There's Always Time for a Meal

Su Yang stared at his phone screen in thought for a few seconds, then tapped on Li Muhan's profile picture to enter her homepage.

He saw some photo thumbnails in her Moments section.

He clicked in to take a look. Li Muhan hadn't hidden her Moments; all her posts were public.

Su Yang thought to himself, 'I forgot to ask where she's from before. Let's see if I can find some information in her Moments.'

With this in mind, Su Yang scrolled down the screen to check.

The first post had three pictures, all ordinary landscape photos without her face in them.

The timestamp showed it was posted two months ago, with no caption or location tag.

Continuing to scroll down, he saw that Li Muhan didn't post much.

She only posted once every few months, and none of them had location tags or showed her in the frame.

They were almost all pictures of flowers and plants, or a monologue caption without a photo.

She hadn't even posted photos from her trip to Yulong Snow Mountain about a month ago.

Su Yang scrolled all the way to the earliest post, which showed it was posted in February of last year. This post finally had some useful information.

It was a photo. Su Yang clicked to enlarge it. The photo showed the entrance of a restaurant named Shanyun Sister Ping's Home-style Cooking.

From the photo, he could see the restaurant's entrance and some of the interior. There was key information on the storefront sign: a phone number.

However, Li Muhan only captured half of the phone number; the last five digits were cut off.

This photo came with a caption: Getting off work, wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

Seeing this, the corners of Su Yang's mouth curled up into a smile. "Finally found it. Shanyun Sister Ping's Home-style Cooking, right? Looks like she probably works here."

"But this is a post from last year. She might not be working there anymore this year."

Saying this, Su Yang immediately switched to TikTok to search for this restaurant.

Normally, such a small, ordinary restaurant wouldn't be easy to find, but this restaurant had a key piece of information: the word Shanyun.

Su Yang searched a few times and quickly found that Shanyun was a district in Lincheng. Digging a bit deeper, he found this small restaurant located in the Shanyun District of Lincheng.

"Hehe, found it." However, the restaurant was too small, and he still couldn't find a phone number online.

After finding out which city Li Muhan was in, Su Yang fell deep in thought.

The main issue was that this post was from a year and a half ago. Too much time had passed, making it hard to confirm if Li Muhan still worked there.

She was likely from Lincheng or Qian Province. The general area was certain. Now, he could either fly directly to Lincheng, find this restaurant, and ask around, or wait a bit longer to see if Li Muhan would reply to his message.

After weighing his options, Su Yang decided to wait for her message.

......

Lincheng, the outskirts of Shanyun District.

At the door of a dilapidated single-story house in an urban-rural fringe area, Li Muhan held Chen Xiaowan's small hand, opened the door, and entered the house.

She had taken Chen Xiaowan to the hospital for an IV drip and medicine, and they were just getting back. However, her phone had run out of battery and shut down right as they left the hospital.

She didn't have any cash on her, so the two of them had no choice but to walk all the way home from the hospital a few kilometers away.

But Chen Xiaowan was too weak and would get tired after walking for a short while, so Li Muhan had to carry her on her back from time to time.

Just like that, it took them a long time to arrive at their front door, completely exhausted.

After entering the house, Chen Xiaowan said weakly, "Sister, I'm so thirsty."

"Okay, Xiaowan, you sit down. I'll go boil some water for you. You have a bad stomach, so you can't drink cold water."

"Okay." Chen Xiaowan obediently walked over to the worn-out small sofa and sat down.

Soon, Li Muhan boiled the water and poured a cup for Chen Xiaowan.

After finishing this, she finally returned to her room to charge her phone.

The off-brand phone from several years ago took two or three minutes to turn on. After it booted up and buffered for a moment, two WeChat messages popped up.

Li Muhan, who was about to get up and go to the living room, heard the notification sound. She turned her head, picked up the phone from the bed, and took a look.

She opened WeChat and saw that it was actually Su Yang, who had previously saved her sister Chen Xiaowan's life.

Seeing the message and missed voice call from Su Yang, Li Muhan immediately replied.

"I'm sorry, Brother Yang. I had to go out for something just now, and my phone ran out of battery and turned off. I just saw this."

......

Meanwhile, Su Yang was drinking an iced Americano and lying on an oversized sofa, scrolling through TikTok.

Ding-dong.

A WeChat message popped up at the top of his phone.

Seeing it was Li Muhan, Su Yang immediately sat up. "Damn, she finally replied!"

He switched to the chat interface and replied, "It's alright."

Before Su Yang could send his next message, Li Muhan followed up, "Brother Yang, is there something you need me for?"

Seeing this message, Su Yang thought for a moment and muttered to himself, "How should I put this? She never told me what Chen Xiaowan's illness is before, and I can't just ask directly right off the bat. Should I pretend to be a miracle doctor again?"

"Wait, I'll just chat with her casually first, then ask where she's from, and finally say I have some business to attend to in her area."

"Once I'm there, I'll contact her and invite her and Xiaowan out for a meal. Then I'll find an opportunity to cure Xiaowan."

"Yeah, that's what I'll do."

With this in mind, Su Yang typed his reply: "Oh, nothing major. I was just clearing out some old useless messages and saw yours, so I thought I'd chat with you. By the way, Muhan, where are you from?"

"I'm from Lincheng."

"Oh? Really? Are you in Lincheng right now?"

"I am." Li Muhan didn't think much of it and simply answered whatever Su Yang asked.

After all, this person had saved her sister's life before and could be considered Chen Xiaowan's lifesaver, so naturally, she would answer any questions he had.

Seeing Li Muhan say she was currently in Lincheng, Su Yang smiled in satisfaction.

"What a coincidence. I happen to have some business to take care of in Lincheng, but I've never been there before and I'm not familiar with the area..."

Seeing this message, Li Muhan got a rough idea of what Su Yang meant. She replied, "So, Brother Yang, do you want me to show you around Lincheng? But... Xiaowan's health hasn't been too good lately, so I probably won't be able to spare much time..."

"No, no, no, that's not what I meant. I was trying to say that once I arrive in Lincheng, I'd like to treat you guys to a meal. You surely have time for a meal, right?"

"Huh?" This completely bewildered Li Muhan.

Treat her to a meal? Why?

She thought about it for a while but couldn't figure it out, nor did she know why it was such a coincidence that Su Yang was coming to Lincheng on business right when she was there.

Unable to figure it out, she didn't bother overthinking it. Since Su Yang was coming to Lincheng, she should be the one treating him. She could use this opportunity to treat Su Yang to a meal as a way of returning the favor. After all, a meal wouldn't take too long.

Although she didn't have much money, she could barely afford to pay for a meal, as long as it wasn't too expensive.

With this in mind, Li Muhan replied: "Alright then, but how could I let you pay, Brother Su Yang? You saved my sister's life at Yulong Snow Mountain. Now that you're coming to Lincheng, I must be the one to treat you."

Seeing this message, Su Yang knew his goal had been achieved.

He replied: "That happened so long ago, you don't need to keep it in mind. See you in Lincheng when the time comes~"

"Okay."