Adored by Him: My Blissful Days as the Girl Next Door-Chapter 383 - 382: Aggrieved

Shi Yang felt even more sympathetic, reached out to hold Zhao Meimei’s chin, and carefully examined her: "Look at this, my darling is getting thinner from exhaustion." He said, patting Zhao Meimei’s butt: "No, we won’t be eating stir-fried noodles. Get dressed, I’ll take you for some lamb hotpot?"

In the middle of the night, the only place to have hotpot is Wang’s Fresh Lamb Hotpot on Third Street. This shop is an old brand; it’s said that the hotpot broth was passed down from the older generation. The fire for simmering the broth never goes out, with a large stew pot sitting on the stove, filled with a deep-colored, rich-flavored old broth, uncovering the lid reveals lamb leg bones stacked high inside.

The most crucial point is, to keep the old broth simmering without going out, this shop operates 24 hours a day.

By late night, there were only a few customers in the shop. Shi Yang and Zhao Meimei entered a private room with heating, snug against the warm heating pipes. They first ordered a spicy hotpot base, and the two of them started choosing dishes together.

Wang’s only has lamb meat. When ordering meat, you choose by the cut, not by platter, by weight. You order as much as you eat, and if you can’t finish it, you can pack it up and take it home to fry later. The whole family is Muslim, so the lamb is particularly authentic.

Zhao Meimei finished marking the dishes she liked and handed the order to Shi Yang to choose the meat. Shi Yang asked Zhao Meimei, "For the lamb spine, should we go for the large portion or the small portion?"

Zhao Meimei immediately said, "Large portion."

Shi Yang asked again, "Do you want some top sirloin along with large tri-tip?"

Zhao Meimei: "Yes!"

Shi Yang: "What about the cucumber strip hind leg then?"

Zhao Meimei: "Yes!"

Shi Yang was busy marking when the waitress beside them chuckled. In the middle of the night, there were few customers, and the young waiters couldn’t hold out and went to the backyard to nap. The boss lady on night duty was a fifty-something granny, listening to their back-and-forth, laughing endlessly.

The boss lady said, "Just the two of you, you’re ordering too much and won’t finish it. You’re not locals, right? Here we sell lamb by the pound, hand-cut lamb looks small but there’s a lot. How about this, we’ll mix a pound of top sirloin, large tri-tip, and cucumber strip for you; whatever you can’t eat can be packed to go. Does that work for you?"

Shi Yang cheerfully agreed, "Sure, also two bowls of clear soup."

After the boss lady left, Zhao Meimei reached out to snuggle Shi Yang’s arm, "Brother, what does she mean? Does she think I eat too much?"

Shi Yang pinched Zhao Meimei’s nose tip, "No worries, the more you eat, the happier I am."

Zhao Meimei giggled twice, "What if I end up a big fatty in the future?"

Shi Yang squinted slightly, grinning mischievously, leaned closer to Zhao Meimei’s ear, whispering, "If you really become a big fatty, when we sleep, I’ll just lie on top of you. Soft and comfy, wouldn’t that be nice."

Zhao Meimei was delighted to hear this, couldn’t help but giggle, oh my, lying on top of me, hehehehe...

Since Shi Yang’s return from headquarters this time, he’s been thoroughly out of leisure time, constantly looking for places to open storefronts, and every now and then going to Xu Hongbin and Qian Jinqiu’s place to help choose early education class rental classrooms.

The time was too tight, and with the year’s end approaching, the maternity store was running promotions, busy like crazy, restocking, adjusting stock, managing accounts, everything piled up together, Shi Yang had to oversee everything, orchestrate everything, too busy to even drink water, also having to prepare New Year’s goods, deliver gifts everywhere. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Before the year-end, Zhao Meimei was also busy to the point of chaos, the foreign language school announced close to New Year’s Eve that school would close on the 29th of the lunar calendar and reopen on the 10th. Before the holiday, she had to assign homework to students, whether the students had time to do it or not during the New Year, the teachers had to sort out exercises in advance, distribute them, to properly complete the task.

It was Zhao Meimei’s first time responsible for assigning homework to students, naturally hoping for less homework, broad coverage, allowing her class’s students to learn the most in the shortest time every day, because she truly understood, the children’s desire to enjoy the New Year fully.

Shi Yang was busy, Zhao Meimei wasn’t idle either, besides snuggling together at night to sleep, during the day they didn’t even have time to text mushily for a moment, sometimes when they were exhausted, lying in bed, it’s simply snuggling, kissing, and turning over to sleep separately.

As a result of being this tired, Zhao Meimei didn’t get any good from it, and the day before school officially went on holiday, the principal came around to check on the teachers’ assigned homework situation. When she reached Zhao Meimei, just one look at the amount of homework made her frown, glaring at Zhao Meimei like a class teacher dealing with a naughty, troublesome kid—such a disappointed look.

The principal scolded Zhao Meimei: "Teacher Xiao Zhao, it’s not that I’m criticizing you, but you young intern teachers have an incredibly unprofessional attitude. Look at Teacher Liu, your homework’s not even as much as one of her oral assignments."

Zhao Meimei explained, "Principal, I screened and listed the key question types on the paper because I was worried students wouldn’t have time to do homework during the New Year holiday. That’s why I circled the key points. As long as they follow my requirements after returning home, I guarantee when we reopen and do assessment tests, our class’s scores will improve."

The principal admonished Zhao Meimei, "You say you listed the key question types, students take the homework home, parents check, and it’s just two papers? Isn’t this fooling idiots! The students who come to our foreign language school for tutoring, aren’t the parents just sending them here to improve their English scores, preparing them for junior high? You left such a small amount of homework, can the parents accept this!"

Zhao Meimei’s eyes were red from the reprimand that day; she felt immensely aggrieved. Her insistence on standing strong and proud, in front of the leadership, was utterly useless, she could only lower her head, suffered through another night, listing all the previously screened-out exercises on paper, turning two key papers into a thick booklet.

When the principal saw the revised assignments, her face finally showed a bit of a smile, criticising and praising simultaneously: "This is how it should be! Teacher Xiao Zhao, you’re young, with little teaching experience, so you should humbly learn, be diligent and earnest in your work, always slacking off, thinking others are fools?"

Zhao Meimei came out from the principal’s office, crestfallen, feeling incredibly stifled inside. She couldn’t understand why her hard work couldn’t even earn a bit of favorable perspective from others.

During the lunch break, Zhao Meimei dragged Peng Hui to the spicy hotpot shop near the school, ordered two bowls of spicy hotpot, and asked for two plates of fried skewers, eating while complaining.

Zhao Meimei said, "I just can’t understand what I did wrong; who said more homework means better teaching quality? It’s simply ignorant and stupid!"