Chapter 191 - More Enthusiasm

With that, Tang Yin turned around and ran back to her mother, disappearing into the night a moment after…

Tang Yin was already long gone by the time Lin Yi snapped back into reality. He sighed as he looked at the faraway figure of Tang Yin- had he fallen in love with this girl..?

Lin Yi didn't know if he'd gotten more mature, or if he'd gotten more impulsive… What he understood, however, was that the question wouldn't have even crossed his mind if this had happened one year ago. Were the peaceful days changing him?

It seemed to be time to have a talk with Old Lin…

"Boss, what's wrong with you?!" Xiaobo said, unable to hold it in any longer as he watched Tang Yin run off. "What're you daydreaming for, Tang Yin asked you if you wanted to go out with her!! And you were just staring and daydreaming……"

Xiaobo was clearly very worked up about the whole thing.

"She just wanted to know what I wanted, that's it……" Lin Yi said, shaking his head. "Let's go, stop looking."

"I don't know what to say, boss, that was a perfect chance and you just let it slip by……" Xiaobo said with drooped shoulders, as if it was extremely important to him or something.

"There'll be more chances." Lin Yi said as he looked at the text he'd received- it was from Mengyao, asking what time he'd come home.

It seemed that the Miss wasn't as cold as she seemed, and Lin Yi came to understand that as he spent time with the two girls- he was sure at this point that Mengyao was just cold on the outside, and while she did have that rich girl temper, she'd actually never genuinely treated Lin Yi like a follower or servant before.

It was also the main reason why Lin Yi continued carrying out the job.

Serving two pretty girls, after all, was a good thing, and Lin Yi understood that- there were plenty of people lining up for a job like this.

He told Mengyao that he was getting home soon, and waited a bit for a reply. He shook his head with a bitter smile when it never came- the Miss was the Miss, after all.

He paid the taxi fare after reaching the villa, and walked to the front door. Li Fu had given him the keys, too, and he didn't need Mengyao or Yushu opening the door for him. He stepped into the house after unlocking the door.

The two had evidently gone upstairs already- there wasn'tanyone in the living room, and the general was sitting at the foot of the staircase, lowering its head upon seeing Lin Yi enter.r

Lin Yi put down his bag and walked over the the dining area- the girls had eaten the food Li Fu had delivered already.

"Ha……" Lin Yi couldn't hold his smile in as he made his way to the dinner table- the two girls evidently took only a little from each of the dishes for their plates, which were unfinished due to their small appet.i.tes.

The girls splitting portions from the start instead of leaving leftovers for Lin Yi was a gesture he appreciated; he didn't know which one of the misses' wishes it was, but they seemed to be treating him a lot better.

Chen Yushu…… He got along well with her, but Lin Yi could only shake his head as he thought about her. The girl would probably put Mengyao's leftovers back in his portion, disguised as untouched food…

It had to be Mengyao's wishes, then. Lin Yi appreciated the Miss' gesture as he helped himself to his portion.

He washed the containers after finis.h.i.+ng, and left the CD on the coffee table in the living room before returning to his room, ready to make a phone call to his old man.

He closed the door shut before dialing Old Lin up… Lin Yi wouldn't usually contact him until the mission was over, only telling him that everything was fine after actually completing it.

It was a long while before a somewhat perverted voice answered the phone. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Old man, I'm Yi." Lin Yi said after a moment of silence.

"Oh? Yi? How is it, how's the mission coming along?" Old Lin said, clearly in the middle of drinking- Lin Yi could even hear him crunching on peanuts in his mouth.

Lin Yi didn't quite know what to say to this old man when he brought up the mission like that. "Dude, old man, what's with this mission you gave me? I'm just following the Miss every day! You think I'm a high-cla.s.s butler or something?"

"You'll understand what kind of mission it is after a while." Old Lin said, evidently not interested in talking about the topic too much.

"A while? How long is a while?" Lin Yi said, preparing the foundations for his next question.

"Haha, as long as you want, there's no time limit. Depends on how fast you complete the mission." Old Lin said, not caring at all.

"As long as I want? Really?" Lin Yi hesitated awhile before voicing his thoughts. "Old man… I kinda wanna stay here now……"

"Oh? You wanna stay there already? That's great news!" Old Lin said, getting excited. "This means the mission's going pretty well! It's a good start!"

"What does that mean?" Lin Yi asked, not quite getting what was going on.

"Nothing, nothing. As long as you like it- you don't even have to come back anymore . A few years later and I'll go live there too, so you lay the foundations there first, make a couple babies and I'll go there and be a grandpa……" Old Lin said, seemingly very pleased and even more enthusiastic than even Lin Yi himself.

"Ah?" Lin Yi was thinking that it'd be tough to persuade Old Lin into letting him live a peaceful life, but the old man was straight up telling him to make him grandchildren out of nowhere! What's with that rushed development, and what did he even mean? Was he telling him to retire?

"I say… Old man…… What about the missions after this……" Lin Yi said, doubting the development. After all, this was a selfish old man who'd sent him on dangerous missions for just a bit of cash…

"Missions? No more missions, this is the last one." Old Lin said. "Though, obviously, if you feel like exercising and warming up once in awhile you can always go get some missions if you want……"

"Uhh……" Lin Yi was trying to figure out why the old man was saying these things- was he drunk? He'd been troubled as to how to approach the old man with this topic, too… After all, it wasn't the kind of life he'd been in all his life! Yet the old man… was telling him to make babies……

Lin Yi sweated at the idea- it was supposed to be a very heavy topic he had to confront, but… Okay then, I'll go hit on Tang Yin tomorrow! Lin Yi decided, now that he didn't have to worry too much anymore.

He'd probably go for the two misses at home rather than Tang Yin, though, if they weren't girls he wasn't supposed to lay his fingers on. They were already living together, after all.

"Anything else? Widow w.a.n.g's here right now, and I'm chatting with her and reminiscing. I'm hanging up alright, bye bye." Old Lin said, hanging up before Lin Yi even gave him an answer.

Lin Yi smiled bitterly as he looked at the phone in his hand- everything seemed like a dream… Was his entire life about to be changed from this out of place, odd mission..?

Chapter 192 - Beaten-Down Slums

Lin Yi made sure both Chu Mengyao and Chen Yushu weren't going out before walking to Yushu's Beetle. It was Sat.u.r.day morning, and he was making his way to where Kang Xiaobo was.

Li Fu had handed him his licence two days ago already, and Lin Yi didn't need to worry about b.u.mping into the police whenever he drove.

The two misses, on the other hand, needed to busy themselves with the CD Lin Yi bought them yesterday.

Lin Yi rang Xiaobo up as he walked out the door. Almost everyone had their own phone in this day and age, since the cheapest phones even went as low as one or two hundred kuai. One had to be in a pretty rough situation to not have a phone, like Tang Yin, for example…

"Where are you, Xiaobo?" Lin Yi asked.

"I'm at home, not out yet. You ready to go, boss?" Xiaobo had been looking forward to this day for a week now- after all, going to the school beauty's house for a meal was a rare honor! He'd been waiting for Lin Yi's phone call after getting up early in the morning.

"Where's your house? I'll go get you." Lin Yi asked.

"You're picking me up?" Xiaobo paused, not understanding what Lin Yi meant. "I live in Time Street, but boss, where do you live? Let's just meet at the slums district if I'm too far?"

"Time Street… Wait for me." Lin Yi said before hanging up.

Yushu had a gps system installed in her car, and Lin Yi received directions after typing in 'Time Street'.

The Time Street stop was a place Lin Yi pa.s.sed by every time he went to school, one of the easier stops to locate. He called Xiaobo when he got there, telling him that he was at the Time Street bus stop.

It wasn't long before a very well-dressed Xiaobo walked up to the stop, looking left and right for Lin Yi.

"Xiaobo! Here!" Lin Yi waved as he opened up the co-driver door.

"Eh? Boss?" Xiaobo blinked in surprise as he spotted Lin Yi as his car. He quickly made his way over. "This is your car?"

"Haha……" Lin Yi chuckled, neither denying nor admitting- it was something he'd rather not explain.

Xiaobo took that as a yes, and got in the car. "Wow, boss, I didn't know your family's pretty rich! I thought you were poor and came from a mountain……"

"We're okay." Lin Yi said honestly- Old Lin and him would really just be 'okay' if the missions yielded only a couple hundred kuai like the old man claimed them to be. They'd be millionaires and even billionaires if the mission rewards went by market price, however, but Lin Yi didn't want to dwell on stuff like that too much with the old man… So be it if he was a working slave to the old man- he had a roof and food to eat, after all. Earning some coin here and there for his retirement wasn't that bad.

"But boss, why'd you get a car like this? It looks like a girl's car…… And these seats and decorations……" Xiaobo commented as he looked around the car.

"Haha……" Lin Yi chuckled again- the car was Yushu's, so of course it'd be feminine……

"Eh?" Xiaobo's gaze froze at a decoration on the rear-view mirror. "That picture…… Chen Yushu?!! Boss, no way, you have a crush on Chen Yushu?!"

Xiaobo's eyes were wide open with disbelief as he stared at the picture frame with Yushu in it.

"Wha-?" Lin Yi noticed it as well, now that Xiaobo mentioned it…… He sweated a bit. "That decoration… belongs to the car's owner……"

"I get it, boss!" Xiaobo grinned, as if he knew everything. "Boss, I'm a man too! I get it, don't worry- I won't tell Tang Yin anything!"

"......" Lin Yi took the decoration down before dropping it into the car's drawer.

"Mm hm, good call. It'd be bad if Tang Yin saw that." Xiaobo nodded, full of wisdom.

Lin Yi sweated at the comment, almost hitting the car in front of him.

The slums referred to the area within the city, consisting of a high flathouse concentration, old, low quality, and tight s.p.a.ces. The facilities weren't well-equipped and the traffic wasn't very convenient, along with bad security and hygiene in the area. It wasn't a good place to live in at all.

Slum districts like this were pretty common in developing cities, and there were also apartment buildings among the flat houses. The apartment buildings here, however, were only three stories high, and made of red bricks- not much of an improvement from the brick houses. There were no gas tubes, no internet… There weren't even kitchen chutes.

It was pretty much the same with Lin Yi's old place- he didn't think much of it because of that. Xiaobo, on the other hand, had only pa.s.sed by the slums before… Actually entering the area was a different experience, and it stunned him. He'd never imagined that Tang Yin lived in an environment like this- the firewood and coal piles were dirty, and there were garbage mounds along with rancid ditches… It was a h.e.l.lish environment.

Yet in that h.e.l.lish environment came to be Tang Yin- commoner beauty of Songshan's First School.

"Boss… this place……" Xiaobo pulled the window up, unable to bear the stench any longer.

"I used to live in a place like this once……" Lin Yi said with a chuckle. There were also the warzones, much more h.e.l.lish than the slums where he had to hide himself in even worse ditches and marshes…

He found Gra.s.s Alley and turned in, but realized that there wasn't much road for him to drive on- there was rubbish everywhere.

Without much choice left, Lin Yi stopped the car in a relatively cleaner spot as the residents looked on curiously- a bright car like that was evidently quite expensive.

There were pretty much no cars in the slums, other than the occasional taxis. After all, any resident here who could afford a car would've moved out long ago.

Lin Yi locked the car after getting out with Xiaobo, and started looking for Tang Yin's home.

They reached number three and Lin Yi sighed as he looked at the small, beaten down door… Tang Yin's family was worse-off even in slum standards.

The door was clearly a lot more beaten down than the other houses', evidently not tended to in a long while. Lin Yi didn't know if it was a lack of time or money, but a sour sorrow rose up in his heart…

It was even more so for Xiaobo.

!!