"No tea, just find a small private room and order set A."
The proprietress personally escorted the three to a private room on the second floor. Mu Jiahe said to her, "Bring the menu over too, let my little sister see if there's anything she likes."
Liu Shijia quickly said, "No need, I need to watch my figure and eat very little at night."
The proprietress led the three into the private room. The interior was decorated in an antique style.
A waitress entered with a teapot, and the proprietress gently placed the menu on the table.
"You can look it over. If you need anything, just tell Xiao Lan, she's my niece."
Mu Jiahe nodded. "It's fine, you go ahead and attend to other guests!"
After the proprietress left, Mu Jiahe said to Liu Shijia, "Generally, in these private kitchens, most of the staff from the front hall to the back kitchen are family members."
Xiao Xun looked at the decoration and nodded. He picked up the menu and took a look, his eyes widening. Clearly, the prices were not very friendly.
"It would be nice if my parents opened a restaurant like this. Just one table a day would be enough."
As he spoke, he pushed the menu to Liu Shijia. "Sister, take a look. A plate of peanuts costs fifty. Are these peanuts made of gold beans?"
Mu Jiahe looked at Xiao Lan, who was waiting by the dumbwaiter, and frowned at Xiao Xun. "Stop joking. When the dishes come, you'll see if his cooking is worth this price."
Each dish was exquisitely plated and vibrantly colored, clearly freshly made, with no overnight dishes or frozen ingredients.
Even the plates and utensils used to serve the dishes were very particular, not ordinary tableware.
Among them was a plate of peanuts, with each bean almost the same size. Visible spices were inside, making even Xiao Xun, who had helped in the kitchen since childhood at his family's restaurant, unable to identify all of them. Just smelling the spices was enough to make one want two catties of white wine.
Xiao Xun picked up a peanut and chewed it. "Interesting."
Hearing Xiao Xun's words, Mu Jiahe's previously furrowed brow relaxed.
Then she looked at Liu Shijia. "You are Xiao Xun's older cousin. I heard Auntie always call you Jia Jia, so I'll call you Jia Jia too. Please, feel free to say whatever you want to eat, don't be shy, okay?"
Liu Shijia nodded heavily. "Thank you, Jiahe jie. These dishes are enough for me. Ordering more would be wasteful."
Mu Jiahe glanced at Xiao Xun, then said to Liu Shijia, "He often mentions you to me. He says you're the person he fears the most in this life."
Hearing Mu Jiahe say this, Liu Shijia's face instantly turned red. "Jiahe jie, don't listen to his nonsense. This kid is very sly."
Then, she suddenly looked at Xiao Xun and said, "By the way, Xiao Xiao, I still don't know, where are you living now?"
Xiao Xun was momentarily stunned. Just as he was thinking about how to brush it off, Mu Jiahe directly said, "He's living with me now."
Liu Shijia was about to show an expression of sudden realization, when Xiao Xun quickly said, "Cousin, don't misunderstand. We're just in the same house."
"I'm not misunderstanding!"
Xiao Xun blushed. "No, I mean, we don't sleep in the same bed."
Liu Shijia looked embarrassed. After Xiao Xun finished speaking, he immediately thought of a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment they had. "Anyway, it's the same as our situation, under the same roof, my leader..."
Mu Jiahe interrupted him. "Alright, stop talking. It was nothing, but you're making it worse."
Xiao Xun scratched his head sheepishly. "It was my fault for talking too much. Eat, eat!"
Soon, all the dishes were served.
It was autumn, and it wasn't good to drink cold drinks. Xiao Xun directly asked Xiao Lan to boil two large buckets of Coke, adding goji berries and ginger slices.
This is also a unique characteristic only found in China, because the Coke packaging clearly states: Do not heat.
Every dish here suited Liu Shijia's palate, and she ate more than Xiao Xun.
A major characteristic of private kitchens is the upgraded version of home-style cooking. Although there are no high-end ingredients, it takes great effort to perfect a dish that is loved by the masses.
After dinner, Xiao Xun drove Liu Shijia back to her neighborhood, and then returned to the villa area with Mu Jiahe.
Xiao Xun had drunk so much the night before and thrown up, so he already disliked the smell on his body. After changing his shoes, he immediately rushed into his room to take a shower.
Mu Jiahe sat on the sofa and opened her phone, looking at the hidden surveillance cameras in the villa.
As soon as she slid the time forward, she discovered something unusual. The cleaning lady who was responsible for cleaning the house that afternoon kept staring at the pinhole camera.
Her expression was blank, and she didn't even blink. Because the room was dim in the afternoon, her appearance seemed very eerie.
She dragged the progress bar on the screen backward and found that the cleaning lady stood in front of the camera for more than four hours, then showed a strange smile, and turned to leave.
She quickly switched to the next camera, wanting to see where she went. To her surprise, she didn't leave the villa but entered Xiao Xun's room.
Seeing this, Mu Jiahe hurried towards Xiao Xun's room, ready to act at any moment.
She pushed open the door and heard the sound of running water from Xiao Xun's bathroom.
"Xiao Xun, are you alright?"
No one answered. Her mind had already conjured images of Xiao Xun being strangled by the mysterious cleaning lady.
Thinking of this, she unhesitatingly pushed the door open and walked in.
Xiao Xun was soaking in the bathtub, the massage function turned on, the water rippling and vibrating. He had already fallen asleep.
Mu Jiahe looked around vigilantly, but there was no one else. However, Mu Jiahe still cautiously checked all possible hiding places, including under the bed and in the closet.
After confirming no one was there, Mu Jiahe raised an eyebrow and thought to herself, "Could this person have flown away?"
She continued to watch the surveillance footage. Around six or seven in the evening, the cleaning lady left under the urging of another cleaning lady. It turned out to be a false alarm.
However, Mu Jiahe still planned to call the cleaning company tomorrow to inquire about this cleaning lady's situation.
She bent down, drained the water from Xiao Xun's bathtub with one button, and then patted his face to wake him up. He seemed to be in a bad mood, his eyes were red, and he frowned unhappily.
"How could you fall asleep while taking a shower?"
Xiao Xun yawned and wiped the excess water from his body with a towel. "Too sleepy. Is it time to go?"
Mu Jiahe nodded. The two of them went to the master bedroom on the second floor and entered the other world.
Because he was too sleepy, Xiao Xun entered his dreamland without even changing his posture.
On the contrary, Mu Jiahe was worried. Her intuition told her that things were definitely not as simple as she imagined.
From Xiao Xun's assassination to his disappearance in broad daylight, no matter the circumstances, these people would definitely not give up.
They would surely do whatever it takes to figure out the situation here.
If nothing else, a living person disappearing out of thin air in a very short period of time was beyond the comprehension of ordinary people and could not be explained by science.
To conceal this secret, and unable to change their residence, they could only replace the temporary cleaning staff and resupply personnel.
Because their turnover was high and their variability was large.
If necessary, it would be better to select a few reliable live-in nannies. They had initially avoided live-in nannies for the sake of secrecy, but unexpectedly, these people who could enter and exit the villa at will had become the biggest hidden danger.
Unknowingly, it was already time for the morning court. Xiao Xun was still asleep.
Mu Jiahe changed her clothes, placed the empty vase in a conspicuous position, and then went out.