In the end, the six of them ordered 15 dishes, all of which were main dishes. The food completely filled the table.
Xiao Luo felt rather awkward. Wang Lihu, Ye Qiu, and Liu Tieguo were all excited. On the other hand, Wang Yongjia’s heart bled when he looked at the table filled with food. He initially thought that a thousand dollars would be enough for dinner. In the end, a whole lamb had already set him back $2,000. He truly felt like crying.
“Team Leader Wang, you are very generous for using such a feast to welcome our arrival,” Wang Lihu exclaimed as he patted his chest.
Wang Yongjia suppressed his pained emotions. He smiled and replied, “It’s fine, it’s fine.”
“This is not generosity but nobility,” Liu Tieguo said, pouring himself a glass of beer and standing up to give Team Leader Wang a toast. “Which superior would even spend such a huge amount on one meal to treat his subordinates? What else can this be other than nobility? Come, Team Leader Wang, let me give you a toast out of respect.”
What the f*ck? The price of this nobility is huge!
That was what Wang Yongjia was thinking. Outwardly, he maintained a smile on his face as he returned the toast.
Whereas the person that started all of this, Gu Qianxue, had not said a single word. She was only focused on eating the food.
Xiao Luo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He thought, Most people take advantage of their dead, but you took advantage of your superior!
Knock! Knock! Knock!
There was a knock on the private room door. A staff member walked in with two bottles of coconut juice.
Wang Yongjia’s eyes turned wide with shock as he said, “We didn’t order this coconut juice!”
He was determined to distance himself from those two bottles of coconut juice. He was afraid he would be charged for them.
The staff member laughed and said, “Sir, you have misunderstood. These are on the house. As your table has spent a grand total of $2,998, our boss asked us to present these two bottles of coconut juice to you as a token of our appreciation for being so supportive to this restaurant.”
“Oh, it’s free of charge. In that case, just leave it here,” Wang Yongjia said, heaving a sigh of relief.
“Sir, please enjoy the meal.”
The staff member turned and left, leaving the two bottles of coconut juice behind.
The $2,998 was indeed a bit expensive. Even though Wang Yongjia was the leader of the anti-drug task force, his monthly salary was only about $7,000 to $8,000. After taking the various expenses into account, what he was left with barely exceeded $4,000.
“Team Leader Wang, why don’t we go Dutch this time around and you can treat us another time?” Ye Qiu, who was better able to read the situation, suggested.
Wang Yongjia immediately raised his hand to reject it and said in an awe-inspiring tone, “I’ve already said this is a welcome dinner. If I let you fork out money, wouldn’t that be like slapping my own mouth? It’s just around $2,00, so it’s OK. Just feel free to eat. We can always take the food with us if we can’t finish it. As a police officer of the people, we absolutely can’t be extravagant or wasteful!”
The words “extravagant” and “wasteful” were emphasized. As expected, his eyes glanced over to Gu Qianxue.
Gu Qianxue sat there like nothing had happened. Without uttering a word, it was like she was on her mission, but her mission was just to eat.
“Team Leader Wang is right. We should not be wasteful. Let’s quickly eat while the food is hot.”
Xiao Luo shot a glare toward Wang Lihu and the rest with a tinge of command. In order to absolve Gu Qianxue of her crimes, the least they could do was finish the food on the table.
“Right, let’s eat with our stomachs wide open!”
Wang Yongjia also started to move his chopsticks. Since he had already decided to pay for the food, he might as well eat the food and get his money’s worth.
This group dinner let Xiao Luo gain a rough understanding of the sort of person Wang Yongjia was. He didn’t have the air of a superior. He was very easygoing and a genuine person.
After 30 minutes, everyone’s tummy had been filled to the brim. They sat on their seats to relax and let their stomachs rest. The 12 main courses, along with a whole roasted lamb, had been entirely finished by the group. Bones had piled up in front of everyone. However, the one with the highest count of bones was none other than Gu Qianxue.
“Little Sister Gu, don’t tell me you eat this much for every meal?” Liu Tieguo asked with astonishment.
Back at training camp, he had not really noticed Gu Qianxue’s food intake. After all, men and women ate separately.
Gu Qianxue nodded and lightly replied, “Yep.”
“Oh my god, other females must be extremely envious when they find out that you can still maintain such a good figure with such eating habits!” Liu Tieguo exclaimed.
Gu Qianxue furrowed her brows and asked Xiao Luo, “Is my figure that good?”
Xiao Luo thought, Why are you asking me? How does this concern me?
In the end, he scanned her from head to toe and raised his eyebrows. “It’s still OK.”
“When Head says it’s OK, he means it’s excellent,” Wang Lihu said with a laugh. “We all understand.”
One couldn’t tell from Gu Qianxue’s face whether she was happy or upset. She was expressionless, yet she was still so beautiful and moving.
“You guys can talk. I’ll go ahead and settle the bill!”
Wang Yongjia burped as he got up. He had already said he was going to pay. The dishes had all been finished, so he had no choice but to pay no matter how painful it was.
…..
“What? The money in my card isn’t enough?”
Wang Yongjia was in disbelief. He looked at the cashier at the front desk and said, “Try again, maybe it’s a network problem.”
“I’ve already tried it three times, and the message shown is that there’s an insufficient balance.” The cashier shook his head.
Wang Yongjia carefully recalled that a few days ago he had bought some clothes that cost more than $800 to please his wife. His card initially had $3,000 on it. After remembering the $800, it was only natural that he didn’t have enough left. He had enough in savings, but that was on another card that his wife kept. It wouldn’t be nice to call his wife for payment, right?
This was bad. What was he to do?
Wang Yongjia furrowed his brows like a piece of kitchen rag. He had treated his subordinates to a meal but did not bring enough money. If such news spread, where would he put his face as the leader of the anti-drug task force?
“What happened?”
At that moment, a man wearing a suit walked in wondering what was going on.
“Boss, his card couldn’t proceed with the payment due to an insufficient balance,” the cashier respectfully replied.
The restaurant’s eyes held a deeper meaning. He was happy because just now Wang Yongjia’s table had ordered more than $2,900 worth of dishes. In the end, he didn’t have enough to pay for it. It was inevitable he was thinking they were planning to dine and dash.
Wang Yongjia was preparing to explain, but a plate of leftover food was brought over from the side and slammed heavily onto the desk. Immediately afterward, he saw a blonde man, who looked pissed off, followed by others with fierce-looking faces walk out of their private rooms and surround the front desk.
The blonde man slammed the table and shouted at the front desk.
The restaurant manager quickly turned and greeted him with a smile. “I am the owner of the restaurant. How may I assist you?”
“What’s wrong? Are your eyes blind? Didn’t you see that this dish has a disgusting cockroach in it?”
The blonde man pointed at the vegetables on the plate and roared, “Damn, our brothers were all having a good time eating all the dishes and suddenly a dead cockroach pops up. Do you expect a f*cking restaurant with such sh*tty hygiene standards to stay open?”
The restaurant owner took a closer look. There really was a cockroach. He could also recognize that this cockroach had been placed after the meal had been served. If it had really followed in with the dish during the presentation, it should have been cooked at a certain point. Taking a closer look, it was obviously raw. Someone had put it there intentionally.