The Second Cup of Coffee Part 2

Li Zhicheng asked, “Is the deadline I gave too tight?”

Jiang Ying shook her hand at once. “No, no.”

He knew she would not tell him the truth, so he got up and went to the coat hanger to pull out a card from his coat. “Go and buy us some afternoon tea. It’s been hard. You can decide what to buy, and I’ll pay for it.”

Jiang Ying’s eyes were long and narrow. They became wide because she was overwhelmed by this unexpected request. She solemnly took the card with both hands and bowed. She thanked him, “Thank you, boss!”

Li Zhicheng waved his hand . “Go.”

As soon as Jiang Ying came out of the office and returned to her seat, Zhou Qingqing slided over on her chair and whispered, “What did King Li say to you?”

Jiang Ying’s lips rose to a smile and she took out the card with her thumb and middle finger and shook it in front of Zhou Qingqing. “He said he would treat everyone to afternoon tea.”

“Let me go!” Zhou Qingqing could not help but exclaim. She was glared at by Jiang Ying. Then, she quickly covered her mouth and lowered her voice. “Has King Li become a loving father?”

Jiang Ying made a guess. “Maybe today’s meeting went well so he’sin a good mood.”

Zhou Qingqing nodded in agreement. “Speaking of which, when did you think of the café plan today? I panicked when he asked that question.”

“When?”Jiang Ying picked up the notebook on the desk. She turned the page and handed it to Zhou Qingqing. “Just now.”

Zhou Qingqing took her notebook. It did not have any plans on it. On the paper, there were some numbers of Jiang Ying’s recent expenses, and in the lower right-hand corner, there were simple doodles from when she was daydreaming.

“But it was thanks to that.” Jiang Ying’s eyes landed on the last line: Cheese cake, 22.

It was when she saw this line and remembered what happened that day that she suddenly came up with the idea of a spring café.

Jiang Ying held up her notebook. The image of the man who was busy at the reception desk that night appeared.

She had not seen him for a few days, and his appearance was blurry in her memory. All she remembered was a small mole under his left eye.

“Qingqing, I’m going to buy afternoon tea.” Jiang Ying turned around to leave. She took her phone and the card from the table and walked quickly out of the studio.

—

It was sunny today and the breeze was warm.

Yun Xian had ordered some seedlings that had arrived. He planted them in the open space outside of his shop.

It happened to be Arbor Day a few days ago, so this could be counted as his contribution to the earth.

His shirt was stained with mud and his fair hands were dirty. While he was working just now, he didn’t feel the urge to clean. Yun Xian brushed his hands and walked back to the shop. He turned on the faucet with his elbow, and carefully pressed on the hand soap twice to thoroughly wash his hands.

After washing his hands, he took off his long sleeve button down he wore as a jacket and put it away. Underneath he had a T-shirt.

Yun Xian was born in September and was a Virgo. Although he did not have an aggressive nor annoying personality, he had a lot of shortcomings typical for a Virgo. Obsession with cleanliness was a problem. It’s easy to say that being clean was a good habit, but being a little OCD about it meant that he couldn’t stand white things that were dirty. No matter how small the stain was, as long as he could see it, he felt uncomfortable.

He liked white the most. The majority of his shirts and T-shirts were white, and the main tone of the shop was also white.

—Now enough about Virgos.

Today, the shop was open, but there weren’t that many customers. They had three customers come in during the afternoon, but they had many cups of coffee that were sold at noon.

Spring sleepiness came with the weather warming up and affected everyone. Zhao Xin yawned while wiping each cup.

It was said that yawning was contagious, so Su Cheng, who was sitting on the bench playing games, followed suit.

The two men yawned one after another, like a duet.

Yun Xian finally couldn’t bear to watch it, so he dried his hands with a paper towel and said to them, “Xiao Zhao, Su Cheng, we don’t have a lot of guests today, but it’ll be busy during the weekend. I’ll give you a half-day off.”

Zhao Xin’s eyes lit up. “Thank you, boss!”

Su Cheng was brimming with tears. “Brother, you are so kind.”

They lost their sleepiness and happily took off their aprons. They grabbed their backpacks as they got off work.

Yun Xian lowered his head and smiled. They left quickly out of fear that their boss would change his mind.

Yun Xian’s phone made a notification sound. He took it out of his pocket and unlocked the screen. It’s a Wechat message from his friend Li Zhicheng.

Complete Sincerity: The meeting just ended. I called the girl to the office to encourage her and invited the staff to have afternoon tea using my card.

Complete Sincerity: I was moved by my benevolent self.

See the Mountain: It’s hard to pluck the feathers of a rooster1.

Complete Sincerity: It’s all because of you that I was at wits end.

Complete Sincerity: Fuck, you made Laozi2?feel guilty all day.

He sent out a sticker of a little fat hand with clenched fists.

Yun Xian looked at the new message on the screen and laughed in a low voice.

When he was signing for the saplings this morning, he thought of Jiang Ying, the girl who celebrated her birthday on Arbor Day.

His mother usually liked to forward and send articles to him. The latest news included all kinds of information about maintaining health and eating healthy food.

Yun Xian scrolled through a few of the messages and picked out a few articles to send to Li Zhicheng.