Toxic Besties

"Why should we?"

"Exactly, why should we? Just tell us, weren't we here on a blind date? Who makes the woman pay on a blind date? We're not paying."

"No matter how you look at it, we shouldn't be the ones paying."

They chimed in one after another, aggressive and overbearing.

The server wasn't intimidated. His supervisor had already instructed him that the money had to be collected today. "If you refuse to pay, I'll call the police."

"Go ahead. Hurry up and call them. You think we're scared of you?"

The hotel lobby descended into chaos, with people grabbing and pulling at one another. Even the security guards rushed over.

A curious guest asked the lobby manager, "What's going on today? Why all this commotion? This is outrageous."

Everyone who could afford to dine at the Marriott was someone of standing. Seeing this, they frowned in displeasure and hoped it would be dealt with quickly before it spoiled their appetites.

The lobby manager smiled and casually offered one sentence. "President Xia is here today."

At those words, the people around him immediately wiped the displeasure off their faces. "All right, then. We'll let you get on with it. We won't interrupt."

Although they were very curious about what conflict these girls had gotten into with Xia Qinghe, none of them could stay to watch.

After all, watching certain spectacles came at a terrible price.

When Lin Fengmian and Xia Qinghe came out, they walked straight into the commotion. A sharp-eyed girl had already spotted them. She ran over, held out an arm to block them, and pointed at the two. "Everyone, come tell us who's being unreasonable! They're the ones we came to meet on a blind date. Who goes out for a blind-date meal and makes the women pay? Don't you agree?"

Those who hadn't managed to leave reacted to the sight of Xia Qinghe like mice spotting a cat. They all lowered their heads, not daring to look or listen, lest a vicious dog come out of nowhere and sink its teeth into their throats. Even if they survived, it would tear away a chunk of flesh.

Hands in his pockets, Xia Qinghe strolled carelessly into the center of the crowd. "Who brings a whole crowd to a blind date and orders over a million yuan's worth of food? You were clearly taking me, Xia Qinghe, for a sucker. Did you think I'd let you get away with it?"

The people around them began murmuring.

"Judging by their clothes, they probably come from ordinary working families, right?"

"Even the most expensive dress among them only costs one or two thousand yuan. How did they dare come here?"

"Exactly. A glass of Coke here costs 588 yuan. They were obviously using the blind date as an excuse to fleece someone."

"They probably didn't know their blind date was President Xia, did they? If they'd known, they'd have been falling over themselves to suck up to him. Why would they do something this stupid?"

Blending into the crowd, Lin Fengmian scratched his nose without the slightest guilt and looked at Xia Qinghe, who was taking the heat for him in the middle of the crowd. This guy had loved being in the spotlight back in school. Now that he was in charge of the Xia Corporation, he had toned it down considerably, but he hadn't changed at heart.

Lin Fengmian felt no unease whatsoever about his best friend taking the heat for him and played the innocent onlooker with a clear conscience.

Xia Qinghe shot him a look that said, Just you wait.

Unintimidated, Lin Fengmian glared right back.

I told you to do it my way. We could've just left, but you were the one who insisted on going back.

If we'd left, none of this would've happened.

And now you're blaming me?

Xia Qinghe didn't care.

The pressure from the crowd was getting to be too much for the girls. The police had also learned what had happened and took everyone to the station for mediation.

When they learned that the girls had used a blind date as an excuse to eat over a million yuan's worth of food, even the police looked grim. They had encountered similar cases before, but those bills had amounted to a few hundred yuan at most.

These people, however, had spent over a million.

"When you ordered, did you know these dishes were so expensive?" an officer asked.

One girl stiffened her neck, refusing to admit it no matter what. "We didn't know the prices."

The hotel lobby manager had known the girls would try to dodge responsibility and had come prepared. He brought out their menu, a thick volume with a genuine leather cover. "The prices are clearly listed on our menus."

He then produced a USB drive. "This contains the hallway surveillance footage. We have video proving that they knew the prices when they ordered."

The girls remembered chattering in the hallway before entering the private room and commenting on how expensive the hotel was. That could prove they had known it was a high-end establishment. But things had reached this point, and they could only keep digging themselves deeper. "What gives you the right to install surveillance cameras in the hotel and violate your customers' privacy?"

The lobby manager said, "Our hotel receives guests all day. It's a public place. What's wrong with installing cameras in a public place? It's not like we installed them in your home."

"You..."

Another argument broke out, and the officers hurried forward to stop it and let both sides calm down.

"If you knew the prices were so high, why did you order?" the officer asked again.

The girls resisted in silence.

Jian Yi and Huang Yahua arrived drenched in sweat. After learning the full story, Jian Yi's face turned ashen.

"Your sister is that kind of person?" She normally seemed so quiet and reserved. He never would have guessed she could do something like this.

Just imagining his father-in-law finding out that he had introduced a girl like this to his most beloved youngest son gave Jian Yi a splitting headache.

Huang Yahua had no defense. He had told his sister long ago that those besties of hers would only hurt her, but she had refused to believe him. Now look what had happened. Over a million yuan, split among them, still meant more than a hundred thousand each.

They all came from ordinary working families. They had a hundred thousand or so, but spending that much on a single meal hurt worse than being killed.

Huang Yahua took another look at the girls, each apparently determined to wear her best clothes and prettiest makeup, making his sister look dowdy by comparison, and understood.

Exasperated by her failure to know better, he stepped forward and slapped Huang Yachu. "Look what you've done! I warned you over and over yesterday not to tell these friends of yours that your blind date was someone from the Lin Family."

Huang Yachu hadn't expected things to turn out this way either. She usually had little presence in their group chat. She wasn't as pretty as these friends, nor was her figure as good as theirs.

Having landed a blind date with someone from the Lin Family, she naturally couldn't resist showing off to her friends. Who could have known that as their group chat continued, it would turn into everyone coming along to vet him for her?

Besides, "Isn't the Lin Family rich, though, Brother? A million or so shouldn't be a big deal to them, right?"

"What does the Lin Family's money have to do with any of you?" Jian Yi was already furious, especially since these people remained unrepentant and thought they had done nothing wrong.

He had dragged his brother-in-law into this.

Jian Yi turned, but couldn't find Lin Fengmian. Instead, he saw a hostile-looking young man standing with his arms folded, staring impatiently at their group.

Jian Yi asked, "Officer, have you seen a very pretty young man? His name is Lin Fengmian."

"He's asleep," the hostile-looking young man answered for the officer.

Following the young man's gaze, Jian Yi finally found Lin Fengmian on a sofa in the hallway, covered with a couture suit jacket. "..."

"He usually takes a nap after lunch. Don't wake him. You can discuss anything you need with me."

"What's happened here is already perfectly clear. I'm not paying this bill." Xia Qinghe would swallow anything except a loss. He could send even his own father to prison to work a sewing machine, never mind a group of unrelated strangers.

If they dared take advantage of him, Xia Qinghe would make them pay for it.

"We don't have the money. We can't afford it." At this point, everything had been exposed anyway, so they simply threw caution to the wind.

"If you can't pay, prepare to be sued." The hotel lobby manager hadn't risen to his position by being a pushover.

Fourth Young Master Lin had come for a blind date, but he hadn't eaten a single bite of the food ordered earlier. President Xia had also paid for the food they ordered afterward, which cost over ten million yuan. They had barely eaten any before someone overturned the table and scattered it across the floor.

They were already saints for not demanding compensation from these idiotic women.

The police also explained the law to the young women. "You deliberately ordered food despite knowing you couldn't afford the high cost. That conduct may already constitute fraud, especially with the amount exceeding a million yuan. In addition, using violence to refuse payment after dining may constitute the offense of picking quarrels and provoking trouble."

"We'll now conduct mediation." The officer looked at the hotel representatives and the women. "Do both parties agree to mediation?"

The hotel was in business to make money, and harmony brought prosperity. They didn't want conflict, but they weren't afraid of trouble either. After all, they couldn't have established such a large hotel in Shengjing without some backing.

The lobby manager said, "That depends on them. If they're willing to pay for the meal, we won't pursue the matter."

Huang Yahua answered immediately, "We agree to mediation."

Huang Yachu kept her head down and sniffled without saying anything. Hearing that their actions might constitute criminal offenses, the others all wilted. If they didn't want to end up working sewing machines in prison, they had to seize this last chance at mediation.

They could only reluctantly agree.

After several rounds of discussion, both sides finally made concessions. Once the hotel provided its ingredient purchase records and confirmed that the ingredient prices had not been inflated, the women were only required to pay the cost of the ingredients.

But the ingredients alone had cost over seven hundred thousand yuan, leaving each of them with more than seventy thousand to pay.

Every one of them was sick with regret.

One meal had eaten up a year or even two years of their savings.

When they left the police station, Lin Fengmian still hadn't woken. Xia Qinghe carried him bridal-style, with the suit jacket covering his face.

Jian Yi couldn't even find an opportunity to apologize and had to let it go.