Chapter 47: Confirming the Relationship
Chapter 47: Chapter 47: Confirming the Relationship
After paying the bill, Zhang Yan discovered a minor bug with Brother Tongzi’s system.
Although the Partner System only reimbursed funds after he spent money on his partner, the meal he had just treated his junior to didn’t deduct his portion of the expense.
It seemed Brother Tongzi wasn’t so rigidly strict after all.
So technically, him treating his junior? False. His junior treating him? True.
With his current net worth, getting a free meal wasn’t a big deal, but being a "kept man" felt unexpectedly wonderful!
According to the standard course, the French meal they just had was supposed to end with a signature dessert, but Zhang Yan had requested to skip it. Since it was his junior’s first time eating at such a high-end Western restaurant, she naturally didn’t notice the missing course.
After leaving, Zhang Yan took his junior to the trendy, internet-famous dessert shop she had mentioned yesterday.
"Wow, you’re so good to me, senior! I only casually brought it up yesterday, and you actually remembered!"
The shop was booming with business, packed with young men and women eager to take photos for social media. There was a long line snaking out the front door; it looked like it would take at least thirty to forty minutes of waiting to buy a single dessert.
Strangely enough, the moment Zhang Yan and his junior walked up, a girl in a staff uniform emerged from the shop’s back door.
Her face beamed with enthusiastic hospitality as she carried a delicate little box.
"Mr. Zhang, the Moonlit Rose you pre-ordered is fresh out of the oven. Please enjoy."
"Great, thanks a lot," Zhang Yan replied.
"I should be the one thanking you for your generous patronage! I’m dizzy from all the work inside, so I’ll head back now."
"Senior, what is this? I haven’t heard of this shop offering pre-orders, let alone a personal delivery service," his junior whispered. She stole a quiet glance at the long line, not daring to speak too loudly for fear of drawing the crowd’s ire.
Zhang Yan smiled. He led her to a secluded, empty table, removed a "Reserved for VIPs, Please Do Not Sit" sign, and sat down to slowly enjoy the post-meal dessert with her.
The shop indeed did not offer a pre-order service. Due to the massive foot traffic, the staff’s workload was completely saturated, making it impossible to handle reservations. Moreover, the outdoor seats were provided free of charge to customers, and there was no precedent for reserving them.
But rules were meant to be broken.
With enough money, anything was negotiable. If three or five times the price didn’t work, then ten, twenty, or even a hundred times would! There was always a price the other party could accept.
"It’s a newly launched service. Eat up."
His junior clearly loved sweets. With every small bite she took, her eyes curved into happy crescents.
But halfway through, she reluctantly pushed the small cake toward Zhang Yan. "Senior, I can’t eat anymore. I’ve been taking in way too many calories lately. You don’t mind my leftovers, do you?"
What nonsense was this silly girl spouting? They were already at the stage of swapping saliva!
Zhang Yan directly took the small spoon from his junior’s hand and continued eating.
His junior glanced at the brand-new spoon set aside, then watched as Zhang Yan put the very spoon she had just been using into his mouth. Her face flushed slightly.
Every time he gently sucked on the spoon, she felt as if a soft part of her own body was being held in his mouth.
Even though she had stopped eating the dessert, the sweetness between them seemed to be steadily rising.
"Babe, let me see your wallet."
"My wallet is just a high-quality knockoff. There’s nothing to see."
"It’s fine, I just want to check if there are any pictures of your ex-boyfriend in there."
"I don’t even have an ex-boyfriend! Here, look!"
Although the world had practically entered an era where one smartphone could do it all, items like ID cards and bank cards still needed a physical home.
Zhang Yan pretended to flip through his junior’s wallet, silently memorizing her bank card number.
"Hmm, there really aren’t any. You pass."
"Of course there aren’t!"
Seeing his junior puffing her cheeks in cute, righteous indignation, Zhang Yan loved her more the more he looked at her.
"By the way, didn’t you keep saying you wanted to buy me something? I happen to be short a suit, so I’ll let you buy one for me in a bit."
Zhang Yan wasn’t particularly interested in formal wear himself, but Brother Gan had messaged him yesterday. The banquet they had previously discussed was taking place this Sunday, and Brother Gan told him to prepare a decent suit and, ideally, invite a presentable female companion.
He had never worn a suit in his entire life, so this was the perfect opportunity to buy one. Besides, he could conveniently test out another hypothesis of his.
Hearing Zhang Yan’s rare request, his junior was initially thrilled, but her expression soon shifted into one of worry. "But I don’t have much money. I’m afraid the clothes I can afford won’t be suitable..."
She was currently extremely strapped for cash, yet she was determined to spend all her savings on him this time!
Even so, she worried that the clothes she bought wouldn’t be worthy of him. After all, even his casual outfits cost thousands or tens of thousands of yuan.
Seeing his junior frowning with a resolute, marching-to-the-gallows expression, Zhang Yan found it amusing. He tapped his phone screen and initiated a transfer.
"Well, you have money now, don’t you?"
His junior was completely bewildered, but as a bank notification pinged on her phone, her eyes instantly widened.
"Senior, why did you transfer 50,000 yuan to me? Wait, no, how do you even have my bank card number?"
A WeChat transfer could be rejected, but a direct bank transfer didn’t require her to click to accept.
"It’s pocket money for you."
"I... this... I..."
Seeing his junior sputtering incoherently, Zhang Yan reached over and pinched her adorable cheek. "If you don’t want to be my girlfriend, you can transfer it back to me."
His junior froze instantly.
Although Zhang Yan had already started calling her "babe," this was the very first time they had explicitly confirmed their relationship.
Thousands of words lodged in her throat. She wondered if she even had the right to be his girlfriend. If he knew about her situation, would he still accept her?
Watching his junior stare blankly into space, seemingly lost in thought, Zhang Yan simply assumed she was too excited.
"Let’s go, my personal stylist. Which store are we going to?"
His junior finally snapped back to reality. "I’m not too familiar with men’s formal wear, but I can look up some celebrity outfits for reference."
She scrolled through the Little Sweet Potato app, found a rather nice-looking ensemble, and led Zhang Yan to Dior.
Meanwhile, Zhang Yan checked his text messages, confirming his earlier hypothesis: transferring money directly to his junior could also trigger a reimbursement.
This meant that, practically speaking, his junior was genuinely using "her own" money to buy him a new outfit.