My Fiancé's Scandals Never End, So I Married His Uncle Instead-Chapter 119: Beneath the Fireworks, Earthly Desires

Chapter 119: Chapter 119: Beneath the Fireworks, Earthly Desires

The clerk stared at him, completely bewildered.

Hesitantly, she poured a cup of plain water, unsure whether she should give it to him or not.

Silas Norwood didn’t take it.

He changed his approach. "I don’t want your existing, low-quality ingredients. I want the best milk, the best tea leaves, the best pearls, and the best coconut jelly."

"Sir, our ingredients are all standardized. We can’t make custom adjustments. And I can assure you our ingredients are definitely not ’low-quality’ among milk tea brands." The clerk glanced at the long line of customers behind him, thinking, ’This man has a top-tier air about him, but he’s so difficult.’ "How about you step aside and think about it? Let me know which drink you want once you’ve decided, so the other customers don’t have to wait."

Silas Norwood stepped to the side and sent a text message.

Ten minutes later, a bodyguard walked over carrying several items.

Silas Norwood returned to the counter and placed the items on it. "Excuse me. Please use these ingredients."

The clerk glanced at the items: tea leaves, milk, pearls, and coconut jelly, all of a quality she had never seen before. She hesitated. "Sir, we can’t brew milk tea to order. It’s all prepared in advance."

"Why not?"

The clerk pointed behind him. "With this many customers, we’re too busy."

"Where is the manager?"

The female manager came over. "Sir?"

Silas Norwood casually picked up his phone, transferred a sum of money, and said, "I want two freshly brewed milk teas."

The manager stared at the payment confirmation screen showing a five-figure sum, silent for a moment. "In that case, sir, please have a seat in our lounge area. I will personally brew it for you."

"There’s no rush. Just make sure the temperature and technique are perfect," Silas Norwood instructed gently. "This is the first cup of milk tea I’m buying for my girlfriend. I want to make a good impression."

"Rest assured, sir. I’ve been making milk tea for twelve years. I’m a complete professional." The manager carefully took the ingredients Silas Norwood had provided and went into the back room.

A few minutes later, after handling a wave of customers, the clerk went into the back room. She saw the manager with tea leaves bearing the logo of a certain tribute tea, a brand of milk she didn’t recognize, and a few other small ingredients laid out in front of her. While brewing the milk tea, the manager was looking something up on her phone.

"Manager, do you need any help?" the clerk asked in a low voice.

"Be careful. Don’t knock any of this over. We can’t afford to replace it." The manager’s voice was even lower as she showed the clerk the prices she had looked up on her phone. "Fifty thousand for a single gram of tea leaves, and 358 for a small carton of organic milk. Using this to make milk tea... I’ve never seen such a loaded customer..."

The clerk thought, ’With standards this high, no wonder he called our stuff low-quality.’

Despite her comments, the manager didn’t dare to be the least bit careless as she worked, terrified of messing it up. After all, the few grams of tea leaves she had just put in were worth over a hundred thousand. The customer might not care, but the manager certainly did.

By the time Silas Norwood left the shop with two cups of milk tea, Celia Sterling, who was at a nearby food stall, was completely captivated by what Quinn Sinclair was saying.

"He can’t perform?" Celia Sterling toyed with a cup of water in her hands as she leaned closer to Quinn Sinclair. "The people saying this... have they tried him out?"

Quinn Sinclair’s eyes widened. "Try him out? How? In all these years, Silas Norwood has never been linked to any woman in a scandal. Those thirsty women have tried every trick in the book to get close to him, but they haven’t even managed to touch the hem of his clothes. Look at the Moonlight edition—dozens of women wracked their brains just to come up with a measly 200,000 words. In Nina Sterling’s words, with a guy like Silas Norwood, you’d be afraid of breaking him if you pushed too hard. There’s just no room to work with. But that’s exactly why it’s so strange."

"How is it strange?"

"Come on, what man isn’t into sex? If he’s not, it’s either an issue with his orientation or a functional problem." Quinn Sinclair paused. "Don’t quote me on that. I’m just repeating the analysis from those other women. Don’t tell anyone, or I’m afraid Silas Norwood will destroy the Sinclair Family..."

"I won’t tell anyone," Celia Sterling said, her expression grim. "So they’re just slinging mud at him based on pure speculation?"

’Not only are they slinging mud, they’re acting all high and mighty, pitying the future chairman’s wife. Does she need their pity? It’s a classic case of sour grapes.’

’Just this afternoon, when they were alone in his office... beneath that cool and detached exterior, he was passionate as fire, wild and unrestrained. And yet, he was so easily flustered. His tense body was torn between desire and discomposure, as if he had been set ablaze...’

’Beneath that ethereal facade was a man of pure sensual indulgence, with an insatiable appetite.’

’If they said he was addicted to women, Celia Sterling could maybe even get behind that.’

’But to say he couldn’t perform? Celia Sterling dismissed it as complete nonsense.’

Quinn Sinclair tilted her head, thought for a moment, and analyzed, "But I don’t think it’s entirely baseless. People are already placing bets on Silas Norwood’s married life. They’re betting that, with his personality of being uninterested in women, he’ll probably delay the wedding again and again. It’s highly likely he’ll string his fiancée along until she’s an old maid..."

Celia Sterling said nothing. She thought about how Silas Norwood had gone to Kian Sterling several times to ask about moving the wedding date up, and how anxious he seemed. She remained skeptical of Quinn Sinclair’s analysis and let out a noncommittal little laugh.

Quinn Sinclair added, "There’s an even more well-reasoned theory. It says that Silas Norwood is an incredibly boring person who doesn’t understand love or affection. He’s cold and heartless. Even if he gets married on schedule, he’ll probably just revolve around his work, not coming home for weeks at a time, leaving his wife to sleep in an empty bed. It’s possible she’d have to use all sorts of tricks and negotiate terms just to sleep with him once."

’Tricks?’ thought Celia. ’When it comes to getting a little sugar, Silas Norwood comes at my beck and call and is impossible to get rid of. What tricks would I need? I just collected my ’benefits’ this afternoon, and he’s already planning to come over every day at noon. As for words like ’noble,’ ’reserved,’ and ’cold’—in front of me, he threw those out along with his sense of shame a long time ago.’

’As for being boring in private? Revolving around work? Even my own brother doesn’t know how to have fun like he does. His skill at being a hands-off boss is practically an art form. He can even turn a simple role-playing game at the yacht club into something spectacular.’

"All right, I don’t want to hear this anymore," Celia Sterling interrupted Quinn Sinclair, annoyed. "It’s a waste of my time. Can’t you talk about something useful?"

"Something useful..." Quinn Sinclair sighed. "I heard the Sterling and Norwood families have been getting close recently. You must have had some interaction with Silas Norwood, right? Have you ever eaten a meal with him?"

Celia Sterling eyed her. "Why are you asking?"

"Purely out of curiosity." Quinn Sinclair’s eyes were filled with a thirst for knowledge. "I don’t know who started this rumor, but they’re saying that a man as ethereal as Silas Norwood—so cold and ascetic—might be secretly eating incense ash from an altar to maintain that divine, passionless aura of his..."

Celia Sterling fell abruptly silent.

’I must be crazy to sit here listening to Quinn Sinclair’s nonsense for so long!’

Just as she was about to impatiently move away, a cool, indifferent voice spoke from behind her:

"Miss Sinclair, I don’t eat incense ash."

Celia Sterling spun around to find Silas Norwood already standing beside her, holding the milk teas. His amber eyes rested indifferently on Quinn Sinclair. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Quinn Sinclair stared at the tall, handsome man who had suddenly appeared beside Celia Sterling, not yet processing what was happening.

She only vaguely felt that the man’s magnificent aura was somehow... familiar.

The next moment, she heard Celia Sterling’s quiet introduction:

"Well, here he is. The man you’ve been dying to meet. My boyfriend."

Her tone paused for a beat. "Silas Norwood."