took Su Cheng's arm and sat down next to Jiang Han. Since Jiang Shiyi has two older cousins and both of them are guys, Jiang Shiyi doesn't call them by their names except for Jiang Han sometimes since they're the same age, just that he's a few months older.
… …
After almost two hours of eating and talking, the family finally finished their dinner.
"I'm gonna go use the bathroom first," Jiang Shiyi says and quickly runs off to the bathroom.
… …
As she started walking out the bathroom, she noticed a familiar person.
But Jiang Shiyi can't really tell since she didn't wear her glasses today and forgot her contacts.
"Shiyi, are you done?" Jiang Han came to wait for her and asked.
Shiyi nods.
"Ok, let's go then. Uncle and aunt are waiting," Jiang Han says.
As both of them started to head out, there were two loud bangs.
Both Jiang Shiyi and Jiang Han's heart jumps. "What was that noise?" Jiang Shiyi asks with a stutter. Even though both Jiang Shiyi and Jiang Han didn't want to admit it, they knew it wasn't a good noise.
"Let's go!" Jiang Han says as he takes Jiang Shiyi's hand.
They're on the second floor, so when they were heading downstairs, a whole crowd was also trying to escape the restaurant.
Even though Jiang Han was holding onto Shiyi's hand, they got separated by the crowd.
"Shiyi!" Jiang Han calls out to her with stress.
With the push and running from people, Jiang Shiyi got pushed and hit by the people. She tries to tell Jiang Han to just go first and she'll try to find a way out, but the amount of chaos happening wasn't allowing her to.
Just as she was trying to escape from this chaos, another loud bang alerted the whole building.
Because of this bang, the people who were already scared started to run and push more than before.
It happened so quickly that Jiang Shiyi didn't have the time to react, and got pushed down to the floor.
"Ouch!" she winces.
… …
"Captain, what do we do now? Xie Xun must've blended into the crowd. Now it's gonna be hard!" Xiao Yu says to Ye Nanchen.
Both Ye Nanchen and Xiao Yu came here for an undercover mission, and Xie Yun is the guy that they came to capture.
Suddenly outside there's sirens sound. The police and Swat team came.
Once Jiang Shiyi got up and was about to head out, she felt something sticking behind her.
"All I have to say is you're under bad luck," the guy's voice says with evil and coldness.
Jiang Shiyi could feel cold sweat coming down her back and hardly swallowed her saliva.
Xie Xun knew that he can't escape now, but maybe holding down a hostage could help. He quickly alerted the police with a loud bang.
"Ye Nanchen! Give me a car and one million dollars! Or else I'll kill her!" he yells out as he points the gun at Jiang Shiyi's head.
The scream and loud gunshot made Jiang Shiyi's body froze.
Ye Nanchen who heard his voice looked down and saw Xie Xun and the hostage.
"Tian dou?" Ye Nanchen's heart tightened a little as he saw who the hostage was.