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The guests will do as the host requests. Since Xue Chen invited Zheng Yu An to dinner, the matter of booking a restaurant is something for WE GO to worry about. Zheng Yu An finished visiting the two buildings, and found an excuse to go to Zhang Jin's office.
Zhang Jin was making tea and was a little surprised to see him, "Why did you come to my place?"
Zheng Yu An's attitude is ambiguous: "It wouldn’t be proper to stay with an executive for the whole day."
Zhang Jin laughed: "We are a private enterprise, and unlike your bank, the executive is very approachable."
Zheng Yu An didn’t deny that. He fished out the cigarette case, put one in his mouth but didn’t light it up. His brain was wandering off, until Zhang Jin "click" opened the lighter, and the spark burned on the tip of the cigarette.
"What are you thinking about?" Zhang Jin was half sitting on the desk, holding a teacup, "how was your chat with our director Yan?"
Zheng Yu An looked at him, and smiled: "Pretty good, I just felt a bit pressured."
"How can you be pressured?" Zhang Jin said, "Mr. Yan is very kind and friendly to you."
Zheng Yu An: "What? To you guys he is fierce and evil?"
Zhang Jin: "Hey, it’s different when it comes to work. Plus, anyone would have pressure looking at Mr. Yan’s face all day."
Zheng Yu An lost his smile, "You must be quite confident in me then."
Zhang Jin raised his eyebrows, "You are different. With your looks, you wouldn’t be pressured standing next to him."
Zheng Yu An jokingly kicked him in the calf, and stayed quiet while he smoked.
Luo Yan booked the restaurant they went to in the evening. Zheng Yu was too lazy to go back to clock out, so he simply called Qin Han Guan, who casually asked, "Will you be okay drinking two days in a row?"
Zheng Yu An, "Tomorrow’s the weekend, I’ll be able to rest."
Qin Han Guan stammered, "Don't work too hard."
Zheng Yu An smiled and hung up the phone. Luo Yan sent him the location of the restaurant on WeChat, followed by a "cheers" emoji. Zheng Yu An thought of tonight's wheel battle1, and began to regret boasting.
Xue Chen's wife just gave birth to a baby, and he has to take care of her while she’s in postpartum confinement. He was gone immediately after work, so it was still more or less the same people having dinner. And because Qin Han Guan didn’t come, Zhang Jin simply pulled Lin Wan Wan, WE GO’s Director of Human Resources, to make up for it.
Lin Wan Wan is a young girl, and took the initiative to pour the wine. Zheng Yu An followed his old rules, ready to give way to the young lady by only drinking half a glass2. Yet the other party seemed to object.
"I can drink a lot." Lin Wan Wan smiled, "Mr. Zheng need not be so polite."
Zheng Yu An has only ever met two girls who dared to say that she could drink. The last one was Andai, the only woman who had drunk him down3.
Luo Yan tried to smooth things over, "The two with the best drinking capacity here didn’t even say anything yet, what are you guys so eager for?"
Zheng Yu An subconsciously looked at Yan Shu Wang, who, as suspected, was also looking at him. When their eyes met, Yan Shuwang suddenly curved the corner of his lips to smile towards him.
Zheng Yu An: "......"
He took the position of drinking, blocking the other party's line of sight, and finished drinking before smiling, "I'll drink first, to warm up the field for everyone."
In terms of being likable, if Zheng Yu An said he was second, no one dared to claim first place. Whether it’s distributing the soup and dishes, offering cigarettes, or pouring wine, he wouldn’t make half a mistake. When they were about to leave, Zheng Yu An also arranged a chauffeur for Luo Yan and Zhang Jin, who had drunk a lot. He turned his head and found Lin Wan Wan standing in front of the restaurant trying to sober up.
"Manager Lin, do you need a chauffeur?" Zheng Yu An asked.
Lin Wan Wan looked at him, smiled and said, "I’m not in a hurry. Would you mind giving me a cigarette?"
Zheng Yu An took a cigarette and handed it to her, and Lin Wan Wan gave a surprised "ah": "You and Mr. Yan smoke the same brand?"
Zheng Yu An laughed: "Coincidentally."
Lin Wan Wan nodded: "That's really a bit of a coincidence."
The two of them smoked for a short while before Yan Shu Wang came out of the restaurant, followed by the owner of the restaurant behind him. Perhaps talking about something, Yan Shu Wang's gaze fell directly on Zheng Yu An's face.
Lin Wan Wan seems to be a little nervous. She is not as casual as she was standing just now. She also extinguished her cigarette, and called out, "Mr. Yan."
This made Zheng Yu An a little embarrassed. He held the cigarette, not knowing whether to smoke or not smoke. After thinking for while, he could only ask: "Do you want one, Mr. Yan?"
He finished asking before remembering that in the afternoon, Yan Shuwang also seemed to have asked him the same question. Thinking of his own answer at that time, Zheng Yu An thought it was stuid for him to ask the exact same question.
"......" Yan Shuwang paused for a second or two and took out a cigarette himself.
This was clearly meant to give Zheng Yu An an out. If Zheng Yu An wasn’t quick enough to discern social cues, then he might as well not work in the industry. So he took the initiative to light the cigarette for Yan Shu Wang.
Because the two of them were standing very close together, when Yan Shu Wang lowered his head, a few strands of hair on the side of his cheek brushed onto Zheng Yu An’s fingers.
"Sorry." Yan Shu Wang moved naturally to pin his hair behind his ear. He took a puff at his cigarette and exhaled lazily.
Lin Wan Wan stood to the side, and her face reddened looking at their interaction. She tried to make conversation by saying: "How are you going back, Mr. Yan?"
Yan Shu Wang didn't say anything as he smoked, but the restaurant owner was quite proactive: "I'll drive Shu Wang back, don't worry."
Zheng Yu An glanced over, the other party also happened to be looking at him, and took the initiative to shake his hand: "Mr. Zheng, right? Manager Qin came by a few times, and I always see you with him." After saying that, he handed over a business card, the name column wrote: Jiao Tang.
Zheng Yu An also gave his own business card, and the two of them were officially acquainted.
Jiao Tang, as his name implies4, was overly familiar with the people he met for the first time, like sugar that becomes too sweet too quickly. He was probably very familiar with Yan Shu Wang, which was why most of his attention was on Zheng Yu An.
"Mr. Zheng, you exercise regularly, right?"
Zheng Yu An politely answered: “Only when I have time on the weekends."
Jiao Tang was very interested: "Swimming? Basketball? Or do you go to the gym?"
Zheng Yu An smiled: "I participate in all of them, but I’m not very good."
"Oh, nobody can be proficient in every sport, it’s not like we’re athletes." Jiao Tang then turned towards Yan Shu Wang and said, "Why don’t we add another person to the basketball date5 the day after tomorrow?"
Yan Shu Wang looked at Zheng Yu An with a cigarette in his mouth, his expression was rare and somewhat playful. He said, "That depends on whether Mr. Zheng has time."
Zheng Yu An didn’t show it on his face, but in his heart he can not help but call Yan Shu Wang an old fox. Everyone knows that in the banking industry, clients with high net worths were the “gods.” Back when Zheng Yu An worked as an account manager, he accompanied CEOs of all ages in "battling" the golf course. Forget about playing basketball, even if clients wanted him to help take care of children during the weekends, he would agree without batting an eye.
"Mr. Yan, you’re talking as if I’m an outsider." Zheng Yu An turned his face, his gaze focused, looking at Yan Shu Wang and smiled, "My time is all yours. Whether or not I go on the date… what kind of date6… isn't it all up to you, Mr. Yan?"
The author(木更木更)’s notes: Mr. Yan failed in his teasing and ended up being teased.
1 Wheel battle refers to the tactic of several persons taking turns in fighting one opponent to tire the other out. Zheng Yu An is comparing the dinner party to a “battle” because he knows he won’t be able to avoid multiple rounds of drinking.
2 Normally, if someone proposes a toast, the proper way is to drink the entire glass first, then the other person would do the same. Zheng Yu An only drank half a glass because he didn't want Lin Wan Wan to feel pressured to drink the whole glass of wine.
3 The phrase “drinking someone down” is used to refer to the winning party when two people are comparing their alcohol capacity. The losing party would be too drunk to stay up / so drunk that they could only lay down.
4 The character in Jiao Tang’s name (焦唐) looks and sounds like the word for caramel in chinese (焦糖)
5 Here Jiao Tang uses the word 约, which means setting up a plan, or a date, to do something. But depending on the activity, or what follows the word, 约 can have different meanings. For example, 约会, typically means a date between couples; 约饭 means a dinner plan; 约(a sport/event) means a plan to play / go to an event.
6 I tried to translate in a way that would capture the meaning but also make sense in english, but here is this more accurate version: (please refer to the previous footnote) Here, Zheng Yu An also uses the word 约. The original line says “约不约, 怎么约” He uses 约 without an activity, which is used purposely to make it ambiguous. Often times, young people would also use 约 in this ambiguous manner to indicate an invitation to hook up 👀