andpa Li" and "Grandma Li", not knowing whose last name was Li.
After a short while, Grandma Li put a big bowl of dumplings in front of Zhang Zian.
He paid.
Grandma Li took the money, but didn’t leave.
"Young man," she said in a low voice, "Did you offend anyone?"
Zhang Zian raised his head in shock.
Grandma Li wore a mask and looked to be 40 to 50 years old. Her face was sunburned into a black and red color, and a few strands from her hairpin escaped into the wind.
"My husband and I saw it this morning. Please don’t blame us for not helping you, as we are outsiders and afraid to make any trouble," she apologized.
Zhang Zian waved. "No worries. I will not blame you. As a local, I don’t want to make trouble either."
He looked around and saw only him and another student-like young man at the booth, then said, "Let’s sit down and talk."
Grandma Li sat down in front of Zhang Zian and sighed, "Young man, you are the owner of that pet store?"
Zhang Zian nodded while drinking the soup with his spoon.
"These days, it is not easy to run a store. You have to have someone to back you up, otherwise if something happens, you will be in big trouble," Grandma Li couldn’t stop sighing, "It reminds me of a while back, my husband and I…"
She wanted to say something but stopped, looked around like she was afraid, then said in a lower voice, "Years ago, my husband and I ran a restaurant in another city. The business was pretty good until we offended someone. Then, the restaurant was destroyed and we were even threatened that we would be killed if they saw us again…"
"As ordinary people, we were so scared and unable to defend ourselves. And we didn’t know what else we could do to make a living. Then we decided to come here and open this breakfast booth…" Grandma Li continued while wiping her tears.
Hearing that, Zhang Zian couldn’t even swallow the dumpling in his mouth.
Who wanted to run a booth outside on the sidewalk if they could open a restaurant? Instead of stability, they were burned on sunny days, drained on rainy days, and even sometimes chased by the city police…
"Young man, my advice is to not deal with them at all. You look like a college graduate. It will be fine if you find a job instead of running a store. If you really want to run a store, wait for a few years until this trouble passes. They are like crazy dogs, biting whoever they meet. There is nowhere for justice if you get hurt."
Zhang Zian finally swallowed the dumpling in his mouth and asked, "Grandma Li, you said that I had offended someone?"
Grandma responded, patting her thigh, "Yes, most definitely! If you didn’t offend anyone, how come they came to give you trouble? There are a lot of stores here. Why didn’t they go to other stores, but only went to yours? Did you ever think about that?"
Zhang Zian hadn’t thought about that before Grandma Li warned him. He was confused and shocked after this incident had just happened to him, only thinking of how to not let Little Celery and Sun Xiaomeng get involved in this to avoid any possible injuries and losses. He thought this incident was because of his bad fortune, but Grandma Li was right, he must have…
He suddenly thought about Chen Taitong, his glimpse full of perniciousness before he left.
That was it…
But still no answer.
What should he do even if he knew the reason?
Zhang Zian could not help but recall recent incidents, from the man in the windbreaker to Xiao Yan's warning. Simply, the prediction was accurate as fulfilled.
Sure enough, he was too naive.
"The business world is like a battlefield." This was really true!
Grandma Li had a feeling that Zhang Zian knew who was behind this incident from his expression change.
She said sympathetically, "Young man, do not fight with them. It will be useless unless you have strong backup. But you don’t look like that you have that..."
The student-like customer left after finishing the food.
She sighed without talking further. Then she stood up and left to clean up the table.