Chapter 114 — An Unexpected Visitor

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The parents of Cheng Shuguang and Li Nanzhi came to Yun City together from Guangzhou.

They arrived more than a month earlier than in previous years.

And because they had not warned anyone in advance, the few people present were caught off guard when they met.

Seeing the four vigorous old people stride in from the entrance, Su Yihui loosened the stiff muscles of his face and signaled for them to sit at a table for four in the lobby.

"Is your boss here?" Cheng Shuguang's father asked in a voice like a bell.

Su Yihui stared back with frightened eyes and nodded. Could it be that a customer who had been here before had fallen ill after eating their food and had come to demand an explanation?

He stood before the four of them like a blade of grass swaying in the wind. Over so long, he had encountered no shortage of difficult customers, yet he still could not apply what he knew to handle them properly on his own. Every time, he had to rely on Cheng Shuguang to step in, and in time it had become a habit.

What if, one day, you stop working for me? What then? Once you leave me, I don't know whether you'll even be able to survive.

Su Yihui heard Cheng Shuguang's words from before echoing in his ears. Back then, Cheng had been leaning against his shoulder, saying nothing at all. Perhaps he thought Su Yihui would not leave him, or that he himself would not leave.

After finishing with the guests upstairs, Li Nanzhi came down the stairs and happened to meet her mother face to face.

"Mom!" she cried out.

After that cry, the other three also turned around. "Dad, Uncle, Auntie, why are you here?" It had been nearly three years since she had last gone back home. The restaurant depended entirely on this period around the end of the year to carry it through the annual figures. In earlier years, she would go home after the Lantern Festival and stay for a few days. But in recent years, as the teahouse restaurant grew ever more prosperous, she could not spare even a single day.

"If you won't come back to see us, then we'll have to come ourselves," Li Nanzhi's father boomed. "While the four of us are still able to travel."

"Dad—" Li Nanzhi smiled at the four elders. Her smile was so infectious that the anger lined across their faces vanished at once. "Why don't we go upstairs and sit?" Then she moved to the middle of the two mothers, took their arms, and led them into a private room upstairs. "Xiao Su, go to the kitchen and bring some pastries." She turned and said this to Su Yihui.

"Oh—" He nodded blankly.

"The employee you hired really isn't much good," Cheng's father could not help complaining. "I talked to him for ages, and he didn't answer a single word."

Li Nanzhi merely smiled and did not answer his question. Perhaps she could not think of a solution.

"Where's Shuguang?" Cheng's mother asked, gripping Li Nanzhi's hand.

"He had something to do and went out." That must be it, right? As for what he went out to do, I don't know either.

The four of them talked over one another, each saying their own piece.

Yet a fear too difficult to name surged from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head, and his whole body felt as if it were being frozen in a cold-storage room, gradually losing all feeling.

What should have slowly risen from the depths of the water now, in this very second, floated to the surface without warning.

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His eyes were full of panic, and his whole body trembled uncontrollably.

Cold sweat gathered in Su Yihui's palms. He felt that the long-clear sky was finally about to be overtaken by a violent storm.

And would he stand before him, raising a shelter of safety against it?

When Cheng Shuguang returned after handling his business outside, he walked to the front desk and just happened to run into Su Yihui coming out of the kitchen. He pinched the sensitive place at his waist.

Su Yihui's body jerked spasmodically, and he took a step back, only to hit the wall behind him. The tray in his hands nearly tipped over, sending the small pastries on it flying.

"Are you all right?" Cheng Shuguang bent down to steady him. "Why are you so distracted?"

"Your parents and the boss's parents are here," he said, collecting himself. "Upstairs."

"They're here?" Cheng Shuguang also sensed that something was wrong. Especially under the impact of Su Yihui's gaze, he caught a certain cursed contagion, and the heart lurking in his chest thudded violently.

He should have guessed it days ago.

A few days earlier, Cheng's father had called Cheng Shuguang and ordered him to go home no matter what this year. Even if business in the shop was booming during the New Year, it had to be put aside. He said they did not lack that money.

The purpose behind forcing him home did not need to be asked about; one guess was enough to reach the conclusion.

After so many years, that long-stranded, century-defining problem had finally reached the moment when it would be dragged back into the light.

And after so many years, he still had no effective way to solve it.

And now it was pressing in on them.

Cheng Shuguang took the tray from Su Yihui's hands. "Don't worry. Leave everything to me."

For the third time, Su Yihui nodded, his eyes filled with despair and helplessness. It was not that he did not believe in Cheng's determination to love him; it was that, before the force of parents' authority, love would always lose some of its edge. It always seemed so fragile, so vulnerable to a single blow.

The row upon row of streetlamps on the road ahead had all been cut off from power. On a night without starlight or moonlight, nothing could be seen, not even their outlines.

If at this moment a truck came roaring toward me, I would have no time to dodge and could only shut my eyes and accept my fate. At least that would make me seem a little braver.

"Dad, Mom, Uncle, Auntie, why didn't you say anything and just come?" Cheng Shuguang feigned ignorance. In truth, he had been lingering at the private-room door for nearly half an hour.

"We wanted to catch you off guard," Cheng's father said with a fearsome expression. Anyone who did not know better would think they were the son of his enemy. Strange as it was, he loved Cheng Shuguang deeply in his heart, yet whenever speech was involved, he never spared him.

"All right, don't start as soon as you see him..." Cheng's mother pressed his hand and signaled him to stop. In front of outsiders, one must always preserve at least a little face.

"That's right, don't stand by the door," Li's mother said with a face full of smiles, waving them over. "Come over and sit."

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Li Nanzhi shot Cheng Shuguang an easy-to-understand look, a warning in advance. As for whether it would work, and how much it would work, that remained to be seen.

"Eat something first. You've been on the road for so long; you must be hungry, right?" Cheng Shuguang set out the bowls and plates one by one, trying to create a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere for conversation.

"Don't fuss. We eat these things every day in Guangzhou; we're already sick of them." Cheng's father looked down on the food laid out on the table. He was not someone who could be swayed by food so easily. "Sit down. The four of us came here today because we have something we want to say to you face to face."

With those words, both of them were stunned. It seemed disaster could not be avoided; what was coming would come in the end.

The problem they had avoided for years had reached the point where it had to be faced. Thinking of it now, these years of calm and peace had already been a mercy bestowed by heaven.

"We won't beat around the bush either," Li's father said, pushing up his bifocals. "Nanzhi will be thirty-one nominally after the New Year, and she truly can't wait any longer. In earlier years, we asked you to get married, and you said you were busy with your careers. Now I see your work is flourishing beyond measure. Isn't it time to think about marriage?"

Those words put the issue they had refused to face directly on the table. For Cheng Shuguang, that meant the hope of avoiding it had been lost.

Li Nanzhi stole glances at his reaction from the corner of her eye. For many years, through that long wait, she had been yearning for a true answer. Perhaps she already knew it, but she still wanted to hear him say it himself.

"Uh... uh..." Cheng Shuguang could not assemble a single sentence, not even the briefest one. "Let's talk after the New Year, all right?" At the last moment, he turned an imperative into a question.

"Wait until after the New Year to talk?" Cheng's father could hardly believe what he was hearing. "Which New Year? After this New Year, or after next year?" He bristled with fury, the raised tips of his hair seeming almost to catch fire.

"Do you simply not want to get married?" Li's mother, who had remained silent for a long while, finally could not help asking.

"No, he wouldn't," Cheng's mother said at once. "Shuguang must have his reasons."

"If he has reasons, he can say them," Li's father replied. "Everyone is here today, so let's be frank." He turned to Cheng's father across the table. "Old Cheng, though you and I have been friends for decades, we don't necessarily have to become in-laws. If Shuguang is unwilling, we won't force him."

"Old Li." Cheng's father raised a hand, exhaled a long breath, and said, "Don't get angry yet. We came for this very matter, and we'll handle it properly."

Hearing Cheng's father say this, Li's father gave a snort through his nose and temporarily closed his mouth.

Cheng Shuguang nearly stopped breathing. That fiercely churning heart of his battered wildly inside his body.

If, back then, he had been a little braver and told the secret that should never have been hidden, perhaps by now, after all these years, the wound in his heart would already have healed.

In truth, whether one is brave a step earlier or a step later does not matter. What matters is only that the brave heart is still within one's body.

Then today, take that long-delayed step.