In fact, a couple didnât 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 Tingshenâs age, Ruan Xia wasnât willing to drag him to do stuff that he didnât enjoy.
Song Tingshen naturally didnât want to accompany Ruan Xia with shopping. Once she started shopping, she wouldnât easily stop for at least a few hours. Little Wang wasnât here at the moment. He wouldnât 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 Ruanâs 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. âYou went to college over a decade ago, and this restaurant is still open?â
Song Tingshen took out a pair of disposable chopsticks from the chopsticks container and handed them to her. With a calm expression, he asked, âAre you saying Iâm old?â
Sure enough, old men were rather sensitive about age.
She clearly didnât 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 wasnât particularly good. âIâm praising your maturity and charm.â
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, âThis is the first time Little Song brought a girlfriend here.â
âIâm not his girlfriend,â Ruan Xia corrected with a smile. She understood a bit from his words.
The owner froze in surprise for a moment. âYouâre not?â
Song Tingshen explained in the ownerâs dialect, âIâm already in my 30âs. I mentioned before that my son is already in kindergarten. This is my sonâs mom and my wife.â
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 20âs, and their son was old enough to attend kindergarten. For a while, the owner couldnât recover from his surprise.
Ruan Xia was also surprised. How did Song Tingshen know that dialect? He clearly wasnât 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, âHow come you know that dialect?â
Song Tingshen calmly added a fried dumpling to her plate. âIt was different ten years ago. There were many owners of small businesses that werenât locals. It was easier to develop relationships with them by learning more dialects, giving me a competitive edge to get orders from them.â
Ruan Xia fell silent. She gave him a thumbs up. âSo then CEO Song, how many dialects do you know?â
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. âI donât remember. When doing business in China, knowing different dialects is more useful than knowing English or French. Youâre never too old to learn.â
⦠Alright, she got it. The success of some people wasnât 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 Xiaâs mind, and she asked with a smile, âCan you speak with a Taiwanese accent?â
She felt that it would definitely be interesting to hear Song Tingshen speak in a Taiwanese accent.
Song Tingshen glanced at her and said, âI like you.â