I Fell In Love With The Fruit Stand Proprietress At First Sight - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Unexpected Event – Rescued by a Beauty…

After a few days of getting familiar with the job, Ding Chi was fully proficient in delivering takeout.

On her first day, she could only handle a dozen orders; now, she could deliver twenty to thirty orders. Her daily income naturally doubled.

Having just finished a rice noodle roll order, Ding Chi returned to the food street. She picked up a pizza box from a pizza place and then a lemon tea from the bubble tea shop opposite.

While waiting for the orders, Ding Chi took off her helmet to catch her breath.

She looked at the customers coming and going in the shop, holding various drinks like lemon tea, watermelon tea, and jasmine green tea. She looked up at the attractive bubble tea posters above the counter, swallowed, and finally pulled a water bottle out of her shoulder bag, drinking some water to quench her thirst.

Bubble tea nowadays was truly expensive. A cup of tea like this cost ten to twenty yuan, sometimes even thirty yuan. What was the material cost?

Ding Chi remembered the pearl milk tea she drank in primary school. It was the kind that was colorful and obviously full of food coloring, even the straws were brightly colored. They were mostly strawberry, taro, or watermelon flavored, probably just made from instant powder.

While nowhere near as good as these modern teas, they were cheap, only two yuan a cup back then.

Now… now, Ding Chi took another large gulp of water.

Hmph, she now thought plain boiled water was also quite tasty.

Muttering to herself to stay composed, Ding Chi suppressed her craving. She took the takeout, stood up, and left the shop.

However, Ding Chi’s striking looks had already attracted the attention of some customers in the shop. Two girls whispered to each other:

“Oh my god, I’ve never seen such a beautiful delivery girl.”

“So what? Even beautiful people have to earn money.”

“True, but she’s so good-looking, why not be a model? Why deliver takeout…”

Ding Chi heard the comments behind her, but she was used to them and didn’t pay much attention. After all, people had been discussing her family’s affairs since she was a child.

A model? Ding Chi smiled faintly. She was hardly suited to be a model. The one truly suited to be a model was someone else—

But… She looked toward the street corner in the distance. The spot where the fruit stall should have been was empty.

Was that woman not working today?

In the past few days, whenever Ding Chi passed by this food street, her gaze would instinctively drift towards the fruit stall, and she would always see the proprietress.

She felt the woman didn’t talk much and didn’t hustle for business like other vendors. But perhaps because of her stunning looks and presence, even with several other fruit stalls nearby, customers preferred to go to her.

She couldn’t be bothered to haggle with people. If a customer wanted to buy, they bought; if not, so be it. Those fox eyes would just glance over indifferently, as if she wasn’t there to do business at all, but merely to relieve boredom.

And her action of cutting fruit was still beautiful to watch, smooth and swift. That slender arm hid an unbelievable amount of strength, slicing the melon rinds as if they were pieces of tofu every time.

Ding Chi always watched from afar and never went up to say hello. After all, it was just a chance encounter. The woman probably didn’t even remember her face.

But then I remember the six hundred yuan…

It turned out the woman hadn’t kept her money, having secretly rolled up the six hundred yuan and slipped it back into Ding Chi’s pocket.

Ding Chi had called her a “profiteer” earlier, but she had been wrong.

At that moment, Ding Chi couldn’t describe how she felt, and she didn’t have much time to think, as she immediately had to ride her scooter to deliver the orders in her hand.

As the scooter drove away from the food street, Ding Chi looked back at the woman. There were no customers at the stall for the moment, and the woman was sitting on a small stool, looking down at her phone.

Then, she suddenly looked up, and her gaze seemed to come directly towards Ding Chi.

Caught off guard, Ding Chi was startled and quickly turned her head, her heart pounding again. She didn’t know if she had actually made eye contact with the woman.

The woman probably just casually looked up at the bustling crowd and quickly looked down again.

Ding Chi covered her chest and secretly cursed herself for being ridiculous.

Why was she so nervous?

But the fact that the woman hadn’t opened her stall today left Ding Chi, who had become accustomed to checking for her every day, with an inexplicable sense of loss.

Shaking her head, Ding Chi tried hard to banish the figure from her mind.

What are you thinking? Whether she’s selling or not is none of your business. Just go deliver your takeout.

After delivering several more orders, the new order notification on her phone stopped ringing. It was past three in the afternoon, neither lunchtime nor dinner time, so the reduced number of orders was normal.

Ding Chi parked her scooter on a street corner, leaned against the seat, and took a temporary break.

Today’s earnings were decent. She estimated she had made about two hundred yuan already.

Just as she was about to pull out her water bottle for a drink, someone approached, and a few shadows cast a darker shade over her.

Ding Chi paused, a bad feeling rising in her. She looked up and saw a few intimidating men blocking her.

“Ding Chi,” the man leading the group, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a streak of white dye in his bangs, was dressed like a typical street thug. He had a menacing smile: “What a coincidence, delivering takeout? You must have earned quite a bit of money.”

“I just started delivering. I’m not good at running orders, so how could I earn much?” Ding Chi subtly began inching backward, scanning the area for an escape route, while maintaining an innocent smile: “Brother Baizi, what a coincidence. Out for a stroll? I have orders to deliver, so I’ll be going first—”

“Stop playing dumb!” Brother Baizi impatiently waved his hand, flicking off a few cigarette ashes: “What did you say last time? That you’d definitely pay the money back in three months? Well, the deadline is up, right? Did you scrape the money together?”

“Brother Baizi,” Ding Chi internally groaned. Why did she have to run into these people? “Ten thousand yuan isn’t a small amount. Could you give me a little more time? I promise to pay it back in another month—”

Brother Baizi was so angry that he sputtered: “Another extension! Last time I gave you three months, and now you want another month? Do you think I’m a charity! Ding, I see you won’t cry until you see your coffin—Stop running! You stop right there!”

Taking advantage of the man’s outburst, Ding Chi seized the opportunity. She didn’t even bother with the scooter and ran off in one direction.

If not now, when!

Want money? Go burn paper money for yourselves!

The men behind her realized what was happening and quickly gave chase. Although Ding Chi was a girl, she was quite agile. She turned a corner down one alley, then leaped over another pile of obstacles. They chased her in circles, constantly close to catching her, yet always just missing. They shouted angrily: “You stop right there!”

Stop? Stop and wait to be beaten? Did they think she was stupid!

The chase continued for nearly ten minutes, leaving everyone breathless. One threatened her to stop running if she dared, and the other retorted for them to stop chasing if they dared.

Not running was impossible, and not chasing was also impossible.

She was just about to lose her pursuers when Ding Chi accidentally turned into a dead-end alley. A wall blocked her path.

Darn it!

Ding Chi inwardly screamed in frustration and tried to turn around quickly, but some cursed soul had thrown a banana peel on the ground, causing her to fall hard. By the time she endured the pain and struggled to stand up, it was too late.

The men had already gathered and blocked her way out.

“You… you run…” Brother Baizi gasped, leaning on his knees: “If you have the guts, run… run again!”

“I’m not running.” Ding Chi resigned herself, sitting directly on the ground: “I don’t have money. If you have the guts, kill me.”

“You!” Brother Baizi was so angry he laughed. He stepped forward and grabbed her collar: “Do you believe I’ll beat you so badly you won’t be able to get up for three days!”

Ding Chi simply closed her eyes.

These people were loan sharks. They were owed money by her useless, gambling father when he was still alive. That Ding San owed money to more than one group of people. Over the years, Ding Chi and Jiang Ying had worked hard to pay back the principal of all the debts. But a few months ago, these men showed up, claiming there were tens of thousands of yuan in interest left unpaid.

The family didn’t have much savings to begin with, and Jiang Ying was sick. Ding Chi naturally refused this demand and used excuses to stall them.

These men were just petty thugs, small-time loan sharks. They would cause trouble, but they wouldn’t dare escalate it too much. At most, they would throw paint on your door, deflate your tires, or corner you and beat you up. But they wouldn’t dare to seriously injure or kill anyone. Because the debt was only a few thousand or ten thousand, most debtors just paid up to avoid trouble.

Ding Chi simply gave up. She had no money, only her life. Let’s see if they dared to take it.

Brother Baizi, seeing her attitude of refusing to pay, felt rage surge in his heart. He raised his fist, ready to strike.

Eyes tightly shut, Ding Chi’s body tensed, waiting for the pain.

She lamented internally: Well, the money I earned today will probably all go to medical expenses.

In the nick of time, there was a sudden whooshing sound. A knife flew out from an unknown direction, narrowly missing Brother Baizi’s face by a few millimeters, and embedded itself straight into a wooden crate piled up in the corner of the wall.

When the knife struck, the entire blade trembled.

It also made Brother Baizi break out in a cold sweat.

“Who is it?!” He shouted back angrily, his eyes red. His few underlings also looked at each other, completely baffled.

Who? Who is it?

“My apologies,” a clear feminine voice cut in, the tone languid and slow, as casual as if she were discussing the weather: “My hand slipped. I accidentally dropped my knife here.”

Ding Chi froze upon hearing the somewhat familiar voice.

The men behind her subconsciously moved aside. Following the sound, their eyes lit up.

A beautiful, enchanting woman, with a slight smile at the corner of her lips, was leaning casually against an electric scooter, leisurely chewing on an apple, looking as if she was enjoying a show.

The fruit stand proprietress!?

Ding Chi’s eyes widened. She managed to pull her gaze away from the woman’s face and looked at the vehicle underneath her. Wait, isn’t that electric scooter mine?

Seeing Ding Chi’s questioning gaze, Song Nianxi smiled and patted the seat of the scooter beneath her: “Little sister, why are you so forgetful? I was setting up my stall today, and I found a free scooter on the road.”

“Who are you?!” Seeing the woman only talking to Ding Chi and completely ignoring him, Brother Baizi became even angrier. He kicked the underling who was staring blankly: “What are you staring at!”

“I am nobody,” Song Nianxi spread her hands: “Just an ordinary fruit seller, and also…”

She curled the corner of her lips and pointed at Ding Chi: “…her sister.”