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“What do you mean there is no charity?” Jin Ling asks.
Jin Guangyao presses his ear tighter against his nephew's closed bedroom door, a small smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. He knew it. He clocked the ruse the moment Er-ge had shyly pulled out the maid costume. It was the right call to sneak up to Jin Ling’s room when his friends were over.
“I thought we were organizing several fundraisers for charity!”
“There’s no charity for rich orphans whose uncle refused to get them an expensive sports car for their birthday, stupid!” Lan JingYi replies.
“Don’t call me stupid! You’re stupid!”
“I’m not the idiot who fell for such an obvious lie!”
“Jingyi, don’t be so mean to Jin Ling,” Lan Yuan laughs. “He was looking forward to getting a sports car. Don’t make him even sadder than he is.”
“Stop laughing at me or I’ll kick you all out of my room!” Jim Ling yells accompanied by Fairies barking in agreement.
“Sorry,” Ouyang Zizhen says, his voice soft and apologetic. “It was the only way to get you on board.”
“We want to finally settle which one of your uncles is the hottest.”
Jin Guangyao covers his mouth to not laugh out loud. What a naive, what a childish question. Isn’t it obvious? Jin Ling’s hottest uncle by far is currently standing in their shared bedroom, steaming his maid costume as he waits for Jin Guangyao to return from the bathroom.
“You’re still on about that?!” Jin Ling huffs.
“What do you mean?!” Lan Jingyi asks. “This is an important question! We’ve been trying to settle this since freshman year. We’re in our final year. That’s four years! I refuse to graduate without getting an answer!”
“And that’s why you set up a maid cafe?”
“Yes,” Lan Sizhui says. “Everyone knows maids are the hottest.
“Maid costumes make everyone instantly ten times hotter!” Lan Jingyi agrees.
“What about the list?” Jin Ling asks. “You made me put in the advertisement post on weibo that we’ll post a ranking of the maids after the event based on who makes the most money over the weekend. You said it in the spirit of healthy competition!”
“Jin Ling, you’re an idiot,” Lan Jingyi says.
“You-!”
“We’ll use it to determine who the hottest uncle is,” Ouyang Zizhen says. “And then you’ll all have to agree with me that it’s Nie Huaisang!”
Jin Guangyao furrows his brows. His ears perk up.
“Ah! See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Lan Sizhui says matter of factly. “It’s Nie Mingjue. He’ll make the most money. I’ll bet on it.”
“You’re crazy, Sizhui! You’re crazy!” Jin Guangyao can practically hear Lan Jingyi shaking his head. “You’ve been spouting this kind of nonsense for four years! Give it up! He’ll never win! He’s too intimidating. His personality is too strong. The one you’ll make the most money and take home the crown is Jiang Wanyi!”
“You’re the crazy one JingYi,” Lan Sizhui laughs. “Nie Mingjue has no chance of winning, but Jiang Wanyi has? Do you hear yourself?”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut. Up!” Jin Ling yells at the tops of his lungs, the volume of his voice making the bedroom door vibrate. Jin Guangyao has to take a step back.
“If you don’t stop talking about how hot you think my uncles are, I’m kicking all of you out of my room! You can spend the rest of the sleepover in the hallway!”
They go back to discussing school. After a couple of minutes, Jim Guangyao turns around and makes his way down the corridor to his own bedroom, but he can’t shake the unease in his heart and the deep frown on his face. Each of the boys had revealed which uncle they felt was the hottest, but none of them had mentioned Lan Xichen.
There is no way they had forgotten about him. After all, they had involved him so strongly in the process of ordering maid costumes for all participants. He had shown the boys what their outfits would look like less than an hour ago. Did really none of them think Lan Xichen was hot? Did none of them think he had it in him to win the competition?
He enters the bedroom to find Lan Xichen standing by the mirror, wearing the maid dress and smiling. He jumps, startled, when he spots him in the reflection and quickly turns around. His face and ears turn impossibly red. His gaze drifts off to the side. “I-I was just… was just practicing faces for Saturday,” he admits. “I want to make sure I do a good job.”
Jin Guangyao’s heart is overflowing with warmth. He looks at his long legs, his strong arms, broad shoulders, his wake dark eyes sneaking unsure glances at him from below long lashes. How could anyone think he wasn’t the most lovely out of all of Jin Ling’s uncles? Seeing his husband fidget with the skirt of his dress, Jin Guangyao decides he’ll help him win this, no matter what. “Er-ge, I’ve worked at a cafe before. Let me help you.”
He teaches him everything he knew, everything he had learned throughout the years at different jobs. When Saturday rolls around, Lan Xichen can successfully carry multiple tea cups and plates without breaking them, he can stir coffee gently and delicately and he can create small cats out of froth. If his perfect looks and his endearing personality aren’t enough, then his newly acquired skills should secure his win.
They should, but Jin Guangyao doesn’t like leaving things up to chance. There’s no harm in aiding his luck just a little more.
It can’t look too obvious. It mustn’t look suspicious. Jin Guangyao can’t enter the maid cafe and empty his wallet, paying one monthly salary just for Lan Xichen to win. At least, he can’t do it all by himself. He’ll need other people, a lot of them, to help him pay for Lan Xichen’s services, but hiring many people is risky. It’s tricky. The more people are in on it, the higher the chances are that someone will give it away. Luckily, he doesn’t need to hire a lot of people. Being friends with one great actor is enough. Xue Yang manages to play seven different characters and to pay six times before Wei Wuxian clocks him. They kick him out and ban him from coming back. Despite that, he remains loyal, saying “I just wanted more cake”, when they ask him why he did it.
But it isn’t enough. Bumping Lan Xichen’s numbers is one thing, but keeping down the other men’s numbers is just as important.
Everyone knows how easy Jiang Cheng is to rile up, how tactless and impatient he can be. It’s no secret he managed to get himself black listed from all matchmaking agencies in China by just being himself. Having to wear the maid costume was a good start to making him unhappy, but there’s no better way to saure his mood and bring out the worst in him than involving Wei Wuxian. All it takes is one phone call telling him where to find Jiang Cheng serving coffee and cake in a maid costume. A terrible scene, two broken coffee cups and a piece of cake to the face later, Jiang Cheng is out of the race.
Next up is Nie Huaisang, a tougher nut to crack than Jin Guangyao anticipated. Nie Huaisang doesn’t want to be there. He hasn’t practiced serving coffee or cake and he hides in the restroom and keeps taking frequent coffee breaks to hide from work. When Jin Guangyao comes to visit, Nie Huaisang sneaks away from his own customer to cry to him about being too soft and delicate for this job and about having cancelled painting lessons to be here. Still, he persists, out of fear and guilt, Jin Guangyao assumes. Even when he offers to cover for him and convince Nie Mingjue and the boys that he’s sick, he ultimately shakes his head, sighs and resigns himself to his fate. Cruel. Unfair. If he wants to leave so badly, why shouldn’t he be allowed to go? If anything, then he’s doing him a favor, it’s an act of kindness, Jin Guangyao tells himself when he pours laxatives into Nie Huaisang’s coffee. On one of his lengthy coffee breaks Nie Huaisang disappears, never to return again.
Past lunch break, only two maids remain, but one of those maid’s resolve is chipped and slowly crumbling. Ever since Nie Huaisang got sick, Nie Mingjue has stopped trying, Jin Guangyao can tell. His gaze keeps nervously darting towards his phone as his younger brother keeps bombarding him with calls and voice messages. It’s merely a sense of responsibility and duty, the unwillingness to abandon Lan Xichen on his own that keep him from taking off his apron, walking through the door and leaving. But just because he doesn’t want to leave, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t. Jin Guangyao has found one of his most loyal friends in Su She. Two hours past lunch break, he walks into the maid cafe and in his place starts the biggest and nastiest argument with Nie Mingjue. It’s brutal. It’s indescribable, but it ends with Nie Mingjue storming out. By Sunday Lan Xichen is the only maid who remains.
“I can’t believe Lan Xichen won by a landslide,” Ouyang Zizhen mumbles, staring at the ranking.
“I told you we shouldn’t include him!” Lan Jingyi says, snaking Lan Sizhui’s shoulder. It was so obvious he was going to win!”
“But he was so excited,” Lan Sizhui says. “It was already difficult enough to keep Master Wei from participating.”
“Now we’ll never know whether Jiang Wanyi, Nie Huaisang or Nie Mingjue are the hottest!”
“It’s a little suspicious, don’t you think,” Ouyang Zizhen says. “None of the others could participate until the end… By Sunday he was the only one standing.”
“The only suspicious thing is how much they’re charging us for the table Nie Mingjue broke,” Jin Ling replies, counting the money.
“But even then, we still have so much left. Maybe we should donate the rest to charity after all?”
“We should donate it to a charity for Gaza,” Jin Ling says. Ouyang Zizhen nods.
And for once Lan JingYi agrees with him. “We should.”