Chapter 141 — Old Buffon's Origins

Still, whose side of the family did Sun Jie get those breasts from? Auntie's weren't nearly as large as Sun Jie's. Could Sun Jie have drunk too much papaya soup? Yang Ce thought wickedly. While Yang Ce was sizing up Sun Lin, Sun Lin was doing the same to him.

The young man was quite spirited-looking, but Sun Lin had always scoffed at a man's looks. In his view, a capable man would be respected no matter how ordinary he appeared; conversely, without ability, no matter how handsome you were, you were fit only to be a kept man.

So Yang Ce had made no particular first impression on Sun Lin—a person's appearance revealed nothing. Only through his own scrutiny could Sun Lin determine whether Yang Ce was a suitable candidate for a son-in-law.

Yet the casualness and flippancy about Yang Ce made Sun Lin frown deeply. That kind of street-tough swagger made Sun Lin feel Yang Ce would never accomplish anything great.

After Yang Ce finished greeting him, Sun Lin gave a silent nod and said, "Lao San, tell the servants to pour tea."

"Master, I've already sent for it," Sun San said respectfully.

"No need to trouble yourself, Uncle Sun," Yang Ce said mildly. "Uncle Sun, Auntie Sun, Happy New Year."

Yang Ce didn't know Sun Jie's mother's maiden name, but calling her Auntie Sun was certainly safe—she was Sun Lin's wife, and therefore one of the Sun family.

"Happy New Year, heh heh." Sun Lin's face instantly turned cold. "Today is already past the fifteenth. The New Year has already passed, hasn't it?"

"Heh heh." Yang Ce looked a little awkward.

Though Sun Lin found Yang Ce's manner easygoing and not at all distant, he still didn't like him. After all, his impression of Yang Ce was poor—who came to pay a visit only after the fifteenth? That was far too disrespectful.

"You put on quite the airs, making an old man like me wait so long," Sun Lin snorted coldly.

Yang Ce could tell Sun Lin genuinely had complaints about him, but he was not the sort who liked to curry favor deliberately. Sun Lin might be a local magnate, but wasn't he one himself? So he said, somewhat coolly, "Uncle Sun, East Sea and Songjiang may be close, but the journey still takes over two hours. The New Year isn't like ordinary days—doesn't every family have matters to attend to?"

Yang Ce's implication was clear: I have my own affairs during the New Year too; surely I can't just drop everything to come see you in East Sea.

The moment the words left his mouth, the atmosphere turned frigid. Sun Lin was also taken aback—he hadn't expected Yang Ce to actually get sulky. He was left speechless. Sun Lin was a man whose single stamp of the foot made East Sea tremble; even the political dignitaries who spoke with him ordinarily had to wear ingratiating smiles. Yet Yang Ce, unexpectedly, refused to give him face.

This both startled Sun Lin and piqued his curiosity. Did Yang Ce not know who he was? Even if he didn't, surely he ought to show abundant respect to the father of his girlfriend?

Little did he know that Yang Cenbin's small venting of his dissatisfaction had, on the contrary, greatly raised Sun Lin's estimation of him. Too many people had been currying favor with him over the years, and Sun Lin had grown somewhat numb to it. In all these years, few had dared to go against his wishes—and those who did had vanished from the face of the earth.

Now, this move of Yang Juehuan's made Sun Lin feel that Yang Cenbin was, as a person, still full of backbone; at least he was not with Sun Jie out of greed for anything, nor would he deliberately try to ingratiate himself.

Still, backbone was backbone—it could only add a little to Sun Lin's favorable impression of Yang Ce, but what Sun Lin valued most was a person's ability.

"Yang Ce." Seeing the atmosphere turn cold, Sun Jie shot Yang Puqi an annoyed look and said softly, "What nonsense are you spouting? Apologize to Dad at once."

Sun Jie certainly knew what sort of man her father was. That man who had nearly deceived her back then had, by all accounts, vanished from the world by now. Yang Ce was someone she had brought here to pose as her boyfriend, and the last thing she wanted was for him to get dragged into trouble on her account.

"Haha." Sun Lin suddenly laughed. "Yang Yanzhou is right. Who doesn't have troubles? What is there to apologize for?"

Yang Ce had actually been a little uneasy when the words left his mouth—in his impulse, he might have ruined Sun Jie's plan. But he had never expected Sun Lin to laugh, which caught Yang Mo somewhat off guard.

"Uncle Sun, something really did come up at home—otherwise I would have come much earlier." Yang Ce felt a little embarrassed and explained.

"No matter, no matter." Sun Lin waved his hand. "Sit, sit."

"All right." Yang Yongjin nodded, neither servile nor overbearing, and sat down on the living-room sofa.

Sun Lin, meanwhile, sat opposite Yang Juehuan together with Mother Sun, while Sun Jie sat beside Yang Juehuan.

"Yang Cenbin—I'll just call you Little Yang, if you don't mind." Sun Lin took a sip of the tea Sun San had brought over, then spoke.

"Of course I don't mind, Uncle Sun. You're an elder to begin with," Yang Hengye said.

"Better you call me Uncle Sun. I should be quite a bit older than your father—Little Jie is six years older than you, and I was already thirty when I had her." Sun Lin, intentionally or not, hinted at the age gap between Yang Ce and Sun Jie; he wanted to see how Yang Ce viewed the matter.

"Heh, is that so?" Yang Ce said easily. "I think you look very young, Uncle. But since you'd like me to call you Uncle, that's fine too—it's only a form of address."

Then Yang Ce shifted tack and put on a look of feigned surprise. "Little Jie is six years older than me? I thought she was younger than me!"

Sun Lin's face went dark at Yang Juehuan's words. This fellow could lie without blinking—as if he wouldn't know Sun Jie's real age! But since Yang Ce said he didn't know, he could hardly say, "You're full of crap," so he merely said, "Heh, well, you look mature for your age, and Little Jie has kept herself well."

"Oh, so that's how it is." Yang Ce nodded as if a great truth had dawned on him. "A woman three years older brings you gold bricks. Six years older—does that mean diamond bricks?"

Now the whole room, Sun Jie included, was struck dumb by Yang Juehuan's words—scorched crisp on the outside and tender within, with their hair nearly smoking.

Seeing everyone in the room staring wide-eyed at one another, Yang Ce pretended not to notice. "What's the matter? Am I wrong? Then it must be two gold bricks."

"Yang Ce, could you be a little serious?" Sun Jie kicked Yang Juehuan's leg and whispered a reminder.

Yang Ce had actually done it on purpose. Normally, even at his most casual, he would never go this far—but he had found what Sun Lin said a little hard to stomach. So what if the woman was older than the man? Did that make it unacceptable?

This inevitably made Yang Ce think of Xiao Qing, and so he had deliberately made a scene with this talk of diamond bricks for six years older—and what about ten years older? Ruby bricks, and the like?

"Haha, a very interesting theory." Though Sun Lin had heard Yang Cenbin's whole chaotic spiel, he could also tell that Yang Ce genuinely did not reject the idea of a woman being older than a man, and so he relaxed.

What he feared most was that the two would have too great an age gap and nothing in common—but it looked as though Yang Ce did not care about such things at all.

"I hear you're also a student at Songjiang Engineering University?" Sun Lin changed the subject and asked casually.

"That's right. Could it be that you are too, Uncle Sun?" Yang Ce replied.