Tenant’s Secret Love

Chapter 72: Unexpected meeting

After I finished talking about letting Daphne treat me to dinner, she looked at me again, unable to decide whether to laugh or cry. After a while, she said to me, “Then I'll treat you.”

I was suddenly relieved. This awkward situation was resolved by my own cheekiness. After thinking about it, I said to Daphne, “When you go back, don't tell your parents that I don't have money to treat you to dinner. If this gets back to my parents' ears, it will have a really bad effect!”

“Don't worry, I won't tell. Just think of it as treating a friend to dinner!” Daphne said cheerfully.

I gave Daphne a thumbs-up and said, “Girl, you have a good sense of awareness, I really admire you.”

“Alas! It's not that I have a high sense of awareness, I really have no choice in this matter! You said that the two of us came out on a blind date, and you don't have the money to pay the bill, so it must be me!” Daphne sighed with a smile.

Daphne's words made me feel a little embarrassed, and I said awkwardly, “I heard that on the road of blind dates, you will definitely meet one or two weirdos, and you met me, right?”

“If you want to talk about weird, you definitely take the cake.”

I glanced at the wallet Daphne had placed on the table and then said something even weirder: “Look, we know each other pretty well here, so why don't you be a good person and do this for me? I really need money right now, so why don't you lend me some? I'll pay you back when I get a job and start earning a salary. It won't take long, two months at most.”

“How much do you

Daphne then took out 1,000 yuan in cash from her wallet and handed it to me. I said “thank you” and shamelessly accepted it again.

About half an hour later, Daphne and I finished dinner. In the end, I used the 1,000 yuan I borrowed from her to pay the bill. Of course, this was still a good result, and I could consider it as treating her to dinner, because I would definitely repay the 1,000 yuan borrowed from her.

In the night, Daphne and I stood in front of the coffee shop. I asked her, “How did you get here?”

“I took a taxi.”

“Then let me give you a ride home.”

Daphne shook her head and said, ”No, my home is not far from here, and it's easy to take a taxi.”

I didn't insist, because I understood that if a woman generally refuses a man's offer to give her a ride home, it means she is not satisfied with the man.

Of course I understood Daphne. It would be strange if she was satisfied. After all, she was already of marriageable age, and more consideration had to be given to the man's financial foundation.

Although I understood, I was still a little disappointed, because innocent love is becoming less and less common in an era where money is needed to prove everything, and it has even become extinct.

After a short silence, I said to Daphne, “Then give me your phone number, so that we can get in touch when I pay you back.”

Daphne nodded and gave me her number. I wrote it down and smiled, saying to Daphne, “I hope this blind date experience hasn't left a bad impression on you.”

“No, I think you're quite interesting. At least we didn't get bored together,”

I joked, saying, ”Alas! You saying this makes me feel even more apologetic, as if there's nothing else to recommend you apart from being able to joke around.”

“Everyone has something to offer, you just need time to discover it. But you really need to work hard at it. After all the kisses, you're the only one...” Daphne suddenly realized something and stopped talking.

But I knew that she was going to say that I was the only one who, at the age of 26, still had no savings and no job.

...

After the blind date, I drove my “Stubborn Father's” nearly-demolished Santana 2000 to the riverside opposite Xuanwu Market. Sitting alone on the grassy bank, I smoked a cigarette in some melancholy. My heart was filled with a sense of despondency, born of my inability to get a handle on my life.

The water in the moat flowed towards the east of the city under the autumn wind and night. I looked on blankly, gradually feeling that although my body was in the city, I was more like a bystander. The lights of thousands of households here had nothing to do with me at all.

I thought of Harlan and Natalie, and then Brittany and Robert. These four people almost constituted all my memories of university life. Perhaps at the moment they were all doing well.

I lay on the grass, looking at the starry sky with a silly expression on my face. Suddenly, I felt empty.

“Lucas, are you not going home after the blind date? What are you doing here alone?” My mother's voice suddenly sounded behind me.

I was startled, sat up from the lawn, and looked at her blankly. After a while, I asked, ”Mom, why did you follow me?”

“I followed you when you entered the coffee shop, and I sat at the table behind you with Daphne's mother.”

My mother's words made my heart race. If she had been sitting behind us the whole time, then she must have heard my conversation with Daphne!

I asked, “You said you wanted to leave us alone, so why did you follow us?”

My mother ignored my question and said to me with a stern face, ‘You unreliable son, have you ever borrowed money from a girl when you were on a date like this?”

“Mom, I really don't have any money!’ I sighed with a lack of confidence.

My mother sat down next to me, not angry, but with a softer tone, she asked me, “Tell me, how have you been spending these years in Suzhou?”

After a long time, I answered, ‘Just living an unreliable life... Mom, I really haven't been a good son, and I've always made you and Dad worry!”

“Everyone makes mistakes when they're young, just correct them and you'll be fine. You still have a long life ahead of you.”

“Yes,’ I nodded.

My mother put her arms around me and smiled, saying, “I'll persuade your father to let you find a job, so you can stay with us.”

“If he really doesn't want to, that's fine. I'll find a job myself. Fixing my mistakes starts with finding a job.”

“He's just stubborn. If he won't help his own son, who will he help?”

I was speechless. In fact, I couldn't figure it out myself: was it right or wrong to ask my stubborn father to help me find a job?

After a long while, I said, “Mom, you go back first, I want to be alone for a while.”

“Okay, but before I go, I have to ask you something.”

“Ask.”

“What do you think of Daphne? Do you want to go out with her?”

I thought for a while and said, ”Let's talk about going out later, nothing is stable right now.”

“Just one blind date and it made you so scared?”

I wiped my face and lay back on the grass without saying anything. I admit that I was a bit scared, but it wasn't because of the blind date itself, but because of my own situation.

I realized that although I had left Suzhou for a short time and said goodbye to my pain, I was even more at a loss, at a loss for my future.

...

That night, I stayed alone by the river for a long time and thought about a lot of things, but I didn't come up with any ideas. And whether the future will be good or bad cannot be decided just by thinking about it.

I didn't want to go home, so I kept driving, wandering around Xuzhou, the city where my life began. Looking out the window at the tall buildings, I suddenly remembered that I, too, once had great ambitions. I wanted to be an outstanding entrepreneur, not only to realize my own value, but also to help more people realize their own value.

Then, I don't know when, I forgot about this great aspiration and learned to play the guitar. Since then, I have played the guitar and sung about the vicissitudes of life, but I can't sing about a complete love, so I don't want to think about that aspiration to be an entrepreneur anymore!

People either succeed, are content with the status quo, or degenerate. I was unlucky, and in the end, I just degenerated. But I often can't remember exactly how I degenerated and when it started!

When depravity becomes a habit, one gradually stops feeling ashamed. So I went to the game arcade again, bought a small basket of game tokens, and played a fighting game with a kid who looked like a junior high school student.

I took a drag on my cigarette as I manipulated the game console's Iori Yagami, landing a light kick, then a heavy hand, then a series of sunflower-style combos, and finally unleashing my ultimate move, instantly knocking out the character controlled by the kid.

The child blushed and looked at me, afraid to speak. This made me feel an overwhelming sense of loneliness, and then I laughed to myself. I had sunk so low as to find a so-called sense of existence in a game.

I threw a game token at the child, signaling him to continue. The child's sadness turned to joy, and he threw the token into the game machine. So the two of us battled again, and amid the child's screams of agony, I pounded the game machine, making a “popping” sound.

“Lucas, you're pretty good at this game!” A woman's voice sounded behind me.

I was so focused on the game that I didn't pay any attention at first, but then I suddenly realized: how did someone in the game room know my name? I turned around abruptly and saw that Renee was standing behind me.

I looked at Renee like an i***t, thinking I was dreaming, and that I was still in Suzhou. The kid took the opportunity to unleash a big move and killed my character in the game!