When Xia Zhi heard this news, he was crunching on children’s breakfast biscuits, spitting out a mouthful of biscuit flakes upon hearing it, yelling into the phone in front of Ye Qia’s disgusted gaze, “Looking for me? You sure that the one he mentioned is me?”
“Of course . ” Taotie’s voice carried some tune of pleasantries, “How is it? Too elated that you don’t dare believe it?”
“That’s not it . ” Xia Zhi “deeply considered and thought” for a short while, saying, “I’ll give him a call . ”
White’s phone connected really quickly; contrary to his expectations, he actually did not especially force people, but instead he was a bit cautious and careful, “Good morning, Mr . Xia . ”
“Why do you want me to be your Master? You can clearly see that I’m just a newbie . ” Xia Zhi got straight to the point and asked, “What do you have planned?”
“I like your* straightforwardness and courage, it is different from Teacher, a lot more lacking . However, you* have the qualities that Teacher does not have, I quite like it . ”
“But if I don’t appreciate it, what are you going to do?”
“You* can name your price . ”
“How much?”
“Ten thousand . ”
“American dollars?”
“Can be done . ”
“A minute?”
Advertis.e.m.e.nt“Oh, beloved, NONONO, this I can’t allow; I can’t give you this price before we have made a formal contact, but we can gradually increase the price during the contact . ” White gave a smile, “Ten thousand a day, changing appropriately according to the situation, what do you* think?”
“I don’t dare . ” Xia Zhi finished saying these words, laughed a bit by himself feeling that it was interesting, following up by immediately boarding up his face, “I don’t know why you want to do so, but I have no interest in it . ” Pausing, he again maliciously imitated White’s inaccurate Mandarin accent, saying, “Oh, I’m sorry, my meaning is that I’m not good at learning, I’m afraid that there is no way for me to meet your* expectations and requests . ”
White was silent for a few seconds, changing his tone of voice, “Why?”
Xia Zhi pretended to be innocent, saying, “What why?”
“Why do you refuse me?”
“There’s no particular reason . ”
“You must give me a reason, I cannot accept this sort of answer . ”
Xia Zhi paused, listening to the heavy breathing carried over through the telephone channel, suddenly asking, “Are you feeling really unhappy right now?”
“Of course . ”
“En, that is the reason . ” Xia Zhi satisfiedly and decisively cut the line, changed his expression, pitifully looking at Ye Qia, “What should I do, I may have offended him . ”
The Ye Qia who watched the whole exchange in silence already did not know what should be said to remedy the situation . He folded the newspaper, scratching at his messy hair, helplessly saying, “You’re doing it on purpose ba?”
“Absolutely not . ” Xia Zhi’s face was full of calm as he replied, “I did not have this kind of idea, not even a little bit . ”
Ye Qia observed Xia Zhi’s expression, asking with uncertainty, “Is it—did someone say something to you? Taotie? Magician? What did they tell you?”
“No, there has been none . ” Xia Zhi looked at the ceiling, his air calm like a G.o.dly peace[1] , “Who is there to give me a call ma, you can go and ask Taotie and Magician ah . ”
“I believe they will ridicule you chopping White’s head……”
Xia Zhi was startled, interrupting, “Wait a minute, when they said “You did well” they were ridiculing me?”
“Don’t be fussy over these small details . ” Ye Qia’s words pointedly turned, saying, “All in all, you should be clear, nothing good comes from offending White . ”
Upon hearing this, Xia Zhi then nervously said, “Will this implicate you?”
Ye Qia paused for a second then opened his mouth again, his tone grew a lot softer, “He will be ridiculed by all the people in the circle, this is not anything good . Even if he does not have much authority here, but he has money, money can make people do a lot of bad things . ”
“I don’t care . ” Xia Zhi shrugged his shoulders, “Release the horse on me, this old man does not give a d.a.m.n, as long as nothing happens to you then it’s all good . ”
Ye Qia suddenly put out a meaningful expression, “What issues could I have, I just need to break up with you, I believe that White would be extremely happy . ”
Xia Zhi’s face fell in just a second, hurriedly saying, “You will break up with me because of him?”
“I can’t say for sure . ” Ye Qia curled his lips, “After all, my rice bowl is related to him, think about it, this could be a matter that affects your whole life . ”
“I heard from Magician saying that White was really disrespectful to you, and your expression when you returned that day was also not good, the most important thing is that I feel that White this man is d.a.m.ning hateful, that’s why I decided to anger him to death . ” Xia Zhi decisively confessed, also conveniently continuing to pull more people into the water, “You can’t break up with me, this whole matter all came from you, you dare pat pat your a.s.s and leave, laozi is not done with you! Moreover, before I did this I already informed Taotie, Magician, they also didn’t oppose it!”
Both of them stared at each other mutually for a good few minutes, afterwards, Ye Qia raised the corner of his mouth, saying, “You are still so silly, with just one coax and you already spilled the beans . ”
Xia Zhi stiffened like a wooden sculpture for a while, strongly keeping up a calm appearance, saying, “I…… just faked being coaxed out by you . ”
“Really?”
Xia Zhi elegantly and glamorously raised his chin even higher, “Of course it’s real . ”
Ye Qia let out a grin, and did not say anymore . Xia Zhi suppressed himself like a balloon growing with air; he still ended up bursting, noisily making a huge ruckus . In the end, his temper dissipated due to a kiss from Ye Qia . This kiss was like dark chocolate, the slight bitterness then morphed into an endlessly sweet aftertaste .
In the following few days, Xia Zhi kept being suspicious, fearing that White would hire an a.s.sa.s.sin to kidnap him, shut him in a small black house, doing this and that and again with that and this .
“Aren’t you the expert in tying people up? Teach me how to escape after having my four limbs tied up . ”
Ye Qia’s reply was extremely concise, “Call the police . ”
“If I can’t move my hand then how am I supposed to call the police?”
“So you must practise calling the police while being tied up . ”
“Really?”
Xia Zhi half believed and half doubted as he went and practised for a bit; he let Ye Qia tie him up into a ball, rolling about on the carpet of the bedroom for quite a long time, but still did not have any means to untangle himself . He let out a scorpion cry, a few seconds later, a pair of slippers appeared in his field of vision; there were potato chip flakes falling onto the tip of his nose . He forcefully made a roll, and made his face look up, seeing Ye Qia hugging a large bag of potato chips looking at him and laughing happily .
“Didn’t you say you want to lose weight?”
“So that’s why I won’t eat dinner tonight . ”
The more that Xia Zhi saw Ye Qia’s smile, the more unhappy he felt, “What are you laughing at?”
“I took a video of your struggling just now and sent it to Taotie and the rest . ”
“Oh?”
Ye Qia opened his phone, a series of mad laughter immediately filled the whole bedroom .
Taotie: “Hahahaha!”
Magician: “Hehehehe!”
“……”
Xia Zhi ignored Ye Qia for three whole days, Ye Qia had no choice but to use a whole night of “attentive service” in exchange for his forgiveness .
After the event, Ye Qia exhaustedly drilled into the blankets . Xia Zhi leaned on the bed frame and lit a cigarette, proudly saying, “Actually I had already forgiven you long ago, but I was tempted and just trying it out . ”
“……”
In the following week, Xia Zhi was made begging for death and for life by Ye Qia, counter attacking on the weekends, refusing to clean the house and to cook . Ye Qia persisted until Sunday, “falling in battle” . In such a “warm” life, came the news of White returning to his country . Xia Zhi got to know about it from Taotie; White had also been refused by people in the past, he absolutely would not kill people and let out the fire just because of this little bit, he was actually worried for nothing in this whole month .
Before his departure, Xia Zhi again received a call from White, “Come and send me off ba . ”
“No . ”
“A thousand American dollars ready in cash . ”