Chapter 39: Second Aunt’s Phone Call
"Ye... Ye Xing??" The young waitress stared blankly, her eyes filled with shock and bewilderment.
"What do you mean, ’Ye Xing’? Address him as Boss Ye. Where are your manners!" Huang Jinbao frowned, scolding her in dissatisfaction.
The waitress hurriedly carried the coconut juice to Ye Xing’s side, her voice trembling slightly as she managed to ask, "B-Boss Ye, would you like some coconut juice?"
"Oh, sure. Pour me a glass, thanks!" Ye Xing immediately handed his glass over. As he glanced up, he happened to see the waitress’s face and froze for a moment.
The waitress was none other than He Qianqian, whom Ye Xing had run into on several occasions. Ye Xing knew He Qianqian worked at Jinsheng Hotel, so while it was a bit of a coincidence, he wasn’t overly surprised.
As He Qianqian poured the drink for Ye Xing, her hand trembled the entire time, betraying her turbulent emotions.
Suddenly—
CRASH!
A glass bottle full of orange juice slipped and smashed onto the table. In an instant, dishes shattered, and soup and drinks splattered onto many of the people sitting nearby.
"What’s the matter with you two? You can’t even pour a drink properly! Do you even want this job anymore?!" Huang Jinbao snapped.
"Boss, it wasn’t me! It was Sun Xiaojuan!" He Qianqian hurriedly passed the blame, pointing across the table.
Across from her, a girl of about eighteen or nineteen, her face pale, was frantically cleaning up the broken dish fragments and wiping the soup and juice that had spilled all over the table.
"It’s all greasy! I just bought this outfit two days ago, and now it’s ruined! The waitstaff in this place..."
"If this banquet were held at my Mingyu Restaurant, I guarantee something like this would never happen!"
"It wouldn’t happen at my Agarwood Restaurant, either."
"Not only did we get splashed, but look! Even Mr. Ye got soup on him!"
"Well, Boss Huang, your staff is truly top-notch. Exactly what you’d expect from a five-star hotel."
As they say, competitors are always rivals, and several of the bosses immediately seized the opportunity to criticize and mock him.
Deeply embarrassed by the incident, Huang Jinbao turned to the waitress with a grim face. "Sun Xiaojuan, head to the finance department later to collect your final pay."
The waitress’s face instantly turned deathly pale, her expression terrified. She pleaded frantically, "I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, everyone, I really didn’t do it on purpose. Please, Boss Huang, don’t fire me. I’m begging you, just give me one more chance. I really need this job."
In Luoxian County, a job that paid over four thousand a month and included room and board was truly hard to find. The girl, on the verge of tears at the thought of losing such a good job over a simple mistake, begged repeatedly.
Huang Jinbao shook his head and shot a look at He Qianqian on the other side.
"Xiaojuan, let’s go. I’ll take you to the finance department!" He Qianqian said quickly. ’Right now, she just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. If Boss Huang decided to take his anger out on her, she’d be an innocent casualty, and that would be awful.’
She immediately grabbed the girl, Sun Xiaojuan’s, hand and started pulling her toward the door.
"Heh."
Just then, a soft chuckle echoed through the private room. It was faint, but not one of the bosses present dared to ignore it. Everyone’s ears perked up as they turned to look.
"Come on, everyone." Ye Xing casually took out a tissue to wipe a few drops of soup from the tip of his nose, a faint smile on his face. "It’s just a few drops of soup. Since the young lady has already apologized, there’s no need for a group of grown men like us to keep dwelling on it, is there?"
All the bosses in the room were stunned.
"Haha, Mr. Ye is so gracious."
"Boss Zheng, it’s not like a little soup will ruin your black suit. Was it really necessary to make such a fuss?"
"Old Yu, weren’t you the one who started shouting first?"
"She might be relying on this salary to live. It’s not easy."
"The poor girl begged so desperately. We should just let it go."
"I agree. A minor mistake like this is forgivable."
Listening to the bosses’ change of tune, He Qianqian was momentarily confused. "Boss Huang, so now..."
"What are you spacing out for? Boss Ye is speaking up for you two. Aren’t you going to thank him?" Huang Jinbao’s eyes flickered as he spoke in a low, firm voice.
"Thank you, Boss Ye! Thank you, Boss Ye!" The girl, Sun Xiaojuan, was overjoyed. Wiping away the tears at the corners of her eyes, she thanked Ye Xing repeatedly.
He Qianqian, on the other hand, watched him with an incredibly complex expression—a mixture of confusion, shock, fervent admiration, and deep regret.
...
After the banquet ended, Ye Xing left Jinsheng Hotel and drove his Porsche 911 toward the mall.
The mansion on White Cloud Mountain had just been completed, and he needed to handle the interior decorating himself. There were too many things to buy this time: a large-screen LCD TV, decorative lighting, electrical wiring, faucets, a microwave, a refrigerator, glassware, and on and on.
Just shopping for and ordering all these furnishings took up the entire afternoon.
The sun set, its golden afterglow gradually faded, and the sky slowly grew dark.
In a suite in Ice Sea New City’s District Five, Ye Xing was having dinner with his mom and dad.
"Axing, our family has money now. I’m going to have your Second Aunt set you up on some dates!" Ye Xing’s mother, Lin Yufang, said excitedly during dinner.
"Please don’t, Mom!" Ye Xing said with a wry smile. "I don’t want to go on blind dates. There’s no rush. I want to find someone myself."
"What do you mean, no rush? You’re already twenty-three! Other people your age already have kids!" Ye Xing’s father, Ye Guozhong, said with a frown. "But your Second Aunt probably doesn’t have any good connections. I think we’ll have to rely on your Third Uncle for this. He has a wide network and socializes with high-society figures."
"No, no way. You know what Third Uncle and his family are like. They’ve always looked down on us. Asking him to set Axing up is just asking for grief," his mother, Lin Yufang, said, shaking her head repeatedly.
"Third Brother and his family are influential people, after all. It’s only natural they’re a bit arrogant. Besides, this is for Axing’s sake..."
Listening to his parents argue, Ye Xing felt his head begin to throb.
After finally finishing dinner, Ye Xing made an excuse about a business matter and beat a hasty retreat, preparing to drive back to Bilin Village.
BEEP BEEP... BEEP BEEP!
As he was going downstairs, the text message tone on his phone suddenly went off.
Ye Xing opened his messages. It was a deposit notification from his bank, indicating that over one hundred thousand yuan had just been deposited into his account.
RING-A-LING-LING! "You’re my little, little apple, I can never love you too much, with your cute red face..."
He had just closed the text when his phone began to ring. It was his Second Aunt calling. Ye Xing swiped the screen and answered.
.............