Haggling

"That's good..." Liang Zhirou finally breathed a sigh of relief. Even the weariness on her face faded considerably.

It was her first time buying milk tea for a boy, and she was nervous to death.

Just as Chen Lu was about to tease her some more, his phone rang.

Chen Lu picked it up unhappily and glanced down at it.

It was Lin Miaomiao calling.

"What is it?" Chen Lu asked, somewhat speechless. Wasn't this getting in the way?

Lin Miaomiao sounded anxious. "Liang Zhirou's gone out of contact! I can't get through to her at all!"

"If you can't get through to her, why are you calling me?"

"You... oh, right. Why am I calling you?" A not-so-clever voice came from the other end of the line.

Chen Lu smiled at Liang Zhirou, who looked curious, and put the call on speaker. "I'm done teasing you. I'm right next to her. Her phone ran out of battery."

"That's a relief. I knew this fool wouldn't even be willing to rent a power bank."

As she spoke, Lin Miaomiao seemed to remember something and suddenly shouted:

"You shameless pair! You should both be drowned in a pig cage!"

Liang Zhirou said nothing, her face full of guilt as she considered what to buy Lin Miaomiao.

After a moment of silence, she looked up and asked:

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

The girl still remembered why Chen Lu had asked her to come here. Although she would have been happy to sit with him like this even without a reason, she was still afraid he really did have something to say.

"My parents have been looking for a tutor for my little sister lately. I wanted to ask if you were interested." Chen Lu didn't say that he had already paved the way and was just waiting for her to agree.

With this stubborn, somewhat adorable airhead, he had to coax her along one step at a time.

"I... I'm not suitable..." Liang Zhirou hurriedly refused. How could she be willing to go?

It wasn't that she hadn't considered tutoring before, but she had been far too shy around strangers. After a trial lesson of just half a class, they had replaced her.

After that, she had never looked for that kind of part-time job again.

"It's fine. What are you afraid of when you'd be teaching my sister? Isn't that much better than going to a stranger's place?"

Seeing the girl shake her head like a rattle drum, Chen Lu bent forward and gently pressed his index finger against her forehead, bringing her to a stop.

"Do you remember our agreement?" Chen Lu asked, looking at her.

Liang Zhirou blinked. The boy's determined gaze reassured her considerably, and after a few seconds, she finally made up her mind and slowly spoke:

"I... I'll give it a try?"

"That's more like it." Chen Lu sat back in his seat, satisfied, and took a sip of coffee. "My parents decided that you'd give her a trial lesson first. If they're all satisfied, you'll teach her on both days every weekend, two hours each evening, at three hundred an hour."

"That's... that's too expensive..."

"Pfft! Cough, cough, cough..."

Chen Lu nearly choked to death, and for a moment his brain couldn't keep up.

"What did you say? Too expensive?!" He stared at her in disbelief.

Are you crazy?!

"You're the one getting paid to work. What do you mean, too expensive? Liang Zhirou, are you an idiot?" After he finished coughing, Chen Lu kept laughing, both annoyed and amused.

Liang Zhirou was a little embarrassed by his laughter. She lowered her head and muttered, "It's because I'm an idiot that... that I won't be able to teach her well."

"If you were really an idiot, you wouldn't have gotten into this university." As Chen Lu spoke, he used his phone to show her what other students at their university charged for tutoring. "Look, they're all from our university."

They all charged several hundred yuan an hour, and the experienced ones asked for even more. Parents still scrambled to hire them.

When it came to their children's studies, parents never begrudged spending money and always did their utmost.

Seeing the girl keep shaking her head, Chen Lu continued, "Since you're such an idiot, how about two hundred and fifty an hour? That suits you. It can't go any lower."

Chen Lu thought it was strange. Why did it feel like their roles had been reversed?

It was one thing for this tutor not to ask for a higher rate, but she kept trying to push the price down.

He really had lived long enough to see everything.

"How about a little less?" Liang Zhirou bit her lip and cautiously raised her head, afraid she'd see Chen Lu glaring at her in anger the moment she looked up. Luckily, he was looking at her with a speechless expression, so she continued murmuring, "Would... would two hundred be okay?"

She still thought two hundred an hour was high. At eight lessons a month, she'd get 3,200 yuan for sixteen hours of teaching...

That was even more than she earned working part-time at the hotpot restaurant.

"Why don't you do it for free?" Chen Lu said irritably.

"Free is fine too... but we'd have to pick times when I'm not working." The girl was perfectly serious and hadn't picked up on his sarcasm at all.

It was Chen Lu's sister, after all. As long as she didn't mind her poor teaching, she could do it for free.

She was willing to help Chen Lu, even if it would be tiring.

Chen Lu fell silent and simply watched her without taking his eyes off her.

Liang Zhirou couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"D-don't be angry." The girl's voice was timid. With Chen Lu saying nothing, she didn't dare raise her head either, only sneaking a glance at him from time to time to see his expression.

A little while later, Chen Lu slowly got up, sat down beside her without a word or expression, and reached out to rub her head.

Liang Zhirou didn't resist, just squeezed her eyes shut.

Chen Lu used a little force, then soon gently smoothed her hair back into place.

Then he let out a long sigh and smiled helplessly. "Two hundred it is."