The two of them arrived at the repair shop. Nie Chang actually had two employees already who opened up the shop if he wasn’t there to do it personally. Now, with their boss just disappearing for two days straight, one of them had had to take up the spot at the counter.
Right now, he was engaged in a discussion with a young woman. A pink notebook was lying between them on the counter and the woman was pointing at it with long, manicured nails, talking at the poor guy on the other side with a high-pitched voice.
"I told you, it’s not working! So do something about it!"
Nie Chang’s employee frowned but then his face lit up when he saw his boss walking in. "Ah! Boss, you’re back! How about you take over this case?"
Nie Chang mildly lifted his brows and looked at the pink notebook. He hated this kind of case. Most of the time there wasn’t actually anything wrong with the gadgets those women brought. They were just either too dumb to notice that they themselves did something wrong or they had some other motive for coming. Looking at the tight dress she was wearing … he wasn’t sure which of those two was her reason.
He couldn’t show his disdain, though. This was a customer, after all, and even more important there was someone next to him in front of whom he had to leave a good impression.
"Sure! I’ll settle this. Why don’t you go and help out Lao Lao in the back? I’ll call you over when I’m finished. I have some good news for you."
His employee lifted his brows but nodded and trudged into the backroom.
Nie Chang pulled Su Yan along to the counter and even pulled out the chair for him. "Have a seat. This will probably only take a few minutes."
"Mn." Su Yan nodded and watched how Nie Chang turned to face the woman. This was the first time he would see how Nie Chang dealt with a customer. He should pay proper attention so that he knew how to do his own job in the future.
Nie Chang gave her a perfunctory smile. "Hey, I’m sorry, it seems my employee couldn’t really help you. Would you mind telling me again what exactly the problem with your device is?"
The woman leaned over the counter and smiled brightly. "Yes, sure. It’s not working."
Nie Chang’s lips twitched. Was that all? "Mn, what exactly isn’t working?"
"The notebook!" The woman had an exasperated tone of voice as if she was talking to an idiot. "Aren’t you the boss? How come you also don’t know how to repair it?"
Nie Chang took a deep breath. Haish, customers these days … "Well, we’ll have a look. How about you come back tomorrow?"
"But I need it today!"
Nie Chang still managed to retain his smile but it was slowly wearing thinner. "When would you need it back today?"
"In two hours! You should be able to repair it until then, shouldn’t you? My friend said your shop is good at repairing things!"
Su Yan looked at Nie Chang. He knew his friend was good but when he didn’t know what was wrong it should be difficult to find out what to repair.
"Alright. Then please come back in two hours. We’ll have your notebook fixed until then."
The woman pouted. "Can’t I wait here?"
"If you prefer that. It might take a while, though."
"I don’t care."
"Alright." Nie Chang took the pink notebook and turned to Su Yan. "Ah Yan, wait a bit, I’ll take that to the back and get the others."
"Mn, alright." Su Yan watched him leave.
As soon as Nie Chang was through the door, the woman at the counter frowned. "Hey, you. Don’t you see me standing here?"
Su Yan looked over at her. "Uh … Of course, I do."
"Then why aren’t you offering me that chair? Haven’t you heard your boss say that I’ll have to wait here for two hours? You can’t expect me to stand here the whole time, can you?!"
I’ll have to work eight hours, though. That’s clearly longer than your time waiting and Nie Chang told you, you could go home. Su Yan complained in his head but since he was an employee starting today he couldn’t argue with a customer.
"Oh, I’m sorry. That wasn’t very attentive of me." He stood up and really pushed the chair to the other side of the counter.
The woman sat down with a look of 'It should be like this. Kneel down and serve this princess!' Su Yan inwardly shook his head. She couldn’t be rich if she went to a small shop like Nie Chang’s to get her notebook repaired and she wasn’t that good-looking either.
Mn, speaking of which … He took out his phone and opened the Lovely Writing System. He still hadn’t managed to find a hundred couples much less ten with high compatibility. Since all of his deliberations hadn’t really gotten him good results maybe he just didn’t understand romance. He should try to pair up people he thought wouldn’t mix well together. Maybe he’d have some more luck with that?
He thought of Nie Chang and then took another glance at the woman on the other side of the counter.
A row of words once again appeared on the screen: [Processing answer.]
[Processing complete. Calculated compatibility of the chosen couple: 0%]
Su Yan gaped at the result. This … this was even worse than every couple he had considered as compatible before! What was this system thinking?!
Of course, the Lovely Writing System wasn’t thinking at all. It was a system, after all, not a human. Instead, it was computing and the probability of a woman getting together with a gay man that was chasing openly after his love interest in a bl novel was … non-existing.