Chapter 1: Meeting by chance
In the bright and spacious Western restaurant, the man who was supposed to be on a blind date, dressed impeccably in a suit, couldn’t help but reveal a hint of arrogance in his tone. “I’ve heard that Miss Shen owns her own shop?”
“Yes,” Shen Zhuying replied with a smile after taking a sip of warm water.
“Do you not have a regular job?” he asked.
“Isn’t running a flower shop a job?” Shen Zhuying countered, focusing on cutting her steak, her voice calm.
“Please don’t misunderstand, Miss Shen. I’m not looking down on you,” he said, pausing.
“It’s just that running a shop can be very busy, with no holidays. If we were to get married, who would take care of the children, and who would manage the household? You know my annual salary is in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. I certainly wouldn’t have the time to handle such trivial matters…”
Shen Zhuying cut another piece of steak and interrupted him. “This Sir, I don’t think I have any intention of marrying you.”
“Miss Shen,” he said with an expression that seemed to say “don’t play dumb,”
“I don’t believe you can find a better partner than me, and…” He glanced discreetly at Shen Zhuying’s ears, where she wore a small red hearing aid, his face condescending. “I can tolerate your physical imperfection.”
“But I can’t,” Shen Zhuying said, finishing her last piece of steak. She took out her phone and set an alarm. “I can’t tolerate people with intellectual shortcomings.”
“You…” The man’s face twisted in annoyance. “You’re so rude.”
If the woman in front of him hadn’t been quite pretty, he wouldn’t have continued the blind date.
Shen Zhuying thought this guy was really pretentious.
She shouldn’t have trusted Madam Shen’s taste in men.
Just then, the alarm on her phone went off.
Shen Zhuying picked up her phone and made a hand gesture to him, meaning “idiot, goodbye.”
The man looked puzzled. “What does that mean?”
“Don’t you understand?” Shen Zhuying picked up her phone.
“I’m sorry, I need to take a call.”
She turned off the alarm and said loudly, “Oh, dear, I have a meeting to attend this week, okay? I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
Half a minute later, Shen Zhuying put her phone away in her bag and started gathering her things. “I think our blind date is over, sir. I need to go check on my shop. Good luck finding someone who has passed the CET6, enjoys working, and can tolerate your intellectual shortcomings.”
She had only one good thing about her day, and that was that she had put on beautiful makeup.
The man on the blind date obviously caught the hint.
His face showed a hint of anger, and he finally shed his gentlemanly facade, sneering. “Are all disabled people this sensitive? I thought I was being considerate. At least I didn’t ask…”
He spoke almost cruelly. “If deafness is hereditary, will it be passed on to our children?”
Shen Zhuying wanted to throw the remaining water in her cup at the arrogant man, but she didn’t want to make a scene, so she restrained herself. She picked up her bag and stood up to leave, but the man grabbed her wrist.
He looked puzzled and angry. “Don’t you think you should apologize to me?”
Shen Zhuying replied calmly, “My top priority right now is to post online and ask for help.”
“What?” he asked.
“I’m asking the vast number of netizens what to do when encountering an extremely arrogant man on a blind date,” she said, looking down at the hand holding her wrist.
She wanted to cut it off. “Let go,” she said impatiently.
The man on the blind date looked at her. “You should apologize to me.”
“Shouldn’t you be apologizing to me?” she countered, frowning. She tried to shake off his grip, but he held her tightly, causing her pain.
Shen Zhuying picked up the water on the table and splashed it at him, raising her voice slightly. “Let go!”
The man was caught off guard and got splashed in the face. He became enraged, and almost instantly, his other hand rose high in the air.
Shen Zhuying was trapped and couldn’t dodge. She closed her eyes, used her other hand to block, and turned her face to the side.
She gritted her teeth, preparing to slap him back as soon as his palm came down.
However, the slap didn’t come as expected.
She heard a familiar yet distant voice, one that rarely appeared in her dreams. “Sir, please calm down.”
Shen Zhuying opened her eyes, feeling a bit dazed for a moment.
She blinked slowly and then gradually looked up.
What caught her eye was the man’s profile, which had become even more handsome and sharp over the years.
He firmly grasped the hand of the man on the blind date, which was about to come down, and turned to ask her, “Are you okay?”
Shen Zhuying was caught off guard and met his gaze.
At this moment, she had the mood to think that this was probably the first time she had looked at him directly in the many years she had liked him.
It turned out to be such a distant and cold gaze, and in such an awkward situation.
Shen Zhuying lowered her eyes, shook her head, and said softly, “I’m fine.”
Fu Sizhuo noticed the girl’s wrist, which was being held tightly by the man in front of her, and it was red. He increased the force in his hand and said coldly, “Let her go.”
“Who are you? Who told you to interfere?” the man on the blind date asked, still unwilling to let go, his face white with pain.
“Let go,” Fu Sizhuo repeated coldly.
The man on the blind date felt a sharp pain in his forearm, as if his bones were about to be crushed. He reluctantly let go of his grip. “What’s going on?” He rubbed his forearm, looked at the two of them, and sneered. “You came on a blind date with your lover, didn’t you?”
Fu Sizhuo frowned and was about to refute, but the girl next to him quickly and softly refuted, “No, we don’t know each other.”
He looked down and noticed that the girl’s eyes were red, and she was biting her lip tightly, as if she was about to cry.
He asked her, “Does it hurt?”
“Yes,” Shen Zhuying rubbed her wrist without stopping, her voice low. “It hurts a lot.”
Fu Sizhuo was about to say something when a woman’s voice interrupted. “Sizhuo, what’s going on?”
A woman with bright red lips, who was intelligent and beautiful, walked over naturally and stood beside him, asking.
Fu Sizhuo handed her the red cloak. “There was a small incident.”
“Oh,” Chen Qingqing frowned, looked at Shen Zhuying’s red wrist, and then stared at the man on the blind date with an unpleasant expression. “Was the little beauty bullied?”
“No,” Shen Zhuying rubbed her wrist, and her face had already returned to normal. She looked up and smiled. “Thank you for your concern, beautiful sister.”
She turned to look at Fu Sizhuo, her black and white eyes sincere. “Thank you,” she said.
Without waiting for a response from the two, Shen Zhuying picked up her bag and, ignoring the man’s intense gaze, politely nodded at them. “I have something to attend to, so I’ll be going first.”
As Shen Zhuying turned to walk towards the door, she heard Fu Sizhuo say two sentences.
One was to the man on the blind date: “If you keep looking, I’ll dig your eyes out.”
The other was to the beautiful woman standing next to him: “Do you know that little beauty?”
“No, I just happened to meet her,” he replied.
Both sentences were spoken in a flat and unfamiliar tone.
