The three of them gathered together, and the drama began.
Jian Yun stared at her brother behind the counter and Sheng Lin, her confusion and anger growing in tandem.
She also thought back to the idol photo cards Sheng Lin had given her yesterday—indeed, there was no such thing as a free lunch. One who is unusually attentive either has ulterior motives or ill intentions!
Just as the volcano was about to erupt, Sheng Lin’s words defused her anger: “A guest is a guest. Yiyi, take your sister over there to sit.” As he spoke, he reached out and helped Xia Yiyang take off his apron. “I’ll get some ice jelly. You two can talk while you eat.”
Jian Yun thought to herself: It’s way too late to bribe me now. Who cares about your few-yuan-a-bowl ice jelly?
“No need.” She said coldly. “It’s not worth eating anyway.”
“Huh?” Xia Yiyang blurted out. “But Sis, didn’t you send me a WeChat message last night saying the refreshments were so delicious you had three bowls?”
Jian Yun: “…”
She’d never met anyone who could undermine her better than her own brother! Losing face, she turned and walked toward the seating area.
Xia Yiyang tugged at Sheng Lin’s sleeve and leaned in to remind him: “Brother Lin, my sister doesn’t eat dragon fruit. Add more watermelon and mango instead. And don’t forget the ice cream—give her one scoop of strawberry!”
“Mm.” Sheng Lin acknowledged, reaching up to ruffle his hair. “Go keep your sister company. I’ll be there in a moment.”
Jian Yun found a four-person table and was about to call Xia Yiyang over. But when she looked back, the two of them were whispering behind the counter. She nearly rolled her eyes again.
Out of sight, out of mind. She sat down in a huff and looked around the ice jelly shop, trying to find something to criticize.
The shop was located on the university snack street—neither too big nor too small, with just enough room for eight tables. The walls were clean white, neat and spacious. One wall was covered with layers of colorful sticky notes—all customer messages. Behind the counter hung two small blackboards with bilingual menus in Chinese and English, complete with illustrations—simple and clear. As for cleanliness, there was nothing to worry about: disposable spoons and napkins were placed on each table, the floor was spotless, and even a mosquito landing on it would slip.
…Damn. She couldn’t find a single fault.
Xia Yiyang dragged his chair over and obediently sat across from Jian Yun.
Jian Yun asked him: “How long have you been working here?”
Xia Yiyang said quietly: “Almost two months…”
“Almost two months?!” Jian Yun’s voice shot up. “So you started working as soon as you got to Rongcheng?”
Her voice was so loud that nearby customers turned to look at them.
Xia Yiyang broke out in a sweat: “Sis, I’m working, not getting into trouble. Why are you so shocked?”
“Because this is clearly unreasonable—you’re definitely hiding something.” Jian Yun cut straight to the point. “Auntie and Uncle spoil you rotten—they’ve never even made you wash a dish. You’re used to being a young master, and now you’re working at a small shop without a word? Anyone can see something’s off. Did Sheng Lin put some kind of spell on you?”
“I didn’t put any spell on him—only ‘spellbinding’ food.”
A tray suddenly landed between Jian Yun and Xia Yiyang. On it sat three ceramic bowls, their sides beaded with fine droplets of condensation. From left to right: ice jelly, chilled tofu pudding, and chilled rice jelly. Each bowl was piled high with colorful seasonal fruits, practically overflowing the rims, and topped with a large scoop of ice cream—as if urging customers to act on their cravings.
Jian Yun followed the hands holding the tray upward—and sure enough, it was Sheng Lin.
Sheng Lin: “Miss Jian, you choose first.”
Jian Yun randomly pointed at one bowl, which happened to be the chilled rice jelly. She’d assumed that of the remaining two, one was for her brother and one for Sheng Lin. But instead, Sheng Lin placed both bowls in front of Xia Yiyang.
Sheng Lin looked down at the teenager: “Take your time. Eat while you talk.”
Food was the best soother. Xia Yiyang’s nerves settled slightly as he grabbed two spoons and dug into both bowls.
Jian Yun looked at her one bowl, then at Xia Yiyang’s two, and asked incredulously: “You’re eating two bowls?”
Xia Yiyang looked a little embarrassed: “Yeah—I just finished lunch, so I haven’t digested it yet, so I’m eating a bit less.”
Jian Yun: “…”
Who exactly said he was eating less?
After delivering the desserts, Sheng Lin didn’t leave. Instead, he sat down right next to Xia Yiyang.
Jian Yun: “I thought this was a conversation between siblings. Mr. Sheng, as an outsider, maybe you shouldn’t interfere.”
Xia Yiyang protested between bites: “Brother Lin isn’t an outsider! He’s always taken good care of me.”
“Little ancestor, just eat and keep your mouth shut.” Jian Yun laughed in exasperation. “You’ve only known him for how long, and you’re already taking his side?”
Sheng Lin looked at Jian Yun: “Miss Jian, it’s true I haven’t known him long. But I know he has high self-esteem and a thin skin. Some things he might not be comfortable saying to his family. What he can’t answer, I can say for him.”
“Ha—so spending two months with him means you understand him better than I do after eighteen years?” Jian Yun scoffed. “I do have a question I’m curious about—would you be so kind as to enlighten me? Why on earth is he working here, when he could be living comfortably?”
Sheng Lin’s tone was calm: “Working is naturally for making money. Otherwise, for what—dreams?”
“Making money?” Jian Yun didn’t believe it at all. “He’s not short on money. He’s got plenty of savings. There’s no need for him to make things hard on himself.”
“His money is gone.”
“How did it go?”
Sheng Lin calmly uttered four words: “Telecom fraud.”
Jian Yun: “?????”
Xia Yiyang: “!!!!!”
When she first heard this answer, Jian Yun thought Sheng Lin was brushing her off. But her brother’s head whipped around toward him in an instant, and the shock on his face seemed genuine.
The teenager’s voice trembled: “Brother Lin, h-how did you know?”
“Last time you ended up at the police station because of that Wen Sen guy, when I went to pick you up, Officer Xiao told me.” Sheng Lin explained quietly. “I knew you were proud, so I never brought it up.”
Across the table, Jian Yun: Who’s Wen Sen? Who’s Officer Xiao? What police station?
Xia Yiyang felt the blood rush to his face: “So—aside from you, does anyone else know about this?”
Sheng Lin counted off: “Qin Zaozao knows—he figured it out with his tarot cards. Auntie Zhao and Auntie Li also know—once when you took a follow-up call from the police station in the kitchen, they overheard and came to tell me I should help you work through it.”
The young master wanted to bash his head into the ice jelly. He only knew a handful of people in Rongcheng—did that mean everyone knew? His pride and dignity were completely shredded!
Across the table, Jian Yun: Who’s Qin Zaozao? Who’s Auntie Zhao? Who’s Auntie Li??
Wait a minute—she’d just boasted that her understanding of her brother far surpassed Sheng Lin’s, yet here were all these side characters popping up out of nowhere?
“Xia Yiyang, you’d better come clean right now!” Jian Yun called him by his full name with a stern face—this meant he was in deep trouble. “What the hell happened with this telecom fraud?!”
At this point, Xia Yiyang had no way to hide it anymore.
He looked at his sister across the table, barely suppressing her anger, then at his boss sitting beside him, offering silent encouragement. The teenager took a deep breath and laid out everything that had happened that summer, from beginning to end.
He’d just arrived in Rongcheng when he fell victim to telecom fraud and ended up at the police station. To save money on travel expenses, he’d moved to a hostel and met that lying Wen Sen. Fortunately, Sheng Lin had taken him in, let him work at the shop, and provided room and board. Not only had he managed to save money again, but Sheng Lin had also taken him out to have fun and helped him clear his mind, finally lifting the shadows of those dark days…
As he recounted those past deceptions, Xia Yiyang gritted his teeth with hatred—ashamed, angry, and full of regret for trusting the wrong people.
Seeing this, Sheng Lin patted his back and comforted him quietly: “Being scammed isn’t your fault—it’s the bad people’s fault. You learn from your mistakes. Since you’ve learned twice, it means your IQ is definitely higher now.”
Across the table, Jian Yun: “…”
Was this how you coax a kid?
But unfortunately, the kid ate it right up.
Seeing Xia Yiyang brighten up from being comforted, Jian Yun tapped the table to remind him to keep his eyes on her, not glued to the man beside him.
She said seriously: “Yiyi, how could something this big happen and you not tell the family? Even if you didn’t want to tell your parents, you could have at least told me.”
“Because—” Xia Yiyang sat up straight and tall, his round, bright eyes looking at his sister with a burning gaze—that unique spark of youthful pride. “Because I wanted to see what the outside world is really like. I wanted to prove that even without my elders’ protection, I could explore the boundaries of this world on my own.”
“If I fall, I get back up. If I’m scammed, I go to the police. If I trust the wrong person, I open my eyes wider. If I have no money, I work hard to earn it. Simple as that—like drinking water when thirsty or eating when hungry. I don’t need anyone to teach me; I can learn on my own.
If I ran back to my mom crying at the first setback, when would I ever grow up?”
Jian Yun looked into her brother’s eyes, momentarily speechless. It took her a while to find her voice again: “But you can’t be so stubborn… you’re only eighteen. These things shouldn’t be yours to bear alone.”
Sheng Lin spoke up: “Miss Jian, in your eyes, he’s ‘only’ eighteen. But in my eyes, Xia Yiyang is ‘already’ eighteen. No one suddenly becomes mature overnight on their eighteenth birthday. You have to give him a chance to experience the summer’s heat and storms—to transform, to grow up.”
“Brother Lin is absolutely right!” Xia Yiyang puffed out his chest and lifted his chin, as proud as a little peacock.
“I have to go through a summer someday—if not this summer, then the next!”
“…”
Jian Yun looked at her brother’s confident posture and felt that Xia Yiyang truly had changed somehow.
The cool air conditioning in the ice jelly shop blew over them, and the melted ice cream trickled down between the gaps of the fruit. The teenager’s growth was just like the bowl of ice jelly before him—sweet, refreshing, clear, and filled with colorful memories.
Just then, the shop door was pushed open, and a grinning figure squeezed in—it was the owner of the milk tea shop at the end of the alley, coming to borrow some ice.
Xia Yiyang didn’t particularly like the milk tea shop owner. After all, that owner wouldn’t let his summer staff quit and had even withheld their wages and deposits—what a terrible person! Summer workers helped summer workers. He wasn’t about to give him a friendly face.
The young master stood firm: “Sorry, we don’t even have enough ice for ourselves. We don’t have any extra to lend you. Don’t bother asking our boss either—our boss listens to me!”
The milk tea shop owner was indignant and turned to Sheng Lin, speaking with sarcasm and stirring up trouble: “Boss Sheng, you don’t control this kid at all? He’s practically walking all over you!”
“I’m happy to let him walk over me.” Sheng Lin raised an eyebrow. “I’m the owner of this shop, but he’s my boss.”
Mm…
Witnessing this, Jian Yun didn’t want to admit it—but she was subtly starting to ship them.
After that annoying owner was chased off, the shop fell quiet. Sheng Lin was called to the kitchen by the aunties, and Xia Yiyang hadn’t finished his two bowls of ice jelly yet, so he continued keeping his sister company.
The cousins chatted while they ate.
“So you’re just working for Sheng Lin,” Jian Yun remarked. “Yesterday you told me that Sheng Lin treated you to food, took you out to play, and gave you spending money… I let my imagination run wild and thought you two were that kind of relationship. I was even thinking about how to keep it from your parents.”
Xia Yiyang looked up from his bowl, confused: “What kind of relationship did you think we had?”
“What else could it be?” Jian Yun blinked. “A relationship where you share a bed.”
Xia Yiyang: “Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough…”
“What’s wrong?”
How was the young master supposed to explain that Sheng Lin was indeed his boss, and also his bedmate?
Hey, those two identities weren’t mutually exclusive, right?
Xia Yiyang clumsily changed the subject: “Anyway, why did you suddenly come here for ice jelly? Didn’t you say you’d planned to check out fan support screens and birthday cafes with your fellow fans today?”
“Don’t even mention it—you wouldn’t understand the pain of being a corporate slave.” Jian Yun complained while eating. “Our company has a long-term freelance engineer based in Rongcheng. He just finished designing a set of precision blueprints and is ready to deliver them. My boss asked me to act as a human courier and bring the hard drive back to Beijing… and he arranged to meet me at this ice jelly shop to hand it over.”
“Meeting at our shop?” The young master thought for a moment. “Then he probably lives nearby—maybe he’s a student or teacher at Rongda.”
“Probably.” Jian Yun took another scoop of chilled rice jelly. This was her first time trying it—smooth and slippery, with a pretty unique taste. Her brother really seemed to be living comfortably in Rongcheng, getting to eat such good things every day. “I’ll give the engineer a call in a bit and ask when he’ll arrive.”
“No time like the present!” Xia Yiyang was curious. “I want to meet this engineer too—we’re all in the same industry, after all!”
“You haven’t even started university yet, don’t pretend to be an adult.” Jian Yun scoffed, but still pulled out her phone and dialed the engineer’s number, indulging her brother’s wish.
Soon, the call connected, and a steady (and vaguely familiar) male voice reached her ear through the line.
“Hello, this is Cloudy J from BR Machinery Manufacturing… yes, yes, I’m here to pick up the hard drive… I’m already at the ice jelly shop—when will you arrive? …What, you’re already here? But I don’t see you…”
Hearing his sister’s side of the conversation, Xia Yiyang set down his spoon in surprise.
What? The mysterious engineer was already in their shop?
He whipped his head around, scanning the customers.
Was it the father with his child? The love-struck young man feeding his girlfriend and being fed in return? Or the college student eating while scrolling on his phone?
All eight tables were full, and four of the customers were wearing earbuds, as if on phone calls.
At this moment, Xia Yiyang felt like Sherlock Holmes himself—after all, Holmes was also a Xia. He would use his full deductive reasoning to sift through the clues and find the culprit… wait, no—find the mysterious mechanical engineer!
Just as he was sweeping his eagle-like gaze over every nook and cranny of the shop, the kitchen curtain was suddenly pushed aside.
Sheng Lin walked out of the kitchen quickly, phone in hand, his eyes scanning the customers before finally landing on Xia Yiyang and Jian Yun.
He paused slightly, then strode over and stopped by their table.
His phone was still connected, and the number displayed on the screen was Jian Yun’s.
The young master: “???”
Wait—the mysterious mechanical engineer his sister was looking for was Brother Lin??
Since when did the man he shared a bed with have a secret identity?!
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