The heat was, as always, suffocating.
Sun Fang curled up tighter around his phone, siting comfortably on a chair in a café. It wasn’t the same kind of cosy café as Mo Cheng’s (more of a minimalist style, everything in a mix of black and white with some small dashes of red mixed in), but it was still a nice place. Sun Fang had gotten a nice table before the afternoon rush really set in, having selected a place in the corner of the café’s single floor. There, he’d been sitting for a good two hours now, just scrolling through social media.
He’d looked into this whole mess with Sun Yi and it really was hilarious. The backlash from getting into a reportedly pretty vicious fight at a charity gala was a thing to behold. His company had also been suffering multiple setbacks recently; the netizens theorized that a big-shot had been offended at the party and was now making trouble for them.
Several negations for copyrights had apparently fallen through, and Sun Yi hadn’t made any appearances since the gala. And Marcus was back in the thick of things at the Zerg war frontline and probably hadn’t paid any attention to what was going on online, or with his fiancé’s company.
Sun Fang was just about to fan the flames and write a long post with an absolutely absurd (but hilarious) theory about what was going on with Sun Yi’s company, when he heard his name being called. Raising his head, he turned it to the left and rose a questioning eyebrow. Soon, though, he realized who’d called him.
It was his pottery class teacher!
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
”Teacher,” Sun Fang called and locked his phone. The woman beamed at him, her eyes almost sparkling. She maneuvered her way between tables and chairs and dropped down not he chair opposite him.
”Sun Fang,” she said, smiling. She put her purse on her lap, fingers fiddling with the shoulder strap. ”What a nice coincidence to run into you here. How have you been?”
Sun Fang shrugged. ”Pretty good,” he answered, placing his own phone on the table. He stretched out his arm for his coffeecup and picked it up, sipping at the slowly cooling liquid. She smiled at him, her expression as kind as always. She was an incredible teacher, too, and he was incredibly pleased with his decision to take her class. Even though she wasn’t the teacher he was originally supposed to have—that teacher had quit not long after he joined the class—he didn’t think this woman was in any way worse.
”How about you?” he asked, leaning against the armchair’s backrest. There were quite a few people at the café at this time, and the sound of so many conversations at once was almost overwhelming.
She bobbed her head, flashing a quick smile, ”I’m good. The kids are going a little stir crazy; they’ve been sick for a while and are reaching the point where it’s no longer fun to be free of school, but annoying to have nothing to do at home.”
”Mn, nothing serious, I hope?” Sun Fang sipped at his coffee again. He glanced forlornly at the empty plate, mourning the fact that his piece of cake had already disappeared down to his stomach.
She shook her head, ”No, no, it’s just a cold that’s been going around. Nothing to worry about.”
”That’s good,” said Sun Fang.
They fell into silence for a bit, neither of them used to talking to each other outside of the pottery classroom. After a bit, a server came by with her coffee drink, a far more lavish and extravagant creation than Sun Fang was drinking from. He eyed the magnificent glass with the steaming brown liquid and the cream and the sprinkles. Then he eyed his own cup. He frowned.
With her coffee in hand, she turned back to him. ”So,” she said, glancing around. ”I don’t see Ivy anywhere here.”
Sun Fang smiled. ”Ivy and I had a disagreement.”
”Really?” her nose scrunched up as she furrowed her eyebrows in thought, ”I didn’t know that was possible.”
”Ivy is very advanced,” Sun Fang preened, eager to get a chance to brag about how awesome Ivy was. It felt like he hadn’t had the chance to do so recently, and it was a clear shame. Ivy was utterly amazing, and Sun Fang should clearly have the option to brag about it whenever he wanted. His teacher smiled at him, indulgent.
”I’m not disagreeing,” she said. She drank from her coffee, a mustache of cream landing forming above her lip. ”So what’s the argument about?”
Sun Fang laughed. He waved his hand in the air as he said, ”Ivy is annoyed because I didn’t show enough appreciation for the stuff it picked up at the farmers market recently. It’s one of its favorite things, you know, it spends hours going through the markets and finding the best products. Sometimes it’ll just hand over sponsorships in my name, if it finds something with potential that needs some more funds.”
”Really?” she asked, drinking more. Her cream-mustache grew.
”Really, really,” Sun Fang nodded. He grinned, ”Last I checked, there were seventy-three sponsorships in my name for different farmers. Some of them aren’t even on Guillotine, they’re just from when we were on vacations.”
Her eyebrows furrowed, ”And you allow this?”
He shrugged, ”Yeah. Ivy likes it, it makes it happy. And I have so much money that I’ll never have to worry about it, so why wouldn’t I do something small like this when it makes someone I love happy? I agree it would be a different thing if I was poor—some of those sponsorships are pretty high numbers—but I’m not, so it’s not a concern.”
She nodded, making a thoughtful noise as she brushed her hand over her lips and came away with a hand covered in cream. Eyeing it doubtfully, she said, ”You’re right, I apologize.”
”No worries,” Sun Fang smiled and took a sip of his own coffee. Soon, it’d be so lukewarm that he wouldn’t want to drink it anymore.
Aaah I really like how Sun Fang treats Ivy 🥺🥺
Sun Fang absolutely needs to have more chances to brag, also
Ivy is precious
thanks for the chapter <3
Thank you for the chapter 💜