pjbooks Chapter 70 [Unpresentable]
Chapter 70 [Unpresentable]
Chapter 70 [Unpresentable]
"Did they tell you about last night?"
Looking at his cousin, who was crammed into the phone screen, Liu Zhuohao asked, his face expressionless.
"I've read it." My cousin rubbed his temples, his expression even more complicated. "Actually, after reading it, I was pretty sure I was in the same line of work as you. I could even guess what you'd be facing next."
He paused for two seconds before uttering the two words: "Report."
On the screen, the older cousin seemed to be waiting to see his reaction.
However, Liu Zhuohao simply nodded slightly and added, "And it was a report filed under my real name."
"It's either hygiene, fire safety, noise, obstruction of space, or more directly, food safety."
"I don't know which one it is, but I'll have to eat one of them."
His tone was calm, as if he were saying something he had expected long ago.
My cousin was visibly taken aback: "—You know? Don't you think this is—"
It's childish, vulgar, and utterly disgraceful.
"That's normal."
But Liu Zhuohao took over, not thinking that such methods were underhanded. His tone was calm and collected. "Reporting is the cheapest and most effective way to get results."
"Instead of struggling to improve yourself, it's better to easily crush your opponent."
"in particular----"
He paused for a few seconds, "The kind of roadside stalls I'm doing now can't withstand scrutiny most of the time."
On the screen, my cousin's brows were already furrowed.
"Brother Yue, actually, this kind of thing isn't necessarily rare in big cities."
Liu Zhuohao continued, his mind flashing through countless fragments: inexplicable fines for kitchen staff, sudden surges of negative reviews online, and surprise fire inspections. "But here, it's even more—taken for granted."
He uttered the words that had rolled through his mind countless times: "If you're in the restaurant business and haven't received any complaints, there are only two possibilities: either your business has dried up and nobody cares about you anymore, or, ha—it's not your time yet."
In fact, the business world can also be considered a workplace.
Once you reach a certain point, if you don't move forward, someone will pull you back.
It could be one person, two people, or several people.
Whether they are working together, or each has their own identity, or what their identities are, it's all hard to figure out, and you might just suffer in silence.
If you really want to settle down in one place, you need a period of time to reflect, to move forward and backward, to go back and forth.
It makes people feel that you're stuck, unable to go any higher or down, and they're just too exhausted to care about you anymore, so they'll start watching other people instead.
To put it bluntly, after I came back and started that breakfast stall, business only improved for a month before someone started eyeing it.
If it weren't for the students supporting them, they would most likely have been replaced.
Even if I didn't close up shop and continued working there, other things would happen, and things certainly wouldn't be peaceful.
"So what are you planning to do?" His cousin's voice pulled him back to reality.
"Wait," Liu Zhuohao said. "When the report comes, I'll have to swallow it first."
"Are you crazy?!" My cousin's voice suddenly rose, his face close to the screen, filled with disbelief. "Ah Hao, getting reported for running a restaurant is a huge problem! Closure is the starting price!"
"Do you know how many customers you'll lose if you close for three days? What about your suppliers and your reputation?"
He became increasingly agitated as he spoke, his hand unconsciously rising to gesture: "Besides, do you know how people will report me? 'I suspect he's using gutter oil,' 'I saw the rag was very dirty,' every sentence or two is purely subjective!"
"This makes it very difficult for us to prove that this is a malicious frame-up!"
"In the end, your shop closes down, and they just say, 'Maybe I misread it, but I meant well,' and nothing happens!"
My cousin took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, but his anxiety only grew stronger: "What's worse is that if the person behind this has connections, they could get the local TV station to do a public shaming—Ah Hao, all the reputation you worked so hard to build will be ruined overnight!"
"Don't wade into these muddy waters!"
"We need to find a way to deter them before they even arrive, to extinguish the flames! In a small town, just satisfying customers isn't enough; you have to guard against all the unseen forces!"
My cousin's words came out like a machine gun, trying to make me, a legal illiterate, more aware.
Liu Zhuohao listened quietly to the end.
Once his cousin's rapid breathing had calmed down a bit, he spoke, his voice still steady, but as if hiding something: "Brother Yue, you're right about everything."
"But have you ever thought about one?"
He leaned forward slightly, looking at his cousin's anxious eyes on the screen.
"What if this whistleblowing was something I was waiting for from the very beginning?"
"If it doesn't come, all the effort I put into doing those inspections that street vendors in small cities don't even need to bother with, wasn't it all for nothing?"
Suddenly, there was silence on the other end of the screen.
My cousin was stunned, as if he didn't understand the meaning of those words.
Liu Zhuohao laughed, but there was no real joy in it: "I may not know any of the articles, but there's one thing I'm quite clear about."
"That is to say, once a matter is defined and enters the process stage, it must be handled as an ironclad case that can withstand the test of history."
Today, Liu Zhuohao is not having dinner with Huang Weixiong and the others in the rented room; instead, he is going home.
It's been a long time since I had lunch at home. The table was piled high with food: glistening beef with kale, plump blue crabs, and red garlic shrimp.
The white and green scallops with vermicelli were still steaming, and the aroma of the stew kept wafting into my nose.
But in front of her parents, there was still a small mountain of rice.
Liu Zhuohao felt a pang in his heart as he watched.
Life is clearly not the same as before. There's no longer a table with stir-fried beef and kale, and everyone has to wait until they finish eating and get up before they start picking up food.
But some things seem to have become habits.
"Your recent medical report showed high blood sugar and malnutrition, have you forgotten?" He reached out with his chopsticks and placed the largest blue crab into his father's bowl, then peeled a few shrimp for his mother. "Don't just eat rice. Cook less in the future and eat more vegetables. As you get older, you need to supplement your diet with more high-quality protein."
"High blood sugar and malnutrition can occur together because you only eat rice and not vegetables."
His mother exclaimed "Oh!" and tried to put the crab back to him, but he blocked her with his hand.
The father didn't say anything, but silently broke open the crab shell and put the fattest part, the roe and crab fat, back into the plate in the center of the table.
Liu Zhuohao felt a lump in his throat and quickly lowered his head to eat his rice.
When he was little, he really thought his parents loved to eat rice.
Now I understand, nobody is born loving to fill their stomach with rice.
It's just some good stuff on the table; I can't bear to touch it and want to keep it for myself.
In other families, if they have enough money, they would only serve half a bowl of rice or a small mouthful, leaving the rest of their stomach for the meat, vegetables, and soup on the table.
"dad----"
He swallowed his food, his voice a little muffled, "Your job is too strenuous, how about—you change to something else? Rest at home first, or go on a trip, and I'll arrange work for you later."
He then looked at his mother and said, "Mom, once my shop opens, you two can come and help me keep an eye on it."
"You don't need to do any heavy work. Just sit there and see if the guests are enjoying their meal."
He paused, then added, trying to sound more reliable: "I'll pay you salaries, as regular employees."
The mother smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes smoothing out: "Thinking so far ahead? How long have you been running this stall?"
"That's right—" the father continued, his perpetually furrowed brows relaxing a bit. "We'll be content if you can keep the stall running. If you really want to open a shop, I'll be your security guard."
These words were simple, but Liu Zhuohao felt as if something was blocking his heart.
I advised him several times to quit and to take advantage of his good health to go out more often.
But they remained stubborn, feeling that they hadn't retired yet and it wasn't time for them to retire.
After finishing his meal, Liu Zhuohao declined his father's suggestion to make tea, rinsed his mouth, and returned to his room.
Once the door is closed, the noise from the outside world is instantly shut out.
He threw himself onto the old bed he had slept on for over a decade, the familiar, slightly sunken feel coming from his back.
Only here could he completely let down his guard and fully reveal his exhaustion.
But my mind still wouldn't stop.
Tonight, we'll be filming the second episode.
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