Gourmet Food Supplier
Chapter 35: Mistress
Wu Zhou finished eating his egg fried rice, but his heart wasn’t happy at all.
Seeing the sparkling and translucent beads of rice in everyone else’s plates, while his plate was sparkling and shiny from the grease. From a look, he knew that too much oil had been added to it. Pushing aside the rice grains on top, the plate still had a thick layer of grease.
Whereas the egg and the rice grains were extremely loose in others’ plates; there were even some grains that had still not scattered during stir frying and was even in a complete clump in his. The rice beads that were covered in egg yolk and egg white were sparse while there was also a trace of MSG taste when it was consumed inside the mouth.
The reason for these bullcraps was disparity.
As for the seaweed soup, bringing it up simply called up a bunch of bitter tears. Leaving the unbearably turbid soup aside, the seaweed inside were all in small broken bits and felt exactly like plain boiled water that had been soaked with the type of fragmented seaweed that cost 1 RMB per 1kg. Wu Zhou, who had learned to be picky as a result of the seaweed soup in Yuan Zhou’s restaurant, felt that the chlorine powder in the soup was simply too strong. It was practically atrocious.
The pickled radish had been mixed in with chili oil, sugar, and salt, and was rather tasty when he normally ate them. Eating them now however, immediately made him feel like vomiting. The chili oil was badly seasoned and had a fishy smell, it had too much sugar, the taste of salt was too prominent, and finally the palatable taste of radishes was simply missing.
It was truly a textbook situation of: “It was truly fine, until they were compared.”
With tears flowing in his heart, Wu Zhou continuously forced himself to imagine that the egg fried rice he’d eaten was the one from Yuan Zhou’s small restaurant. However, the more he imagined it, the more he recalled the flavour he’d tasted in the past. When he came back to his senses, he felt that the flavour he’d thought was fairly good in the past had become even harder for him to stomach all of a sudden.
Wu Zhou returned to his home and dropped his bag. He didn’t felt like moving anymore and simply slept all the way like that till daybreak.
“Knock, knock, knock”
A series of knocking noises had reverberated through the house, and Wu Zhou, who was deeply asleep, awoke in an instant.
“This is bad. Today’s the day my girlfriend is coming over, I didn’t even change my clothes”
Wu Zhou hurriedly changed into his pyjamas and went over to open the door with a feigned appearance that seemed like he had just awoken.
“You’re here. Did you have your breakfast?”
At the entrance stood a girl with a short bob cut who possessed a thin and weak stature. She had an appearance that was delicate as well as pretty, and wore a white gown. This was actually Wu Zhou’s girlfriend, Zhuang Xinmu.
“You went to bed late again‽ It’s already 10 am! Did you work overtime yesterday? You didn’t give me a call at all.” The short bob cut girl looked at Wu Zhou, held up the bag with breakfast for him to look at, and asked in a manner that was like firecrackers going off in succession.
“No, the company let us punch out ahead of time.” Wu Zhou had always been unable to lie while facing his girlfriend.
“If you didn’t work overtime, why do you have such an exhausted expression?” Zhuang Xinmu looked at Wu Zhou suspiciously and went forward to place the breakfast on the living room’s table.
“That isn’t it, I was very tired to begin with so I slept once I came back. I will definitely give you a call in advance next time. Let me go wash my face and rinse my mouth first.” Wu Zhou scratched his head and fled to the toilet in an instant.
This place was close to the 3rd loop, and the rent wasn’t expensive as it wasn’t at the city center. Thinking that his girlfriend would totally come here every week, Wu Zhou rented a house. It was more convenient this way, and there would also be no one who would bother them. This house was akin to a sparrow; Even though it was small, all of its vital organs were intact.*
TL Note: Basically small and complete in every detail.
“This guy.”
Nagging him with that, Zhuang Xinmu began to tidy up the room.
Wu Zhou was a guy, and what’s more, a guy that had a girlfriend. Naturally, he wouldn’t wash his clothes, even if there was a washing machine around. Zhuang Xinmu was currently searching the whole house for dirty clothes, she then arranged it properly according to their pattern and tossed them into the washing machine.
She then picked up some of the rubbish all over the floor. As there were food placed on the table, it wasn’t a good time to sweep the floor. While she was also tidying the junk left on the sofa, Wu Zhou came out of the toilet.
“Come over here and have some breakfast.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you, Mu-mu.” Wu Zhou stepped forward and kissed Zhuang Xinmu on the cheek as a way to butter her up.
“Alright, quickly eat your food. Otherwise, it will be late soon.” Zhuang Xinmu shook her head in an amused manner, and pulled at Wu Zhou to sit down.
……
“Shall we have some steaks for lunch outside?” When they were almost done with breakfast, Zhuang Xinmu suddenly said.
“Okay.” Wu Zhou readily agreed without much thought.
After agreeing did he found out that the amount of cash on himself was seemingly little and was just more than 200 RMB. It should still be enough for eating steaks, right? Wu Zhou felt somewhat nervous in his heart.
“In that case, let’s see a movie once we’re done eating. There’s a movie recently that I really want to watch. It’s been playing for quite a few days. I was holding off so that I could watch it with you.” Zhuang Xinmu smiled and a tiny dimple appeared on her face.
“Sure.” Wu Zhou saw his girlfriend was so happy and had all of a sudden forgotten that the money in his pocket was simply not enough.
Only then did he somewhat panic.
Zhuang Xinmu and Wu Zhou had been together for a number of years and were very familiar with one another. She had caught Wu Zhou’s flustered expression as soon as he had revealed it.
“What’s wrong? Do you not want to go?” Zhuang Xinmu asked suspiciously.
“No, no. It’s not that I don’t wish to go. “ Seeing that his girlfriend had mistaken as his expression as unwillingness, Wu Zhou promptly explained and spoke the true reason.
“It’s because I have only more than 200 RMB remaining as my living expenses, the rest have all been used up.” Wu Zhou embarrassingly said.
“Have been used up? There are still 10 days left in this month, did you buy something?” Zhuang Xinmu knew her boyfriend, he treated her well and had never squandered his money. He would also inform her about any major things he bought. For someone who would normally still had 1000 RMB remaining as of this moment to now suddenly say that his savings had been quickly used up, this was extremely strange.
“I didn’t buy anything. It was just for food.” Wu Zhou thought of the delicious food in Yuan Zhou’s small restaurant and felt himself start to drool exuberantly. He quickly drank a mouthful of porridge and swallowed it down.
However, this reaction was interpreted as a guilty conscience in Zhuang Xinmu’s eyes. Why would he lower his head and feign eating if he didn’t have a guilty conscience?
“Do you have something that you’re keeping a secret from me?” While saying that, Zhuang Xinmu’s tone had already turned very dangerous.
“No, it’s just that single matter.” Wu Zhou had a puzzled expression on him. He didn’t understand why his girlfriend’s tone had suddenly changed. Normally, it was her who told not to be so frugal and eat something good.
“Oh? Then how do you use up your money that quickly?” Zhuang Xinmu saw that Wu Zhou had an innocent look on him and the anger value inside her heart soared in a flash.
“It was used exactly on the food.” Wu Zhou honestly explained.
“Did you guys go out for a dinner party? Are you the one that treated them?” Zhuang Xinmu began to fire off questions one by one.
Whereas Wu Zhou was obediently sitting down and answering them in a serious manner.
However, all of these, along with Wu Zhou’s out of the blue confusion in the morning and the actions he took while drinking his porridge earlier, made Zhuang Xinmu feel that the guy was definitely concealing something from her.
All of a sudden, she once again thought of something her confidante had said about how being separated made one liable to two-time. She sized Wu Zhou up from top to bottom and was wondering if a younger woman had really fallen in love with him. Sure, he was still doing alright in the looks department, and his job was passable too.
In this short moment, grief-stricken, she said, “Speak, have you fallen in love with someone else?”
Zhuang Xinmu’s small, delicate and pretty face were filled with anguish, tears already pooling in her eyes.
Wu Zhou immediately panicked, “That’s not true, why would even think of that? It was all used on food. I didn’t use it on anything else.”
Even though the two had been with each other for a number of years, Wu Zhou had never imagined how this issue of expenses had turned into a matter where he was involved with some other girls. In Wu Zhou’s eyes, it was a completely different matter*. However, the reason that Wu Zhou had comprehended these past few years was that coaxing a girlfriend that was crying would always never go wrong.
“Mu-mu, calm down. It is really nothing…”
The coaxing lasted for exactly half an hour. At lost last, Zhuang Xinmu regained her composure, while Wu Zhou heaved a sigh of relief. After thinking about it for a while, he decided to test the waters and asked.
“It was truly used on eating food. A store had opened up near our company and the food was extremely delicious even if it is rather expensive. How about we go and eat there in the afternoon?”