Chapter 15: Cuc.u.mber Feast
Unsurprisingly, Shi Jin drunk Xu Huai under the table, but before he could pa.s.s out, Shi Jin asked Xiao Si to give him a ‘bewitching voice’ buff, moved close to the man and whispering into his ear, persuaded him to go out of the private room.
Birthday boy and his friends all had ambiguous smiles when they saw them leaving together. Gua Two secretly made a face, then closed his eyes and pretended he was dead drunk and didn’t know anything.
“Sugar, I know a good place, let’s, let’s go there and have fun.” Xu Huai didn’t fall on his a.s.s only because he was being supported by Shi Jin, but he still didn’t forget to try to take advantage of him.
Shi Jin gave him a mouth-only smile and said, “OK, let’s go have fun.” I will make sure you will not forget this ‘fun’ for the rest of your life.
They stumbled into an empty private booth located out of the way and locked the door.
About half an hour later, the door opened and Shi Jin came out alone. He intentionally put on a dissatisfied, angry face, returned to the room and ignoring the catcalls of Xu Huai’s cronies, he made them go pick Xu Huai up. Then he woke up the ‘drunk’ Gua Two and left with him without looking back.
When they returned to the car, Gua Two immediately revived and asked, “What were you doing with Xu Huai?”
“Fawning over him trying to make him talk. With too many ears nearby, I wouldn’t have been able to get anything out of him,” explained Shi Jin. The real reason, though, was that there were too many people in the room and it would be inconvenient to use some of Xiao Si’s less innocuous persuading buffs there.
Gua Two didn’t tangle with him over that, asking instead, “So did you get anything?”
“Important news,” replied Shi Jin. He elaborated on his findings, “I suspect Xu Huai is the one who is going to make the trade. When he poured wine for me in the beginning, he let it slip he expected to make so much money in the near future he will become richer than you and then would leave the country, and asked if I will go with him. I took him to a different room to coax the details out of him. He mentioned that he was going to play with his friends on a cruise ship before going abroad, but before he could tell me the exact date he pa.s.sed out drunk.”
Gua Two was incredulous, staring at Shi Jin as if he was seeing a monster, apparently not being able to believe he actually got the information they needed.
Seeing his expression, Shi Jin lost his temper. “You could hear everything, so what does your current look mean?”
Gua Two pulled out a hidden earphone from his pocket and said with some difficulty: “After the two of you left and I started to hear Xu Huai’s voice in the earphone… it was too, uh, pa.s.sionate and I took it out. Cough, I hadn’t thought you would really sacrifice yourself for this mission and let Xu Huai…”
Shi Jin raised his hand, clenching his fist so hard his knuckles turned white.
“Stop, stop, don’t do it, I was just joking! I know you didn’t go that far.” Gua Two promptly ducked and started to flatter Shi Jin: “Little JinJin, you’re too amazing, thanks to you we’ve pretty much completed our task, and it only took you a few hours. Now we just need to verify the information you got and we can take a vacation!”
Shi Jin was surprised. “What do you mean? We aren’t going to follow things up?”
“Nope, the government’s side will take care of that. We’re but a small and humble company, this kind of official business is far too big for us to handle,” Gua Two said lightheartedly, motioning the driver to return to Nightlight, then turned to size Shi Jin up. “But this is truly a surprise. Little JinJin, I hadn’t expected you can hold your liquor so well.”
Plomp.
As if the magic spell had been lifted, Shi Jin, who was energetic and clear-headed a second ago, slumped in his chair and turned red-faced. He put his hand over his mouth, looked at Gua Two with blurry eyes, and uttered weakly, “Mom, I’m gonna hurl…”
Gua Two: “Eh?”
Buffs have a set duration time. If the human body does things that exceed its limits while under the buff, it will bear all the consequences after the buff has ended.
Shi Jin was a silly drunk. After vomiting, he was forced by Gua Two to drink a bottle of water and became slightly more conscious, but as soon as he did, he clung to Gua Two and started clamoring to go see if Darling ate a proper meal.
Gua Two wanted to knock him out immediately, but Shi Jin looked so sick and pitiful he changed his mind. Deciding to give him more water he turned away, only to find him drunkenly fumbling around for his phone and dialing a number.
When he saw the name “Jun-shao” on the screen, Gua Two almost choked to death on his own saliva. He lurched, desperately trying to s.n.a.t.c.h it from Shi Jin’s hand, and said in an urgent tone, “This is who you call ‘darling’, you’re really aiming for Jun-shao! Anyway, hang up and don’t even think about this right now, or you will really get yourself killed!”
Shi Jin twisted and turned, trying to hide the phone with all his strength and then happened the last thing Gua Two wanted to see—the call connected.
Lian Jun’s voice was somewhat raspy, the phone obviously had woken him up. He asked, {Shi Jin?}
Gua Two tried to save the situation, replying loudly, “Jun-shao, I’m sorry, Shi Jin is drunk and called you by mistake while playing with his phone, please go back to sleep—”
“Darling!” Shi Jin let out an ear-splitting roar, pushed Gua Two away and started to nag into the speaker like an old lady: “Why don’t you like soup? The soup is so delicious, why won’t you drink it? Your stomach is not good, you need to warm it up and you know it! Do you want to be healthy or not? You’re this old, how can you be still so picky? You really are too much!”
Gua Two gasped in shock. He hurriedly covered Shi Jin’s mouth and said into the phone: “Jun-shao, he is really drunk. I will straighten him up later, so please go to sleep and don’t be offended, he truly doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“Mmm, mmph… Darling!” Shi Jin struggled, wanting to continue speaking.
Gua Two wished he could just beat him to death. He tightened his hold on Shi Jin to completely stop him from moving and stretched his hand to secure the phone.
Just as Gua Two thought Lian Jun should’ve hung up, his voice could be heard again: {Bring him back and come to see me immediately.} Only then the call disconnected.
Gua Two finally managed to grab the phone, but it seemed to be of little use now. He lowered his head and looked at Shi Jin, who was struggling to get free even as his eyes kept closing sleepily. Feeling both exasperated and helpless, he let him go. “You just had to make trouble. Even if you cry later, this big brother won’t be able to help you.”
When they returned to the clubhouse, Shi Jin was completely unconscious and Gua Two had no choice but to carry him to see Lian Jun.
Lian Jun was wearing a nightgown and waiting in his study. Seeing Shi Jin being carried in, his eyebrows wrinkled. He eyed Shi Jin’s toy boy getup and asked: “How’s the mission?”
“We’ve already come into contact with our target, Xu Huai, Shi Jin also managed to pry some information from him. It was tentatively confirmed Xu Huai is the person sent to make the trade and the trading place should be on a cruise ship,” replied Hua Two. Seeing Lian Jun looking at Shi Jin again, he added, “It was thanks to Shi Jin the mission was accomplished so smoothly. He was drinking in order to get close to the target, not because he wanted to.”
Shi Jin, who had been thrown on the sofa, turned over suddenly and mumbled, “Darling… Drink soup…”
Alarm bells started to ring in Gua Two’s mind. He hastily increased the volume of his voice and continued to report the incident with Long Shi, trying to drown out Shi Jin’s muttered ‘Darlings’.
However, Lian Jun’s hearing was completely fine. He moved his wheelchair towards the sofa and studied Shi Jin’s ugly and silly-looking sleeping face, then, unexpectedly, slowly reached out and pinched Shi Jin’s slightly open mouth closed.
Shi Jin felt uncomfortable and twisted his face in a grimace, looking even more silly.
Gua Two: “…”
“Investigate this Long Shi.” Lian Jun let go of Shi Jin’s lips, removed the diamond stud from his ear and threw it to Gua Two, then continued, “Check the information Shi Jin obtained, and after verifying if it’s true hand it over to the authorities.” After that, he waved his hand toward Shi Jin, signaling Gua Two to take him back to his room, turned his wheelchair away and left.
Gua Two stared openmouthed, not daring to believe this was the end of the matter. Looking at Shi Jin, who kept sleeping without a care in the world, a strange thought flashed in his mind—when it came to Shi Jin, didn’t it seem as if Jun-shao was exceptionally… um, forgiving?
Shi Jin woke up suffering an agonizing headache from the hangover, not knowing what time it was and what happened. The first thing he did was to head to the bathroom and take a bath, the gray color of his hair washing away, then he ran to Gua Two’s door and knocked.
When Gua Two opened the door and saw him, his gaze turned sympathetic. “If you have woken up, go to the dining room, Jun-shao is waiting for you.”
Shi Jin was slow to respond, only nodding after a few seconds have pa.s.sed. He asked a bit nervously, “I vaguely remember calling Jun-shao last night, but, uh… I didn’t say anything weird, did I?”
Gua Two sighed and patted him heavily on the shoulder.
“I, I did?” Shi Jin gulped.
Gua Two couldn’t quite look at him. “You did. You called Jun-shao ‘darling’ and scolded him for being a picky eater… You, well, I will pray for your well-being.”
Shi Jin had the urge to burst into a river of tears. He stiffly turned away, whining in his mind, “Xiao Si, you actually deceived me…”
Xiao Si felt extremely wronged:
“Then why didn’t you stop me last night…”
One person and one system faced each other in silence for a long time. Finally, Xiao Si softened and tried to comfort Shi Jin, albeit without much confidence:
“You don’t understand, this isn’t about drinking…” It’s about calling him ‘Darling’… Shi Jin sighed quietly, plucked up courage and headed towards the dining room.
After opening the door, what appeared in front of Shi Jin was a table filled with cuc.u.mber dishes. Lian Jun was sitting behind the table with a bowl of soup in front of him, reading something on a tablet pc.
“Jun-shao,” Shi Jin called out weakly.
“Sit down and eat.” Lian Jun didn’t lift his head.
Shi Jin sat down and looked at the pickled cuc.u.mbers, cuc.u.mber salad, cuc.u.mber stir-fry, stuffed cuc.u.mbers, egg cuc.u.mber soup, and many more cuc.u.mber dishes… Remembering the original ‘Shi Jin’s’ hatred of cuc.u.mbers, he could deeply feel Lian Jun’s malicious intent. He tried to speak. “Jun-shao, yesterday…”
“You shouldn’t be picky.” Lian Jun put down his tablet pc, picked up the soup in front of him and took a sip. “You shouldn’t eat greasy food after a hangover, so the chef prepared this especially for you. Eat, don’t waste his kindness.”
This kind of ‘kindness’ is too hard for me to bear.
Shi Jin glanced at the soup in front of Lian Jun and picked up his chopsticks—it seemed Lian Jun was really angry, angry enough to force himself to drink soup… Fortunately, even though the original ‘Shi Jin’ couldn’t stand cuc.u.mbers, current Shi Jin didn’t really mind their taste.
First, he scooped up some of the egg cuc.u.mber soup, then picked up an egg and stuffed it into his mouth.
“Rong Zhouzhong posted something on his microblog this morning. He wrote, ‘Looking for a young man dancing in the bar last night’, and added they wanted to recruit him into their company. Below is a video of this young man on the dance floor,” Lian Jun said suddenly.
Pff—the egg Shi Jin just ate has been sprayed out all over the table.