Chapter 344 - 222: Li Wei Decides to Act Personally
Jin Heon pulled out her phone, and her lips immediately tightened into a thin line.
She took a few deep breaths of the cold air, steeling herself before finally answering the call.
For some reason, perhaps because she’d been living in a student dorm ever since starting college and rarely went home, she had gradually drifted away from her family. Now, even taking a call from her parents required mental preparation.
"Hello? Mom," she said. "Have you left already? ...Oh, okay. Dad’s not coming? You can’t find him?"
She frowned. While part of her was relieved, she couldn’t help but say:
"Then let’s just forget about him," she said. "I’m getting ready to head over, too. I’ve already booked us a table."
In some ways, Jin Heon had every right to blame her family.
Her relationship with her father had never been harmonious. He was a hopeless alcoholic and gambler. While he hadn’t quite gambled away his wife and daughter, he had come dangerously close.
When he got drunk, he had a habit of hitting people. Jin Heon couldn’t remember much from her childhood, but more than half of her memories were of being beaten for one reason or another.
After hanging up, she took a compact mirror from her purse. Using the light from a streetlamp, she applied a layer of lipstick to brighten her complexion. Once she confirmed her makeup was flawless, she hailed a taxi to the subway station.
’Now that I’m making money, I should splurge a little. I can afford to enjoy a taxi ride once in a while.’
「An hour later, at a Korean barbecue restaurant in Manhattan’s Korea Town.」
Perfectly marbled Australian Wagyu sizzled enticingly on the charcoal grill, the rich, fatty aroma filling the private booth.
Jin Heon expertly grilled the meat, placing the most perfectly cooked pieces onto her mother’s plate.
"Heon, have you been working too hard lately?" her mother asked, her eyes filled with concern as she looked at her daughter’s sharp jawline. "You can’t ruin your health just to make money."
"I haven’t," Jin Heon said simply after a brief pause.
She didn’t know what else to say.
There had been so much she’d wanted to say, but now that they were face to face, the words wouldn’t come out. She just kept putting more meat on her mother’s plate.
"That’s good," her mother sighed. "You haven’t even graduated yet, and you have to worry about your thesis, and work—"
"Mom, I know," Jin Heon cut in. "Just eat. Let’s not talk about it."
As she watched her mother pop a piece of Wagyu into her mouth, she asked eagerly:
"Well?" she asked, a note of pride in her voice. "It’s delicious, isn’t it?"
"Mmm... it’s not bad," her mother said after chewing and swallowing. "But you know me, I don’t really care much about food."
Jin Heon’s grip on her chopsticks tightened. A wave of irritation washed over her for no apparent reason.
She picked up a piece with slightly charred edges for herself, popped it into her mouth, and chewed carefully.
’But it is delicious,’ she thought. ’This plate costs $79.99.’
She hated how her mother pretended not to like things when she clearly did. Yet every time Jin Heon earned money from a part-time job, she couldn’t resist buying her something. The gifts were either stolen by her father or earned her a lecture from her mother, which infuriated her.
She knew this was a bad habit, but it was a hard one to break.
"By the way, are you going back to your dorm tonight or coming home?" her mother asked suddenly, watching Jin Heon flip the meat on the grill.
"I..." Jin Heon forced a smile. "I don’t think I can. I have to work tonight."
Her mother understood why Jin Heon didn’t want to come home.
"It’s Sunday night. Even God rests on Sunday," her mother said, her tone both disappointed and stern. "Why won’t your boss even let you have the weekend off?"
"It’s not like that, Mom," Jin Heon explained. "I’m the one who asked for the overtime. My boss really values me."
To make her story more convincing, she put down the tongs and took a sip of barley tea. "You know, my boss isn’t just generous; he never skimps on showing us the world. We closed a huge deal last weekend, and to celebrate, he flew us straight to a beach in Miami on his private jet!"
"And we ate these enormous crabs—they were *this* big!" She held her hands far apart in the air to show an exaggerated size. "The claws were bigger than my face."
"Wow, really?" her mother asked.
Seeing the look of amazement in her mother’s eyes, she grew more animated and continued her story enthusiastically:
"The most incredible part was the tools we used to eat the crab! Mom, you’d never believe it. To eat one crab, they laid out an entire set of instruments that looked like something from a surgery. There were delicate silver shears just for cutting the shell, a long, thin silver pick for getting meat out of the joints, and a beautiful little silver mallet for cracking open the toughest claws."
She described the sheen and feel of the tools so vividly, it was as if she’d been born knowing how to use them.
"That must have been expensive," her mother said, a hint of worry in her voice. "This place looks very expensive, too."
"It’s fine," Jin Heon said, waving her hand dismissively. "I just got paid not too long ago."
She suddenly paused and swallowed the bite of beef in her mouth. "Mom, you didn’t tell Dad about any of this, did you?"
"I didn’t," her mother said, shaking her head. "I just told him you make $5,000 a month before taxes."
"Oh..." Jin Heon breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, that’s good."
Silence fell over them, leaving only the lively noise from outside the booth and the CRACKLING and POPPING of fat on the grill.
"Have you met any nice boys lately?" her mother asked, changing the subject. "My Heon is so beautiful, but you’ve never even dated anyone. It’s so unusual."