Damned Grapefruit:
The day after the dinner was a
Saturday. As was usual, Zhengqing worked at home in his study. While he was
working, there was a prompt that an email had come in. He quickly read it; the
sender turned out to be May Shen.
Shen Jiaqi
Zhengqing looked at the message, it
really was Shen Jiaqi. She thanked Zhengqing for coming to the banquet and she
had been very happy chatting with him, and was hoping to be friends. She gave
him her social media account ID, hoping Zhengqing would add her.
Zhengqing immediately added her,
not because he was over-eager to be friends, but because he was one to get things
done quickly. If he let things drag on, they were liable to be missed. Once he
was done, he returned to the documents he was studying. A chat box pinged.
Zhengqing looked at the computer.
It was Shen Jiaqi, ‘You’re actually in?’ she asked.
‘Yes ah,’ Zhengqing replied.
‘Working?’
‘Yes,’
‘You’re really dedicated.’
‘I have to be, ah,’ Zhengqing
answered seriously.
Jiaqi replied with a long line of,
‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha,’ followed by, ‘you’re really funny.’
Mental black lines hung over
Zhengqing, he was confused. Where was the humour? He really was working and he
really was dedicated. She asked him and he answered. What was so humorous about
it? He did not know how to answer so he remained quiet.
Jiaqi then said, ‘When others are
boasting for you, you should be modest.’
He thought of this sentence, he
wanted to reply, ‘But you were praising me, right?’, but that may be considered
that he was not modest, instead he said, ‘Alright,’
Jiaqi replied with another line of,
‘Ha ha ha ha ha,’
He frowned, what the hell was so
funny? Where was this conversation going?
‘Alright…’ Jiaqi began,
He was still troubled, what was she
alright about? He waited and Jiaqi continued ‘I am really happy to chat with
you.’
Zhengqing raised his eyebrows and
shrugged, at least one of them was happy, ‘Thank you,’ he replied. She said he
was funny, he should thank her.
Jiaqi sent a smiling emoticon
instead of “ha ha ha.” Zhengqing did not respond. He had to look over his
documents, but at the same time he was wondering what she wanted.
Fortunately, Jiaqi had a sense of
discretion, ‘Are you busy?’ she asked.
‘I’m looking over a few documents,’
he wrote. He intended to add that he would talk to her another day but she was
faster than him,
‘Qin Shu is really blessed to have
someone conscientious and capable as you. I will stop bothering you. Talk
later.’
Zhengqing deleted the text and
wrote, ‘Okay, goodbye.’
Jiaqi sent a smiling face with ‘Goodbye,’
Zhengqing breathed a sigh of
relief, he could continue working. He dived into his work and eventually
finished. As he tidied up he thought of Yin Ting, she also liked to type out,
“ha ha has.” He really did not understand women.
With nothing on the next day, he
went to the gym that evening.
He lived a regular life; he went to
the gym twice a week, the shops for food once a week, and worked seven days a
week. It has been this way for many years.
The next day, he went to the super
market to get his weekly shopping.
When shopping, Zhengqing was very
efficient. He did not dally, he had a list of items and he went directly to
their shelves to get it. After the supermarket, he went to the local market to
get fruit. He rarely cooked at home, so he did not buy much. He picked apples,
pears and grapes (Zuben: So boring.). He was ready to go when he saw grapefruit
(Zuben: No don’t do it!), the memory of the nice tasting grapefruit still
lingered so he bought one.
Back home, he made dumplings he
bought from the supermarket for dinner, and then he turned to the grapefruit
and decided eating the fruit while watching TV would be a good idea.
As he watched TV, he peeled the
fruit slowly, little by little until it was clean. It took a while but it was
really fun to do. He happily took off a few segments to eat and put the rest in
the fridge.
He took his seat and took a bite
out of the fruit...
He screwed his face up and his
teeth protested.
There was only one thing: sour.
So very sour.
Zhengqing still swallowed.
Oh shit. He swore. This was the
same fruit, how could it taste so differently from one fruit to another. (Zuben:
You don’t eat fruit very much do you?)
He stared at the rest, he’d
completely lost interest in eating. They were placed so neatly. More
annoyingly, he was a child of a poor family, his creed was never to waste food.
(Zuben: You need to let go of the shackles of poverty, classically of course)
Although this unruly grapefruit is
not really food, he could not bring himself to throw it away.
So with a heavy heart, Zhengqing
ate each piece of grapefruit. But it was unbearable. So he threw the rest in
the fridge. He should call Yin Ting to come and eat it, he thought annoyed. He would never have bought grape fruit if it
hadn’t been for her giving him a nice one.
Monday was a very happy day for
Zhengqing, but not this Monday.
That morning a colleague brought
grapefruit to the office, to give their colleagues a taste (Zuben: Evil
person). They were cut up in the tea room. Zhengqing being the highest office
on the floor got given three pieces, how unlucky.
Zhengqing smiled courteously with
thanks as his colleague gave him the fruit but he refused claiming he did not
like grapefruit. In his heart, he could imagine his colleague cleaning the
grapefruit, not thinking he would lose face. Well he had already lost face when
he brought those grapefruit to work. He’s secretly mixed the bag tasting
grapefruit to give to others. (Zuben: Despicable, it is! It’s a grapefruit
conspiracy!)
Back home, was his distasteful ones
lying in his refrigerator waiting for him to come and solve it. (Zuben: Throw
it away.)
Zhengqings solution to the current
problem was to surreptitiously place his grapefruit on another colleagues
table.
When he went by again, the victim
was eating the fruit. He felt greatly relieved. Alas, there were still the ones
at home. The thought made him sad.
The next day, Zhengqing felt like
he was suffused with grapefruit acid. He remained in low spirits till the
afternoon. He should not be so wasteful, but he really wanted to throw them
away.
His desk phone rang an internal
call tone, it was his secretary announcing an arrival at the front desk. There
was a Miss Shen Jiaqi visiting, she had no appointment. Would he like to see
her?
Shen Jiaqi was not Yin Ting? He
tried not to be disappointed. If it was Yin Ting, he would get her to eat the
grapefruit, or destroy it. Whichever! She needed to take responsibility for
what she’d caused. (Zuben: Bros, you’re an adult no one sent you to buy
grapefruit. The sweet ones are rare as hen’s teeth)
‘Ask her to wait in the reception
room for a bit, and make her a drink,’ Zhengqing ordered - his mind still on
Yin Ting. He could remember her expression like it was just yesterday as she
said, ‘It may be sweet.’ But it was sour, he forgot to quickly.
He put it out of his mind and went
to the reception room to see Jiaqi. She gave him a smile when she saw him, ‘I
did not disturb you, did I?’
‘Not at all, the esteemed Miss Shen
decided to visit, how can I be disturbed?’ Zhengqing said courteously.
‘I was just passing through and I
decided to come and show you our company’s new products.’ She said as she
picked up a paper gift bag with her company’s logo from the floor at her side
and handed it to Zhengqing. These were high quality Chinese food items, they weren't only sold in the domestic market, they were also exported.
‘Thank you,’ he said graciously, as
long as there was no grapefruit in there, it was all good.
‘There are some business things I
would like to ask Qiu Zong, but now might not be a good time.’ She said
sweetly, ‘How about we make a date that is convenient for you?’
Zhengqing was about to answer, when
Qin Yufei walked in.
‘Yo, who’s this?’ she asked leaning
against the door nonchalantly.
Zhengqing turned quietly to her.
Qin Yufei looked like she’d eaten a package of explosives. She seemed really
angry.
‘How have you been Yufei? I came to
see Qiu Zong for a chat,’ Jiaqi said gracefully, but there was an undercurrent
of bite.
‘Oh, excuse me? You’re trying to
win a popular employee with promises of higher pay and better benefits,’ Yufei
said, ever straightforward, she did not lose to anyone.
‘Well I want to but I have not been
successful,’ Jiaqi said, her expression and tone seemed to Zhengqing that she
was trying not to antagonise Yufei.
‘Well you do have thick skin, you
recovered well,’ Yufei said provocatively.
Zhengqing frowned, it seemed like
the two elders want to have an ugly quarrel.
But Jiaqi laughed, ‘Xiao-Ting said
that she was so annoyed she wanted to choke me, but she hasn’t come to see me.’
Zhengqing frowned, what was
this about Yin Ting?
‘You’re very troublesome,’ Yufei
snapped.
Jiaqi laughed more, ‘Who told her
to be so funny. She can be so slow, choked to speechlessness. Does not want to
endure but can’t think of what to say and tries to put on a smile.’
‘You’re too much,’ Yufei growled.
‘Fine, fine, next time I’ll try not
to bully her,’ Jiaqi said laughing. (Zuben: Jiaqi, you’ve spoiled the game
here)
Zhengqing’s brows did not relax; he
was confused; what was this weird change from enmity to sisterly friendliness?
‘Leave quickly, you’re not allowed
to dig in our Yong Kai’s patch, or I’ll come digging in yours,’ Yufei said in a
vicious tone.
Jiaqi did not look bothered but
said, ‘I’m afraid ah,’ in a mock fearful tone, and she laughed and continued,
‘I can’t play with you too much today, I have you go.’
She rose and turned to Zhengqing,
‘Qiu Zong, I will see you soon.’
‘Ah see you,’ Yufei said waving at
Jiaqi’s departing figure.
Yufei turned back to Zhengqing,
‘Don’t you get along?’ he asked.
‘We’re friends,’
‘Oh,’ he replied. The way these
women displayed their friendship was quite special. Zhengqing wasn’t interested
in gossip, so he went back to his office. As he settled back into his chair, he
thought of Yin Ting, what was that about Xiao-Ting choking and not able to
speak?
Ah forget it, he thought, he did
not want to know.
That evening, Zhengqing got a call
from Yin Ting; gossip was delivering itself.
‘I did tell you she was interested
in you,’ Yin Ting said.
Zhengqing remained silent but he
admitted that that might be the case. Perhaps it was male vanity, he was
affected by Yin Ting’s suspicions, he was also sensitive to the situation. He
was still not sure if Jiaqi was trying to win him over for her father’s company
or for herself.
As he was preparing to leave work,
he received an emoticon of a lovable ugly face that Jiaqi sent. It spoke of
intimacy that was a bit overt.
‘I told you she would start a
fierce attack, but you must act with restraint.’ She said to him, ‘ she went to
your company to look for you. Next step is to ask you for a meal, you must find
an excuse to not go, you can’t comply easily.’
‘How did you know she came to see
me?’ he asked, incredulous that she had found out.
‘Yufei told me.’
These women were really gossips.
‘Why shouldn’t I reply her easily?’
he asked.
‘Because whenever I try to go
for a guy, she makes fun of me and says. “Being born with thick skin is
advanced genetics, you recover very well.”’ Yin Ting said mimicking Jiaqi.
So it was originally a joke, ah.
‘You shouldn’t be too eager to go
on a date with her or I will be sad,’
He was going to reply but then he remembered
something, but for a moment it was gone from his mind, his mind turned to
another thing, he said to Yin Ting, ‘People who are born with thick skin
recover well.’
‘What?’ Yin Ting said at a loss.
‘You don’t have thick skin if
you’re looking for revenge.’
‘Hey, right?! Say it again,’ Yin
Ting said suddenly excited.
He sighed inwardly and repeated
himself. Yin Ting laughed and said, ‘I will call her immediately, you don’t
have to pretend to be modest and hold back, you can go out with her. Thank
you!’ she said and she hung up, not waiting for Zhengqing to reply.
Zhengqing stared at the phone
flabbergasted, what was this pretend modesty? He did not have this idea or
plan. Moreover, other people cannot tell him what to do! This was his business;
he did not need her permission!
Right? Right!
Then he remembered the
grapefruit left in his fridge, he groaned.
Damned grapefruit.
Would sending a courier with the
rest of the grapefruit to Yin Ting be too much? He also helped her thing of a
reply to her foe.
Zhengqing sighed in resignation and
ate two pieces of the sour acidic fruit.
It made him rather sad.
Please I hope you stop with the comments in the middle of the chapters, just want to enjoy the novel but they are so annoying.
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