Chapter 137: Reporter Chen Meng

Chen Meng asked me to meet for tea at the Mingdian Coffee Shop, emphasizing repeatedly not to tell Huang Weiwei.

Her special instruction filled me with suspicion, as if her being seen drinking tea with me wasn't a very good thing for Huang Weiwei to know.

Drinking Chinese tea in a coffee shop is considered a Chinese specialty. Especially in Hengyue City, if a coffee shop didn't serve tea, people would find it strange. This business model, combining East and West, had actually carved out a niche.

In Hengyue City's coffee shops, you can not only drink tea but also eat—a type of Chinese-style claypot rice. Many people come to the coffee shop specifically for this pot of rice. It's as if only by sitting in an elegant coffee shop can one eat with a sense of satisfaction and bourgeois sentiment.

As agreed, I arrived early at Mingdian, asked the waiter, and found a booth shielded by a cloth curtain.

It was very quiet inside, without a sound. I calmed my mood, reached out to lift the curtain, and saw Chen Meng leaning against the window, her melancholic gaze fixed on the bustling world outside.

Seeing me enter, she gave a faint smile and lifted her chin slightly, signaling me to sit opposite her.

As the daughter of the Municipal Party Committee Secretary and a reporter, I didn't dare to act out of turn, so I just smiled and sat down, not daring to look at her. I carefully picked up the menu on the table and studied it in detail.

The tea here isn't actually tea in our traditional sense.

A few goji berries and a slice of Korean ginseng are placed in a transparent glass pot used for brewing coffee, with an alcohol lamp burning underneath. The water boiled this way is called tea, and the price is not low. Not to mention whether this is tea in the true sense, even if it were a cup of Longjing, a pot of Biluochun, or just the most ordinary tea-stalk water, to the people of Hengyue City, as long as it's drunk in a coffee shop, it shows the high-end nature of the tea.

In front of Chen Meng sat not tea, but a cup of very pure coffee. This surprised me a bit. In my impression, people in Hengyue City almost never had the habit of drinking coffee in coffee shops; only some young male and female students in universities would order a cup of coffee to sip slowly. To the people of Hengyue City, a small cup of coffee costing dozens of yuan is not as practical as a pot of tea.

"What are you drinking?" Chen Meng looked at me with a smile.

I hesitated for a moment and said, "I'll have a cup of coffee too."

"Are you used to drinking it?" Her teasing gaze drifted over, making me feel completely uncomfortable.

No matter what, I had drunk it once or twice in college. Although I didn't taste the magic others described, at least I knew coffee was bitter!

"It's alright," I replied, still feeling indignant inside.

She pressed a button on the table, and a moment later a waiter came in to ask what we wanted to order.

I pointed to the coffee in front of Chen Meng and said, "Bring me one just like that."

The waiter asked with a smile, "Would you like sugar?"

"Of course," I said, pausing inwardly, wondering if this answer would make Chen Meng laugh at me. I had seen very little in literature about adding sugar to coffee; to be honest, I didn't know coffee was supposed to have sugar added. When I drank it in college, I did it passively, following others, just finding it bitter and hard to swallow, never thinking there was a way to add sugar.

Once the waiter left, Chen Meng finally couldn't help but laugh out loud, pointing at me and saying, "I said you were a country bumpkin, and Weiwei didn't believe me."

My face flushed, and I pretended to be very surprised, saying, "You don't add sugar to your coffee?"

Chen Meng laughed, "Adding sugar is the way a country bumpkin drinks it. What is coffee? It's a woman who is pure and natural. Once you add sugar, she becomes a woman with heavy makeup; where would you see her original elegance and tranquility?"

I smiled awkwardly and said, "Isn't it better for a woman to wear makeup?"

Chen Meng's face darkened, and she said, "Only a man like you would like gaudy, vulgar makeup; how could you understand the essence of nature?"

It seemed we weren't seeing eye to eye, so I had to shut my mouth and say nothing.

Chen Meng wouldn't let it go, pointing at me and accusing, "I just don't understand what Weiwei sees in you."

I smiled bitterly and said, "Reporter Chen, if you're here to lecture me, I don't think there's any need for me to keep sitting here."

She looked at me seriously and said, "What? Not convinced?"

I shook my head and said, "There's nothing to be convinced or unconvinced about; it doesn't matter. I just want to know, did you call me here just to find out I'm a country bumpkin because I add sugar to my coffee?"

She feigned seriousness and said, "No. I wanted to see what makes you worthy of Weiwei's such deep affection."

I was baffled by her words. Just then, the waiter brought the coffee. I picked up the sugar packets from the side of the cup, tore open two at once, poured them all in, stirred vigorously with a spoon, and took a sip without even looking at her.

"Drink, drink all you want," she laughed. "Country folk, drinking coffee like it's water. It's simply a waste of good things."

I was so angry I laughed. "Reporter Chen, I am a country person. And a country person from the poorest, most remote place at that. If Reporter Chen can't stand it, please feel free to leave."

She tapped the table and said, "Telling me to leave? I'm the one who invited you for coffee; if anyone is leaving, it's you."

I smiled and said, "Fine, I'll leave." With that, I stood up, lifted the curtain, and prepared to walk out.

"Sit down," she commanded majestically from behind me. "A grown man, and your heart is smaller than a woman's."

I turned my head and said, "Reporter Chen, I hate nagging women the most."

Her face flushed, and a trace of embarrassment flickered across it. She said softly, "Sit down, you look so ugly acting like this."

I had no choice but to drop the curtain and sit back down opposite her, not even looking at her, intending not to say another word.

"Chen Feng, do you know? The seat you're sitting in is where Weiwei sits every time we come for coffee." Her sudden vulnerability made me unable to adapt.

"What does that have to do with me?" I said, not looking at her.

"It does, and it has a lot to do with it," she said. "Lift your head up, I can't see your face."

I had to look up at her. She gave a seemingly miserable smile and said, "From now on, Weiwei won't be coming here for coffee with me anymore."

I was lost in the clouds, eyes wide, and said, "Why?"

"Because she has you now," she closed her eyelids, wallowing in self-pity. "I shouldn't have agreed to help that dead girl write reports about you in the first place."

I said with full gratitude, "Thank you, Reporter Chen. Your literary talent is truly soaring, just like a swallow."

She looked at me strangely and said, "How is it like a swallow?"

I said with a grin, "Little swallow, wearing a flowered coat, coming here every spring."

A smile appeared at the corner of her mouth, and she said with disdain, "In your dreams. I won't go to write about your little village again."

I flattered her, "That won't do, Reporter Chen. You must come to our little village often to report; that's the only way to reflect the height and historical sense of a Party newspaper reporter."

What I was thinking was that as a Party newspaper reporter, she played a role many of us ordinary people couldn't. Suxi Township needed to build a mineral water plant and create a tourist county that was an earthly paradise; without their publicity, we would take many more detours.

"I'm not going to argue with you about that," she interrupted me. "I invited you here today to tell you that since Weiwei has already set her heart on you, you must treat her seriously. If you treat her even a little bit poorly, don't blame me for being impolite."

She stared aggressively into my eyes, like a crazed she-wolf, and said, "You can treat everyone else poorly, but you must treat Weiwei well."

Regarding her groundless warning, I felt like I was standing in the vast Gobi Desert, unable to see any scenery.

"Did you remember?"

I nodded mechanically, and she beamed. "I'm relieved."

I blurted out, "Is Huang Weiwei that important to you?"

She paused, drank the coffee in her cup in one gulp, and said, "Because she is my favorite!"

Her favorite? I couldn't wrap my head around it. The two of them, females, can they talk about love?

A cold sneer rose in my heart. ===== CHAPTER 138 =====