A Collision

Feng Jun pondered for a moment before replying quickly: This matter is quite complicated and hard to explain in a few words. Are you free at noon? Let me treat you to a meal.

Ye Qingyi's reply came just as quickly: I'm free. I can go to work a bit later this afternoon. Where should we eat?

Luohua Shijie: Can you skip work this afternoon? [shy]

Ye Qingyi: ? [confused]

Luohua Shijie: I mean... we could find a place to have a drink, or... watch a movie?

Ye Qingyi: That won't work. If the jade is in your hands, I could play with it all afternoon.

Luohua Shijie: Actually... we could play with other things. [smirk]

Ye Qingyi: Let's skip the "other things." Where are we eating?

Luohua Shijie: Somewhere near your company is fine. You pick the place, but it needs to have a private room. Also, don't bring anyone else.

Ye Qingyi: If I can't bring anyone... then let's go to the coffee shop. The one diagonally across from our company.

Seeing it was a coffee shop, Feng Jun couldn't help but frown. He had no interest in Western food and always felt it wouldn't fill him up.

Especially since, if he went to a coffee shop, it wouldn't be convenient for him to drink freely, nor would it be easy to encourage Ye Qingyi to drink.

However, in the end, he still sent an "OK" gesture: "The coffee shop it is, twelve o'clock noon!"

After putting his phone away, he wandered around the area and saw an adult supply store, so he couldn't help but go in and look around. Walking further, he saw a mobile phone store and walked in without hesitation.

When he came back out, he had a shopping bag in his hand containing a Maolin Phone, which he intended to give to Ye Qingyi.

This gift was a bit expensive, making it seem like he might have ulterior motives.

But in reality, Feng Jun felt he truly needed to thank Ye Qingyi. If not for her kind tip, he never would have dreamed of wandering into the antique shop next to Li Dafu's.

If he hadn't gone to the antique shop and used Ye Qingyi's name, he never would have endured the pain of spending one hundred yuan to buy that Jade Gourd Pendant.

Without the pendant, he would never have thought to pick up jade stones in the wilderness!

If he had stumbled upon a gold nugget, he certainly would have picked it up, but stones... those were everywhere in that river valley.

Therefore, buying a phone worth over two thousand to express his gratitude was perfectly normal.

At 12:20 PM, the two met outside the coffee shop. Ye Qingyi was wearing a lotus-root pink silk shirt and a knee-length blue A-line skirt. With her bare face and slim figure, she exuded youthful vitality in her simple, elegant style.

The coffee shop had no private rooms, only booths. However, the people here were mostly couples whispering to each other, and no one was being loud.

The two chose a booth and sat down. Feng Jun ordered a burger, a plate of pasta, and a beer. Ye Qingyi ordered an egg tart and a salad, along with a glass of juice and a cup of coffee.

Feng Jun looked at her, a bit surprised. "Ordering so many drinks... just drinking and not eating?"

"I don't have a big appetite," Ye Qingyi replied with a smile. "I only ordered an extra coffee because I heard you struck it rich."

Feng Jun raised an eyebrow, looking at her thoughtfully. "You've been asking around?"

Ye Qingyi nodded and replied naturally, "Mhm, there are no secrets in this industry, and this wasn't a small matter. But... I really didn't expect that you were the mysterious backpacker everyone was discussing."

"What's so mysterious about it?" Feng Jun shook his head and said with a smile, "I just don't like trouble."

Ye Qingyi nodded, agreeing with his words. "Still, I'm quite curious. Where did you get that jade from?"

Feng Jun glanced at her indifferently. "You want to know?"

Ye Qingyi immediately waved her hand and replied very decisively, "I'm just curious, that's all. Don't worry, I haven't told anyone about your news."

Feng Jun nodded and replied seriously, "I trust you. My intuition tells me you aren't that kind of person."

Hearing him say this, Ye Qingyi gave a faint smile—the kind of smile a girl next door would have: natural, warm, and innocent.

But immediately after, her face tightened. "Then why didn't you ask me to help you estimate the price before you sold it?"

Feng Jun blinked. "You seemed to have just said that you aren't very familiar with the jade market?"

Ye Qingyi wrinkled her nose and gave a dissatisfied huff. "Even if I'm not familiar with it, I still know more than you."

Feng Jun looked at her thoughtfully. "According to you, did I sell it too cheaply at six million?"

Ye Qingyi shook her head. "I didn't see the goods, so I can't say that. I can only say that in that kind of situation, even if Liang Haiqing wanted to cheat you, he had to be careful about his reputation... but it's said that you didn't even haggle at the time?"

Feng Jun nodded. "I didn't want to have much contact with them, so I sold it when it was close enough. I couldn't be bothered with the hassle."

"Sold it when it was close enough? Couldn't be bothered with the hassle?" Ye Qingyi's eyes widened. "Do you know that if you had just insisted a little, the difference would have been over a million?"

"I can imagine," Feng Jun nodded, then asked nonchalantly, "But so what?"

My indifferent demeanor must look pretty cool, right?

"So what?" Ye Qingyi was clearly angry. "If you had asked me for a price estimate back then, I would have given you a reasonable price range. If you had gone to negotiate with others after that, you wouldn't be in such a passive position now!"

"That's not how you look at it," Feng Jun waved his hand and said seriously. "If you gave me an estimate, but the buyer wouldn't pay that price, what would you have me do? Let you help me sell it?"

"It wouldn't have been a problem for me to help you sell it," Ye Qingyi replied with a hint of annoyance, but then she paused slightly, clearly realizing where the problem lay—taking on such a big responsibility made it seem like she had ulterior motives.

However, she felt truly wronged and couldn't help but glare at him. "You just don't trust me."

Feng Jun shook his head. "You're wrong. It's not that I don't trust you; it's that I don't trust myself... I had already planned to cash out as soon as possible, the faster the better. Even if I took a small loss, it wouldn't matter, as long as it wasn't too much."

"If I had asked you for an estimate first, I would have had expectations for the selling price. Once I had expectations, my mindset would easily become chaotic. It's very likely that when I should have let go, I would have been reluctant to do so. That would have gone against my original intention of selling as quickly as possible, leading to one mistake after another."

Ye Qingyi's mouth opened slightly, clearly not having expected him to have such considerations.

However, she immediately accepted this explanation.

She cast an astonished look at him, then nodded, "I really didn't expect your willpower to be so strong."

Feng Jun felt a bit embarrassed by the compliment and gave a dry laugh, "My willpower, actually, it's not necessarily..."

He was just about to say that in the face of a beauty like her, his willpower was quite weak, but unexpectedly, his phone rang at that moment.

The caller was Wang Haifeng, "Little Feng, where are you?"

"At the coffee shop diagonally across from Li Dafu on Fuxing Road," Feng Jun replied with a smile, "Old Wang, have you come back to life?"

"Wait for me," Wang Haifeng hung up the phone without another word.

Feng Jun put down his phone. Interrupted like this, he no longer had the heart to flirt, so he spoke seriously, "My willpower is average, but all in all, I know my own flaws well, so I choose to stay away from temptation and nip it in the bud."

Admiration flowed through Ye Qingyi's beautiful eyes, "Being able to see yourself clearly and knowing how to make trade-offs is even more difficult."

So I guess I'm not a petty person. Feng Jun agreed with her words in his heart, but deliberately gave a dry cough, "Actually, I was worried that what I found wasn't jade and was afraid you'd laugh at me... Would you feel better if I said that?"

"I'm not anyone to you, what right would I have to laugh at you?" Ye Qingyi's face flushed slightly, then she extended her slender palm, "Where's the video? Bring it here, let me see the mutton-fat jade pebble."

Just as she opened the video, the waiter brought their food over.

The two ate and chatted, pointing at the video to comment. By the time they were nearly finished, the waiter cleared the plates and cleaned the table, and Feng Jun took out the bag containing the phone, "Here, this is for you."

"For me?" Ye Qingyi looked at him strangely, "Why give it to me? Are you... plotting something?"

Of course, she said the last sentence in a joking tone.

"Consider it a thank you for guiding me on buying jade. Without your guidance, I probably would have missed the opportunity," Feng Jun replied with a smile.

But the next moment, he also returned a joke, "Of course, if you feel it's undeserved, you could consider compensating me."

"Compensate?" Ye Qingyi looked at him with a half-smile, "What kind of compensation?"

As the two were flirting there, two people walked over from the side. The man in the lead greeted them, "Hey, Little Feng... you sure know how to pick a spot. Damn it, we were stuck in traffic the whole way..."

"Feng Jun..." Another crisp voice rang out, and Xia Xiaoyu's smiling face peeked out from behind Wang Haifeng.

The next moment, the smile froze on her face. She looked at Ye Qingyi in surprise, then glanced at the phone bag on the table, blinking her eyes in a daze.

"So your name is Feng Jun," Ye Qingyi gave him a half-smile, then stood up and nodded slightly, "You go ahead and chat with your friends, I need to go back to work."

"This is just..." Feng Jun felt completely wronged. He looked at Xia Xiaoyu with a blank expression, then stood up as well, squeezing out a smile, "Little Yezi, it's only one-thirty, isn't it still early?"

His frustration lay in the fact that he couldn't explain to her that he had no relationship with Xia Xiaoyu, because he also had no relationship with Ye Qingyi, and thus had no standing to explain.

Although he had already planned to try and develop some kind of relationship with her, but... it hadn't happened yet, had it?

"Little Yezi?" Ye Qingyi stopped in her tracks, looked at him in surprise, and after a moment of hesitation, nodded with a half-smile, "Meeting you again during the season of falling flowers... hmm, not bad, a good name."

After saying that, she waved her hand, "Bye-bye," and walked away without looking back, not even glancing at the phone bag on the table.

Feng Jun didn't chase after her either, just looked at Wang Haifeng with great resentment, "Old Wang... what am I supposed to say about you?"