Qin Yu stiffly turned his head, and the face of the man called Xie Cen matched perfectly with what he had seen in their previous encounters.

Beside him stood another man with a nearly identical aura. Like Xie Cen, he was directing his gaze towards Qin Yu’s table.

However, his expression was one of mischievous amusement, as if enjoying the spectacle unfolding before him.

Being of the same social class, Lin Ke, who was also the client, recognized the newcomers first and rose from his seat to greet them.

“Ah Cen, Chu-dage¹大哥 (dà gē) – eldest brother / big brother (polite address for a man of about the same age as oneself), what brings you here? Haha, what a coincidence.” His face betrayed his discomfort, clearly not expecting these two to show up.

Damn it! I shouldn’t have gotten involved in these rich people’s idiotic drama. These days, money’s hard to earn and shit’s hard to eat.

Qin Yu maintained a dignified facade, but inwardly he was cursing everyone present indiscriminately.

“We were just passing by,” the man called Chu-dage hastily replied, offering an answer no one would believe.

He couldn’t even suppress his smirk afterward. See? Even he didn’t believe the nonsense coming out of his mouth.

Lin Ke’s gaze darted between the two newcomers before lowering his head, as if that could alleviate his guilt.

Meanwhile, Qin Yu briefly assessed the situation, figuring the couple’s issues were more or less resolved and his task complete.

The sofa seated four, and he was clearly the fifth wheel. Alright then. Qin Yu, ever the paragon of self-awareness, prepared to extricate himself from this battlefield.

“Qin Yu, could you stay a while longer?”

Xie Cen, who had been silent beside him, suddenly spoke up, inexplicably attempting to keep him there.

What an absurd joke. He was just here for a job; there was no need to thrust him into the eye of the storm.

The couple before him turned to Qin Yu with identical looks of astonishment, suddenly in perfect sync.

Qin Yu was halfway out of his seat, frozen in an awkward position. He couldn’t sit back down, nor could he continue standing, as these two idiots who had just arrived were blocking his exit.

Damn it! Was this entire setup designed specifically to target him? Why did it seem like everything was conspiring against him?

Left with no choice, Qin Yu sank back onto the sofa. He lifted his head and offered a polite yet distant smile.

“Of course.”

He felt like a child caught misbehaving. If Qin Yu had a chance to turn back time, he would have switched off his phone to avoid receiving the client’s call at the crack of dawn.

Faced with the choice between another mess and not receiving full payment, Qin Yu suddenly realized that the latter wasn’t so unacceptable after all. In fact, it might be the best solution he could think of right now.

Qin Yu wanted to escape this whirlpool of conflicts, but he had forgotten one crucial fact: from the moment he accepted the job, he was already caught in the vortex.

Since Xie Cen realized that he was pretending to be Lin Ke, engaging in a false and misunderstood online romance, Qin Yu had been entangled in this web of complications.

The saying “ill-gotten gains never prosper” rang true indeed.

Now the tables had turned. Someone who’d been duped in an online relationship refused to accept it and tracked him down for revenge, brazenly cornering him here.

In a word: brilliant.

And so, the already cramped four-person sofa suddenly accommodated five grown men. While each was dressed with his own sense of style, all impeccably groomed, the sight of five men crowded around a table meant for four was rather disconcerting.

One could be beaten to death, but social death was unacceptable.

Qin Yu promptly accepted the suggestion to relocate to a private room in a certain restaurant.

TL Notes

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  大哥 (dà gē) – eldest brother / big brother (polite address for a man of about the same age as oneself)