Mr. Yuan is Always Unhappy - Chap 11
Edited by Yummers
Yuan Rui finally left the company after Li Lingling gave him some more details about the new show’s filming process.
On the way home, Zhao Zhengyi was a bit upset the whole time due to Li Lingling’s scolding. Yuan Rui kept his head down on his phone too.
When they were almost at his home, Yuan Rui told Zhao Zhengyi to drive to the supermarket. It was still early in the day and it was holiday season, so the supermarket was packed. It wouldn’t be good for Yuan Rui to go in, so he had to give Zhao Zhengyi his shopping list instead. “Buy two jin of grapes, 5-6 bananas, then take a look at the apples too. Don’t buy any that are over sixteen yuan, if they’re under then buy 5-6 of them, big ones.”
“……Do you mean 16 yuan per jin or per kilogram?”
Yuan Rui replied, “Of course it’s 16 yuan per kilogram, do you know how to read label prices?”
Zhao Zhengyi replied distressedly, “I do, I’m going now.”
Yuan Rui stopped him to speak again, “Also buy a foot bath machine. The entirely automatic ones, the best-selling one is what I’m talking about. The workers will probably know if you ask them. The Tmall flagship store website sells it for ¥1088, don’t get it if it’s more expensive than that. I’ll buy it online later.”
“Oh.”
He was actually a little irritated, he just didn’t want to show it.
He knew well that what happened today wasn’t Yuan Rui’s fault. An assistant’s job is to analyze other’s moods and go along with them. Yuan Rui had a good temper and couldn’t fight against Li Lingling’s bad temper while she was menopausing, not to mention he’s constantly being used as an outlet for her irritation.
After he bought the fruits, he pushed the cart to the small home appliances area. A staff there introduced him to the foot bath machine that Yuan Rui had talked about. It was suited for those who had to sit or stand for long periods daily. It functioned smoothly and was easy to operate.
He was a bit tempted. Since his dad was a taxi driver, he would complain about his legs and back hurting every day when he came home, but he also thought that pedicures were too expensive. If he brought this home, then his old man would definitely like it. But the foot bath wasn’t cheap either. It was around one month’s worth of his living expenses. If he bought the machine, then he wouldn’t be able to pay for this month’s expenses at home. Which would equal to him showing his parents filial piety with his parent’s money. The conflicted thoughts went on for a while, then he finally gave up. He’ll just buy a cheaper one next time, that’d be fine too.
He came back to the car with all the stuff and opened the backseat door to put everything there.
Yuan Rui spoke up, “Put the foot bath machine in the trunk, in case it falls and breaks.”
Zhao Zhengyi turned a deaf ear to it. He replied once he got back in the front seat, “Your house is right around the corner, it’d be more trouble to grab it from the back again.”
He was only able to say those words because Yuan Rui had a good temper, if it was any other artist, they probably wouldn’t have accepted such an ill-mannered reply from their assistant.
As expected, Yuan Rui wasn’t mad. He just looked at him, then spoke kind of awkwardly, “But that’s for you, I don’t need to grab it.”
“……”
Yuan Rui spoke shyly, “It is natural to give welfare during the holidays, it’s already the third today. If I don’t do it now, then the holiday’s going to be over.”
Zhao Zhengyi replied, “……You already gave me two boxes of Mei Xin Mooncakes. The company also gives out welfare.”
“The mooncakes were a Mid-Autumn gift, this is for National Day. The company’s welfare is the company’s. Sigh, everyone is on break today for the holiday too, but you had to work overtime with me. I didn’t do good enough and caused you to be scolded by Lingling-Jie.”
Zhao Zhengyi quickly replied, “It’s all good, Yuan-Ge, that really is unnecessary.”
“You don’t need to be humble with me. I thought about it for a long while and couldn’t figure out what gift would suit you, then I suddenly remembered that you said your dad was a taxi driver. After having to drive around the whole day, soaking his feet in this after work can help him relieve stress and improve health. Gifting this would be a lot more useful than anything else. Your mom can use it too. Although if you have high blood pressure or heart disease, it shouldn’t be used too frequently. Do either of them have those issues?”
“……”
Yuan Rui looked at him with sincere eyes.
He found slight hints of tears in the other’s eyes.
Yuan Rui was instantly at a loss. “What’s going on? Are there some problems going on in your family? Oh right, you never mentioned your mom before, do you also…not have a mom?”
Zhao Zhengyi wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “No, my mom’s doing great. She doesn’t have high blood pressure or any heart disease, my dad is fine as well.”
Yuan Rui was relieved. But then he asked confusingly, “What are you crying about then?”
Zhao Zhengyi didn’t say anything for a moment.
Then replied, “Yuan-Ge…the apples were 18 yuan, I forgot and bought them too.”
Yuan Rui could tell that he was changing the topic on purpose, but still couldn’t help but furrow his eyebrows, “How much did you buy?”
Zhao Zhengyi sniffed his nose. “50 yuan worth of apples.”
Yuan Rui turned to look at the fruits in the back seat, then turned back after a while. He spoke heartachingly, “Oh my god.”
Zhao Zhengyi smiled widely, he thought to himself, How could there be such a dumb yet kind person?
After dinner that night, Yuan Rui came to sit on the couch with Zheng Qiuyang while holding a plate of sliced fruits. He watched the other play Anipop and fed him a piece every once in a while.
Zheng Qiuyang was a bit down because of not being able to pass the same level multiple times. He raised his head to ask, “Why are you only feeding me apples?”
Yuan Rui looked at him eagerly, “Are they good?”
Zheng Qiuyang answered, “They’re fine. But I want to eat grapes.”
Yuan Rui picked up another slice of apple for him and said, “Finish the apples before eating the others, or else when the surface oxidizes they won’t taste good anymore.”
Zheng Qiuyang was boggled. “Why aren’t you eating any? Did you drug them? Are they Snow White’s poisoned apples?”
Yuan Rui spoke heartachingly, “Just six of them cost me fifty yuan, they’re too precious for me to eat.”
“……”
Once the long break of National Day was over, the idol drama that Yuan Rui was cast as the second male lead finally started filming.
The drama was adapted from a very popular web romance novel, everyone loved the story of a Mary Sue female protagonist. Yuan Rui read both the script and the original novel, his character was an heir of a plutocrats family. He always carried the bitchy atmosphere of, “Yeah I’m rich, what are you looking at?” Constantly saying the words “I’m going to let the entire Qin Family/Business Market/Beijing/World know that you belong to me——the man named Qin Shuhao!” However, that did absolutely nothing. The female lead ended up with his good friend. Furthermore, the good friend’s character setting was an overbearing president, he was even more Zhao Ritian than Qin Shuhao.
The one cast to be the male lead was an actor by the name of Le Ningyu. When Yuan Rui was on a reality show as a part of the fixed team there, the other was invited as a guest for one episode. The two knew of each other but weren’t familiar.
Le Ningyu specialized in acting the role of an overbearing president. He was quite popular, but also had a bit of a bad reputation. Just around his debut, he had a hit and run accident. Then he publicized his relationship with an actress to show off their love. But not even a week passed before he was found by paparazzi in the night club with someone else, earning him loud slaps in the face.
Yuan Rui wasn’t a big fan of him.
But Le Ningyu seemed rather fond of him. He was always approaching him on purpose.
“Yuan Rui, I’m having my assistant go and buy some cold drinks, what do you want?”
Yuan Rui, do you think my hair looks good in this color?”
“Yuan Rui, want to go out for a few drinks after work?”
“Yuan Rui……”
“Yuan Rui……”
Yuan Rui felt intimidated by the amount of attention he was showing him. But he didn’t know how to refuse him either, so he could only force himself to interact with him.
He pestered him until Zheng Qiuyang realized that something was weird when he called him at midnight for two days straight. He broke out, “What does he want?”
Yuan Rui replied, “He said we felt just like old friends upon our first meeting, so he wanted us to be good friends.”
“Bullcrap!”
“……”
Zheng Qiuyang was extremely irritated. “Don’t pay attention to him. I bet that bastard’s not harboring any good intentions.”
Yuan Rui was conflicted. “We’re coworkers, I can’t really just ignore him if he comes up to speak with me. Plus, he’s more famous than I am. What could he possibly obtain from me?”
Zheng Qiuyang was close to exploding. “What can he obtain from you by calling you specifically at midnight?! Are you dumb?!”
“……Yeah.”
Zheng Qiuyang’s temper died down.
When he and Yuan Rui just met, he’d already witnessed Yuan Rui being harassed twice. One time was a scummy director at the TV station, the other was an obscene man he had met by chance at a bar. Yuan Rui was handsome with a good temper, but he was also slow-witted. Some scums always thought that they wouldn’t lose anything from taking advantage of him.
What should he do about it? It would be nice if he could put him in his pocket to keep him by his side every day.
T/N: I’m not saying this because I don’t like Le Ningyu (but it’s true that I don’t like him), I’ve never thought of this until I translated this chapter but bruh, his name in pinyin is so ugly. It was fine in hanzi or said, 乐宁宇, but “Le Ningyu” just looks ugly to me.
E/N: tbh his name looks ugly in both cn and eng, ugly just like his shitty personality <33
