Damn it, I'm surrounded by childhood sweethearts

Chapter 289 - 198. Zhang Yiyi’s birth father

The two happily finished their afternoon tea at the shop and then went to the market to buy vegetables.

After personally cooking a sumptuous dinner for Xia Xiaoxiao, their New Year celebration came to an end.

Both had their own circumstances, but neither needed to return to their paternal families for New Year greetings, so starting from the third day of the year, Xu Qingfan and Xia Xiaoxiao stayed home playing video games.

Playing QQ Speed for too long would eventually bore anyone, and Xia Xiaoxiao had already given up her dream of becoming a professional eSports player, unless Xu Qingfan joined her for team mode play; otherwise, she didn’t even want to touch the game anymore.

On the fourth day of the New Year, Zhang Yiyi came to Lianhua Courtyard to hang out with them, and on the sixth day, Lin Wanning returned to Li City from his hometown. On the seventh day, Wu Lingyu made a special trip from Hong Kong to pay them a New Year’s visit. Except for Xiao Ruawen, who was still in the military and hadn’t returned, their small group was together again.

Xu Qingfan played the role of tour guide and took everyone around for a few days of joyful play, and before they knew it, it was Lantern Festival.

Zhang Chunxue had mentioned a while ago that she would take him to a dinner party on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and she even asked him on the phone if he had the time.

Naturally, Xu Qingfan said he did. Auntie’s dinners weren’t to be missed—no time would be made!

On the fifteenth, he changed clothes, put on shoes, and after telling Xia Xiaoxiao not to cook that day, it wasn’t long before he was waiting at the entrance of Lianhua Courtyard for Zhang Chunxue’s Maybach.

After opening the passenger door, he was slightly surprised to find Zhang Yiyi was also in the car.

Xu Qingfan had originally thought the dinner Aunt Zhang mentioned was the usual business dinner, which he had become particularly adept at handling after attending so many.

However, such dinners usually didn’t involve Zhang Yiyi, after all, not everyone was as precocious as Xu Qingfan.

"Auntie, where are we going for the feast?" He closed the passenger door and sat in the back seat to keep Zhang Yiyi company.

"Morning, Yiyi."

"Brother, good morning!" Zhang Yiyi squinted and let Xu Qingfan stroke her head.

Zhang Chunxue glanced at their small gestures through the rearview mirror and laughed, "We’re going to a private kitchen, a place I’ve never taken you to before."

"Who’s going to be there?"

"Yiyi’s grandparents and uncle and auntie, of course. You’ve met them all."

"Oh!"

[Why not invite Wanning?]

Although he was curious, seeing that Zhang Chunxue didn’t want to elaborate, he tactfully refrained from asking more.

The car soon entered the highway, and he chatted with Zhang Chunxue about the 3G license matter, while Zhang Yiyi quietly listened to him the whole way, focusing on his profile.

It had been almost two years since Apple "redefined the mobile phone." In developed countries, 3G technology and touchscreen phones were almost universally adopted. Though Huaxia was somewhat behind, it was also ready to catch up quickly.

Not many days were left before the release of Meizu M8, the first Chinese-made touchscreen marvel. Standing at the threshold of a burgeoning era in mobile technology, they had to seize the opportunity.

The mobile version of Good Taste Takeout was already developed, and they had signed an agreement with Meizu: if their app came pre-installed in the phone’s settings, they would subsidize Meizu with five yuan for every phone sold.

Actually, they would have preferred to partner with Samsung, because before the Note7 fiasco, Samsung and Apple dominated the domestic smartphone market, leaving the scraps for other manufacturers to divvy up.

Unfortunately, Samsung’s asking price was too high, and the partnership never materialized.

Besides, they did another thing: they fully acquired an app called Wandoujia, which was another traffic entrance they had prepared for Good Taste Takeout.

As for going into mobile social networking, Xu Qingfan considered it and then gave up the idea. Just the migration of QQ friends alone meant he was doomed to lose to Tencent. Tencent would effortlessly copy their features, and the endgame would be either being acquired by Tencent or going bankrupt.

"Looks like it’s going to rain, doesn’t it?" Xu Qingfan spoke with a dry throat. After taking a sip of water and looking outside, the originally clear sky had turned a murky gray.

"There, the dividing line!" Zhang Yiyi turned around to point it out to him, and on the other side, it was still sunny.

"It’s okay, we’re about to arrive; we should make it in time." Zhang Chunxue glanced at the car’s navigation and said.

No sooner had she finished speaking than heavy rain poured down, and fierce winds howled outside. Zhang Chunxue turned on the interior light, and the windshield wipers swung non-stop.

"Terrible weather," she muttered softly, but her words seemed to carry an underlying message.

Fortunately, it was a Monday workday and the Spring Festival holiday had just ended—there were hardly any vehicles on the highway.

The visibility ahead was only a little more than ten meters, so Zhang Chunxue turned on the car’s hazard lights and switched on the high beams.

In the heavy rain, on an overpass, in a Maybach, Xu Qingfan suddenly felt a sense of absurdity, as if a novel had intruded into reality, fortunately, their car was silver.

Zhang Chunxue was fully focused on observing the road conditions, and for a while, the interior of the car was very quiet.

After another ten minutes or so, they finally made it through the toll gate without any mishaps.

"Auntie’s driving skills are really good, I wouldn’t dare to drive in this!" Xu Qingfan said with a laugh as he saw Zhang Chunxue relax a bit.

"Don’t jinx it, Xiao Fan. If the weather is still like this when we return, we might have to spend the night in Hong Kong."

"Mommy is the best!" Zhang Yiyi clapped her hands proudly and said.

"Hahaha..."

Soon, the car entered a private garden and stopped at the entrance, where a waiter immediately came to open the door and hold an umbrella for them.

Following a cheongsam-clad young woman, Xu Qingfan walked through the mahogany gate; had he not known they were here to eat, he would have never guessed this place was a private kitchen.

"Yiyi, come to Uncle, you’ve grown so tall!"

"I was thinking of calling to pick you up, but speaking of Cao Cao, Cao Cao arrives."

"Don’t stand outside in the rain, let’s go in and talk."

As soon as they walked into the pavilion, perhaps alerted by the staff, Zhang Chunxue’s older brother and sister-in-law were already outside to greet them.

Besides them, there was also a middle-aged couple he had never met before.

"Long time no see." The man who greeted them with a warm and learned smile was obviously an intellectual. He extended his hand to Zhang Chunxue.

"It has been quite a while," Zhang Chunxue nodded, ignoring the offered hand and taking Xu Qingfan and Zhang Yiyi inside.

The man wasn’t offended and, holding his wife’s hand, followed them inside.

"Brother Fan, Brother Fan, that song ’Without a Trace of Guard’ of yours is really nice to listen to; when will you release a new song?"

"Brother Fan, you haven’t released a comic for so long, aren’t you going to release any more?"

"Brother Fan..."

As soon as the three of them entered the room, a group of children gathered around them and kept asking questions nonstop.

As a child king with his own fan forum, Xu Qingfan obviously had a full grasp on the group of youngsters representing three generations in the room.

After brushing off the children, he and Zhang Yiyi approached the elders to greet them.

"Hello, Grandpa, hello, Grandma!"

Besides Zhang Yiyi’s grandparents, another pair of elderly people were sitting in the room. Imitating the others, they greeted them: "Hello to this Grandpa and Grandma too, wishing you good health and long life."

"Thank you, young friend, for your kind words," the elderly man laughed heartily. However, when it was Zhang Yiyi’s turn, he just responded with a gentle "hm."

There was still some time before the meal, and during this period many of Zhang Chunxue’s paternal and maternal relatives came up to engage her in conversation.

The entire family now knew that her business was growing bigger and bigger, resulting in them treating her more respectfully; the kind of admonishments that "it is miserable for a woman to grow old without getting married" were never heard again.

Zhang Chunxue had now become the family’s God of Wealth, and everyone was hoping she would bring them along for the ride to riches!

"Cousin, if you have some spare cash, I still recommend buying retail space directly. Joining Good Taste Milk Tea, you can recoup your investment in about half a year. If you’re interested, I have lots of well-selected locations under my control. You just need to hire people to manage the stores, and I’ll get my employees to handle all the renovations for you."

"That doesn’t sound bad..."

[How could it not be bad, it’s like feeding money right into your mouth!] Xu Qingfan thought to himself.

He and Zhang Yiyi stayed close to Zhang Chunxue throughout, refilling her teacup whenever it was empty, and before long he learned from the conversation about the identities of the middle-aged man and the two elders they had seen at the entrance.

Zhang Yiyi’s biological father and grandparents!