Chapter 136 - Friend From the Antique Street

Translator: Lav

Editor: Levs

The bill was 12,000 yuan. The bottle of wine by itself was more than 9,000 yuan. s.h.i.+ Lei thought that they would only sell it for triple the price, but it seemed like he was too naive. 

On the contrary, the price of the dishes weren’t that expensive. It was only about 3,000 yuan for four dishes and soup. It was made rather delicately and they even gave them drinks prior to the dishes and fruits after. The key point was that the taste was extremely nice and it was clear how much effort they put in making them. 

It had been almost two months and s.h.i.+ Lei had become picky with the taste of food. Although he might’ve been eating low quality food before, but anyone who ate top quality food would distinguish the difference between them. 

Things like Lobsters and abalones, although it wasn’t that it was not good enough for s.h.i.+ Lei, but it definitely wasn’t as exciting as before. Only the three in his dorm would consider the best food in the world to be seafood. 

Any dishes which s.h.i.+ Lei complimented on genuinely must be a good dish. Even Wei Xingyue, who was clearly on a diet to control her body shape and weight ate half a bowl of rice and even halved the dishes with s.h.i.+ Lei as they finished everything. 

That was definitely something. 

At a level like this, with this taste, plus the furnis.h.i.+ngs and service, and the average price of the dishes was only 500 yuan for one, it was really not that expensive. 

s.h.i.+ Lei silently told himself all these as he walked outside. He suddenly realized that it’s been barely a month and he now thought a 500 yuan dish wasn’t expensive. The Black Card was definitely crazy enough to change s.h.i.+ Lei from being a loser to someone who sees money as nothing. 

s.h.i.+ Lei was feeling contradicted; one part of him thought that it was fine to have a meal at the price of over 10,000 yuan, but the other part of him was telling him that his heart was bleeding. 

It was fine because if this could be counted into the sum, then s.h.i.+ Lei wouldn’t really care. 

His heart was bleeding because he was worried that the money won’t be calculated into the sum. If that was the case, his own funds of 16,000 yuan, which he worked extremely hard for, would be gone immediately. 

After they went back down, the same female manager which greeted them before walked over and whispered: “How was it today?” 

Wei Xingyue nodded and said: “The quality is always good, you really don’t have to ask everything single time.” 

“Well, I’m just doing what I have to do since this is my job.” 

“You wanted to give him a card, didn’t you? You can, but I don’t think he’ll come often.” Wei Xingyue glanced at s.h.i.+ Lei and knew exactly what she was thinking. 

The female manager took out a card and pa.s.sed it to s.h.i.+ Lei politely with both hands. She said: “You were enjoying your vegetarian course so I didn’t want to interrupt you. Let me introduce myself, I’m the reception manager here and this is my business card.” 

s.h.i.+ Lei took the card and asked with doubt: “Those dishes were vegetarian? I thought it looked like three meat and one vegetable dish. Even the soup was made from eggs and that more or less counts as a meat dish?” 

The manager smiled and said: “We are not strictly a vegetarian restaurant, so we don’t really mind to use eggs which was controversial. If we were really a vegetarian restaurant then we won’t sell alcohol here. But the other four dishes were indeed all vegetarian and even without any oil, all the meat you saw were made out of tofu.” 

Everything turned black in front of s.h.i.+ Lei’s eyes. No wonder Wei Xingyue, who needed to maintain a diet to keep her body shape and weight would eat here. She even fought over the food with s.h.i.+ Lei. It was vegetarian! But if they were all vegetarian, it didn’t matter how much efforts they put into it, 500 yuan for one dish was still too expensive! No matter how much it resembled of meat, it was still tofu! 

s.h.i.+ Lei felt that his wallet was wailing. 

The name of the manager was printed on the card; Li Xiaoyu, and it was very Douban(1) styled. The layout and design of the card was very simple. The top was the name of the club, her name was in the middle with her position next to it, which was simply ‘manager’ without flowery words. Below the name were digits starting with 13, which was her phone number without a doubt. 

“h.e.l.lo, Manager Li.” 

“You are too polite……” Li Xiaoyu said. 

“How do I address you, sir?” 

“Oh, my name is s.h.i.+ Lei.” 

“Are you satisfied with the dishes today?” 

“It was very nice, but I think it was too expensive. Three tofu dishes and one vegetable dish was 3,000 yuan and the wine was even more expensive as it was four times the market price.” 

Li Xiaoyu was astonished. None of the customers came here complained that it was expensive. Most of these people didn’t even see money as something valuable, so ever since this place opened, no customers ever topped up here as it was like a shame to them if it wasn’t already. They didn’t just greet ordinary customers here. As s.h.i.+ Lei had guessed, it was indeed under a members.h.i.+p system. Although they gave out cards to people around the world, but it was mainly for people in Jiangdong province. In other provinces, they barely gave out 1,000 cards. Plus, the customers who had a card were all like s.h.i.+ Lei, who had been brought by someone. With a background like Wei Xingyue’s, her face was her card so why would anyone still give her a card? 

In conclusion, there were no more than 3,000 customers here and the frequent customers were only about 1,000 people. 

Li Xiaoyu had worked here for three years and it was the first time to hear someone saying that the price was too expensive. All of a sudden, she didn’t how to reply. 

Wei Xingyue rolled her eyes and said: “Are you complaining that it was too expensive to treat me dinner?” 

s.h.i.+ Lei quickly waved his hands and said: “That’s not what I meant.” 

Wei Xingyue then said to Li Xiaoyu: “Don’t mind him, this guy’s crazy.” 

Li Xiaoyu laughed bitterly. She didn’t dare to say that and she could only smile, thinking that this young master probably loved to mess around. 

“I know you know. If you want to come next time, you can call me. Of course, it doesn’t matter if you don’t, I will naturally greet you and provide the best service for you. But if you call previously we can organize it and it will be better. This is a card, if I’m on break or some waitresses who are blind don’t recognize you, please show this to them.” As expected of a high cla.s.s club’s manager, there were no loopholes in her words. Although she was just speaking, but she was extremely polite. She was considerate and even reminded s.h.i.+ Lei to bring the card to avoid being rejected outside. The reminder was very detailed and she gave face to s.h.i.+ Lei. She said that if he was stopped at the door, it would be the fault of the staff working here. 

s.h.i.+ Lei exclaimed silently and took card. He secretly thought, Wei Xingyue definitely had this wrong. Perhaps I’ll really visit here often. 

However, he misunderstood what Wei Xingyue meant. Wei Xingyue didn’t think that he couldn’t afford it, but he didn’t have any friends who were good enough for this place. s.h.i.+ Lei wasn’t an idiot, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to bring people who shouts and cheers and even wanting to take photos for the record as soon as they come in. 

Li Xiaoyu walked them all the way to the car park and opened the door for them in hospitality. s.h.i.+ Lei hesitated as he didn’t think that Wei Xingyue was interested in sending him home. 

As expected, Wei Xingyue said: “I won’t drive you home. Tell someone to come and pick you up.” 

s.h.i.+ Lei thought, luckily I didn’t get in the car. Otherwise, how awkward would that be? 

Wei Xingyue raised the Xingyue Puti on her neck and said: “I actually quite like this present, thanks.” s.h.i.+ Lei looked up to the sky wordlessly. 

“Did your friend from the Antique street sold you this?” 

“He would never sell this kind of ma.s.s produced products. He sells agarwood. Yu’s Agarwood Shop.” s.h.i.+ Lei turned around and left, but he didn’t notice Wei Xingyue, who froze in the car. 

Douban: a Chinese website for information about music, films and books.