Your Foreign Heart | Childe x Zhongli

Chapter 4| Lunch break

The meeting lasted around 2 hours and the clock read '4:23' I looked at zhongli who was getting a small bag ready.
"So wanna get lunch?" I asked shyly to the man, I'm not usually shy just he made my heart beat.
He turned and looked at me with a smile.
"Of course, which place?"
"Well you know Liyue, I'll eat anything as long as it's good" I gave him a bright smile.
He chuckled at me before looking over at Xiao, he looked a bit mad but left zhongli and me alone and left the room. We were the only ones left in the meeting room.
We walked out in sync and left the building, Lumine and my manager were waiting outside.
"I'll be having lunch with zhongli! I'll be back at northland later." I waved at them bye before me and zhongli left the building.

"So where are we planning to go" I said trying to not make the atmosphere awkward.
Zhongli hummed a little before answering, " We can visit chef Mao, he cooks beautiful traditional food with a story teller nearby, how does that sound?"

"Sounds perfect I'll follow you" I watched as zhongli stopped for a bit looked at me and smiled as we continued talking.
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We made our way to the outside restaurant and sat down. A waitress happily jumped to us.
"Oh hey Mr.Zhongli and.... ?"
"You can call me Childe" I replied
Zhongli looked at me confused but shook it off.

"So what will you guys like to drink?" The girl asked.
"We will take some Osmanthus wine and just some water" zhongli replied with his cunning tone.
I smiled at the waitress then him.
"Alright Mr.Zhongli!" She said
"Of course Xiangling" Zhongli replied.
The waitress left leaving them 2 alone.

"Xiangling? Sounds like a very liyuen name" I said looking over to zhongli
"Indeed she's the owners daughter, she makes, err.. well let's say she makes different types of food" he said slightly disturbed.
"Different food? Haha" I laughed a pulled out the menu. Everything was written in Chinese, I simply passed it over to Zhongli.

"Do they have any seafood here?" I asked innocently but the disgusted face zhongli main told me everything. I chuckled,
"You don't like seafood?"
"Seafood? Ugh no, the slimy texture and the smell disgust me" he shook his head before looking at the menu.
"Haha, well what I said earlier, I'll eat anything as long as it's good." I gave him a smile before zhongli smiled back and brought xianglings attention.

He ordered the food in Chinese so I couldn't understand a word but I just sat there admiring him, I heard a noise somewhere but Liyue was busy so I didn't pay mine to it.
Zhongli was done ordering and turned to me.
" So have you done anything in Liyue yet?" He asked me
"Mhm not much, I've only been here for almost 3 days."
"3 days? I'd dint know it was that short, well I would like to show you some places, Mingxing sells fine jewelry crafted from special ores such as cor lapis or jade, she also creates custom pieces, I've had her make some rings and earrings for me." He spoke softly and his words rolled of his tongue, the man was truly beautiful.
"If we go to the jewelry place we can get matching jewelry" I looked at him.
He simply nodded, then turned to look at Xiangling coming in with our food. She placed it down on the table including the drinks we ordered earlier.
"Enjoy!" She said in her cheerful voice.
We both thanked her before looking at the dishes.
"So what are these?" I asked
"Well this one" he pointed at a dish " is bamboo shoot soup, my personal favorite, they are slow cooked bamboo with some pork added and spices, this one here are jade parcels, it has ham and lotus seed with a broth poured over, and finally this one is almond tofu, I'll save some for Xiao since he really enjoys the dish, I hope it's to your liking."
Zhongli finished talking before getting chopsticks for me and him, he took a jade parcel with chopsticks as I just sorta hit them around.
Looking at his expressing he probably seemed confused on why I was holding my chopsticks as if I was about to stab someone.
"Soo is chopsticks all they have?" I looked at zhongli with a poor face. He simply sighed
"To truly enjoy liyues food and specialities, eating with chopsticks provided the full experience"
I looked at him helplessly before stabbing the tofu and shoving it in my mouth.