Chapter 564: – The night before
Xia Tian’s restaurant finally opened.
By mid January, just a couple of days into Lin Jin’s winter break, Xia Tian’s place finally finished with the renovations as well as all the follow up work.
In total, there were five servers, one cashier, and three chefs.
Even though the shop was now open and the location could be considered pretty good, being near Wanda and Jimei University. But the unfortunate thing was that on the first day, Xia Tian’s restaurant only got one table of customers.
Lin Jin also went over to have a look after the renovations finished. The restaurant was renovated in a more vintage style. It had two floors, totaling about twenty or so tables. If the restaurant was filled with people, five servers clearly wouldn’t be enough. But Xia Tian had clearly predicted that it wouldn’t be too busy after just opening, so he didn’t hire too many.
Then, with Lin Jin’s help, Xia Tian’s restaurant known as “A Gourmet Restaurant” started trending all over the Dota 2 community.
The live stream during this period had allowed Lin Jin and Xia Tian to build some connections with other streamers, like the somewhat well known bottom eight teams in the 2014 Dota 2’s The International. They mentioned Xia Tian’s restaurant on Weibo, and even mentioned it in passing on live streams. At the same time, Lin Jin also found some online news channels. From the middle to the end of January, this restaurant frequently appeared in the public eye.
So during this time, Lin Jin, who just started her winter break, still couldn’t slack off. As the restaurant’s mascot, she had to dress up as a server and get to work. In one day, there would be at most five or so tables of Lin Jin or Xia Tian’s fans who showed up after hearing the news.
Even though the daily customer traffic gradually went up because of the publicity, it was still only enough to keep the place running for now.
Lin Jin and Xia Tian then talked it over and decided to hold their first offline fan meetup in the middle of February, and the venue would be their restaurant.
But before that, Lin Jin’s engagement party came.
A few days before the engagement, Lin Jin’s mom came from out of town and took her to stay at a friend’s place nearby. At the same time, Xia Tian’s parents and relatives also showed up a few days in advance.
To be honest, Lin Jin had never met Xia Tian’s parents before, she didn’t even know what they were like. But maybe because Xia Tian told them that Lin Jin was the main reason he could open the restaurant, his parents didn’t give them a hard time for the hasty engagement this time. They just came a few days early, had a meal with Lin Jin and her family, and then nodded in satisfaction.
Lin Jin’s mom and Lin Chen were probably the people most dissatisfied with this engagement.
In her mom’s opinion, even though Xia Tian might be somewhat capable and might really be a bit more handsome than your average man, but not only did he not have a house or car, he was even in debt.
Fortunately, this was just an engagement party. So in order to leave Lin Jin a way out, her mom didn’t accept Xia Tian’s symbolic bride price of a few thousand yuan, nor did she accept any betrothal gifts. She just kept a sour look on her face.
Xia Tian and Lin Jin were really troubled by this. Lin Jin’s mom’s actions were as if she was prepared to help Lin Jin break off the engagement in the future.
The engagement was kept really simple because of Xia Tian’s practically empty wallet and Lin Jin’s mom’s interference. The set plan was just to pick up the bride, a banquet, then an auspicious announcement by the emcee, followed by food and drinks and that was it.
It sounded easy enough, but Lin Jin felt that this engagement felt really rushed to the point of being scuffed. It was like going to have a meal with a bunch of people she may or may not even know.
And then, on the day before the engagement, Lin Jin found that something was off.
At her mom’s friend’s place, her mom had already started their hometown’s ancestral worship ceremony the night before. Worshiping ancestors, offering incense and paper, all must be carried out at twelve o’clock at night. And Lin Jin also had to stay for the entire thing.
And Lin Jin, who didn’t really wear makeup, was surrounded by several of her mom’s friends the day before to apply and test different makeup on her, to see what was the most suitable.
Lin Jin didn’t hate makeup, but she really hated being tossed around by others. But very pitifully, as the protagonist for these few days, she could only be tossed around by others.
She put on a white dress, put on beautiful light makeup, applied pink nail polish, and her hair was also lightly dyed and permed.
When she appeared before a mirror again, her own appearance surprised her.
Lin Jin had never thought that after putting on makeup and changing her style, her usual student appearance could suddenly turn into such a gentle wife look.
This was clearly just an engagement.
Lin Jin helplessly sighed. Today was just the test run. Once tomorrow arrived, she apparently had to get up at six in the morning to do her hair and makeup, then get in Xia Tian’s car at seven. After performing a bunch of formalities, she then still had to go greet the guests before finally being able to eat and rest.
Some of her friends also came.
Teacher Lin, this boyfriendless old leftover woman, who would always enviously look at Lin Jin. Rabbit, who had apparently already broken up with her boyfriend, was also invited. Whenever she saw Lin Jin’s appearance, she would always look amazed, and then start blushing.
There was also Chen Xinya, Yufei, and Shi Yuli from her hometown. Most of Lin Jin’s female friends were all here.
Even though they had more or less known about Lin Jin having a boyfriend, but none of them ever imagined that Lin Jin would actually get engaged so soon.
Among them, the most confused one had to be that Shi Yuli person.
Since she had hurriedly come over from the county town and didn’t have anywhere else to stay, so she slept on the same bed as Lin Jin at night.
However, even though Lin Jin was already a bride about to be engaged, Yuli still felt a bit awkward.
“Lin Jin, you… weren’t you a f*cking crossdresser?”
This polite and studious girl couldn’t help but swear.
“WWhen did I ever say I was a crossdresser?” Lin Jin had just taken off her makeup and was lying on the bed, reading a novel with her legs crossed. She turned her head and rolled her eyes at Yuli sitting at the head of the bed “I’ve never said that before.”
“So you mean, you’re actually a girl?” The corner of Yuli’s mouth twitched.
Despite she being childhood friends with Lin Jin, but in Yuli’s eyes, Lin Jin really was a boy! Even though Lin Jin would often be dressed up as a girl, and she would also occasionally dress up as a girl when she went back last year, but Yuli had really always just assumed Lin Jin was crossdressing!
At most, he just had a feminine heart.
But carefully thinking about it, Yuli didn’t seem to have seen Lin Jin naked before. Therefore, Lin Jin being a girl who tricked her by pretending to be a boy, seemed to really be possible.
After all, it couldn’t be that she took a trip to Thailand, right?
Yuli stared at Lin Jin’s eyes for a bit. In the end, she still felt it was a bit unbelievable.
“Just go sleep, we have to get up early tomorrow.” Lin Jin turned over to face Yuli, and pulled the quilt over her own head.
Yuli lay down on the bed with a bitter smile, keeping some space between Lin Jin: “How do you expect me to sleep? I always thought you were a guy…”