[Bonus chapter] Noodles Back Home
"Dear, I think our daughter is hiding something from us," Xue Ning's mother, the lovely Yue Niang said, lips pursed as she washes the last of the dishes from the straggling customers before they close for the night.
"Why do you think that?" Her husband, Li Tai Cheng, asked. He was standing beside her, helping her to dry the bowls. It would be easier if they had an automatic dishwasher, but after running the sums, he realised it wasn't worth the expense.
"Just a feeling - you know she tried that old trick on me? The one where you pretend your phone is breaking up to end a conversation?!' She exclaims, flicking soap suds everywhere in her agitation. "Since when did she do things like that? I thought she grew out of it after she stopped being a teenager!"
"Well, she could be undergoing delayed puberty - Wife, don't hit me! The plates are breakable!" Her husband yelps.
"You are exaggerating," she retorts, giving a prim sniff in reply. "But I'm serious about our daughter. She told me she got a new job, but she's not telling me the whole story. I'm afraid it might be something disreputable."
"I doubt it," her husband replies. "Look, how I think…she has a boyfriend."
The plate nearly slides out of her hands in shock.
"Wife, there is no point in worrying about it now," Tai Cheng points out, refusing to think about his baby girl possibly dating some strange man from Shanghai. "Our daughter is now a fully grown adult. What are you going to do? Fly to Shanghai to haul her back home? That's nonsense and you know it."
"I could do it, you know that," Yue Niang muttered. "I could even fly the plane myself."
"Yes, yes, of course you could. My wife is the most capable after all," Tai Cheng teased, and gets an elbow in his ribs for his efforts.
"But you shouldn't do it anyway. We need to respect our daughter's independence and her good judgement. She left the bartending job, didn't she? So she knows that it wasn't a good one," Tai Cheng explains.
"Besides, when have you known our baby Xue Ning to act on impulse and be hoodwinked by rich handsome men? She hates rich, handsome men! Remember how she reacted when you tried to set her up with Old Liu's son?"
"True," Yue Niang conceded reluctantly. "If she keeps rejecting the matchmaking offers, I'm going to find rich, beautiful women for her then. I'm sure I could find someone for her."
"So supportive," Tai Cheng cooes playfully at her, and gets another elbow in the gut for his efforts. Thankfully, his stomach had a thin layer of fat to shield his organs from his wife's pointy elbows. He had never been soft in the middle, but ageing and a gentle, peaceful lifestyle meant that he had the fortune to develop belly fat.
"We're back!" Their oldest son Tai Xuan announces. He and his wife had just returned from delivering food to customers on their motorbikes. "Do you need any help with the dishes?"
"No need, the both of you can just go shower first," Tai Cheng says, smiling at both his son and daughter-in-law. "Your mom was just telling me that she thinks your sister is secretly dating a handsome rich man in Shanghai."
"I did no such thing," Yue Niang protests. "Children, don't listen to your dad, he's spewing nonsense."
"Yeah, that does sound like nonsense," Li Tai Xuan says, nodding. "Since when has Xue Ning's type been handsome or rich?"
"Very true," his wife, Xin Yu, says, going into the restaurant to deliver the receipts. "She told me that she only likes to punch rich handsome men until they vomit out gold coins."
"Speaking of rich handsome men, have you heard about the Sun Jingwei scandal?" Tai Xuan asks. Strangely, both of his parents fell still at his simple question.
"Oh? There's a scandal? I haven't noticed," his mom replies casually, after a heavy pause.
"Mom, you really need to go on the Internet more often!" Tai Xuan scolds her playfully. "It's nuts I tell you, apparently he got some girl pregnant and he's marrying her!"
"What?!" Both of his parents exclaimed.
"It's not confirmed yet," his wife added. "It's a lot of rumours for now, but there's a video of him calling some woman his wife. Everyone is losing their minds because apparently she's a bartender?"
"A bartender? Like our Xue Ning?" His father asks, exchanging identical looks of panic with his wife.
"Yeah, but come on Dad! Shanghai is so big, it has a population of 26 million people! There's no way our Xue Ning would be tangled with Sun Jingwei out of all people. It just doesn't make sense," Tai Xuan scoffs disbelievingly. "If they do know each other, I'll eat my motorbike."
"Stranger things have happened," his wife points out. "But if he's speaking the truth, we'll all get a wedding announcement over Weibo. There's no way someone like him will keep this a secret."
"That's not true, you forget that his father wouldn't want anything to do with it. He'll want to keep it low-key." His father replies, a tad bit bitterly.
Tai Xuan rolls his eyes. "Dad, you speak like you know Sun Jingwei's dad." His back is turned, which is why he did not see the way his parents froze like stone statues at his words. "Come on, darling, are you done with the accounting?"
"Almost," Xin Yu says, a tongue sticking out as she concentrates on the sums. "Don't disturb me."
"Go and bathe first then, son," Tai Cheng suggests, easily side-stepping his son's previous realisation. "If not you'll hold up the queue for the bathroom."
"Got it! I'll see all of you later!" Tai Xuan says, waving a cheery goodbye at all of them and giving his wife a quick peck on the cheek, before turning tail to return home - their shared apartment that was only a stone's throw away from the restaurant.
Tai Cheng and Yue Niang looked at each other and heaved identical sighs of relief. It did not go unnoticed by their daughter-in-law, but she kept quiet. It's probably nothing important.
"Mom, Dad, I have good news, our restaurant is earning a good amount of profit so far thanks to our increased deliveries," Xin Yu reports proudly.
Tai Chang and Yue Niang give her grateful smiles. With the restaurant thriving, it allows them to be less reliant on the money their eldest son had given them for their household expenses.
They were already thrifty to begin with, but now they had another reason: their son and daughter-in-law are trying for a baby, and everyone knows that babies cost a lot of money to raise!
Yue Niang and her husband had cushy nest eggs when they moved to Hubei to start a new life. It should have been enough for them to live the rest of their lives in relative comfort, but then they had a son, and then another daughter three years later.
To make matters worse, as a child, Xue Ning had a weaker constitution. She wasn't ill enough to spend the majority of time bedridden in the hospital, but she did spend large amounts of time tucked safely at home instead of playing with the other kids.
That did not endear her to the other children. They saw how their daughter developed quick fists and a sharp tongue as a defence mechanism, and they despaired at the way she built her walls so high.
They enrolled her in various martial arts classes to help her make friends, but she came out of it with a mean right hook, a laundry list of rivals, and the worst ambition of wanting to become a bodyguard instead.
If Xue Ning had wanted to become a trophy wife instead, Yue Niang would have jumped for joy - but no, her precious baby daughter that she spent 10 hours pushing out of her wanted to become a bodyguard! A glorified meatshield!
Yue Niang could not shake that niggling thought that Xue Ning's new job was most likely something she would not approve of. Something like being an exotic pole dancer, a club hostess or… a bodyguard.
"Dear, if you keep frowning like that, you'll get permanent wrinkles," her husband murmurs to her.
"I just have a bad feeling," she replies quietly. "And the recent news about Sun Jingwei doesn't help either."
"It could just be a coincidence," Tai Cheng says, trying to convince both of them. "Besides, remember what our son said, about Shanghai being a huge city with over 26 million people? When will they ever get a chance to meet?"
When indeed.