"Are you sure you want to treat him to a meal? The food he eats is very expensive," Ye Wan recalled Gu Yunting's usual haunts, where a single meal could easily cost four figures, with five or six figures being normal. She genuinely felt she couldn't afford it.
"I just feel that saying thank you with words alone isn't sincere. If I treat, it'll be at most five hundred yuan for hot pot. I can't afford anything more expensive," Jiang Yan said matter-of-factly. "Perhaps your Young Master Gu hasn't eaten such down-to-earth food and might find it novel and delicious."
"He's not ours. Don't spout nonsense. I'll ask him, though. He hasn't been home recently, so I'll ask when I see him." Ye Wan remembered how Gu Yunting had abandoned her and left without looking back that day because of a woman's phone call, especially at such a moment. It made her chest feel blocked and uncomfortable.
"What's wrong? Did you two argue?" Jiang Yan astutely sensed that her mood was off.
"No, how could I? How dare I argue with him?" Ye Wan's words were clearly tinged with a bit of petulance.
"Oh, oh, oh, listen to that resentful tone. You're practically becoming a little aggrieved wife," Jiang Yan said with amusement.
"..."
"I'll ask for you later. What are your plans next?" Ye Wan didn't want to bring up Gu Yunting anymore; it would only make her feel bad.
"Definitely working. I can't find a better job for now, so I've taken a part-time job at a milk tea shop. I can earn about two hundred yuan a day," Jiang Yan said.
"If you need money, just tell me. You don't have to rush to make money... I'll ask my brother if he needs a translator," Ye Wan offered.
"No, my professional skills are too poor. I don't want to embarrass myself. I'll wait until I've studied for another year. Unlike you, I'm not fluent in multiple languages. I only know English, and simple things are fine. If you ask me to handle those technical terms, I definitely can't. There are countless English translators nowadays, and I might starve after graduation. It's a good thing I've finally realized how inadequate I am," Jiang Yan was truly disheartened. In the past, her family was wealthy, and her parents gave her tens of thousands of yuan for pocket money each month. She never took her studies seriously, just aiming to muddle through and get a degree. Now, she realized how naive and ridiculous her past thinking was.
"Alright then." Ye Wan thought about how she had done all sorts of jobs to earn money in the past.
"What kind of part-time jobs did you do before?" Jiang Yan genuinely didn't know. Ye Wan had been very secretive, and she had no idea what she had done.
Ye Wan smiled. Apart from illegal activities, she had truly done every kind of part-time job. Her situation was different from Jiang Yan's; back then, she had nothing and had to do her best to earn money to treat her younger brother's illness and prolong his life.
Now, although the Jiang family had fallen, Jiang Yan still had her to lend money to.
Perhaps it was because her brother's illness had recovered, and she had received the inheritance left by her grandfather, she no longer lacked money. Furthermore, Gu Yunting had been treating her very well recently, even making her forget the unforgettable pain and trauma of the past.
She even forgot that a life stood between them, and that she and he could never be together in this lifetime.
"I've worked as a tutor, handed out flyers, and done all sorts of jobs," Ye Wan didn't mention that she had also worked in bars selling alcohol, attended banquets for money, and nearly lost her life countless times.