Chapter 5 The Injunction of Affection

If there was one thing Lin Feng hated more than a 7:00 AM wake-up call, it was a woman in a power suit holding a manila folder with the intent to destroy his afternoon.

Lin Feng’s “office” was a corner table at The Rusty Teapot, a tea house so old that the wood smelled like a thousand years of spilled Oolong and fermented grievances. It was his sanctuary. It was where he did his best work, which usually involved staring at the ceiling and contemplating the minimum amount of effort required to pay his rent.

He was currently midway through a plate of Liangfen—cold starch jelly noodles swimming in a pool of chili oil, garlic, and vinegar—when the heavy wooden door creaked open.

The humidity of Chengdu rushed in, followed closely by the scent of expensive French perfume and impending litigation.

Su Meili didn’t walk; she marched. Her heels clicked against the uneven floorboards like a firing squad. She stopped at Lin Feng’s table, looming over him as he delicately slurped a noodle.

“Lin Feng,” she said. It wasn’t a greeting; it was an accusation.

“Su Meili. You’re looking particularly litigious today,” Lin Feng replied, not looking up. “Is that a new blazer? It has the structural integrity of a riot shield. I love it.”

Meili slammed the manila folder onto the table, narrowly missing his bowl of chili oil. “I’m filing for a preliminary injunction. Your ‘client’—the one currently pretending to be a silent monk in a matte black Aventador—has been circling my office building for three hours. He’s creating a nuisance. He’s distracting my paralegals. And he’s doing it with a level of ‘accidental’ smugness that is legally actionable.”

Lin Feng swallowed his noodle and finally looked up. “Nuisance? Meili, he’s just practicing ‘The Burden of the Goose.’ It’s a meditative state. He’s not circling your building; he’s navigating the complexities of his own soul. The car just happens to be there.”

“The car is a V12 engine that sounds like a dragon with a sinus infection!” Meili snapped. “And don’t give me that ‘Face’ nonsense. I know you’re behind this. You’ve turned a Shanxi coal baron into a public enigma, and it’s disrupting the local economy. Give me his real name. I need it for the subpoena.”

Lin Feng sighed, leaning back in his bamboo chair. “I can’t do that. Client confidentiality is the bedrock of the Face-Saving Agency. If I give you Liu Dashan—I mean, if I give you the Anonymous Librarian’s name—my reputation is toast. And you know how I feel about toast. Too much crunch, not enough soul.”

Meili’s eyes narrowed. “You just said his name.”

“Did I? I must be dehydrated,” Lin Feng said, unbothered. “Anyway, you can’t sue him for having a car. This is Chengdu. People have cars. People have money. Some people even have taste, though I realize that’s a foreign concept in your law firm.”

“I’m suing him for ‘Intention to Intimidate,'” Meili said, pulling a chair out and sitting down with such precision it made Lin Feng’s back ache. “My firm is currently representing the ‘Spicy Lotus’ corporate chain in a hostile takeover of several local hotpot independent outlets. One of those outlets belongs to the Wang family. Suddenly, a mysterious billionaire starts loitering outside my window? It’s a classic intimidation tactic.”

Lin Feng paused, his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. “Wait. You’re suing the ‘Red Dragon’ hotpot empire? Wang Bao’s family?”

“It’s not personal, Lin Feng. It’s business. ‘Spicy Lotus’ wants the market share. The Wang family is… inefficient. They spend too much on ‘authentic atmosphere’ and not enough on automated broth-dispensing systems.”

“Automated broth-dispensing systems?” Lin Feng shuddered. “You’re not just a lawyer; you’re a monster. That’s culinary sacrilege.”

“It’s progress,” she countered. “And if Wang Bao is hiring you to send Lamborghinis to haunt me, tell him it won’t work. It just makes me want to crush his family’s business even faster.”

Lin Feng groaned. This was the problem with the “Chaos Couple.” They were in a constant state of mutual destruction disguised as a romance. Wang Bao was too soft, and Su Meili was too sharp.

“Bao didn’t hire the Lamborghini,” Lin Feng said, his voice dropping into a rare tone of sincerity. “Liu Dashan is a separate client. He’s just… socially awkward on a grand scale. If you want him to go away, don’t sue him. That gives him ‘Face.’ It makes him feel important. If you want to get rid of him, ignore him. Or better yet, send a group of middle-aged women to ask him if he’s married and what his monthly salary is. He’ll be out of the province by sunset.”

Meili looked at him, her legal mind processing the logic. “Social deterrence through maternal interrogation. It’s… unconventional.”

“It’s Chengdu,” Lin Feng said.

Before Meili could respond, the door to the tea house swung open again. Wang Bao stumbled in, looking like he’d been through a metaphorical blender. His tuxedo was gone, replaced by a “Red Dragon” staff apron stained with what looked like three different types of chili oil.

“Lin Ge! Meili!” he cried, rushing over and nearly tripping over a spittoon. “I heard! I heard about the injunction! Meili, please! Don’t sue the Librarian! He’s a good man! He donated twenty crates of premium tripe to our warehouse this morning because he liked my ‘aura’!”

Meili stood up, her cold facade snapping back into place. “Wang Bao. We are in the middle of a legal dispute. You should be speaking through your council, not accosting me in a tea house.”

“But I don’t have council!” Bao wailed. “My lawyer quit because he said my defense strategy—which was just a PowerPoint of us at the zoo—was ‘legally insulting’!”

Lin Feng put his head in his hands. “Bao, sit down. Meili, sit down. We are going to solve this the Chengdu way.”

“Which is?” Meili asked, looking skeptical.

“We’re going to have a ‘Negotiation Snack,'” Lin Feng said, gesturing to the waiter. “Bring us three orders of spicy rabbit heads and a large pot of Bitter Buckwheat tea. And make the rabbit heads extra spicy. I want everyone’s brain to be too busy processing the capsaicin to think about lawsuits.”

“I’m not eating a rabbit head during a corporate mediation,” Meili said, though her stomach betrayed her with a faint growl.

“It’s not a mediation. It’s a ‘Face-Saving’ exercise,” Lin Feng corrected. “Bao, you’re losing ‘Face’ by acting like a wet noodle. Meili, you’re losing ‘Face’ by being a corporate shark in a city that values dolphins. If this takeover goes through, the public will hate ‘Spicy Lotus.’ They’ll call it the ‘Chili Oil Massacre.’ Is that the ‘Face’ your client wants?”

Meili paused. In China, brand reputation was everything. If a corporate takeover was seen as “heartless” or “bullying the local tradition,” the boycotts would be swift and brutal.

“Go on,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

“The Red Dragon Hotpot empire has ‘Atmosphere Face,'” Lin Feng explained, using his fingers to count. “Spicy Lotus has ‘Efficiency Face.’ Instead of a takeover, you propose a ‘Strategic Fusion.’ The Wang family keeps the front-of-house—the spicy soul, the hand-pulled noodles, the shouting waiters. Spicy Lotus handles the back-of-house—the logistics, the supply chain, the automated tripe-sorting. You call it the ‘Heritage Tech Initiative.’ It sounds modern, it sounds respectful, and most importantly, it makes both sides look like geniuses.”

Wang Bao’s eyes lit up. “Fusion? Like… a hotpot marriage?”

“Exactly,” Lin Feng said. “And as for the ‘Librarian’… I’ll have him move his car to the ‘Spicy Lotus’ flagship store. He’ll sit there, looking bored and wealthy. It’ll generate a million Douyin hits for the new partnership. ‘The Secret Billionaire’s Favorite Tech-Hotpot.’ The ‘Face’ value alone would be worth tens of millions.”

Meili leaned back, her mind racing through the contracts. It was brilliant. It solved the legal stalemate, satisfied her corporate clients’ greed, and—though she wouldn’t admit it—prevented her from having to bankrupt the man she secretly enjoyed arguing with over breakfast.

“I’ll have to run the numbers,” she said, her voice softening just a fraction. “But the ‘Heritage Tech’ angle… it has merit.”

“Of course it does,” Lin Feng said, finally finishing his cold noodles. “I’m a professional.”

The rabbit heads arrived, steaming and coated in a terrifying amount of red pepper flakes. Wang Bao immediately grabbed one, his enthusiasm returning. “Meili, try the brain! It’s the best part! It’s like… spicy wisdom!”

Meili looked at the rabbit head, then at Bao, then at Lin Feng. With a sigh of resignation, she picked up a pair of chopsticks. “If I get a stain on this blazer, Lin Feng, I’m billing you for the dry cleaning.”

“Put it on my tab,” Lin Feng said, closing his eyes. “I’m taking a nap. Wake me up when the merger is signed or when the world ends. Whichever comes first.”

As the “Chaos Couple” began to bicker over the proper way to eat a rabbit head—a conversation that was 20% business and 80% repressed flirtation—Lin Feng felt a rare sense of accomplishment.

He had saved a family business, averted a lawsuit, and secured a marketing gimmick for a coal-mine-operator-turned-librarian. All while sitting down.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.

It buzzed again. And again.

With a groan, he pulled it out. It was a message from an unknown number.

“Mr. Lin? My name is Mrs. Zhao. My son is a brilliant concert pianist, but he has the personality of a damp rag. We have a high-stakes performance at the Conservatory next week, and he needs to look like a ‘Tortured, Mysterious Genius’ to impress the judges. Can you teach him how to look like he’s suffering for his art without actually making him practice more?”

Lin Feng stared at the screen. He looked at the half-eaten rabbit heads. He looked at the sunlight filtering through the dusty windows of The Rusty Teapot.

He typed back: “Does he own a scarf? And can he look at a piano with the expression of a man who has just lost his favorite cat? If yes, my fee is 50,000 yuan. And I want a 10:00 AM start. No earlier.”

The “Freelance Fiasco” was evolving. The “Hotpot Wars” of Phase 2 were looming on the horizon, and the romantic tension between his two favorite headaches was simmering like a slow-cooked broth.

Lin Feng put his phone face down on the table, leaned his head back against the bamboo, and let the sounds of Chengdu wash over him. The clack-clack of Mahjong tiles in the distance, the sizzle of the street food stalls, and the rhythmic bickering of a lawyer and a hotpot heir.

“Face,” he whispered to the shadows of the tea house. “It’s a lot of work for something you can’t even see.”

Then, finally, he fell asleep.

Phase 1 was nearly over, and for Lin Feng, the best part of any phase was always the part where he got to close his eyes. But as the spicy steam filled the air, he knew that in this city, even a nap was just a prelude to the next disaster.