Peaceful Resolution in a Peaceful Era

Hao Nianwen and the others stepped into the room, gasping in soft surprise just like Yu Dian and Heroine Yin did yesterday.

"Wow!"

"So pretty! It's really just like the pictures!"

"Internet-famous, definitely internet-famous!"

"I like this hanging chair."

"Careful, old He, don't break the hanging chair. Look, it says here it can only hold three hundred kilograms!" Hao Nianwen kindly reminded.

"Screw you!" He Qing backhanded her with a slap.

"Oh, looks like all the beds in the room are taken." The dorm room at Anju Hotel was like most youth hostels; the management provided clean bedsheets, quilt covers, and pillowcases, but didn't make the beds for the guests, leaving them to do it themselves. At this point, except for three top bunks and two bottom bunks, the rest of the beds were already made.

Wu Wenshan sharply noticed this.

"But there's nobody here! Did everyone go out?" Hao Nianwen stood by a wall, standing on tiptoe to peer closely at the photographs hanging on it.

"There should be one person in the bathroom," Wu Wenshan said, lowering her voice out of a polite fear of being overheard.

"Hey, do you guys think the person in this picture looks like the handsome boss?" Hao Nianwen seemed completely unaware of what she had said, pointing at a photograph.

The others quickly gathered around, looking at the profile in the photo, and said, "It really does look a bit like him."

"Could the boss have taken all these photos?"

"No way!"

"I think it looks a lot like him."

"Look at this one, too! This back view."

Wu Wenshan shook her head, turned to choose a lower bunk, tossed the book she had brought onto the bed, and began examining the room's decor.

The room walls were covered with exquisite wallpaper, hung with beautiful and atmospheric landscape photographs, and dotted with modern paintings in places, all quite suited to her aesthetic. Several shelving units held neat books and small vases with a few sprigs of flowers, creative knick-knacks, and a clock of a matching style. A simple table stood in the middle of the room, just right for quiet reading, and when tired, one could head out to the balcony to sit in the hanging chair and sunbathe with a gentle sway.

Wu Wenshan walked over to the shelf, her fingertips brushing over the brand-new books—mostly famous yet common classic novels, or introductory works from other fields.

The Kite Runner, The Boy Who Stabs Shadows, Sophie's World, One Hundred Years of Solitude...

Before long, the bathroom door opened, and a short, cute girl wearing a two-dimensional lolita outfit walked out. Her eyes landed on Wu Wenshan first, and she broke into a smile, nodding obediently. "Hello."

Wu Wenshan gave a faint nod as well. "Hello."

The cute girl glanced at the other girls still arguing over the photographs, and said with a smile, "The store manager took those. There were two other older girls in the room when I got here, I asked them."

"Wow!"

Given Heroine Yin's lacking grasp of Greater Chinese cuisine, Cheng Yun bypassed the famous restaurants and opted for a decent-grade seafood buffet.

It cost a little over two hundred yuan per person, featuring a rich spread of ingredients ranging from delicacies of the land and sea to exotic meats and birds, all available for grilling or hot pot. Cheng Yun and Cheng Yan had been here several times before.

It was much busier at night than at noon; when they arrived, few seats remained, and they had to wait a few minutes for a four-person table to open up.

Cheng Yun and Cheng Yan sat together, while Yu Dian and Heroine Yin sat opposite them, both looking somewhat constrained.

"This is a buffet, meaning you get the food, cook it, and eat it yourself. I've already paid for the meal, so you can grab whatever you like from anywhere in the restaurant. Cooked food can be eaten as soon as you bring it back, while raw food needs to be boiled or grilled. Just be careful not to eat too fast, or you'll get stuffed easily," Cheng Yun whispered to Heroine Yin.

"We can grab anything?" Heroine Yin was somewhat stunned. On the way in, she had spotted rows of extremely long tables laden with arrays of food; at the time, she had swallowed hard, but holding back out of a fear that it was too expensive, she had forced herself to endure.

"Mm."

"That's fantastic!" Heroine Yin clapped her hands in excitement.

"..." Cheng Yun rolled his eyes. "You can eat your fill here until closing time, so don't look so desperate—others will think you've never eaten before."

"I really haven't!" Heroine Yin said.

"...I mean, if you eat too fast, you won't be able to hold much, and you'll easily get indigestion," Cheng Yun coaxed patiently. "Besides, I spent a lot of money on this meal, so you need to eat slowly, balancing meat and veggies, to eat a lot. And eating a lot is basically saving me money!"

"I get it!" Heroine Yin patted her chest, making that spot wobble. "I promise to eat enough to get your money's worth! By the way, how much did you spend again?"

"Two hundred and forty-eight per person."

"What?!" Heroine Yin's jaw dropped. "Two hundred and forty-eight? That's how many bowls of..."

She lowered her head and quickly began counting on her fingers, muttering numbers under her breath and blinking rapidly for a long time before she arrived at the exact figure: "I could eat for a whole month on that if I ate every day!"

"All right, go get some food!" Cheng Yun said. "Usually, the bowls and plates are right below the dishes."

"I'll go get some appetizers and hairy crabs," Cheng Yan said as she stood up and walked in a certain direction.

A moment later, Yu Dian wandered alone among the abundant food sections. The sheer variety of dishes dazzled her, and she tiptoed around, completely at a loss for what to take. Heroine Yin wasn't as introverted and timid as her, but she was even more clueless, leaving Cheng Yun with no choice but to shepherd her around like a toddler who understood nothing.

"This is cold-spiced rabbit; take some if you want to try it," Cheng Yun said, pulling a plate out from under the table and handing it to Heroine Yin. "Just clip a tiny bit. There are a lot of food options here, and you can only try a wide variety if you eat a little bit of each."

"Oh." Heroine Yin nodded obediently, loaded up more than half the plate, and then symbolically dumped a tiny pinch back down.

"There's beef you like over there, too," Cheng Yun said, shaking his head with mild helplessness. "Braised beef brisket with radish, braised beef brisket with potatoes, beef brisket curry, spiced beef, marinated beef, and various steaks. Let's see how you eat all that!"

"Then I'm not leaving..." Heroine Yin muttered.

Cheng Yun led her back to their seats, set the food down, checked his phone to see if anyone had contacted him, snapped a couple of photos, and then took Heroine Yin back out for another round.

Desserts, drinks, palate-cleansing greens and fruits, and all sorts of seafood and meats quickly piled high on the table.

Heroine Yin stood by the table, anxiously eyeing the spread of delicacies while worrying about how she was ever going to finish it all. At the same time, she cast lingering glances back toward the food section, feeling like there was still so much she wanted to try that she hadn't grabbed.

Cheng Yun chuckled from the side. "Haha, see? Heed not the elders' advice, and you'll suffer for it right away!"

"I only took one plate of most things," Heroine Yin pouted, stubbornly insisting, "This isn't my fault."

"..." Cheng Yun shook his head. "I'm going to go grab some grilled lamb chops."

"I'll get them for you!" Heroine Yin volunteered eagerly.

"I'm only getting one plate."

"I'm still going!" Heroine Yin was full of curiosity toward the novel dining format of a buffet.

"All right, fine." Cheng Yun expressed his resignation.

By now it was close to half-past six, and young women dressed in ancient-style long skirts began taking the stage in the restaurant to perform traditional music, mostly on the guzheng and flute.

The ethereal music enveloped the entire restaurant.

There was only one station for the grilled lamb chops, tended by a chubby chef, but the restaurant was packed—presumably because everyone loved the stuff—resulting in a long queue forming in front of the lamb chop pick-up spot.

With no other choice, Cheng Yun had to drag Heroine Yin into line.

Suddenly, his phone chimed. Cheng Yun quickly picked it up to check, finding a message on the official WeChat account.

It turned out to be from Hao Nianwen:

Boss, I heard you ran off with your front desk girl?

Cheng Yun breathed a sigh of relief, realizing it was a false alarm. He replied: I brought my sister and staff out for a big meal, might be back a bit late.

Oho, China's Good Boss!

Cheng Yun looked up. There were still a few people ahead of him in line, so he continued typing: Yeah, everyone's been so busy since the recent opening, and the front desk girl has worked hard. Plus my sister helps me with every little thing without taking a cent of salary, worrying herself sick for me from morning till night. I had to treat them to a meal to smooth things over.

Heroine Yin stood beside him, standing on tiptoe with her chin slightly raised to peer at his phone. She suddenly frowned in dissatisfaction and said, "The cleaning lady works hard, too."

"Fine, fine, you worked hard, too."

"Then why aren't you telling her!"

"You, oh you..." Cheng Yun twitched the corner of his mouth and typed again: Right, and the cleaning lady.

Just then, seeing that their turn in line was approaching, a long tail of people had formed behind them as well. Suddenly, a few women in their late forties sidestepped their way over like a pair of crabs and squeezed right into the line! Following that, these middle-aged women stood right in front of Cheng Yun and Heroine Yin with utter peace of mind, each staring up and ahead at a 45-degree angle with expressions that screamed, 'I know nothing, I hear nothing, I've been standing right here from the very beginning.'

Heroine Yin's mouth parted slightly, utterly dumbfounded by this maneuver.

She extended a finger to point ahead, her hand trembling slightly as she looked at Cheng Yun. "This... Station Master, didn't you say people in your world line up orderly when it's crowded? Wh... what is going on here?"

Instead of answering, Cheng Yun spoke up toward the front, "Grandmas, you need to go to the back of the line to queue!"

None of the anticipated retorts—such as Who are you calling grandma? or We were standing here the whole time—materialized. The middle-aged women acted as though they were deaf, standing stiffly in place facing forward.

Cheng Yun raised his voice, a hint of hostility creeping into his tone. "Everyone, go to the back of the line!"

People behind them heard him; some frowned, while others muttered mild reprimands, but those women simply played completely deaf and dumb.

Cheng Yun felt like he had punched a pile of cotton, nearly coughing up a mouthful of blood!

It seemed these middle-aged women were seasoned professionals!

What could he even do...

Only then did Cheng Yun turn his head to answer Heroine Yin, "That's called being lacking in basic decency, cutting in line. You must never learn from them and do things like this, or people won't just look down on you—they'll curse you behind your back. If you have a grandson in the future, even your grandson won't have any balls."

Even upon hearing this remark, only one of the women turned around to glare fiercely at Cheng Yun; the rest continued to ignore it entirely, as steady as Mount Tai.

"Oh! I get it! These old bags cut our line!" Heroine Yin finally caught on. Her eyes narrowed, and she began to exude a trace of fierce temperament. "One of those old bags even dared to glare at me. She must be tired of living!"

"Where's my knife!" Heroine Yin instinctively reached for her waist, only to grab empty air. "No knife is fine, too. Station Master, just stand right here and don't move, leave these old bags to me!"

"Hey!!" Cheng Yun quickly grabbed her.

"What?" Heroine Yin frowned at him with a righteous expression. "I'm upholding justice and stepping in for a righteous cause!"

"Those old bags are nothing to mess with!" Cheng Yun leaned close to her ear and whispered. "They're shameless people, whereas both you and I care about our pride. If things really blow up, they aren't afraid of losing face, but we are! Besides, trying to reason with them is useless. If you make a move, she'll drop to the floor and scream in pain right away, and you'll end up having to pay compensation!"

"They're that tricky?" Hearing the word 'compensation', Heroine Yin quickly calmed down.

"Yeah," Cheng Yun nodded. "So sometimes you avoid certain people not because you're afraid of them, nor because you find them troublesome, but simply because you think they're filthy, and giving them a slap would just make you have to wash your hands."

"Oh, makes sense." Heroine Yin nodded, though her face remained somewhat overcast.

The women quickly grabbed their food, their plates piled high with grilled lamb chops, and shot a look of utter disgust at Cheng Yun and Heroine Yin behind them as they left.

Heroine Yin's gaze turned chilling, the sudden burst of murderous aura combined with the scar on her face easily scaring the women back a step.

Only then did Cheng Yun and Heroine Yin step forward.

The chef behind the counter, however, said, "Sorry about that, folks. The freshly grilled batch was just taken by those women. The rest of you in line will have to wait a little bit—won't take long, about ten minutes should do it."

Cheng Yun froze as a nameless fire flared up in his chest.

Heroine Yin's face grew even more turbulent, her hands clenching into fists as faint, crisp cracking sounds echoed from her knuckles.

If not for the thought of having to pay compensation, she would have lost her temper long ago!

"Despicable!"

Suddenly, she glanced toward the spot where the middle-aged women had walked off to, and more than half of her anger instantly vanished. She tugged at the corner of Cheng Yun's clothes. "Station Master, let's go. We don't need to line up anymore."

"I don't feel like waiting in line—wait, what?" Cheng Yun followed her gaze and saw that those women were sitting at a table right next to theirs. Their table was loaded to the brim, and the moment they dropped off their lamb chops, they had turned right back around to go fetch other dishes.

"How are you so sharp?!" Cheng Yun patted Heroine Yin on the head.

"Of course!" Heroine Yin puffed out her chest proudly.

"Are you making a move, or am I?"

"Leave this kind of work to me. I'm fast, you just stand guard for me!" Heroine Yin patted her chest loyally.