Chapter 3: The first encounter

Over at Natsukashi, Serena wanted nothing but the comfort of her best friend and drown herself in Nana’s sumptuous food.

“FYI, it was not I who GOT dumped but I who HAVE dumped him. Hmph!”

“Whatever, but don’t steal our dumplings. You can always ask sis to make some for you. Don’t touch what’s ours.”

Right at that time, Nana came back from her errand, and saw her brothers and best friend wrestling with each other over some dumplings.

She came in between their catfight and dragged them away from each other. “Stop it, you guys. I will make some more.”

“My Nanaaaa…” Serena cried and pounced on Nana, “You are the only one for me. I realized guys are no good. Let’s marry. I will be the husband, and you can be my lovely wife treating me to your delicious food when I come back from a hard day’s work. Isn’t that just perfect? We can also raise your brothers as our sons. They are just brats in an adult’s body anyways. We will just feel like raising actual toddlers.”

The twins’ faces darkened.

Nana laughed heartily. She watched them bickering with a smile on her face. She hoped to live a peaceful life like this every day.

But everything doesn’t stay the same. Change is the law of life. And she had no idea what storm of a change was waiting for her ahead.

—

As opposed to the merry atmosphere in the morning, it was chaos in the evening.

Nana had gotten a catering order by a couple a few days back who will be celebrating their first marriage anniversary tonight, but Dong Meiling, one of Natsukashi’s employee whose job was to manage raw ingredients stock, messed up the order quantity. All ingredients came one unit less, which was not enough to complete the order.

Meiling profusely apologized, “I am so sorry, Mam. I missed changing the numbers. What will we do now?”

“It’s alright, Meiling. We will figure it out somehow.”

Nana said this but inwardly was panicking. There was hardly any time left for the party to start. If there is any gap or delay in serving food, then it will be disastrous for Natsukashi’s image.

It was still the middle of Spring Festival, and their food distributor, Mr. Lin, had already told that their supplies would be closed for the upcoming days.

“Let me try with Mr. Lin once again. Maybe he could still help us.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Yukito. Yukira also nodded.

She called Mr. Lin and explained her dire situation.

“I cannot help you now, Nana. All of my staff is on the Spring holidays, and nobody is available for such last-minute delivery.”

“Please, Mr. Lin. Is there any other food supplier who can help us? You must know somebody else.”

He gave it a thought and said, “Hmm. There is Mr. Cao, whose store is at the end of Chaowei street. You can try contacting him, but I should tell you that he is not a very friendly person. His temper is certainly not that good, and if you mess up even a little bit, he will just throw you out of his store.”

“It’s alright, Mr. Lin. I will still take my chance. Thank you so much. I will try my best to persuade him.”

“No problem. See you later.”

Nana said, “Alright. I will rush to Mr. Cao’s place at once and explain our situation to him. Until then, please hold the fort somehow.”

“Don’t worry, Nee-chan. You go, we will handle over here.” The twins assured.

“Yes, mam. Don’t worry. We will make sure to manage until you come back.” Meiling said.

“Good.”

She took a cab to Chaowei street. On the way, she just kept praying that Mr. Cao agrees.

She reached some fifteen minutes later. She got down and started rushing towards the store. She was so engrossed in her worries that she failed to notice a man coming out of a shop. She bumped into him hard, and the bag he was holding fell.

Both were stunned for a second, but Nana quickly calmed down and apologized.

“I am so sorry, sir. I’m really sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.” She hurriedly bent down, picked up the bag, and handed over to the man.

“Sorry, sir, but I’m in a rush. I will have to leave. Once again, I’m really, very sorry.” She quickly left.

The man stood there and looked at her retreating back.

Just then, a woman came out of the shop and asked, “What’s wrong, dear?”

The man said, “Nothing.”

He turned to her and smiled. “Are you done with your shopping?”

The woman got excited and said, “Yes! It was great. I got loads of new stuff. But you were such a bore. We finally got a day for ourselves, but you didn’t do anything but stand back. Hmph!” She complained. “Alright. Let’s go back now. I’m tired.”

“Ok. Let’s go.”

The man turned back to look at the path one last time, and then he left.