Meng Jingwei tilted her head, her gaze meaningful as she looked at Qing Muye, and lied, "I don't know. Why don't you call him?"
"Oh, alright, alright. You girl, when will you have time to come and keep me company, this old woman? It's been over a month since you saved me last time, and I've only seen you yesterday. Why are you so busy every day?"
Old Madam Qing's voice was kind and amiable.
"Then, can I come over tonight to keep Grandma company?"
"Okay, okay, okay, it's a deal then."
"Mhm, Grandma, see you tonight."
Meng Jingwei hung up the phone, feeling that Old Madam Qing was a bit strange today.
"What's wrong?" Qing Muye noticed Meng Jingwei's unusual expression and asked.
Meng Jingwei shook her head without speaking, quietly waiting for Old Madam Qing to call Qing Muye. But after waiting for a long time, Old Madam Qing's call didn't come.
Didn't she say she wanted to find Qing Muye? Why wasn't she contacting him?
"Um, is your phone still charged?" Meng Jingwei couldn't help but ask.
If the phone wasn't dead, Old Madam Qing's call should have already come through.
"Yes."
"Oh..." Meng Jingwei lowered her head slightly, lost in thought. Suddenly, she remembered something and asked, "When is Grandma's birthday?"
"In one month and six days."
"That's the twenty-fourth day of the eighth lunar month."
Meng Jingwei calculated based on the time Qing Muye provided, recalling that when she saved Old Madam Qing last time, Old Madam Qing had mentioned her birthday was in two months.
If her birthday was in a few days according to Old Madam Qing, but Qing Muye said it was in a month, and there was no sign of anything from the Qing family yet.
So, Old Madam Qing had said it wrong last time?
And the day before yesterday, when she went to the Qing family's old residence, Old Madam Qing told her she hadn't seen her in a month, but in reality, it had been more than a month and a half since she saved Old Madam Qing.
And just now, her youngest daughter had been dead for ten years, so why would she suddenly bring this up?
"What are you thinking about?"
Qing Muye noticed Meng Jingwei's troubled expression and pressed her.
"I think..." Meng Jingwei hesitated for a moment. Seeing Qing Muye's serious expression and the endless worry in his eyes, she said, "Never mind, it's nothing. Grandma was looking for you just now, you should call her back."
Without evidence, Meng Jingwei didn't want to make wild guesses. It was better to spend more time with Old Madam Qing recently and observe before making any conclusions.
Qing Muye then called Old Madam Qing back. She didn't seem to have anything important to say and just asked a couple of questions before hanging up.
As the car slowly drove towards the city center, Qing Muye suddenly said, "What are you treating me to?"
Meng Jingwei thought for a moment, looked at the breakfast shop by the roadside, and said to Song Ci, "Assistant Song, please pull over by the roadside."
"Ah, yes, Miss Meng."
Song Ci replied, turned the steering wheel, and parked the car by the roadside.
"You wait for me in the car, I'll go buy it for you."
Meng Jingwei told Qing Muye, then pushed open the car door and went directly to the breakfast shop across the road.
A few minutes later, the young woman, carrying items, carefully crossed the road and returned to the car, closing the door.
"Here, your breakfast."
She handed a breakfast to Qing Muye, then handed another breakfast to Song Ci, "Assistant Song, you've worked hard too, please have some breakfast."
Qing Muye, who had taken the breakfast, looked at the egg in the transparent plastic bag. The shell-less egg was covered in brown cracks, accompanied by a cup of soy milk.
His eyebrows furrowed slightly, and a hint of disgust appeared in his dark pupils, "This, is your so-called 'breakfast'?"
"Mhm, is there a problem? A tea egg is one yuan, soy milk is two yuan, and I even bought a tea egg for Assistant Song. That's four yuan for just the two of you, which is quite a lot."
Meng Jingwei glanced at Qing Muye, then ate the tea egg in her hand, muttering with heartache, "Life is not easy, and earning money is hard. Spending seven yuan on breakfast is truly heartbreaking."
Song Ci, sitting in the driver's seat, looked at the tea egg in the plastic bag, his mouth twitched. He looked up through the rearview mirror at his boss sitting in the back. He saw his boss looking down at the tea egg, not reaching for it.
"Boss, there's a Yipinju just around the corner. Do you want to eat there?"
Song Ci, who had been following Qing Muye for over ten years, knew that he never ate from roadside stalls, considering them unhygienic and lacking nutrition, so he suggested going to Yipinju.
"You want to go to Yipinju?"
Meng Jingwei's eyes lit up, and she immediately snatched the breakfast that Qing Muye had been staring at for a long time. "If you had said earlier you wanted to eat at Yipinju, I wouldn't have treated you. Since you don't like it anyway, I'll keep it for breakfast tomorrow morning."
Qing Muye, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, was used to delicacies, nutritious Chinese breakfasts, and Western breakfasts, but he never ate things sold at roadside stalls.
Despite his inner resistance, Qing Muye still reached out and took back the tea egg and soy milk. "It's not bad to try something different."
With that, the man opened the plastic bag, took a bite of the tea egg, and slowly chewed.
The salty five-spice egg tasted more fragrant and flavorful than the bland boiled eggs he usually ate.
Meng Jingwei watched Qing Muye take a bite and savor it, becoming curious. "How is it? Is the taste alright?"
Qing Muye lowered his head and took another bite, chewing slowly, then replied, "It's very special."
"What's special? Of course, it's better than boiled eggs. You rich people, you like to eat Western breakfasts like sandwiches, bread with cheese and ham, which are both monotonous and high in sugar. No wonder you're making congee, you're probably tired of eating sandwiches for breakfast."
Although Qing Muye had enjoyed a superior life since childhood, eating French, Italian, or Japanese cuisine cooked by top chefs, it was ultimately not as diverse as Chinese cuisine.
While roadside snacks might not be very hygienic, people consume grains and staples, so there's no need to worry about such things.
"Starting tomorrow, meals will be charged."
Qing Muye finished the tea egg in his hand and said to Meng Jingwei while drinking soy milk.
Meng Jingwei, who was eating her tea egg, paused, and instantly felt that the tea egg in her hand no longer tasted good.
She knitted her brows and asked with displeasure, her face stern, "Why? You said there would be no charge, why are you going back on your word?"
"Let me correct that. I said 'depending on your performance'."
A faint smile played on the man's well-defined face.
Qing Muye had indeed told Meng Jingwei that day that she wouldn't be charged for eating congee if she stayed in his apartment, but... the key point was: it depended on her performance.
In other words, the interpretation was up to Qing Muye.
"Haven't I performed well enough? I treated you to breakfast and bought you breakfast, is there a problem?"
"A three-yuan breakfast, is that very good?"
"It's better than not eating at all."
Meng Jingwei was very annoyed.
Look at this person, it's good enough that they were given food, yet instead of being grateful, they're being picky.
She was very unhappy and added, "If you don't want to eat it, no one is forcing you. Spit it out if you can!"
"Pfft, cough, cough... ugh..."
Song Ci, who was in the driver's seat, was eating a tea egg. As he was chewing the yolk, Meng Jingwei's words made him laugh. He immediately swallowed the yolk, which got stuck in his throat, choking him and making it difficult to breathe.