Chapter Ninety-One: A Job with Pretty Good Pay

Two-faced and flashy, always showing off and chasing vanity.

That was the judgment Zhang Can made of Li Yong at once, though it did fit the man. No wonder he had been laboring here and still could not make a decent living. Liu Xiaoli... alas, they truly were not cut from the same cloth; people like that would never belong under the same roof.

The waitress brought over the dishes they had ordered. Zhang Can waved a hand. “Eat. Don’t be polite.”

To be honest, Zhang Can was not familiar with Western food. He had never really eaten it before, but he had seen plenty of it in films and on television. Besides, coming here meant spending money; if you were the customer, then you were the restaurant’s god. What did it matter how you ate?

And there were so many Western restaurants now, common as dirt. There was no longer so much fuss over etiquette. As long as you came in and ate, that was enough.

He did know how to use knife and fork. After all, he had often eaten skewers at night markets, and barbecue stalls used knives all the time.

Drinking coffee while eating, Li Yong grew a little more at ease as well. He truly took Zhang Can to be his brother-in-law. By rank, he was still the elder brother, and an elder brother facing his brother-in-law naturally had to hold himself a little higher.

Li Yong might have suffered too much hardship. Eating instant noodles, fast food, and boxed lunches day after day, he nearly swallowed his tongue at the fragrant richness of this Western meal. After he finished everything on the table, he still seemed to feel it was not enough.

Zhang Can took a napkin and wiped his mouth, then said with a smile, “Brother Li, there’s something else I doubt you’d have guessed. Liu Xiaoli and I were classmates.”

“What? ... Really?” Li Yong stared, tilting his head at Zhang Can. Seeing that Zhang Can was not joking, he laughed too. “What a coincidence. If you hadn’t said it, I really wouldn’t have known.”

Zhang Can was afraid that when Liu Xiaoli arrived, the two of them might feel awkward, so he had laid the groundwork in advance so Li Yong would not be puzzled.

“Brother Li, I was in the same class as Xiaoli for several years of high school. I was honest and ordinary back then. Xiaoli never once paid any attention to me.”

Seeing how naturally Zhang Can mentioned being classmates with Liu Xiaoli, Li Yong truly did not grow suspicious. Things that usually raised suspicion were not the sort of things a fool would blurt out to someone’s face anyway.

Liu Xiaoli hurried back to the village entrance, stopped outside the Western restaurant, and then called Li Yong again.

Zhang Can and Li Yong had already seen her through the glass wall. Li Yong smiled and pointed outside. “Well then... brother-in-law, I’ll go out and pick up Xiaoli.”

“Go on,” Zhang Can said with a nod. Li Yong was already calling him “brother-in-law” to his face. He really did have a thick skin.

Li Yong sprang to his feet and ran out in a flash. At that moment, Zhang Can fixed his gaze on Liu Xiaoli outside the glass wall. She was dressed in her work clothes. She was still pretty enough, but there was exhaustion in her eyes and brows, and compared with how she had once looked, she was far less bright and lovely. If she stood beside Liu Xiaoqin, the difference would be plain to see.

As the saying goes, a hard life is a grinding stone; it can make a person old and ugly.

At the entrance, Li Yong caught Liu Xiaoli by the hand and grinningly said, “Xiaoli, hurry in. You haven’t had lunch yet, have you? Your brother-in-law is here, so come in and eat something good to make up for it!”

Liu Xiaoli frowned. “What brother-in-law? Xiaoqin is still working at home; how could she get away? And besides, Mom and Dad need so much money for treatment, how could they possibly come to Golden City? What kind of joke are you making? Do you think I’m not tired from work?”

But Li Yong ignored her protests and tugged her straight into the restaurant. Unable to resist him, Liu Xiaoli had no choice but to lower her voice and say quickly, “Li Yong, let me tell you this in advance: I only have four hundred yuan on me. We still have half a month before payday. If we spend all this four hundred, then we’ll have to eat instant noodles for another half month!”

“Look at you, always so stingy. Don’t worry.”

Li Yong scolded her, half annoyed and half amused, yet he was in an unusually good mood. What Liu Xiaoli said was true: the two of them barely made enough in a month to last until the end of it. The main reason was that both of them spent money without restraint. Of course, with their salaries, it could hardly be called extravagance. They simply earned too little and did not know how to save, so their expenses always exceeded their income. Life was tight day after day, without a single moment of ease.

Li Yong led Liu Xiaoli past the counter and to the table inside. Zhang Can stood up and said with a smile, “Xiaoli, please sit.”

“You...” Liu Xiaoli was instantly startled. Had it not even been a month since she last saw Zhang Can? Back then, he was still living in that cramped little box of a house in the village, with hardly any difference from her. How could he be sitting here eating and drinking like this?

Had he sold the house back home, or taken out the savings he had put away for years and squandered them? In any case, she was dumbfounded.

Li Yong pushed Liu Xiaoli into a seat, then took a pack of cigarettes from a dish, tore it open, drew one out, and lit it with great flair. He took a drag and slowly exhaled rings of smoke, savoring it properly before sighing with pleasure, “Real cigarettes really are different!”

Zhang Can only smiled faintly, then slid the menu toward Liu Xiaoli. “Xiaoli, have something to eat first. It won’t be long now—your sister and our parents will be here in another hour and a half. Eat something first; there’s enough time.”

Li Yong also waved a hand. “Eat. Order whatever you want!”

The way he said it, one might have thought he was the one paying. Once he had grown familiar, he no longer treated himself as an outsider.

Liu Xiaoli was truly confused. The expenses here, and what they had eaten, must have cost several hundred yuan at least. Whether the four hundred yuan she had on her would even be enough was still uncertain. But those two packs of Hwanghelou cigarettes, she knew very well. They were sold in supermarkets too—two thousand a carton, two hundred a pack. And in restaurants, retail prices were usually much higher than in tobacco shops. Just those two packs of cigarettes alone would already be more than she had on her.

She remembered the last time she saw Zhang Can. His house had been empty and bleak, a pitiful sight. Could he really have become so carefree in such a short time?

Of course, Liu Xiaoli did not know that on the night she had last seen Zhang Can, he had just escaped death and had already stepped onto the road to fortune. Of course, although that night was less than a month ago, Zhang Can’s thoughts, temperament, and manner of behavior had already changed beyond recognition from what they had been before.

That night, Zhang Can had gained the ability to see through things and had also come into a small fortune. He no longer had to worry about making a living. Yet he never imagined that in just over ten days, the money in his bank account would soar to nearly fifty million yuan—and that this figure would undoubtedly continue rising at rocket speed.

The waitress came over and asked whether they wanted anything else. Li Yong, taking it upon himself, ordered for Liu Xiaoli. He chose the same dish he had just finished, then added several more. At this point, he no longer felt awkward. Zhang Can clearly did not care; with the grand way he had just casually thrown money down to buy cigarettes, what could this meal possibly cost?

Naturally, Zhang Can did not mind. After the waitress left, he asked, “Xiaoli, has work been busy lately?”

Zhang Can knew that the matter of their meeting last night had to remain a secret, and Liu Xiaoli would not mention it either. Since she would not bring it up, he certainly would not. Li Yong was puffing away beside them, thoroughly enjoying the two-hundred-yuan-a-pack cigarettes that were being sold in this restaurant for two hundred and fifty a pack.

“It’s always the same,” Liu Xiaoli replied lightly. Then she looked at Zhang Can and, biting her lip, asked after a long moment, “Zhang Can, how did you end up with my sister... how did that happen? I remember she never even met you, did she?”

Zhang Can smiled and answered, “Last month, when I went back to the village, it was introduced by my second aunt. She’s your aunt by marriage, right? She made the introduction, and then we got engaged. A few days ago, Xiaoqin quit her nursing job at the county hospital and came to Golden City with my sister. The day before yesterday, they went back to the provincial capital to bring your parents here for the operation.”

Liu Xiaoli’s face went pale at once, and her eyes grew a little red. Yet she still would not believe it. “You... where did you get so much money? I know my father’s operation would cost at least five hundred thousand yuan. My sister could never have that much money.”

There was something else Liu Xiaoli did not say aloud: she knew that her sister Liu Xiaoqin’s marriage was certainly tied to this enormous medical expense.

Zhang Can said calmly, “I work in an antiques shop. The salary is all right, enough to cover the medical costs. You don’t need to worry about the money. Once Xiaoqin and the others arrive, just go to the hospital and do your duty as children. We’re family, after all; feelings matter more than anything.”

Li Yong, smoking as he listened, said with envy, “The salary in an antiques shop is that high? How much is it?”

“Just so-so. Enough to eat and drink, enough to get by,” Zhang Can said. He had no wish to show off. If this had been before he saw Liu Xiaoli again, he might have wanted to brag a little in front of her. But now she no longer stirred any interest in him, and his heart was perfectly calm. He answered in a flat tone, with no intention whatsoever of flaunting his wealth.

Liu Xiaoli found this strange too. She knew Zhang Can had once harbored feelings for her. Was his income really that high? If it was, why was his tone so indifferent? But if it was not, how could he so easily pay for her father’s medical treatment?

And from what she knew of him, had Zhang Can been lying all along? Was his purpose merely to deceive her sister Liu Xiaoqin? Perhaps he was only using a few thousand yuan to lure her sister in, to cheat her of both money and virtue?

But neither she nor Li Yong had any money. Even if they were being swindled, there was nothing worth swindling.

After frowning and thinking for a while, Liu Xiaoli could not help looking up again. “Zhang Can, all right then. You say my sister brought our parents here, but we’re really in a terrible spot right now...”

With two sharp thuds, before she had even finished speaking, Zhang Can had already taken five or six bundles of banknotes from the briefcase he had brought with him and tossed them onto the table. Each bundle was ten thousand yuan, still wrapped in the bank’s paper bands.