Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The father and daughter were sipping on their beer as they chatted away.
Just then, Shen Chen’s phone rang. She reached into her pants pocket and fished out the phone. Taking a glance at the caller ID shown on the screen, she swiped her finger across the screen to answer it.
“Is this Shen Chen?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you still remember me, Lin Xiaomiao, your high-school classmate?”
“Uh-huh.”
“We are having a class union now. Come join us. We all miss you!”
“No.”
“Come one, Shen Chen. We haven’t met for years. Come out and let’s have a chat.”
“No. You guys enjoy yourselves.”
“Fine. I guess you must have moved up in the world and started to look down on old classmates like us.”
Shen Chen did not know what to say.
“If you still treat us as friends, come and meet us. Otherwise, we’d better not see each other again.”
Lin Xiaomiao hung up after telling her about the location of their meetup.
Shen Zhongming glanced at his daughter.
“You better go, sweetie. People are going to think you’re haughty. It’s not like I don’t know your classmates. If you insist on not going, I’m afraid they would paint a terrible picture of you. I couldn’t bring myself to see you disassociating yourself from the rest of the world. Go out there, get some fresh air, and you will come out fine. One more thing, don’t forget to bring something back for me; you know that I like food. Go, go…”
Shen Chen glanced at him, feeling annoyed. At last, she compromised under the heavy pestering of her habitual gambler father. Before she left, she said something that chafed him.
“I’d expect to see the chicken soup on the table when I am back tonight. Otherwise, I will set your gambling props on fire!”
8.50pm. In the most expensive restaurant in the city.
“Lin Xiaomiao, how are things going with your wealthy boyfriend?”
“Well, not bad! At least, he is always one call away and gives me a supplementary card so I can buy whatever designer handbags and clothes I want.”
“Same goes with mine. He will buy me whatever I like!”
“An’an, Xiaomiao, stop showing off already. Paupers like us who still need to cram onto a bus every day are looking like a miserable lot.”
“Yeah, man. You all make us feel so embarrassed that we wish the ground would swallow us up…”
“Shen Chen will be here soon. Let’s be nice to her.”
“An’an. Why did you say so? We have always been nice to our classmates.”
“Lin Xiaomiao, stop pretending already. It’s not like we don’t know what you’re up to. It was you who dug at her every time we met.”
“It’s still you who knows me well, An’an.”
“Isn’t it true?”
“I just don’t get it why women like you like digging at each other. It’s only a class reunion. Is it necessary to pick on each other?”
“Shen Chen was just a little frumpy in her fashion taste in high school, but she had a good personality! Has that offended you?”
“Don’t jab her again when she is here.”
“Heck, who is she to you, stinky men! Why are you all so sorry for her?”
Men and women, about a dozen of them, sitting at a ten-meter-long dining table, were sipping on red wine, chattering away. Their topic of interest seemed to be about the unassuming girl, Shen Chen.