Chapter 1110 — Dine and Dash? In Any Case, She Was Back at the Hospital Now; Yu Xiaoke Certainly Could Not Run Back to the Train Station, and the First Order of Business Was to Pay the Bill.
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"What's the matter?" Yu Yuanyuan had noticed the change in his face too, and asked, a little puzzled.
"I... I've got no money..." Er Goudan stammered, embarrassed. "My money was cheated off me..."
"Cheated off you?" Yu Yuanyuan was taken aback and eyed him with suspicion. But by his plain, simple clothing he did not look like the sort who would swindle a meal, and besides, fast-food places took payment up front — dining and dashing was impossible anyway.
"At the train station, a girl told me a child at her home had come down with acute appendicitis and asked to borrow money from me, so I handed over every bit I had, more than one thousand nine hundred yuan, and she said she'd pay me back. But I sat on a bench at the station for two days and never saw hide nor hair of her..." Here Er Goudan could not help but grow angry. "Ugh, she did me in good — two days without food, all for waiting on her, and she just up and left..."
"What?" Hearing his plight, Yu Yuanyuan was struck dumb for a moment. Surely not — this fellow was a bit too honest, was he not? A total stranger at the train station asks him for a loan and he lends it? Whatever anyone tells him, he believes? Appendicitis? He was plainly a swindler's mark!
Still, from Er Goudan's getup, Yu Yuanyuan could tell at a glance that he had just come into the city from the mountains. Folk like that were all simple and honest, and it was no wonder he had been cheated. Hearing that he had gone two days without food, she felt sorry for him. She hesitated a moment, then said, "Then let this be my treat. Eat up, quick, don't go hungry..."
She would be going to Master Li's before long, and Yu Yuanyuan knew that money would be of no use to her there; Master Li was not short of money in the least. So she did not mind doing a good turn.
To put it plainly, Er Goudan was much like her own father, Yunhai Shuku — both had been taken in by others, and Yu Yuanyuan felt that if she could lend a hand, she would.
"This... how can I put you to that trouble?" Er Goudan scratched his scalp. He had never expected Yu Yuanyuan to ask for no money at all and treat him instead. Looking at the girl before him — not so pretty as that swindler girl, but in Er Goudan's eyes a beauty among beauties, and far more stylish than any of the village girls back in Xixing Mountain Village!
What was more, Yu Xiaoke's image in Er Goudan's mind had sunk to the very lowest, while the Yu Yuanyuan before him was kindness itself. Both were beauties who lived in the city, Er Goudan thought — how could the gap between them as people be so vast?
"It's nothing. You're kind-hearted, that's all — you were simply cheated. Eat up, it will go cold," Yu Yuanyuan said.
"Then... then I won't stand on ceremony! When I find that swindler girl and get my money, I'll be sure to come and pay you back!" Er Goudan gazed at the delicious fried chicken and burger, drool on the verge of dripping from his mouth.
That said, Er Goudan, overjoyed, carried the tray off to a seat and fell to eating with gusto...
Watching Er Goudan wolf down his burger with such carefree abandon, Yu Yuanyuan suddenly thought of her own wretched fate. How unlucky she was. Er Goudan had been cheated and lost only a few thousand yuan; but when her father was cheated, what was lost was herself...