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Chapter 382: Chapter 382: Beware of Lin Man
"Yaoyao, you are cousins with Miss Lin?"
Wang Chun was taken aback upon discovering their familial relations.
Seeing that Lin Man didn’t follow them, Tong Yao freely started to speak ill of her, "Our families had a falling out because of property disagreements over my grandfather’s estate and we haven’t interacted since. As a child, I already didn’t get along with her. This dislike was further fueled when she took a bit of a liking towards Ahchen."
"She’s interested in Dr. Si?" Wang Chun was shocked, never imagining that Lin Man, who seemed fairly well-mannered, would clandestinely have feelings for her cousin’s husband.
With the conversation already at this point, Tong Yao didn’t hold back and briefly explained, "Ahchen saved her during a rescue mission in Qing City and since then, she took a liking to him. It’s not wrongful for her to like Ahchen—he’s attractive and charismatic after all—but it’s wrong for her to still harbor such feelings, knowing that Ahchen is her cousin’s husband."
Recalling the clothes Lin Man bought earlier, Tong Yao cautioned, "Achun, Lin Man is calculative. You need to be careful and keep your husband away from her. You can’t trust someone who even has designs on her cousin’s husband."
Tong Yao doesn’t mean to be presumptuous—it’s just that Lin Man suddenly quit her hospital job and started spending exorbitantly, which is obviously not normal behavior.
Stunned, Wang Chun asked, "Are you suggesting that Lin Man might set her sights on Akai?"
"Better safe than sorry." With no hard evidence, Tong Yao couldn’t speculate too wildly and can only remind Wang Chun to be cautious.
Wang Chun nodded. She thought Tong Yao made a lot of sense. Before, she had a pretty good impression of Lin Man as she didn’t know much about her. Now knowing that Lin Man even covets her cousin’s husband, her impression of Lin Man drastically fell.
Fortunately, her uncle already returned home. Akai no longer needs to frequently visit the hospital and hence, shouldn’t interact with Lin Man much.
If not, she would actually worry quite a bit.
After a tiresome round of shopping, Tong Yao planned to get drinks with Wang Chun from a branch store, but seeing the prosperous business at ’Coco’ Milk Tea Shop, she walked in instead. Wang Chun was slightly nervous and dared not look at the store clerk.
On the other hand, Tong Yao confidently ordered two glasses of their signature milk tea. She seldom frequented this outlet, so the store clerk at ’Coco’ didn’t recognize her as the owner of the adjacent store, treating her as just another striking customer. When serving Tong Yao her drink, the clerk also gave her two vouchers.
Tong Yao looked curiously at the vouchers and the clerk, seeing this, promptly explained, "Once you collect ten of these vouchers, you can redeem a free milk tea."
"Thank you." Surprisingly, the service here was commendable and their marketing strategy deserved commendation.
Walking out with her milk tea, Tong Yao took a sip through the straw. Finding it tasty, she handed a cup to Wang Chun, "Come, give it a taste. This shop’s milk tea is pretty good, able to hold a candle to my own."
Wang Chun tried the milk tea, finding it rather agreeable. However, she had never met such a person who would express unreserved praise for a competitor.
After taking a few more sips, she honestly commented, "It tastes good but it’s a bit overly sweet. Just drinking a few sips is alright, but it gets somewhat cloying after a while. Also, the pearls don’t taste very good; they seem to be leftovers from yesterday."
Accustomed to various delicacies, Wang Chun was quite picky with her food and beverages. Initially, she preferred to drink at Tong Yao’s shop because she could taste the freshness of the ingredients used.
On the other hand, the pearls here didn’t taste fresh, which she definitely noticed.
Tong Yao hadn’t realized this until Wang Chun pointed it out. She tried the pearls and found it indeed off. However, the modern people were more tolerant and few were as observant as Wang Chun in such minor details.
With effective marketing strategies though, their business was inevitably better than hers.
Thankfully, there weren’t many milk tea shops around. Thus, she still had her own market. If more milk tea shops were to emerge, her own shop might get squeezed out of the market.
Indeed, no matter which era, if things remain monotonously the same, they would easily become obsolete.
After finishing the milk tea, Tong Yao treated Wang Chun to lunch. Upon returning to the shop in the afternoon, Gu Hongwei relayed a message: "Yaoyao, Boyi called a number of times. He seemed quite urgent."
"Did he mention anything?" As Tong Yao asked, she returned Si Boyi’s call.
After contemplating for a moment, Gu Hongwei said, "I think it has something to do with the child."
When he answered the call, he mentioned Tong Yao wasn’t there and Si Boyi hung up immediately. However, he vaguely heard Zhang Lijuan yelling on the other end of the line, something about ’child’ and that if something happened, she would fight Si Boyi to the death.
A child?
Could something have happened to the child?
As Tong Yao was in momentary shock, Si Boyi answered the call. Before Tong Yao could say anything, Si Boyi, sounding frantic, said, "Sister-in-law, our mother sneakily took the child away."
Tong Yao raised her eyebrows, "What does she intend to do with the child?"
Before Si Boyi could answer, Zhang Lijuan snatched the phone away. In a loud voice resembling screechy firecrackers, she said, "Sister-in-law, our mother came over this morning, saying that she wanted to take the child out. I didn’t give it much thought at the time. It was only after seeing the note she left behind did I realize that she had brought the child to Kyoto. She said that you and Brother had not met the child yet, so she wanted to bring the child over."
Zhang Lijuan grew more and more agitated as she spoke, eventually breaking down in tears, "My son is still so little! She’s taking him on a train ride. What if something happens during the journey or if she loses the child? She’s a mother who gave birth to three children, a woman who has lived for decades. How can she make such an irrational decision? She just took the child away without notifying us. How different is this from a child-stealing thief? I wanted to call the police but Boyi didn’t allow me. If the child is lost, who is to blame?"
The potential risks during the journey made her anxious to the verge of madness, wishing she could strangle Lin Fengying.
She insisted that Lin Fengying was not so kind-hearted as to unexpectedly come to the city to help look after the child. As it turned out, Lin Fengying truly had ulterior motives.
After hearing what Zhang Lijuan had to say, Tong Yao was at a loss for words: was Lin Fengying out of her mind?
Why would she secretly bring Zhang Lijuan’s child to Kyoto?
At present, she didn’t have the time to think too much about it. The most pressing matter is to find the child. Given that the child was still little, nothing should happen to him on the road.
"Did you look for them at the railway station?"
Sniffling, Zhang Lijuan said, "We were a step too late. By the time we reached the railway station, the train to Kyoto had already left."
