You’re So Good At Causing Trouble For Me, Yet You’re Worried About Not Seeing Me?”
Nearly two hours passed before her friend request was finally accepted.
Wei Lai: “Have you arrived?“
After sending the message, she realized she forgot to add “President Zhou” as an honorific. Her tone was casual, but unsending the message would seem too deliberate, so she left it at that.
Zhou Sujin replied: “En.“
Wei Lai: “I might be heading to Beijing soon. I’d like to treat you to a meal.” It wasn’t a mere possibility; she was definitely going, intending to express her gratitude to him personally.
Zhou Sujin didn’t give her a definite answer, only replying with “We’ll see.” Wei Lai wasn’t sure if this was an agreement or a polite refusal; sometimes, his thoughts were not completely understandable to her.
Feeling it wasn’t appropriate to continue asking further, she ended the chat.
“President Zhou, I’ll let you get back to work.“
Zhou Sujin didn’t reply back.
Neither of them mentioned the assault on Zhang Yanxin or He Wancheng’s subsequent efforts to handle the aftermath; it was a tacit understanding between them.
Putting away her phone, Wei Lai drove the Cullinan to her mom’s office.
The scent in the car was reminiscent of Zhou Sujin, crisp and cool, almost as if he were sitting right beside her.
“Mom, are you at the office? I’m coming over.” She sent a voice message to her mom.
Within half an hour at the cafe, she had decided what to do.
Her mom quickly replied, “Yes, come over.”
Turning left, less than two hundred meters ahead, was the largest store among all Wei Lai Supermarket’s branches. The first floor was the supermarket itself while the second floor served as the management team’s office space.
Wei Lai had once asked her mom how she came up with the name for the supermarket.
Her mom said she hadn’t thought of a supermarket name that sounded good and was easy to remember, so she simply named it Wei Lai, hoping to turn it into a century-old store and pass it down for generations to come.
Estimating the time, Cheng Minzhi walked over to the window to wait for her daughter. The dark emerald car was quite distinctive, catching her attention; there were only a few such expensive cars in the whole city.
As the car door opened, her daughter stepped out. She looked again to confirm she wasn’t mistaken.
“Lai Lai,” she waved through the window.
Wei Lai looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, and pointed to the stairs. “I’ll be up in a moment.”
She quickly went up the stairs.
“Did Zhang Yanxin buy another car?” Cheng Minzhi placed a bowl of prepared fruit in front of her daughter.
Wei Lai sat down on the sofa and picked up a green grape with a fork, popping it into her mouth. On the way here, she had already decided to confess everything to her mom. “I don’t know if he recently bought a new car or not. We broke up. The car belongs to a friend; they let me borrow it to take it for a spin.”
Wei Lai was seated directly in front of the AC vent. Concerned that her daughter might feel too chilly from the cold air blowing on her, Cheng Minzhi adjusted the vent upwards. Upon hearing her daughter mention that she broke up, her hand suddenly paused.
Just last month, her daughter had mentioned wanting to get married next year and even showed her the wedding bands she had her eyes on, asking if she thought it was nice.
“What was the reason for the breakup? Can you tell Mom about it?”
“Fell out of love. He chose someone of similar background for marriage,” Wei Lai’s tone was brisk as if discussing someone else’s affairs. “I originally wasn’t planning on telling you to avoid worrying you. But since we’ll be spending every day together henceforth, I can’t keep it from you, so I might as well come clean.”
She popped another green grape into her mouth. “Sweet.”
“What do you mean? What do you mean by ‘spending every day together henceforth’?” Cheng Minzhi strode over and sat down beside her daughter before snatching the fruit fork from her hand. Anxious yet exasperated, she said, “Wait a sec. You’re driving me crazy by leaving your words hanging.”
Wei Lai chuckled. “You’re the one who told me to eat fruit, and now you’re blaming me.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense!” Cheng Minzhi pretended to scold her with a stern expression.
Wei Lai: “I resigned. I plan to come and help you expand the supermarket. It’s better to work for my own mom than for someone else. Plus, I can slack off when working.”
“You… you want to come work at the supermarket?” Cheng Minzhi looked at her daughter incredulously, smiling unconsciously from sheer joy.
She had thought about handing over the management of the supermarket to her daughter, but she didn’t want to impose her own wishes on her child, so she never hinted at her thoughts.
“You can slack off as much as you want. As long as you’re willing to work here, Mom is content.”
While Wei Lai joked about slacking and loafing around, she had her own plans regarding the supermarket. She shared some of her preliminary ideas with her mom.
She aimed to transform the supermarket into a new type of community chain store. In addition to introducing smart management systems, she planned to allocate a certain proportion of space at the exit of each supermarket to create book cafes and introduce a chain of tea shops.
“The space in the supermarket won’t be greatly reduced. I’ll hire a professional designer to handle the layout.”
She, personally, enjoyed reading but found the library too far away at times, so she was too lazy to go. The combination of a book cafe and study area near a residential area would surely be in demand.
The book cafe would have a separate glass door for entrance and exit, so there wouldn’t be any concern about noise from the supermarket affecting the book cafe. She had already planned for soundproofing.
When she broke up with Zhang Yanxin, she had been thinking about what to do with the breakup fee. She wanted to do something that would not only generate income for her but also help others. Creating free book cafes and study areas was the best idea she could come up with. She aimed to make the book cafes a hallmark of Wei Lai Supermarkets.
“Mom, didn’t you mention a while ago that if you were ten years younger, you’d want to renovate the supermarket completely and change its style? You lack the energy, but I have plenty to spare.”
In reality, Wei Lai knew that it wasn’t because her mom was incapable, it was because she wanted to save up more money for her. Investing all the money into the supermarket for a slow return might not pay off with a high risk.
So her mom didn’t dare to take any more risks.
Cheng Minzhi reached out and hugged her daughter. Many of her daughter’s ideas coincided with hers. “You’re definitely my child,” she said, kissing her daughter on the cheek.
“Oh, Mom, I also plan to open more stores.”
“How many are you aiming for?”
Wei Lai said solemnly, “The goal is to open one hundred stores in Jiang City, making it the largest chain of supermarkets in the city and striving to be among the top twenty in national chain supermarkets.”
Cheng Minzhi handed the fruit fork back to her daughter with a smile and asked, “To be among the top twenty in national chain supermarkets, do you know that the annual revenue needs to exceed ten billion?”
“I know.” Wei Lai took the fruit fork and continued eating the grapes. “Making it into the top twenty is the ultimate goal of my life. You’ve got to have something to strive for. As for the next few years, I aim to make it into the top one hundred, even if it’s at the bottom.”
Cheng Minzhi’s business philosophy leaned toward stability, which is why she had only managed to expand to 15 stores over 25 years, with each store maintaining a steady revenue. She understood her daughter’s mindset; after all, Wei Lai was involved in venture capital and wouldn’t be as conservative as she was.
“Mom, I won’t blindly expand stores. I’ll prioritize stability first. I’ll raise funds for opening new stores myself, without touching your savings.”
“Financing is too difficult.”
“Not for me.”
In truth, it was also difficult for her, but she had grown accustomed to only reporting good news to her mom, keeping the bad news to herself.
Setting aside the design and renovation costs, Wei Lai would still need additional funds to open new stores. The money she currently had on hand was far from enough. Since she was planning to seek financing anyway, she decided not to mention the breakup fee to her mom.
After finishing half a bowl of green grapes, Wei Lai set down the fruit fork. “Mom, I’ll let you go back to work. I’ll go home and make dinner for you.”
“We’re eating at home tonight?”
“En, I’ll keep you company.”
“What a lucky day today. I’ll go buy a few lottery tickets after work.”
“I’ll cook for you more often from now on,” Wei Lai said with a smile as she waved goodbye and left.
Her cooking skills were decent, and satisfying one’s appetite was not a problem. While studying abroad, she spent half of her time dining out and the other half cooking on her own, gradually honing her cooking skills from scratch to excellence.
As Wei Lai reached the corridor outside, Cheng Minzhi suddenly remembered, “Lai Lai, buy some groceries on your back. There’s only beef in the fridge!”
“Got it, I was just planning to buy some snacks.” Wei Lai headed down to the supermarket on the ground floor.
She bought two large bags filled with snacks, veggies, and various meats. However, her favorite snacks from Happy Lemon were out of stock. According to the store clerk, they had been out of stock for a while.
Back home, Wei Lai put on an apron and busied herself in the kitchen.
Steam wafted from the steamer containing the fish, the aroma of scallion oil in the frying pan filled the air, and the exhaust hood hummed as it cleared the cooking fumes. The usually desolate house now had a long-absent atmosphere of being lived in.
Busy with cooking, Wei Lai left her phone in the living room and missed four calls, only noticing when the landline rang. The landline’s ring was loud enough that even with the kitchen door closed, she could hear it.
Wiping her hands on the apron, Wei Lai picked up the landline, assuming it was her mom.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Lai Lai, it’s me.”
“Dad, why didn’t you call my phone?”
“You didn’t pick up. I called four times.” Unable to reach her, he had called his ex-wife to find out that their daughter was at her place.
“I was in the kitchen, didn’t hear it.” Wei Lai said, keeping an eye on the cooking, worried it might burn. “Dad, I’ll call you on my phone.”
After hanging up the landline, she picked up her phone and returned to the kitchen.
With one hand holding her phone, Wei Lai asked her dad what was the matter, while using her other hand to stir the veggies in the pan.
Wei Huatian had learned about Yuan Hengrui’s altercation, knowing that the boy tended to be reckless and impulsive. “Yuan Hengrui didn’t do anything to you, did he?”
“Nope.” To be fair, Yuan Hengrui had always restrained his temper around her, fearing her anger the most.
“That’s good,” Wei Huatian said, relieved, as he removed his glasses and rubbed his temples.
Hearing the sound of a spatula hitting the pan from his daughter’s end, he asked, “What are you making?”
Wei Lai told her dad she was making two protein dishes, two veggie dishes, and a soup.
Wei Huatian: “Dad hasn’t had the chance to taste your cooking yet.”
Wei Lai paused for a moment before saying, “I’ll cook for you next time.”
After she grew up, she rarely visited her dad’s new home, and when she did, she would only stay for a short while before leaving. Every time her dad mentioned not having tasted her cooking yet, her response was always the same as just now.
Tonight’s dinner was enough for a family of three, but they will never have a chance to sit down and eat a home-cooked meal again.
Their conversation this time didn’t touch upon her mom, yet they fell into a brief silence once again.
“Your mom hasn’t come back yet?”
“Not yet, she should be back soon.”
It had been a long time since Wei Huatian had the chance to have dinner with his daughter. “Whenever you’re free, tell Yihan to come over for dinner. Dad will cook.”
Wei Lai agreed, “Sure, I’ll ask her when she’s free.”
Zhao Yihan, like Wei Lai, rarely visited that new home. With only her dad and Auntie Zhao in the large, spacious house, they often remarked on how empty it felt, hoping that Wei Lai and Zhao Yihan would visit more often. However, both of them had never liked going to that so-called new home since they were little because it wasn’t their real home.
Wei Huatian didn’t want to end the call just yet and wanted to chat a bit more with his daughter, but he wasn’t sure what to talk about.
“Dad, I’ve decided on what I want to do.” Wei Lai shared her plans with her dad.
Wei Huatian was genuinely surprised by his daughter’s plans, but he always supported any decision she made. “Not a bad idea. I know a designer. We haven’t been in touch for a while, but I’ll contact them tomorrow and see if they’re available.” However, he knew the designer’s fees were quite high, so he planned to support his daughter by covering half of the costs.
What he was curious about was, “Why did you decide to manage the supermarket?”
Wei Lai’s tone was light. “Just wanna challenge myself.”
She didn’t reveal the truth. In actuality, she wanted to spend more time with her mom while she still could. After her dad remarried, he had his own family, and eventually, she would have her own life too. But her mom would be left alone.
Working at the supermarket would not only allow her to help her mom with some of the workload and fulfill her wishes but also have plenty of time to spend with her, killing two birds with one stone.
When she was just a few months old, her mom resigned from her job to open the supermarket so she could bring Wei Lai to work with her, ensuring that Wei Lai could always be near her mom.
After hanging up the call with her dad, Wei Lai finished cooking the last dish.
After all four dishes were served on the dining table, the main door opened. Her mom had returned home.
Cheng Minzhi, without even changing her clothes, hurried to the dining table to catch a sniff. “The plates will be licked clean tonight.”
“I heard about the issue with Happy Lemon snacks from the store clerk. Is it resolved?” Wei Lai asked with concern as she took off her apron.
“Not yet. Let’s eat first; it’s not the end of the world,” Cheng Minzhi said as she went to change her clothes.
Happy Lemon snacks were the oldest and best-selling snacks in the market. If their supermarket kept running out of stock, it would mean driving customers to their competitors.
Wei Lai asked her mom what exactly was going on.
“Our buyer had a conflict with the Happy Lemon manager of the East China region, offending them. Things got quite unpleasant.” As for whether the conflict was about money or something else, only the parties involved knew the real reason.
However, the buyer denied any wrongdoing and claimed that Happy Lemon’s refusal to supply wasn’t their fault. The buyer had also resigned just last week.
Many actions of the buyer represented the supermarket, and it was clear that the East China regional manager had no intention of continuing their partnership.
Cheng Minzhi: “I contacted Qi Linsheng again tonight. He’s been attending meetings at the headquarters lately.” She planned to visit him and discuss the matter face-to-face.
“Is Qi Linsheng the East China regional manager?”
“En.”
Wei Lai volunteered, “I’ll go to Beijing to see him tomorrow. No matter what, if we were at fault, we should apologize, clarify any misunderstandings, and express our sincerity for our partnership.” Someone who could become the East China regional manager wouldn’t be so petty.
Cheng Minzhi waved her hand habitually. “Mom will handle it herself. You focus on your own matters.”
After saying that, she felt something was amiss and suddenly laughed. She had forgotten that her daughter was already an employee of the company. “Alright, then I’ll leave this matter to you.”
It was also a good opportunity to let her daughter take a break and relax a bit.
—
At this moment in Beijing…
Zhou Sujin had just left the office, and it was already 10 p.m. The traffic on the highway was still heavy.
His aunt sent him a message, asking when he would return from his business trip.
Zhou Sujin: “I’m back.“
Aunt: “Come over for dinner tomorrow; I’ll also invite your brother.“
It wasn’t just a simple dinner; Zhou Sujin agreed: “Okay.“
Returning home, he noticed an extra car in the driveway, indicating an unexpected visitor.
As he entered the living room, smoke filled the air. The unexpected guest sat on the sofa with one leg over another, leisurely smoking. A beautifully crafted ashtray rested on the armrest.
Zhou Sujin didn’t smoke. The ashtrays provided for guests were typically plain white. However, the one before him was brought by his friend to show off.
This friend of his was a sis-con. When his sister gifted him the ashtray, he took a photo of it and made it his profile picture so everyone would know.
“Where are the bracelets?” Min Ting pressed the cigarette butt into the ashtray. He had an eye on several bracelets to give to his sister, but only the flagship store in Jiang City had them in stock. Since Zhou Sujin happened to be in Jiang City on a business trip, he asked him to bring them back.
Zhou Sujin disliked the smell of smoke, so he went to open the window to air out the room. It dawned on him that the bracelets were all inside the safe of the Cullinan.
“My car is in Jiang City. I’ll have someone send the bracelets over tomorrow.”
Min Ting glanced out into the courtyard, noting the absence of an SUV.
From his words, it seemed that the Cullinan wouldn’t be returning tomorrow.
In the past, whenever Zhou Sujin went on a business trip and decided to fly back on a certain date, the chauffeur would have the car headed for Beijing early in the morning, arriving in Beijing at the latest by the evening of the same day. It was unusual for him to be back while the car still hadn’t.
“Lu An isn’t even in Jiang City; who is the car for?”
Zhou Sujin didn’t respond to his question. Instead, he rolled up his sleeves to his forearm and walked over to the bar before nonchalantly tossing his black cufflinks aside and grabbing two glasses to pour some drinks.
“Has my older brother done something to upset my parents recently?” He changed the subject.
“Not sure; I haven’t seen him. What’s up?” Min Ting sat up straight, setting down his legs and earnestly cleaning his ashtray with a wet tissue.
Zhou Sujin: “My aunt asked me and my brother to come over for dinner.”
Aunt wouldn’t want to see them if it wasn’t necessary, let alone invite them over for dinner for no reason.
After finishing a drink, Min Ting picked up his ashtray and left. Before leaving, he reminded Zhou Sujin not to forget to have the bracelets sent over.
Zhou Sujin tried calling Wei Lai via voice call, but she didn’t answer.
Wei Lai didn’t rush to leave after dinner. Instead, she stayed on the patio chatting with her mom. Her phone was left on the sofa in the living room.
As they were chatting, Cheng Minzhi frowned, thinking she might’ve imagined it, or perhaps it was the sound of a phone ringing. “Lai Lai, was that your phone ringing?”
Wei Lai put down the fruit she was holding. “Let me go check.”
She walked into the living room, but the ringing had already stopped.
It was a missed call from Zhou Sujin along with a message containing a six-digit code and an address. She couldn’t understand it, so she immediately called back.
“President Zhou, what’s the matter?”
“The car’s safe contains some valuable items. Find a time to send them over tomorrow.”
Even he described them as valuable, implying they were of considerable value. Wei Lai: “What a coincidence, I just so happen to be going to Beijing tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Wei Lai explained, “I’m going on a company business trip.”
Although she explained it clearly, Zhou Sujin was straightforward. “You don’t need to go out of your way to treat me.”
He saw through her intentions directly.
Wei Lai didn’t defend herself because she had originally planned to go out of her way to treat him, but then she had a legitimate reason to go to Beijing on a business trip. She candidly admitted, “You’ve helped me so much, and for you, it might really be just a small favor. You might not even think much of it, but for me, it meant the world. And now that you won’t be coming to Jiang City anymore, I won’t get to see you.” Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gone all the way to treat him.
There was a brief silence on the phone.
Zhou Sujin: “You’re always causing me trouble, yet you’re worried about not seeing me?”
“…”
When had she ever caused trouble for him?
Wasn’t it all her own matters?
Wei Lai didn’t delve too deeply into the first half of his sentence; her focus was on the latter half.
What did he mean?
She had a lot going on, much like the incident this afternoon where Yuan Hengrui punched someone. If it weren’t for He Wancheng being in Jiang City, he would have had to handle it personally. She’ll have plenty of chances to see him, was that what he meant?
Wei Lai felt like she might be overthinking it; perhaps he just said it offhand, giving her an easy way out, without any deeper meaning.
Zhou Sujin continued, “There’s no need for you to come all the way over here; just have the things mailed over.”
Wei Lai calmly explained, “I’m really going on a business trip tomorrow. I bought the train ticket half an hour ago. Bringing the items in person will be faster and safer than mailing them. Should I have the chauffeur pick them up at the station, or should I deliver them to the address you sent me?”
“The chauffeur can pick them up.”
Wei Lai informed him of her arrival time, “I’ll arrive in Beijing around 4 p.m. tomorrow.”
“En.” After hanging up the phone, Zhou Sujin instructed the chauffeur, Uncle Yan, “Be at the train station at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow to pick her up.”
