Chapter 277 – I like you (3)
In fact, a couple didn’t have to do anything particularly significant on dates. Activities like shopping, watching movies, and going to the amusement park was fine. It was just that with Song Tingshen’s age, Ruan Xia wasn’t willing to drag him to do stuff that he didn’t enjoy.
Song Tingshen naturally didn’t want to accompany Ruan Xia with shopping. Once she started shopping, she wouldn’t easily stop for at least a few hours. Little Wang wasn’t here at the moment. He wouldn’t even have someone to keep him company in his boredom. As for going to the movies, they had gone only a few days ago. And so, after they came out of the Ruan’s home and got into the car, they looked at each other, not knowing what to do.
Finally, Song Tingshen drove them to a dumpling restaurant that he frequently went to when he was in college.
Ruan Xia was incredulous. “You went to college over a decade ago, and this restaurant is still open?”
Song Tingshen took out a pair of disposable chopsticks from the chopsticks container and handed them to her. With a calm expression, he asked, “Are you saying I’m old?”
Sure enough, old men were rather sensitive about age.
She clearly didn’t mean it that way. She was just expressing her admiration that a small restaurant was able to stay open for over a decade. And yet, he was able to associate that with age. It seemed that he did care about the age gap between them.
Ruan Xia picked up a dumpling and had a taste, but the taste wasn’t particularly good. “I’m praising your maturity and charm.”
Sitting in this small restaurant, Song Tingshen and his overall demeanor seemed a bit incompatible with the environment.
The owner of the restaurant was very friendly and specifically brought over a few side dishes. With an accent, the owner said to Ruan Xia, “This is the first time Little Song brought a girlfriend here.”
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Ruan Xia corrected with a smile. She understood a bit from his words.
The owner froze in surprise for a moment. “You’re not?”
Song Tingshen explained in the owner’s dialect, “I’m already in my 30’s. I mentioned before that my son is already in kindergarten. This is my son’s mom and my wife.”
The owner was surprised. He knew that Song Tingshen had a young child, but he had never mentioned his wife, so he assumed he was divorced or a widower. He would have never expected him to have such a young wife. She looked to be only in her 20’s, and their son was old enough to attend kindergarten. For a while, the owner couldn’t recover from his surprise.
Ruan Xia was also surprised. How did Song Tingshen know that dialect? He clearly wasn’t from that area.
(Unlike English, dialects in Chinese can be completely unintelligible to each other and Mandarin, the official spoken language. There are hundreds of different dialects in China.)
After the owner walked away, Ruan Xia finally asked, “How come you know that dialect?”
Song Tingshen calmly added a fried dumpling to her plate. “It was different ten years ago. There were many owners of small businesses that weren’t locals. It was easier to develop relationships with them by learning more dialects, giving me a competitive edge to get orders from them.”
Ruan Xia fell silent. She gave him a thumbs up. “So then CEO Song, how many dialects do you know?”
He was the most down-to-earth CEO she had ever seen. How many CEOs knew dialects? If it was any other CEO, it would feel off to hear one speaking in dialect, but Song Tingshen was the exception.
Song Tingshen added them up. “I don’t remember. When doing business in China, knowing different dialects is more useful than knowing English or French. You’re never too old to learn.”
… Alright, she got it. The success of some people wasn’t accidental, it was inevitable.
She had only heard of stereotypical CEOS that knew English, French, and German, and never heard of any that knew several dialects.
A thought flashed through Ruan Xia’s mind, and she asked with a smile, “Can you speak with a Taiwanese accent?”
She felt that it would definitely be interesting to hear Song Tingshen speak in a Taiwanese accent.
Song Tingshen glanced at her and said, “I like you.”
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