Chapter 73: The Little Girl Spouting Nonsense

Xiao Ma gave this outing a moral fig leaf in his own mind: this was not a date, but a way of making a friend, of finding another guardian for Wang Xiaoai, so that when her father and Xiao Ma were both absent, someone would be there to look after her.

Yet even as he thought that, when the proprietress lowered the rolling shutter and crouched to lock the door, Xiao Ma stole a couple of glances at her figure and felt his heart lurch.

When she turned back around, Xiao Ma had assumed the pose of a cultivated gentleman and said in a deliberately lowered voice, "Where shall we eat?"

The little girl spoke up at once. "Yingjiang Tower isn't far from here. The food there is unbelievably good. I've only eaten there once in my life, when some bald man invited my mom. I tagged along and got a free meal, and I still remember it to this day."

A look of awkward, small-time embarrassment and hesitation immediately crossed Lu Lu's face. "It's very expensive there. I heard the minimum for three people is over a thousand."

"No problem, we'll go to Yingjiang Tower. I'll treat," Xiao Ma said.

"Don't. One meal there costs at least over a thousand. Wouldn't it be better to spend that money on something else?" Lu Lu said with concern.

"It's fine, fine. That's not a problem at all." Xiao Ma began putting on airs.

And tacky was exactly right. The little girl was certain to remember it; when that bald man had invited her mother, he had been just like this, and her mother had gone with him without the slightest hesitation. Besides, Brother Xiao Ma was so handsome he looked as if he could ruin a face, far better-looking than that bald man, so there had to be a bonus for that.

The proprietress also felt that Xiao Ma looked like a man with money. Since it was no great burden for him, there was no harm in indulging a little vanity.

It was not far, so they walked there together.

As they went, the proprietress kept sweeping her bright eyes over Xiao Ma and said with self-mocking amusement, "How is it I have never had such luck? Why didn't I meet someone like you back then? By the way, Xiao Ma, what do you do?"

"I..." Xiao Ma blurted nonsense without blinking. "I stay home and live like a young master."

Lu Lu gave him a strange look but did not answer. In her heart, though, she was already worshipful, full of little stars.

The little girl immediately found a familiar air in the scene. The proprietress was exactly in the same state her mother had been in back then. So obscene. This was getting interesting.

Thus the little girl decisively said, "No one has ever taken me out to have fun. After we eat, if you don't mind, take me to sing karaoke. My voice is fantastic. I've just never had the chance to sing."

Xiao Ma and Lu Lu exchanged odd looks and neither of them replied directly.

Not replying was the right move. By the little girl's experience, they would absolutely end up going karaoke. In that kind of place, the little girl would be the one monopolizing the microphone, while the other two would put on their false propriety and whisper to each other. As for whether there would be any benefits after that, that was no concern of a primary schooler.

Yes, the girl had staged all this simply because she wanted to sing karaoke. She had never been before, only heard classmates brimming with superiority talking about it. Once, in order to save face, the little girl had even boasted about it, only to be exposed on the spot. She had said that was the most depressed she'd ever been...

When they arrived at Yingjiang Tower, the feeling was excellent. The little girl and the proprietress were both careful and tentative, walking slowly and looking around.

There was no especially ceremonious welcome, but two servers on the first floor knew the proprietress. Their staff housing was actually in her district, and they often shopped at her store.

Lu Lu had once been the goddess in Xiao Ma's heart, so naturally she would be their goddess too. Thus the two servers were whispering to each other and pointing at the proprietress's figure.

Lu Lu, feeling tremendously dignified, liked such high-end occasions precisely because she could stretch out her neck and deliberately bump into one or two acquaintances, showing off that she was also someone who "often came to places like this."

Having found two familiar servers, the proprietress even nodded to them on purpose. The two servers also nodded back with odd expressions.

Xiao Ma looked around. There were people coming and going downstairs, so he said, "Let's go upstairs."

The little girl and Lu Lu followed with triumphant smiles. The server followed behind them as well. When they reached the second floor, it still did not seem all that impressive; there were still quite a few people, and the noise was a little loud.

So Xiao Ma said, "Let's go to the third floor."

The little girl and the proprietress followed without hesitation.

The server, though, reminded them somewhat awkwardly, "Up there... there are only private rooms. The tables are larger, so there isn't really a need for just the three of you."

"Then a private room it is," Xiao Ma said without caring.

The server added, "We don't charge extra for private rooms, but the large tables have a minimum spend. Each table has to be at least four thousand."

The proprietress gave a start. "Then let's not go up."

Xiao Ma, however, said, "All right, understood. Then a private room."

The server hurriedly said, "Very good. This way, sir."

Once inside the room, the little girl was in charge of ordering.

Xiao Ma said, "Bring me a bottle of red wine."

"Which kind would you like, sir? I can bring you the wine list," the server said promptly.

Xiao Ma replied, "Anything is fine. I don't know wines. You choose. Just open one around three thousand."

The server nodded happily. "Certainly."

The little girl felt depressed. She didn't even drink.

Ordering a bottle of red wine for three thousand was not Xiao Ma showing off; it was the best possible way to make up the four-thousand-table minimum.

Otherwise, he knew this little girl's nature too well. If you gave her a hundred yuan, she would buy exactly a hundred yuan's worth of cake for Xiao Ma; if you gave her a hundred yuan, she would also buy exactly a hundred yuan's worth of drinks, so much that even carrying them would be a burden.

If he really gave her four thousand yuan as "eating budget," she'd definitely order four thousand yuan's worth of dishes according to her habits. Not only would that lack any atmosphere, it could also leave a person so stuffed they'd vomit.

A single bottle of wine would take care of three thousand of it, and the rest could be left for the little girl to mess around with.

After everything was finally ordered and the server withdrew, he said, "Please wait a moment."

The proprietress looked around and said after a while, "This place really isn't bad. Thank you. Last time I had to trouble you to save me, and this time you've spent so much to treat me to a meal."

"It's nothing. When I treat people, I never do it once. I start at four times. Next time we'll go out again," Xiao Ma said, slipping into his strange mode once more.

Lu Lu blushed a little at hearing that, but did not respond.

A moment later the server returned with the wine. "Shall I decant it first and let it breathe?"

"Mm-hmm," Xiao Ma said.

They soon began to eat, and as a result the conversation actually grew less. Xiao Ma was really a rookie and did not know how to chat much.

The ancient little loli played a rather important role in all this. While eating and drinking to her heart's content, she asked, "Aunt Lu Lu, if Brother Xiao Ma wanted to sleep with you, how would you respond?"

Pffft—

Ma Weimin and Lu Lu both sprayed red wine onto the little girl's face.

Of course such a question was both suggestive and impossible to answer, so under Lu Lu's lead the two of them held their stomachs and laughed, and the issue no longer needed any response.

After eating a few more bites, the little girl asked again, "Aunt Lu Lu, why on earth did you marry that loser back then? We couldn't stand it. You're such a pretty woman, like fine cabbage being trampled by a pig. Sometimes late at night, you could even hear him yelling at you and hitting you."

For her family scandal to be brought up like this, Lu Lu felt very awkward. She worriedly glanced at Xiao Ma; seeing that he also seemed to be waiting to hear, she could only say, "He wasn't like that before. Back then his circumstances were still pretty good. The old houses on this side were all rented out, and we lived in a large house elsewhere. Later, his business failed and people came to the door every day demanding debts. He had no choice but to sell the big house to pay them off, and we moved here. He had been a boss for too long; now it was hard for him to find work. The jobs he could find, he felt beneath him and refused to do, while the ones he wanted, others didn't want him. Only then did his temper change so much. He speaks coldly to me all day, and sometimes he hits me."

"We'd long since become a couple in name only, each minding our own affairs. It was just that, for the child's sake, I didn't want things to get too ugly." Lu Lu took a sip of wine, pretending not to care.

The little girl said, "Aunt Lu Lu, you're wrong. It wasn't that he suddenly took a blow and turned bad. It was that once a bad man gives up and lets it all go to hell, he no longer needs to pretend, and his true nature shows. My dad likes to put on an act too. In the past he deliberately acted fierce and kept a tight rein on me and my mom. Then once, when he got drunk, his real self came out—he was extremely gentle. My mom and I realized then that he had no temper and couldn't do anything to us. This is an age where everyone loves to pretend; everything is fake."

Xiao Ma and Lu Lu sprayed wine again, once more onto the little girl's face...