"To have a meal. What else is there to do here?" Lu Chen looked toward Lin Yijia, chuckling inside.
The others were also amused, wondering what else someone would come to Jadeite 36 for.
Xu Jing's eyes lit up at the sight of Lin Yijia. Chen's sister-in-law is quite the gorgeous lady, he thought.
"Do you know what kind of place this is? Have you settled your six-figure debt yet?" Wang Xue glared at Lu Chen suspiciously. The thought of Lu Chen dining in such a high-end restaurant despite his humongous debts made her cheesed off.
Most importantly, he had come here to dine on his own, without Lin Yijun. This aggravated her all the more.
"Exactly, brother-in-law. It cost several thousands to eat here. It wasn't easy for my sister to get promoted to supervisor. Is this how you manage your household's finances?" Lin Yijia admonished him as well.
"I have money." Lu Chen was lost for words. He thought to himself that the mother-daughter duo was really meddlesome. Even a son wouldn't let them have a say in everything, let alone him, being just a son-in-law.
"You have money? If you have money, why don't you pay off your debts? If you have money, why don't you buy a large house for Yijun? If you have money, why don't you buy a car for Yijun? Yijun has never had a good day since she married you. My daughter must be blind to have married a man like you," Wang Xue lectured him severely.
Lu Chen kept his peace, but Wang Xue's words struck a chord within him. Indeed, he had inherited the family. estate. Therefore, he was rich now. He really shouldn't let his wife continue living a hard life.
Lu Chen reflected on it as he walked toward one of the waitresses.
"Give me a private room," Lu Chen instructed her.
Before the waitress could reply, Wang Xue's icy voice rang out from behind. "Ignore him. He can't afford to eat in the main hall, let alone a private room."
"Uh..." The waitress looked at Lu Chen and Wang Xue curiously, wondering about the nature of their relationship and whose instructions to follow.
"He's my son-in-law who's just a simple security guard, and he's still in debt by several 100,000s. Go ahead and open a private room for him if you're not worried that he won't be able to pay the bill," Wang Xue warned the waitress.
"S-Sir, do you have a membership card? If you don't, I'm afraid that you can only dine in the main hall. Only members are allowed to dine in the private rooms here." The waitress believed Wang Xue straightaway.
"I don't have a membership card," Lu Chen acknowledged as he shook his head.
The young man dressed in a tuxedo sitting beside Lin Yijia laughed. "This brother-in-law of yours is a bit of a clown. He doesn't know the rules here, yet he dares to come here for a meal."
"Isn't that right? Well, he is only a security guard. It's only natural that he doesn't know the rules here," Lin Yijia explained.
"No wonder. After all, how much can a security guard earn? A full month's salary isn't enough for them to have a meal in this restaurant. It must be his first time here," the young man declared with a superior attitude.
The young man was named Di Fu. He wasn't from an affluent family though, just a part of a large company's upper management.
But even the upper management of a large company earned significantly more than an average person such as the one before him. Hence, he had good reason to be proud.
"Without a membership card, you can only dine in the main hall," the waitress explained.
"Your manager knows me. Please call him over. He'll prepare a private room for me," Lu Chen demanded.
This restaurant was one of the businesses that Jun Yue Group had a stake in. Though they weren't the principal shareholder, they still held forty percent of the stock. Back when Jun Yue Group held the management conference, Jadeite 36 had sent their owner and manager to participate, so they would definitely recognize Lu Chen when they saw him.
"My apologies. Our manager doesn't have the time to see you," the waitress flatly refused.
She hadn't minded it at first. But now, Lu Chen actually wanted to see her manager. It was really a bit too much. If she were to call her manager over this,
she would get chewed out.
"Why haven't you left yet? Are you
staying here to be disgraced even further?" Wang Xue wished that she could drag Lu Chen out of the place. If not for Lin Yijia having called out his Identity earlier, she wouldn't have acknowledged Lu Chen as her son-in- law. It was just too humiliating.
"Hey, brother. You need to know where to draw the line. The manager of Jadeite 36 isn't someone that you could just meet at a moment's notice," Di Fu chimed in, obviously supporting Wang Xue.
"Oh, really? All I know is that Qiu Jian will drop everything to see me if he knows that I'm here." Lu Chen turned his head and leveled his gaze with Di Fu's.
"What? You've got to be kidding me. Who do you think you are? And just who do you think Manager Qiu is? Take a look in the mirror, why don't you?" Entertained by Lu Chen's antics, Di Fu laughed, his face full of scorn.
"Brother-in-law, I seriously respect you for being able to shoot your mouth off like that," Lin Yijia exclaimed, at a loss for words.
"Just let it go, Yijia. I think your brother- in-law might have some mental issues. You should stay away from people like him to avoid being humiliated," Di Fu mocked as he shook his head.
"Director Wang, let's continue discussing the terms," Di Fu said as he threw a dirty look at Lu Chen before turning and walking back to the deck.
"Utterly disgraceful," Wang Xue sneered, giving up on Lu Chen.
Now that the three of them had returned to their seats, Lu Chen felt as if peace and quiet had finally returned to the world.
"Chen, why don't we just eat elsewhere?" Xu Jing suggested quietly. At the moment, he wasn't certain whether Lu Chen really had money.
"If I told you that I'm one of this restaurant's shareholders, would you believe me?" Lu Chen asked, grinning.
Xu Jing was dumbfounded. "Chen, your joke isn't funny at all."
"If you're one of our restaurant's shareholders, then I'm the richest woman in Chongqing," the waitress couldn't help but retort, growing more contemptuous of Lu Chen by the minute.
Lu Chen spread his hands, but the waitress interrupted before he could say anything. "Sirs, if you would like to dine here, please proceed to the main hall. Otherwise, please leave so that we can continue serving our other customers."
Xu Jing grew even more embarrassed when the waitress straight-out ordered them to leave.
He didn't want to spend a second longer in the place, especially when they were starting to attract strange looks from the customers around.
"I've seen shameless people, but none as terrible as this. They can't afford it, yet insist on hanging around, trying to get a free meal. What kind of presumption is this?!" a customer exclaimed, then shook his head when he saw that Lu Chen hadn't left even after the waitress had all but showed him the door.
"Sister, is this really your son-in-law? You dared to give your daughter away to a man like this?" the customer in one of the decks beside Wang Xue taunted her.
Wang Xue's blood boiled at the ridicule. The gaze she directed at Lu Chen was full of animosity.
It was so humiliating.
Lu Chen paid them no heed. Right then, he took out his phone and prepared to dial the number of the restaurant's owner.
But just then, a middle-aged man approached them and inquired, "What's the matter here?"
The middle-aged man glanced over at Xu Jing, but wasn't able to get a good look at Lu Chen's face.
"Manager Qiu, this guy can't afford to eat here, but he just won't leave." The waitress pointed toward Lu Chen who was still looking through his contacts on his phone.
The middle-aged man frowned and instructed, "Ask the guards to throw him out!"
"Didn't you want to see Manager Qiu? Now that Manager Qiu's here, why aren't you saying anything?" a nosy customer poked fun at Lu Chen.
Wang Xue and Lin Yijia hung their heads in shame, afraid of feeling the gazes that might have fallen upon them.
The two of them wallowed in regret. Why on earth had they pointed out Lu Chen's relationship to them?
It really was unbearably embarrassing!
Just as the waitress was about to call the guards, Lu Chen finally raised his head, looked straight at the middle-aged man and asked bluntly, "Qiu Jian, you want the guards to throw me out?