Don’t Even Think About It - Chapter 6

Inside the old alley, at Kaffa.

Qiao Yan had a rather productive day. In the morning, she wrapped bouquets and delivered orders, at noon, she went out to pick up inventory and from around one o’clock in the afternoon, she was stuck in the baking room, only managing to free herself around five.

The flower delivery to the Yifeng Group was handled by another male employee. Qiao Yan didn’t bother with that; she only called Jiang Kaipin during her break to ask if the flowers had arrived.

Jiang Kaipin was highly satisfied with the baby’s breath this time and left a five-star review online.

Qiao Yan didn’t dwell on it too much. Afterward, she completely washed her hands of the matter, focusing single mindedly on making desserts and heading out to help serve coffee whenever she had a spare moment.

Today’s afternoon tea was quite popular. Customers came and went in waves, and some employees from nearby companies even occupied the private rooms for team discussions. For a while, the shop was severely shorthanded.

Once things became less chaotic, Qiao Yan brewed a cup of honey water and carried it up to the third floor, heading up there to catch her breath. Having nothing else to do, she lounged on the recliner and scrolled through WeChat, checking up on what her acquaintances on her contact list were up to, thoroughly enjoying a rare moment of comfort.

The latest updates on her Moments feed were a mixed bag. Everyone was sharing their daily lives, interspersed with a few advertisements, the content was just as routine and uninspired as always.

Qiao Yan scrolled down post by post, taking an unprecedentedly leisurely pace to appreciate them, clicking on each one to take a look.

There was no sign of Zhou Xiyun in her Moments, not even a punctuation mark was to be seen.

She didn’t know if the other party had blocked her or if Zhou Xiyun’s account was just naturally like this.

Driven by the spirit that true knowledge comes from practical investigation, Qiao Yan exited her Moments feed, looked up Zhou Xiyun individually in her friend list, entered the chat box, tapped on the fine-arts artwork avatar, and smoothly clicked into the other woman’s Moments.

Once inside, she could actually still see all of her past updates; every single post was displayed on the screen.

Zhou Xiyun hadn’t blocked her, nor had she seemingly set any access restrictions.

Qiao Yan couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows, having thought this person would close off her Moments to her.

Zhou Xiyun’s Moments feed was very clean, with only a handful of things ever posted. There was only one single update on the entire account, and it had been posted back in 2014 that post had no text, only three landscape photos. They captured the old house in the Xijing Courtyard, the small bamboo grove in the yard, and the sky bathed in the glow of the setting sun.

It must have been posted right after she registered her WeChat account, just to try out the social media features.

Qiao Yan tapped on the photos and enlarged them for a look, discovering that her own house was featured in them too. Visually, it looked as though it stood side by side with the Zhou family home.

In reality, their families lived directly across from each other, separated by at least a dozen meters. Qiao Yan didn’t know how Zhou Xiyun had found that specific angle when taking the picture, but she had actually managed to bring the two buildings into alignment on a single line.

Finding it novel, Qiao Yan felt the urge to leave a “like,” but at the critical moment, she held back her impulse and backed out instead.

Their relationship hadn’t reached that level yet. Leaving a like would completely expose her, wouldn’t it? It would alert the other person that she had deliberately gone digging through her profile. Qiao Yan couldn’t bear to lose face, caring about her pride, she decided it was best to act completely indifferent across the board, regardless of whether Zhou Xiyun had actually received the flowers or not.

In any case, how should she put it? Zhou Xiyun had never lacked a bouquet or two, it didn’t amount to anything at all.

Had there been any shortage of guys pursuing Goddess Zhou in recent years? Aside from flowers, there were those who gifted plush toys, luxury watches, jewelry, and designer bags, some had even offered cash and credit cards, employing an endless array of methods. Just during those three years of high school, there was more than just one or two young boys who would intentionally take the long way around to loiter aimlessly around the Xijing Courtyard every single day. The men who liked Zhou Xiyun and put their feelings into action could form a long queue, and that wasn’t even counting those who harbored secret crushes on her.

Zhou Xiyun was charming and drew people’s affection.

This was undeniable and by no means an exaggeration.

Qiao Yan took two sips of her honey water, feeling a wave of emotion wash over her, mixed with a tiny, inexplicable tang of something she couldn’t quite define.

Leaving the personal Moments interface, she moved on to lurk in her group chats.

Since she had nothing to do anyway, and she would have to go back downstairs to help out later, there wasn’t enough time to play a game. She could only mindlessly browse through messages.

The very first chat box was a group of close acquaintances, filled entirely with childhood friends from the Xijing Courtyard, the kind who had grown up together from an early age.

There were twelve members in the group, and everyone knew one another.

Zhou Xiyun wasn’t in the group. The exact reason wasn’t clear, but she had simply never been added.

The topics being discussed in the group were still the same old clichés, life, work, in short, terribly boring.

During the conversation, someone mentioned the Zhou family, saying that Zhou Huiwen had once again gifted a large batch of local specialties to the neighbors. No one brought up Zhou Xiyun, as if they were deliberately ignoring her, avoiding the topic entirely.

This group of people was truly tedious with their endless, trivial chatter, behaving exactly like a dozen noisy ducks, with an inexhaustible supply of neighborhood gossip from morning till night. They could wheel around minor, insignificant matters for most of the day.

Qiao Yan couldn’t blend into the group. After spectating for three or four minutes, she shut down the chat and kept the group notifications muted.

A bit later, Rong Yin came up to find her, telling her to go downstairs to make desserts.

The number of customers had increased again, and they couldn’t keep up downstairs.

Qiao Yan went down, tied on her apron, put on her hat, mask, and gloves, and turned around to enter the baking room.

Rong Yin said, “There’s a gathering tonight. A-Kuan and the others are all going. Are you coming?”

Qiao Yan asked, “Where?”

“The bistro at the end of the street, the one that just opened. They’re running a promotion lately.”

“I’m in.”

Rong Yin smiled, “The plan is for ten o’clock.”

Qiao Yan gave an “OK” hand gesture, “Sounds good, we’ll head over together then.”

It was a common occurrence for friends to arrange small get-togethers. Most of the people in their circle were unmarried and had basically maintained a pattern of gathering once a week recently.

Qiao Yan got along well with everyone, she had always been the type to show up whenever she was free and called upon, playing hard when she could, rather than staying cooped up at home as a complete shut-in every day.

The bistro Rong Yin mentioned was called Shangdu. The environment was quite nice, featuring a resident live band and high-grade alcohol. Overall, it was a fairly stylish establishment, making it very popular among the nearby white collar elites.

Qiao Yan had already been there once. On the opening day, she had gone in to look around and casually had two drinks. She knew the owner of the bistro, though they weren’t very close, she only knew the person wasn’t a local. After chatting briefly that day, they had exchanged contact info as a formality, but they hadn’t maintained any further contact in private.

Rong Yin and the others weren’t aware of this, and Qiao Yan hadn’t brought it up, not caring much about it.

In May, the days grew increasingly longer. The streetlights only flared to life past six o’clock, and the outside world only became lively around eight.

Qiao Yan and Rong Yin wrapped up work early at eight-thirty. They went upstairs first to freshen up before heading over, arriving at Shangdu just as everyone else was pulling up.

A-Kuan and the others had already ordered drinks. They had booked a booth over on the east side, diagonally facing the main entrance.

Qiao Yan walked over and sat down, greeting the others.

Rong Yin followed closely behind, sitting right next to her.

A-Kuan was a girl who dressed in a tomboyish style, with short hair and a cheerful personality. This girl was a few years younger than everyone else present, yet she was the one who knew how to look after everyone the best. Upon seeing Rong Yin, she became a bit constrained, turning stiff and cautious before anything had even happened.

Qiao Yan called out to A-Kuan, tapping the remaining empty seat next to her, and said, “Sit here, don’t just stand there.”

The other party readily agreed, moving over in a disciplined and well-behaved manner.

Rong Yin glanced at A-Kuan, permitting the arrangement without displaying any extra emotion.

When friends met, it was nothing more than the usual routine, eating, drinking, chatting, talking about their current situations, and sharing confidences about anything under the sun.

Qiao Yan hadn’t had any notable experiences worth bringing up individually lately, so she remained a listener from beginning to end, occasionally taking a couple of sips of her drink, eating some snacks, and symbolically chiming in with a few words now and then to help ease the worries of others.

There were many women at their table, and many beautiful ones at that, making them quite eye catching in the entire bistro. Quite a few people glanced toward their direction, unable to suppress their restless hearts and eager to try their luck.

Halfway through, a man walked over to strike up a conversation, offering to buy Qiao Yan a drink.

Without even lifting her head, Qiao Yan refused him, completely averse to flirting in bars.

Sister Min watched the entire process from the sidelines. Once the man had walked far away, she smiled as she struck a match to light a cigarette and asked, “Qiaoqiao, have you left the single life yet, or are you still on your own?”

Qiao Yan leaned back a bit, resting against the sofa backrest, and said honestly, “No, I’m still single.”

Sister Min asked again, “Wasn’t there a handsome guy pursuing you last time? It didn’t work out?”

Qiao Yan had no recollection of this matter. Unable to understand who she was talking about, she asked back, “Pursuing me? Was there?”

“Yes, you forgot? The one from a while back when we were eating at the same table at Yunxiang House. The tall, thin guy, about 1.85 meters, sitting on your left. Back then, he even helped ladle soup for you, don’t you remember?” Sister Min said, practically on the verge of naming him directly.

However, Qiao Yan had truly forgotten about this person, and she remembered even less about which day someone had served soup for her. After searching her memories for a moment, she still shook her head. She had always forgotten people she didn’t like right after meeting them, especially those with whom she had no further contact after parting ways, how could she leave a space for an inconsequential passerby?

Sister Min had originally wanted to play matchmaker, intending to help the guy test the waters, but seeing her like this, she dropped the idea. Knowing that Qiao Yan truly lacked that intention, she blurted out, “Big straight girl, you are way too straight, truly…”