Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 86

Am I not worthy?

When people first start dating, they tend to fall into a brief period of awkwardness. Su Ruixi and Sun Miao were just like that. After discussing who would wash the insulated lunchbox, the two of them momentarily ran out of things to say. After a moment of silence, it was Sun Miao who spoke first: “Well, I’ll head back then.”

Su Ruixi couldn’t find any words to make her stay, just nodding and saying, “Okay.”

But when it was really time for her to leave, when they had reached the entrance of Su Ruixi’s large villa¹, and Sun Miao had put on her helmet, sat on her electric scooter, kicked up the kickstand, and was about to twist the throttle to leave, Su Ruixi suddenly felt reluctant to let her go. Feeling this reluctance, she began to unconsciously act a bit spoiled.

“Do you really have to go?”

“I need to go back and prepare the ingredients for tomorrow, otherwise I won’t make it in time to set up the stall.”

Su Ruixi pursed her lips. This brought the issue back to the original question—can’t you just live with me?

Although Su Ruixi was an awkward person who didn’t know what to say when people were right in front of her, as long as Sun Miao was by her side, Su Ruixi felt her heart² soften, and she felt happy inside. So she wanted Sun Miao to stay with her, even if they didn’t say anything.

But then again, Sun Miao had refused before, and her reason was quite valid: she had to go set up her stall, and this place was too far from the Education Park. Living in her own small, shabby rental unit, she could at least get a little more sleep.

Su Ruixi hesitated for a long time before finally speaking: “Then, after you’re done with the stall this time, can you move in with me?” She bit her lip, finally deciding to go all out. She didn’t want to keep asking herself, “Why should the latecomer surpass the old-timer³?”

“It’s also fine if I move in with you.”

The ultimate concession from the rich woman.

Su Ruixi definitely knew Sun Miao couldn’t afford a house. They were in an international metropolis where the average housing price was fifty to sixty thousand per square meter. Even an old, dilapidated, and small unit in a slightly more central area would start at one hundred thousand. Under these circumstances, Sun Miao, a street vendor… most likely couldn’t afford a house.

Although Sun Miao’s cooking skills were excellent, if she were to find a job at a major restaurant, an annual income of a million should be no problem. But for now, Sun Miao was solely focused on her little stall. Sun Miao wasn’t pretending to be poor; she genuinely didn’t have much money.

This could be seen from her daily attire and her phone. Not to mention her previous phone, which looked like it had been used for several years and was somewhat battered. But this new phone she had recently gotten was just an ordinarily priced device.

Evidently, Sun Miao truly didn’t have much money.

From this, it could be inferred that she lived by renting.

Su Ruixi could guess that Sun Miao was renting, but she definitely couldn’t guess what kind of place she was renting. When Sun Miao heard Su Ruixi say this, her little heart trembled. She hadn’t even wanted Su Ruixi to come to her place to pick up the lunchbox, let alone have her move in with her.

A super-rich woman like Su Ruixi, giving up her mansion worth half a “small goal”⁴ to live with her in a shabby little single-story house? The kind of rental unit in a large courtyard compound⁵ crammed with several households? Sun Miao felt it was unacceptable just thinking about it. Being in a relationship with her meant making the other person suffer?

Between making her partner suffer and being forced to live off a woman⁶, Sun Miao chose the latter.

He who understands the times is a wise man⁷; there was nothing wrong with living off a woman.

Sun Miao replied, “No, that won’t work. It’s better if I move in with you.” She considered for a moment, then said, “After I’m done with the stall this time.”

Su Ruixi’s eyes lit up; that wasn’t many days away. Sun Miao’s stall stints were always seven days, and this one was already almost halfway through. Soon she could live with Sun Miao! She was delighted, a smile spreading across her face. “Okay, it’s a deal.”

“En.”

Sun Miao twisted the throttle, ready to leave, but was stopped by Su Ruixi again. “Then tomorrow…”

She didn’t need to finish her sentence; Sun Miao understood immediately. She replied, “I’ll save some for you. In the morning, you buy one portion and take one portion to go. You can come anytime. In the evening, I’ll deliver food to you.”

Lately, she had been closing her stall very early because the student crowd was incredibly supportive. Although many students didn’t have much money and couldn’t come buy every day like the regular customers, there was no shortage of students. That Education Park, surrounded by throngs of students, who would, at the right time, come over in a dense, dark mass and buy everything from Sun Miao’s stall within a few hours.

And for the sake of good food, they would even wake up a bit earlier to rush over and queue at her stall.

If it weren’t selling out so quickly, Sun Miao wouldn’t have been able to say she’d deliver food in the evening.

Su Ruixi, however, was very happy to hear this and finally let Sun Miao leave.

When Sun Miao left, she also took the other clean insulated lunchbox with her. Riding her electric scooter, she started humming a song again: “Today is a good day, everything I wish for will come true~⁸”

That fellow, the System, was somewhat asking for a beating. When Sun Miao was unhappy and didn’t want to hum, it would ask why she wasn’t singing. When she was happily singing, the System would pour cold water on her: 【Host, you seem to be celebrating too early. According to my analysis, the gap between you and Su Ruixi is too large. Even if you are together now due to a momentary impulse, family, social circles, and society will crush you and Su Ruixi until you can’t hold your heads high, ultimately leading to a breakup.】

While waiting at a red light, Sun Miao’s singing stopped.

This System’s mouth, it really was exceptionally annoying.

Mainly because, what the System said was all true.

How could Sun Miao not know? The difference in status and position between her and Su Ruixi was too vast. Although it was no longer a feudal society, and things like being well-matched in social status⁹ weren’t valued as much as before, there was still some truth to the four words “well-matched in social status.”

Su Ruixi was born one of heaven’s favored children, holding a golden spoon since childhood, never having suffered any grievances. Being humiliated by Zhang Qiang previously was already a monstrous shame and humiliation for her. But for Sun Miao, suffering disdainful looks¹⁰ when down and out, or being repeatedly belittled, couldn’t even be considered major hardships.

She used to run a breakfast shop, having to get up at the crack of dawn to open. Her shop doors were already open when the sky was just beginning to lighten. Therefore, she had seen all sorts of customers.

Sun Miao’s shop had even been trashed once. She opened her shop early one morning, and not long after, three burly men, reeking of alcohol, came in. No need to ask; just looking at them, you could tell they had been drinking all night until dawn and still weren’t sober. Smelling of alcohol, they came to Sun Miao’s newly opened shop to buy breakfast.

Seeing that Sun Miao was a young girl, they demanded to buy alcohol.

Sun Miao ran a breakfast shop; at most, she sold drinks like soy milk, soy-based milk drinks, or mineral water. How could she possibly have alcohol? Sun Miao simply replied that her shop didn’t sell alcohol, and the three burly men started going crazy. They smashed things up in her shop and even wanted to “teach her a lesson.”

Sun Miao, a young girl, was fearless when pushed too far. She directly grabbed a kitchen knife, intimidated the three men, and then called the police. In the end, the police took the three men away and made them pay for the damages.

She appeared calm and composed throughout the ordeal, but in reality, the hand holding the knife was trembling.

She had to be thankful that this was a society ruled by law, which prevented anything truly terrible from happening to her. She had heard that back in the 80s and 90s, when dark and evil forces were powerful, there were even cases where shop owners were beaten to death.

Just from this one incident, the gap between the two of them was clearly not just ordinary. Besides these things, their education and the things they liked were also different. Su Ruixi had a good education, and her tastes were probably very refined, as could be seen from the decor of her home.

Sun Miao, however, was different; she couldn’t even get herself to read books. If she had loved studying, she wouldn’t have ended up going to a vocational high school after middle school. Although being an orphan with no money and needing to work part-time to earn extra income was also a factor, Sun Miao admitted she wasn’t much of a scholar.

If the two of them were together, would they really have common topics? If Su Ruixi talked to her about famous domestic and international literary works, music, or art, she couldn’t possibly respond by talking about some bizarre thing she saw while scrolling through videos today, right?

Sun Miao had actually already realized that they wouldn’t have many common topics. After dinner today, there was even an awkward silence for a while.

If there were no System, and Sun Miao was still running her small breakfast shop, the two of them wouldn’t even have had the chance to meet.

However, Sun Miao wasn’t the type to be overly cautious and scared to death. On the contrary, she was a very optimistic person. She hadn’t previously thought Su Ruixi was straight, nor did she dare to pursue her due to the status gap, because she wasn’t one of those “average-yet-overconfident”¹¹ types; she didn’t think she had any qualifications to win Su Ruixi’s affection.

Now that the opportunity was served right up to her, wouldn’t it be a bit impolite not to take a bite? Never mind whether they had common topics, whether it would be awkward, or whether they would break up in the future—just start dating first and see.

As for whether the relationship would last, that was a matter for the future. If she didn’t even dare to take the first step, then Sun Miao would have lived all these years in vain.

Su Ruixi’s parents? Hilarious. Sun Miao hadn’t even considered that hurdle yet. She’d worry about it if and when she lived to see that day. The red light went out, the green light came on. Sun Miao twisted the throttle and shot forward. The wind blew through her hair, her ponytail flying behind her, and she continued to sing:

“Riding my beloved little e-scooter, it will never get stuck in traffic~¹²”

The next morning, when Sun Miao went to set up her stall, her face was practically glowing, like she was basking in a spring breeze¹³. Only when she saw the Hip-hop Yabi duo did she feel a little guilty. Sun Miao tried her best to act as if nothing had happened, stopping at her usual spot, setting up her stall, and diligently tending to her business.

During this time, the Hip-hop Yabi duo didn’t come to bother her. It wasn’t until Sun Miao put on her mask that Hip-hop Mei suddenly spoke coolly, “Little Boss Sun, since when do you offer delivery service? How come I didn’t know? Who was it for? Cuiting Yayuan, oh? Which building?”

“It was a delivery for a friend.” Yabi Mei added, intentionally emphasizing the word “friend.”

Sun Miao choked. She knew it. She had run into so many people yesterday, including friends of these two, so they must have spilled the beans. Moreover, these two knew a lot, and perhaps by now, they had already figured out the relationship between her and Su Ruixi.

Hmm… Hip-hop Mei’s intelligence probably wasn’t enough to figure it out, but Yabi Mei definitely could!

Sure enough, Hip-hop Mei’s focus wasn’t at all on whether that person was Su Ruixi or what their relationship was. Instead, she directly said, “How can you offer delivery service to others? You say it’s a friend, am I not your friend?! Am I not worthy?!”

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