Chapter Sixteen: Brilliant Writing Style

  Although I rushed to the store at my fastest speed in 20 years, I still couldn't avoid being scolded by Xiaoyu's furious rebuke. After all, I was the one who made a mistake first, so I could only make a gesture of "I'm already grown up, you can pick me" while enduring her criticism and making desserts for those employees who, according to Xiaoyu, spared my signboard because they were looking at her face.

  "You said, you said, how did you guarantee me yesterday? It's all nonsense, what kind of terrible character are you?! Your guarantees are all useless!"

  "Right right right, ruining someone's reputation ruins one's own."

  "I've been supporting you all along, even bringing the company's dinner gatherings here, and that shameless boss of ours has taken advantage of it to get a few free articles out of me. My integrity is now trampled on by you to the point where I'm not even worth a scrap! Does this do justice to me?!"

  "Yes yes yes, sorry sorry."

  "The most outrageous thing is that you not only forgot what happened and overslept, but also pretended to be Ruan Yi and deceived me! Do you know how seriously your behavior has hurt my fragile and sensitive heart and strong self-esteem? It's simply unforgivable!"

  "Absolutely, absolutely, unforgivable, unforgivable."

  ……

  My hands moved non-stop, and my mouth responded carefully in a low voice, afraid that if I wasn't careful, I would stimulate her suddenly emerging self-esteem again. Finally, she yelled herself hoarse, leaned against the wall to catch her breath, and I immediately took out a frozen yellow peach ice cream from the refrigerator and handed it to her. She glared at me: "I don't want to eat, my aunt is visiting today."

  I almost choked on my own saliva: "Aunt Flo is visiting you and you're still yelling with such energy?"

  "It was nothing at first, but you got me so angry that I'm getting a bit overwhelmed by my surging blood."

  Looking at Xiaoyu who suddenly looked weak, I finally had a sense of guilt: "Why don't you go to the counter and rest for a while, there are only two cups of milkshake left, I'll take them out."

  "No way, there are two of my arch-enemies outside, they'll definitely cause some trouble later, I'm going with you."

  I paused as I poured the red tea and turned my head to look at her: "Arch-nemesis?"

  "Yes, for a man in the department to go around saying I'm promiscuous. Ugh, that kind of trashy person, I don't even look up to."

  I remained silent for a while before speaking again: "You deliberately brought them over, didn't you?"

  She scratched her head and smiled: "They're really annoying, although I don't care about reputation, the clear will be self-clear. But you also know that in a school like this, rumors spread quickly and can cause harm to innocent people. The other day, someone even asked me who my child's father was in front of a group of people. Some boys who had shown interest in me before now avoid me when they see me. I'm still a virgin! So this kind of thing must be cut off at the root, but Ah Qian and the others don't bother to do such things, so I can only come to you for help."

  "So you think I'm just casual about doing this kind of thing?"

  "Yes."

  I looked at her expressionlessly, exerting great effort to control my hand as I poured the milkshake into the red tea instead of down her collar: "Don't think you can use me as a gun, guests are gods here, and I don't want to offend anyone, nor am I capable of doing so."

  She didn't dwell on the issue, but let out a heavy sigh and said in a hushed tone: "I was planning to trick the women's volleyball club into having their gathering here next time. You don't know, those women are all over 1.7 meters tall, and they love to jump around for no reason, consuming a lot of energy. When they eat, it's like a tiger that's been starving for three days coming down from the mountain. And then there's the anime club, every time we go out to perform, there's always a huge crowd following us. Sometimes because of time constraints, we have to eat inside restaurants. Tsk tsk tsk, the scene is just too spectacular. If they were to come into your dessert shop..." Her words trailed off abruptly.

  Two pastry chefs standing next to each other simultaneously let out low chuckles.

  Finally, I threw a few fresh raspberries into the milkshake and picked up the tray to head out, squeezing only two words from between my teeth: "Follow me."

  "Yao Yao, I'm so in love with you!" A loud and crazy laughter came from behind.

  As I walked up to the table at the Literature Society, I had already regained my usual sly smile: "Excuse me, whose rose milk tea with a cover is this?"

  "It's ours." The two voices chimed in unison.

  Looking at those two almost identical round faces, I exclaimed: "On the opening night, there were too many guests, and I forgot to ask you a question, which one of you is the older brother?"

  The boy sitting under my hand immediately replied: "I am the younger brother, named Wen Fei, nicknamed Er Weng, and Mo Yu is of the same grade and department, still single, 20 years old this year, likes mountaineering and playing tennis..."

  He hadn't finished speaking when he was interrupted by a sharp, shrill voice. At first glance, I immediately associated the girl with the "daughter-in-law counterattacks and abuses her mother-in-law" story from long ago... The daughter-in-law said: "Second Brother, she just asked who's the older brother, First Brother hasn't even spoken yet, you're already selling yourself like a peddler, thinking this is a blind date? Don't be so embarrassing."

  Just as Old Man Zhang was about to retort, a long-haired girl with a gentle and talented air spoke up softly: "Autumn Bell, don't say that. The boss's wife is so beautiful, if I were a boy, I wouldn't be able to help but try to sell myself to her either."

  "My wife said proudly: 'How could that be? In our family, Mei Dan doesn't need to promote herself. With just one seven-character poem written casually, the people chasing her already line up from the library to the cafeteria.'"

  The talented woman pouted and said: "I hate it, don't say such things in front of so many people and the boss's wife."

  "My wife said in a sharp voice: 'Why? I'm just stating the facts! Mei Dan, you're the most talented star in our society. If it weren't for your low-key and kind nature, those self-righteous small roles wouldn't have had the chance to be so rampant in the society. Just because they can write some nonsense about ghosts and gods, they think they're superior. I think that if it weren't for their looks, they probably couldn't even get into the literature club.'"

  The talented woman frowned slightly with some sadness: "But in today's society, good looks have already become the biggest winner behind one's back."

  "My wife sneered: 'They're just vases, can't even withstand a slight bump, what's the point of talking about winning or losing...'"

  The talented woman suddenly covered her daughter-in-law's mouth and didn't let her continue speaking: "You can't say that." After a pause, she said softly, "Autumn Bell's temperament is like this, whatever comes to mind, she'll say it. Please forgive her for being outspoken, madam."

  From the moment that woman started speaking, I had been leisurely appreciating their self-directed and self-acted double reed instrument. Without a doubt, these two classmates who were perfectly in sync were Xiao Yu's arch-nemesis. I was watching with great interest when suddenly everyone at the table stared straight at me, and only then did I realize that Mei Dan, the talented woman, had directed her last sentence at me. I hastily waved my hand and said: "No, no, I'm enjoying it very much, you all continue, continue."

  As soon as the words fell, some people burst out laughing, my wife stared at me in shock, and the talented woman smiled stiffly at me after coming back to her senses, then both of them fell silent. Seeing that they didn't seem to continue singing, I felt helpless. I really didn't mean anything else, I was actually enjoying it just now. If this kind of dialogue with such a high level of subtlety and complexity wasn't rehearsed multiple times in advance but could be spoken freely at any time, then my wife and the talented woman would indeed be considered to have great talent, and it's understandable that they wouldn't get along with Xiaoyu, that pseudo-literary hipster.

  As for their flower vase theory, well, let's just take it as a compliment to us. I remember in high school, there was a girl in the neighboring class who envied Ah Qian for turning her "black horse prince" - that handsome black-haired guy - into a servant under her skirt, and even fixed him for a period of time. She went around saying that Ah Qian was just a useless flower vase, which made us all furious. If Ah Qian became a flower vase, wouldn't we be implicated as glass bottles?! While we were plotting in the classroom how to take down that girl with one blow, I casually asked Ah Qian, who was sucking on a lollipop next to me, if she had any good suggestions. After half a day of silence, she finally spoke up indifferently: "Stainless steel and flower vases are not worth paying attention to."

  As soon as this was said, it was immediately spread throughout the school by the "Gossip King" with his knockoff BlackBerry at a speed close to divine, and from then on, that stainless steel thing never appeared in our sight again.

  Just looking at the scene in front of me, I glanced at Xiaoyu sitting at another table staring at me with a mischievous look, that troublemaker and troublemaker... how to get rid of them?