Chapter 187 - Tang Yin"s Soulmate
Lin Yi kept the CD to himself when he got back to cla.s.s instead of giving it to the girls right away- they couldn"t watch it now anyway. Yushu did send him a text asking if he"d bought it or not, to which Lin Yi replied that he did.
Yushu then turned around to squint her eyes at him.
Tang Yin and Xinwen were with Mrs. Tang as she moved the stand to a warehouse nearby, a place where the majority of the vendors stored their stuff. It was a bit pricey at three hundred kuai a month, but it beat pushing carts around so much.
Tang Yin couldn"t help but feel happy herself as she looked at the excited smile on her mother"s face- she"d never expected popularity like that from just a simple change of recipe! She had even thought it"d be pretty difficult to use up the ingredients they had prepared, but they"d sold out just like that… It was just the first day, too!
While the recipe wasn"t of much value to Lin Yi himself, the Tang family now owed him a huge favor, something even Tang Yin didn"t deny.
"Yo, Yin Yin, your Lin Yi"s pretty good, isn"t he?" Xinwen said to Tang Yin as they walked back to school after Mrs. Tang go on a bus.
In actuality, she was testing Tang Yin"s reaction- she still had questions regarding what she saw that morning, and she couldn"t find the time to talk to her about it because of how stressful twelfth grade was. They were best friends, but it wasn"t uncommon for them not to see each other for a full day once in a while. It wasn"t until Tang Yin called her over to help out at the stand because of the overwhelming popularity that Xinwen could finally ask her about it.
"Ah……" Tang Yin blushed at Xinwen"s words as she replied a little shyly. "My Lin Yi? I"ve nothing to do with him, okay, Wen Wen? What"re you saying."
"Is that so……" Xinwen said as she looked at Tang Yin questioningly. "Yin Yin- are we soulmates?"
"Yeah… why"re you asking that all of a sudden?" Tang Yin said as she tightened up, wondering if Xinwen had noticed anything. Although, she didn"t actually have anything fishy going on with Lin Yi in the first place, did she?
"Why"re you hiding things from your soulmate then?" Xinwen asked as she tapped on Tang Yin"s forehead. "Tell me honestly, Yin Yin, have you fallen to the enemy already?"
"Fallen to the enemy… What are you talking about……" Tang Yin was already panicking at that point. "I don"t get what you"re saying?"
"Still pretending, huh?" Xinwen said with a disappointed look at Tang Yin. "I"ve always thought that the two of us kept no secrets from each other, Yin Yin…… I wasn"t expecting this from you- I"m so disappointed!"
"Wen Wen, what"re you talking about!! I honestly don"t know what"s going on!" Tang Yin said panickedly. "Just say what you wanna say!"
"How did you get to school yesterday, Yin Yin?" Xinwen sighed as she stared into Tang Yin"s eyes.
"I……" Tang Yin lowered her head, too guilty to look her soulmate in the eyes. Could the girl have found out about her getting to school in Lin Yi"s car? But she had made sure to look around before getting off, hadn"t she? How would Xinwen have caught her?
"Why the silence, Yin Yin?" Xinwen forced.
"I…… Came in Lin Yi"s car……" Tang Yin confessed. "But Wen Wen! Let me explain, it"s not what you think……"
"Oh? I"m listening, tell me what happened." Xinwen sighed in relief at Tang Yin"s confession- at the end of the day, Tang Yin decided not to hide it from her anymore.
"Li Erlan was bothering me again yesterday, and Lin Yi happened to drive by and see it…… He got out of the car to get rid of Li Erlan before he drove me to school……" Tang Yin explained carefully. "That"s it, Wen Wen. It really is that simple…… There"s nothing between me and him……"
Xinwen did b.u.mp into Erlan yesterday- she believed Tang Yin partially because of that. "Then why"d you get in his car?"
"I was panicking and confused at the time, I got pushed into the car by him in the middle of all that……" Tang Yin explained, feeling wronged. "He was already driving by the time I realized what was going on……"
"So that"s how it was… Are you sure you didn"t fall for him or anything?" Xinwen said with a sigh of relief.
"Of… course not……" Tang Yin said after some hesitation, shaking her head of the mere thought of it. Her, falling for Lin Yi? That was just impossible.
"That"s good." Xinwen nodded. "By the way, I went to Fen"s house yesterday, her emotions aren"t very stable… Her mom told me that she"s been saying that person"s name all the time, and even hallucinating……"
Tang Yin sighed at the news. She"d been helping her mom out at the stand every day, and hadn"t quite the time to be visiting Fen at night, relying on Xinwen to do that instead. Things with Fen seemed to be getting really serious, as things stood, and Tang Yin decided that she hadn"t much of a choice. "I"ll pay her a visit tonight……"
"I suggested Aunty Cui to get her to the psychology department in the hospital……" Xinwen said. "But their family"s in more or less the same situation as ours, and she"d spent quite a lot on Fen"s medical fees the past few years already… They probably don"t have the funds for that."
"Did that person ever visit Fen?" Tang Yin said angrily, blaming everything on that man- Fen would never be in her situation now if it weren"t for him. She wasn"t complete anymore, but getting herself a good boyfriend was nothing difficult, not with her looks!
"No- you think that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Kang Zhaoming would ever visit Fen? When the sun rises from the East maybe." Xinwen said with a cold chuckle. "I"d have castrated that d.a.m.ned b.a.s.t.a.r.d if Fen hadn"t stopped me then!!"
"......" Tang Yin blushed at what her soulmate was saying- she was a pretty tough woman…… Tang Yin, for one, couldn"t bring herself to say something like that.
"Let"s stop talking about this. Well, I"m gonna go back and study." Xinwen said, pushing her unhappy thoughts aside as she walked with Tang Yin back to the school…
Lin Yi had to go ask Tang Yin about going to her house this weekend with Xiaobo, and couldn"t be going home with Mengyao and Yushu tonight. He told the two of them he had something to do with Xiaobo with a text, and the girls left first after Mengyao sent him an "okay" back.
Lin Yi made sure to pack his stuff up slowly, only picking the pace up after the girls had left.
"Why"re you so slow today, boss? Hurry up! What if they sell out again?" Xiaobo said, evidently quite worried that Mrs. Tang wouldn"t be there again.
Chapter 188 - Bullying
"That won"t happen." Lin Yi said calmly. "Look at how hot their stand was earlier- they definitely prepared more for tonight, they"re not gonna sell out that fast."
"I guess so." Xiaobo said, calming himself down after hearing Lin Yi"s a.n.a.lysis.
Lin Yi, on the other hand, mainly didn"t want Chu Mengyao and Chen Yushu seeing him looking for Tang Yin again- he didn"t want the Miss accusing him of hitting on girls again. Lin Yi would rather have less trouble to deal with, after all, that was the att.i.tude he approached this with, and also why he"d waited for the girls to leave first.
Lin Yi glanced at the street not far away from him, sighing in relief internally after seeing that Li Fu"s Bentley wasn"t there. With that, he left for the food street along with Xiaobo beside him.
"Eh? Seriously? Look, boss- look at how many people there are!!" Xiaobo said, stunned as he pointed in the direction of Mrs. Tang"s stand. "Did the customers of other stands go to the Tangs" too?"
Lin Yi frowned as he spotted many vendors surrounding Mrs. Tang"s barbeque stand- Lin Yi clearly didn"t think they were Mrs. Tang"s customers.
"Tang Yin might be in trouble- let"s go take a look." Lin Yi said, quickening his steps.
They heard a man yelling as they neared the place. "I say, missus!! Isn"t this a little too much? We"re all from the same food street, what"re you doing is taking our jobs from us!!"
It was Zhang Biaogan speaking, p.i.s.sed enough already from the explosion in popularity Tang Barbeque enjoyed earlier in the afternoon. Displeased with his loss of customers, he had decided to cause Mrs. Tang trouble with some fellow barbeque related vendors that night.
From what Biaogan could see, Mrs. Tang was no different from a widow, with a man sick and bedridden and basically dead- they were a weak family to begin with, and it should be pretty easy to scare her with just some yelling.
"We"re not looking for any trouble, mister… We"re not stealing any customers……" Mrs. Tang said, a little frightened at the people with Biaogan. The other vendors around them didn"t look like they"d be helping her anytime soon, either.
"Not stealing any customers?? Who were we supposed to sell our food to when all the students went to your stand?!" A woman in charge of another barbeque stand called out. "How is this not stealing customers?? Will it be stealing customers when all of us starve to death??"
"That"s right!! You"re selling more than all of us combined!! You"re basically killing us off!" Another voice sounded, coming from a skinny male vendor.
"I……" Mrs. Tang wasn"t sure what to do- she hadn"t expected that she"d be p.i.s.sing this many people off with better sales.
"Stealing your customers? My mother"s doing business legally and properly!" Tang Yin said, frustrated as she stood up for her mother. "The customers come to our stand because our food tastes good, is that our fault? You guys want better business, you can improve your recipes too!!"
"Well said, little girl!" Biaogan said with a chuckle. "We wanna improve our recipes too- now that you said it we"ll take you up on that offer! Give us your recipe, let us all learn from it and we"ll let things slide!"
"It"s my family"s recipe, why on earth should we give it to you?" Tang Yin said, not expecting Biaogan to be this unreasonable, going as far as to ask for their recipe! Her family would lose all their advantage if they did that!
"Why on earth? Because you stole our customers! It"s for the communal good! Don"t you guys agree?" Biaogan said, turning to the vendors who came with him.
"That"s right! Giving us the recipe lets us all be better off! It"s not a good thing to hog everything to yourself!" The barbeque woman said.
"It"s fine if you don"t want to- either that or you change the recipe back to your old one, and we earn less together!" The skinny man said shadily.
"What if we don"t give or change the recipe?" Tang Yin said, so p.i.s.sed off that tears might start welling up soon- this was bullying! Where was the justice? How could a bunch of people just gang up on her and her mom like this?
"Not giving or changing the recipe?" Biaogan chuckled coldly. "Then you"ll have to stop setting up your stand here!"
"You-!" Tang Yin"s tears were welling up at that point- these guys were trying to force them out!
"Yin……" Mrs. Tang embraced her daughter, worried that she might do something she"d regret in the heat of the moment. She raised a trembling finger at Biaogan. "You… You"re all bullying us because we don"t have a man in the family? What kind of people are you, picking on a mother and daughter like this!"
Mrs. Tang reckoned that the they wouldn"t be this c.o.c.ky if her husband wasn"t bedridden.
"Don"t say it like that- this is for the communal good." Biaogan had actually confronted the Tangs because of that fact- he was completely aware of their situation, after all.
Mrs. Tang was pretty frustrated herself as she held her daughter in her arms- all she wanted to do was do business and earn some money, was that too much to ask? Weren"t these people being too absurd, bullying them because their business was good?
Tang Yin, on the other hand, resented that she wasn"t a man- these people wouldn"t be acting so c.o.c.ky if she were! She looked at the other vendors who were only interested in watching, and Tang Yin couldn"t help but fall into despair…
They"d just seen a new glimmer of hope in dire times, too……
"Communal good my a.s.s!!" Lin Yi said as he pushed the crowd aside, charging right at Biaogan- the guy was too much!! What did he think he was doing, bullying the two women like that? Didn"t he know they were under his protection?
The vendors Lin Yi had pushed aside were just about to yell at him when they saw his face, shutting their mouths instantly- it was the new Big Four from Songshan"s First School!! He was someone even a tyrant like Zou Ruoming feared, leaving without uttering a single word after he"d slapped him across the face!
Lin Yi held Biaogan"s collar from behind and pulled him up. "You"re the leader, right?"
"Who the fu-" Biaogan was about to curse at the dude pulling his collar when he saw Lin Yi"s face, freezing instantly with wide eys.
After all, Lin Yi had left a strong impression for him- only a true monster could get Zou Ruoming cowering away with a single slap!!
Biaogan used to be a seafood vendor when Ruoming got a stomachache from his food, thrashing his stand the second day and even put him in bed for a couple of days! He never sold seafood again, switching to barbeque instead when his injury healed up… His fear towards Ruoming was quite an extreme one.
It was a well known fact that Ruoming"s brother was a gangster in the northern side of the city, and the thought of revenge never even crossed Biaogan"s mind after learning that. It wasn"t a difficult thing in the slightest for Ruoming to destroy him.
Yet even Ruoming feared this Lin Yi, who was right in front of him looking to mess him up!!! Biaogan was that much away from p.i.s.sing his pants- if this man could beat Ruoming with no effort at all, then wouldn"t it be even more of a breeze for him to beat him up?