Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Ta. Ta. Ta. Yuan Zhou put on his Han attire and walked down the stairs to reach the kitchen.
To make it easier to keep his phone, each of Yuan Zhou’s Han clothes had a pouch at the waist. That would be where his phone was kept.
“It’s getting late. I can start now.” Yuan Zhou looked outside the window of the kitchen and stood in the middle of the kitchen.
“Hold on.” Yuan Zhou was about to wash his hands when he stopped and quickly took out his phone instead.
“This is serious.” Yuan Zhou started checking his text messages.
After he went through his text messages, he did not find any new messages. After a frown, he sank into thought for a second before he started making a call.
He called 10086, the number that would forever have a “friendly” person speaking on the other end.
The call connected shortly. Yuan Zhou directly pressed zero to speak to a customer service representative.
“Hello, how can I help you?” a clear voice of a man sounded from the other side of the phone.
“Huh?” Yuan Zhou checked his phone to find that he got the correct number. He was somewhat curious as everyone else would be talking to gentle girls when they called but his call was answered by a man instead.
When the man repeated his question, Yuan Zhou reacted. He immediately spoke, “Sorry, I want to check my bill.”
“Ok. Is it about your monthly bill? Do you need it to be sent to you through text messages or do you prefer voice messages? Or perhaps you prefer to have both of them?” the man patiently asked.
“Text messages,” Yuan Zhou gave a simple and concise answer.
“The message has been sent to your phone. Do you need any other help?” the man asked his routine question.
“Will I be charged for answering a phone call from France?” Yuan Zhou calmly asked.
“When answering an overseas call from within the country, you won’t be billed. You can also receive overseas text messages for free,” the customer service answered seriously.
“How much will the caller be charged when using a local French number?’ Yuan Zhou asked again.
“This will depend on which telecom company the caller uses. Each telecom company has different rates,” the customer service replied.
“Ok. Thank you,” Yuan Zhou thanked.
After ending the call, Yuan Zhou gave the customer service guy a five-star review. Then, he hung up the call while the expression on his face eased up.
“Um. It’s free,” Yuan Zhou muttered while putting his phone into the drawer.
“Indeed, I am still the smarter one.” Yuan Zhou looked at his phone in satisfaction.
After dealing with his questions on the phone call, Yuan Zhou started focusing on preparing the ingredients. After completing the basic preparations on these ingredients, his cooking would be much faster later.
After done with the preparations, Yuan Zhou washed his hands again. He then opened the front door and waited for dinner time to arrive.
Creak. Boom! While Yuan Zhou was opening the door, a thunderclap sounded on the sky as the entire sky lit up.
“It’s going to rain?” Yuan Zhou frowned as he looked at the cloudy sky.
The customers queuing up outside all stopped talking and looked up at the sky as well.
“Hey, seems like it’s going to rain soon,” someone said.
“This is a surprise. According to the weather forecast, we should be having clear skies today,” someone said while checking his phone.
“If the weather forecast is trustworthy, pigs will be able to climb trees. When has the weather forecast ever be accurate? Each time they will only claim that there will be rain after the rain came,” someone said with disdain.
“Yeah. The weather forecast can never be trusted. Luckily, I always bring an umbrella around,” a girl said smugly as she patted her handbag.
“What’s the big deal? We have shelter from the rain here thanks to the Queuing Committee,” the man immediately pointed at the two roofs protruding out of the restaurant’s door.
That’s right. The lanterns were no longer the only conspicuous objects here on this street. The canopy for protection against the sun and rain was now one of the conspicuous objects of this street as well.
Each shop on this street had a different canopy. They would each be designed and colored differently. However, their size was unanimous. Therefore, the canopies lined up like a row of fluttering flags along the street, looking quite pleasing to the eyes.
The moment this was mentioned, the customers in the queue started talking about the Queuing Committee.
While the customers were slowly moving under the canopy, a familiar bicycle bell sound rang out.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Zhou Yu had arrived.
“Close your stalls. There will be an inspection later. Everyone, quickly close your stalls,” Zhou Yu shouted while on his bicycle.
Right at this moment, the rain started falling.
The rain wasn’t exactly heavy, but the raindrops were still quite concentrated. It was sufficient to soak a person in a short moment.
“Hey, why did the rain come so fast? I have to go close my stall. There will be an inspection later,” said the young man selling fried dumplings as he quickly started closing his stall.
“It is quite a coincidence that the inspection and rain are arriving together,” a granny carrying a basket on her back said with a smile.
“Yeah. Since it’s raining, is the inspection still going on?” the uncle selling pot-stewed dishes asked. Since he had a roof to his stall, he was taking it slow while closing his stall.
“Brother Zhou, with the rain, is the inspection still going on? If not, I won’t bother closing the stall. I still need to sell to the crowd that is leaving work later,” the uncle asked Zhou Yu.
“The inspection notice is freshly issued. It will definitely come. Hurry up,” Zhou Yu stopped his bicycle with one leg and carried an umbrella with one hand while he was impatiently rushing the people there.
“It’s annoying. Why are they so hardworking to conduct an inspection even when it’s raining?” the uncle continued closing his stall unwillingly while complaining.
“Stop complaining. It’s already very kind of Little Zhou to come warn us. Otherwise, you won’t be able to keep your stall,” the middle-aged woman selling pancakes said with a glare.
“Yeah, I know. Thank you, Little Zhou,” the uncle shouted.
When most of them were already done closing their stall, a middle-aged woman who was flustered became conspicuous. In front of her were layers of planks and on each plank were some dark brown bowls.
The bowls each contained colorful and glossy Bowl Rice Puddings. She was standing under the rain and using a piece of cardboard to cover the Bowl Rice Puddings on the topmost plank of her stall. By doing this, she was unable to close her stall.
She kept looking at the sky and her Bowl Rice Puddings, hesitation on her face.
“Quickly. This is so troublesome.” Suddenly, a black umbrella appeared to cover her from behind together with Zhou Yu’s impatient voice.
“Thank you. Thank you, Brother Zhou. I will close the stall now.” Now, the middle-aged woman could finally start putting away her Rice Bowl Rice Puddings.
Zhou Yu stood there carrying the umbrella, his mouth rushing her without a stop, “Hurry. You are the slowest. Don’t come next time if you’re this slow.”
“Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Brother Zhou,” the middle-aged woman was not angered and gently replied instead.
“Hurry,” Zhou Yu said as he pushed the umbrella forward, exposing his back to the rain.
