Chapter Ten Together

  Feng Xiao was surprised to see Fu Pei Lan, this is her first time coming to his own factory. Now can it be understood that she does not object to making their relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend public? Seeing the two colleagues beside him winking at each other, Feng Xiao's usually calm face rarely showed a hint of shyness.

  "How did you get here?" Feng Xiang stretched out his hand to grab Fu Pei Lan, but suddenly stopped, "You go wait for me over there."

  As soon as the words were spoken, Feng Xiao rushed through the workshop to a nearby sink to wash his hands, and then quickly changed out of his work clothes in the locker room before returning to Pei Lan's side.

  "It's almost noon, I'll take you out for lunch." Feng Xiao smiled and took Fu Pei Lan's hand.

  "Can you leave now?" Fu Peilan didn't want to affect his work.

  "It's nothing. I've already talked to our workshop director." Feng Xiao smiled casually, "First, come with me to get my lunchbox."

  The furniture factory didn't have a cafeteria, but they bought two sets of simple equipment and put them in the boiler room to provide free hot meals for employees. When Feng Xiao and Fu Peilan arrived, the old man responsible for heating the meals had just stopped working, and seeing Feng Xiao come early to pick up his meal box, he grumbled reluctantly, "Just heated it up, the meal box is still hot, use this to take it."

  Feng Xiaodao thanked him, found his aluminum lunch box and quickly put it into the mesh bag woven by Feng's mother, returned the gloves to the old man, and led Fu Peixian out of the furniture factory gate.

  Fu Peilan saw Feng Xiang taking her to a small restaurant, and she hastily stopped in her tracks, refusing to continue walking. "What's the point of coming here? It's too expensive. We can find a less crowded place to eat your lunchbox instead. I ate a lot this morning, I'm not hungry yet, and that one box of food is enough for us to eat."

  Feng Xiao didn't pay attention to her and directly pulled her hand in. This was their first date after they had established a relationship, although it was just a simple lunch, Feng Xiao still wanted to try his best to make his girlfriend happy.

  The restaurant was only twenty or thirty square meters in size, and right opposite the entrance was a long counter. On the right side of the counter stood a plastic bucket, which should have been filled with white wine. On either side of the restaurant were two slightly larger round tables and four small square tables. The names and prices of dishes were written neatly on the wall with chalk, which looked simple by modern standards, but was already considered a good environment among individual small restaurants in Qingcheng at that time.

  In this era, ordinary people rarely stayed in hotels. Except for Feng Xiao and his table, there were only two girls eating near the counter on one side of the entire restaurant.

  Maybe it's a personal reason, but the boss didn't have any of the arrogance and haughtiness of state-run restaurant servers and managers, and asked them with a smile what they wanted to eat.

  Feng Xiao looked at the blackboard on the wall, ordered two dishes and a bowl of rice, and asked the boss for two cups of boiled water. The boss didn't mind that he had ordered too little food, but enthusiastically responded, and within ten minutes, all the dishes were served.

  "Hurry up and eat." Feng Xiao picked up a pair of chopsticks, put some shredded meat into Fu Peiran's bowl, and started eating from his own lunchbox.

  "Why don't you eat meat?" Fu Pei Lan pursed her lips and looked at Feng Xiang's lunchbox with pickled vegetables.

  "Wait a bit and you'll finish eating, don't mind me, I have to eat up the food in my lunchbox first, or else when I get home, my mom will definitely say I'm wasteful." Feng Xiao pointed at his own lunchbox, smiling as he picked up another piece of meat with his chopsticks and put it into Fu Peishan's bowl.

  "Can you finish all the dishes in your lunchbox and still eat more meat?" Fu Pei Lan's eyes were slightly moist, she leaned forward, picked up the plate and scooped a large portion of the shredded meat into Feng Xiang's lunchbox, then picked some pickled vegetables from his lunchbox back to her own, "These are enough for me."

  Feng Xiao helplessly smiled and said, "Alright alright, let's eat together."

  "Hmph, can't afford to eat at a restaurant but still want to pretend to be rich." A girl at the table behind them couldn't help but snicker with her companion, her voice was low, but the restaurant was quiet and had few people, so it clearly reached Feng Xiao and Fu Pei Lan's ears.

  Fu Peilan turned her head to look at her, eighteen or nineteen years old, wearing a goose-yellow dress, high heels on her feet, and dressed quite elegantly. At least in Fu Peilan's eyes, this outfit was much better than the exaggerated shoulder pads and carrot pants on the streets of this era.

  Every era has its own perspective and style, but Fu Pei Lan can be certain that this girl's outfit will not go out of fashion even in ten years. If it weren't for the girl's sharp tongue, she would probably appreciate a girl who knows how to dress up like this.

  "What are you looking at? I didn't say anything wrong!" The girl, seeing Fu Pei Lan staring at her, rolled her eyes in dissatisfaction and glared back with a sense of righteousness.

  "Min Fang, don't be like that." The girl in the yellow sundress sitting opposite the girl in a white shirt patted her friend's hand on the table and then turned to apologize to Fu Pei Lan and Feng Xiao with a smile.

  "Come on, come on! You like to come to this kind of small place. The dishes are simple and the customers we meet are all poor. Next time I'll take you to Qingcheng Restaurant to eat seafood!" The girl named Minfang urged her companion impatiently.

  "I'll just pay the bill." The woman in white took out 30 yuan from her small bag and handed it to the restaurant owner, carefully putting away the one yuan change she received. She then followed Min Fang quickly out of the store, her voice drifting back through the door, "...I originally wanted to treat you to dinner as a thank you, didn't expect it wouldn't suit your taste..."

  "Sorry, I got you laughed at." Feng Xiao's face was not good, seeing Fu Pei Lan staring at the yellow-clothed woman, thinking she was angry at being ridiculed.

  Feng Xiao's good mood suddenly disappeared, and his emotions were a bit down. The Fu family's conditions were not good, and Fu Pei Lan had never been to a restaurant until she was 17 years old. Even when there was delicious food at home, it wouldn't be her turn. Last time he heard her say that she hadn't eaten meat for a long time, so he thought of taking her out to eat today. He didn't expect that it would lead to her being ridiculed by others. Especially facing the ridicule of the woman in yellow clothes, he couldn't refute it. Indeed, he was unable to provide good conditions for the girl he liked.

  Feng Xiao clenched his fists involuntarily, and in addition to the distress and guilt in his heart, a hint of resentment and unwillingness also quietly ignited.

  "She's just a spoiled little girl at home." Fu Pei Lan was angry with the yellow-clothed woman's sarcasm, but she would never blame Feng Xiao. He only had an income of over 60 yuan per month and had to give 50 yuan to Mrs. Feng as living expenses. Today, they spent 10 yuan on this meal alone, he almost used up his entire savings for the month to please her, how could she still be dissatisfied?

  Fu Peilan shook her head, picked up the bowl and took a bite of rice. "Eat quickly, the dishes are going to get cold. I won't get angry because of some unrelated person's sarcastic remarks. You're not allowed to be sad either. We won't be poor all our lives. When we have money in the future, can't we eat whatever we want? Why ruin our mood because of her few words?"

  Seeing Fu Peilan's expression was not pretending, Feng Xiao let out a sigh of relief and smiled, nodding his head, "Little girl has become sensible."

  "Didn't I understand things before?" Fu Peilan wrinkled her nose.

  "You used to be...," Feng Xiao's voice trailed off, "In the past, you were just a little chili pepper, daring to scold anyone who provoked you."

  Fu Peilan puffed out her cheeks and asked discontentedly, "Are you afraid of being scolded?"

  "Me?" Feng Xiao leaned back in his chair and said with a smile, "I love to eat spicy food."

  Fu Pei Lan patted her mouth with a napkin and lowered her head to take two more bites before putting down her bowl and chopsticks, "I'm full."

  "How can you eat so little?" Fu Pei Lan's appetite had always been good, but today she only ate half of her usual amount. A small bowl of rice was left with almost half a bowl remaining.

  "She ate too much this morning." This morning, Fu's mother saw her being obedient and surprisingly cut the white mantou into slices, wrapped them in egg batter and fried them for her to eat. She didn't finish eating and wasn't happy about it. Thinking of her loving mother, Fu Peilan sighed slightly, guessing that by now she should also know about her refusal to "take over". There were several families in Liu Shu Xiang who worked at the foundry, and they usually went home for lunch around noon, so presumably someone had already informed Fu's mother by this time.

  Feng Xiang took over Fu Peilan's remaining half bowl of rice and finished it with the dishes. Seeing his girlfriend looking down, he hurriedly asked, "What's wrong? Did Madam Fu give you a hard time again?"

  Fu Peilan pursed her lips and said, "My mom sent me to the foundry today to start work. I secretly told the personnel director that our family doesn't want this job. Feng Xiao, I have no way out now."

  Feng Xiang was taken aback for a moment, then said, "You didn't plan to go to the foundry to work anyway?" Only she and Fu Pei Qi's education met the factory's job requirements. If Fu Pei Lan didn't go, neither would Fu Pei Qi. The quota had been useless from the start. What was there to lose? It was just that passing by Fu's mother might be difficult.

  Fu Peilan shook her head, "If it weren't for my mom insisting that I take over as a statistician, the matter would have been settled long ago. Even if I don't go to work now, it's not impossible for Director Zhao to find a way to transfer my third sister to the foundry factory. At least that would be better than wasting this position. The female workers at the foundry factory work regular shifts and are close to home, which is much better than the textile factory's irregular day-and-night shifts."

  "Now thinking about these things is useless, we'll think of a way to deal with Pei Yao's situation later." Feng Xiang comforted, Fu Pei Yao was one year older than him and grew up playing together in the same alley. Fu Pei Yao didn't have the overbearing straightforwardness of Eldest Sister Fu, nor the clever mouth of Second Sister Fu, and wasn't as intelligent and lively as younger sister Fu Pei Shan. The overall impression she gave people was that she was gentle, without much personality, but made others feel comfortable. She could be considered the best person in the entire Fu family to Pei Shan, aside from the late Father Fu, unfortunately, her temperament was weak and she often suffered under Mother Fu's scolding, with a humble and embarrassed expression.

  "Yes, it will be fine." Fu Pei Lan let out a sigh. "What I need to think about now is how to explain things to my mom when I get home."

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