Chapter 3 — Fake Lover Turns Out to Be Fiancee

In a luxurious restaurant located in the heart of the downtown area, warm golden chandeliers poured down on shiny wooden tables and chairs. Duong Gia Khue sat straight on a velvet chair, gently rotating a glass of red wine, his face cold as if he was sitting at a board meeting, not at a blind date.

Opposite her is Bui Khac Son, the son of a long-time business partner of Duong Gia Group, a good-looking guy who speaks politely, but every time he opens his mouth, Gia Khue just wants to get up and leave immediately.

"Gia Khue, I heard you just signed a big distribution contract in the Central region. That's great." Khac Son smiled, trying to be friendly. "My dad keeps praising me, saying that as a girl, I'm just as talented as a man."

"Thank you." Gia Khue replied simply, not bothering to look directly into the other person's eyes, her eyes glanced at her watch, silently calculating how long this meaningless blind date had to last before she could politely withdraw.

Sitting not far away, at a private table near the window, Mr. Duong Khac Nguyen, Gia Khue's father, was sitting with the matchmaker and Khac Son's parents, occasionally glancing at his daughter with a look of both hope and worry.

"My girl has a bit of a cold personality, but she's actually very kind. Mr. Son, please be patient and find out more." Mr. Khac Nguyen spoke to Khac Son's father, his voice a bit forced.

He did not expect that the daughter he had always felt guilty about because he had never told her about the old marriage promise with his old friend on the mountain was now sitting across from someone who had absolutely nothing to do with that promise - all because he wanted to try to create a chance for his daughter to find her own happiness before having to face the old story.

Back at Gia Khue's table, Khac Son was still talking endlessly about his business plans, his upcoming trip, and all kinds of things that Gia Khue didn't care about. She glanced towards her father's table, saw his questioning eyes full of expectation, and silently sighed in her heart. She knew that if she didn't find a tactful way out tonight, there would likely be another blind date next week, then another, and so on without end.

"Gia Khue, what do you think of this restaurant? I chose it, I heard the salmon here is very delicious." Khac Son asked, his eyes shining with hope.

"That's OK." Gia Khue replied curtly, her eyes glanced out the glass window again, where the streetlights reflected the silhouettes of people passing by outside.

At that moment, she saw a scene that made her take a second look. Outside on the sidewalk, a young man wearing an antique-style rough-clothed suit was standing looking at the menu board posted in front of the restaurant's door with both curious and confused eyes, as if trying to decode a difficult puzzle. His figure was tall and straight, with a strange aura that she had never seen in any urban man, a calmness mixed with a bit of wildness, as if he had just stepped out of a watercolor painting.

In Gia Khue's head, a bold idea suddenly flashed.

"Mr. Son, please allow me to go out for a moment. It's urgent." She stood up, without waiting for Khac Son to react, quickly walked out of the table and headed straight towards the restaurant door.

As soon as she reached the sidewalk, she immediately grabbed Bach Dang's sleeve and pulled him towards her. Bach Dang, who was starving after a night of sleeping rough in the park and wandering around looking for work all day without anyone accepting a strangely dressed person like him, was startled and turned around. His natural reflex was to turn around and avoid it, but when he realized that the person pulling him was just a slim girl, he restrained himself and stood still, looking at her with bewildered eyes.

"Brother, please do me a favor, I'll pay you handsomely." Gia Khue spoke quickly, her voice whispered but full of power, her eyes glanced towards the restaurant to make sure Khac Son had not followed. "There's a blind date over there that I don't want to participate in anymore. You just have to pretend to be my boyfriend, walk in, act a little intimate, and let my family back out. When it's done, I'll pay you back, it won't hurt you."

Bach Dang blinked, his mind reeling from a series of strange words that he had never heard before. "What is a blind date? What is a fake boyfriend?"

Gia Khue paused for a second, looking straight at the strangely naive face of the other person. No actor could pretend to be that dumb — those eyes really didn't understand what she was saying. But the slight sound of a chair being pushed came from inside the shop, it seemed Khac Son had stood up, not giving her any more time to distinguish between truth and falsehood.

"It doesn't matter, just do as I say." She said, her voice more urgent. "Just come in, sit next to me, hold my hand, say a few affectionate words and you're done. Then I'll pay you five hundred thousand, okay?"

When Bach Dang heard about being paid, his mind immediately thought of his hungry stomach from morning until now, of the fact that he needed money to find his way to the address in the envelope. Although he did not clearly understand what the concept of "fake boyfriend" was, he still nodded and decided to trust this strange girl, the same way he trusted the scammer named Phat yesterday, only this time, luck was on his side.

"Okay, I'll help." He replied, his voice firm.

Gia Khue breathed a sigh of relief, grabbed Bach Dang's hand tightly and pulled him into the restaurant, not paying attention to the waiters' eyes looking at his strange outfit. As soon as she entered, she quickly leaned close to his ear and whispered.

"Later, just call me 'darling' and say 'I' to you, understand?"

Bach Dang nodded, although his mind was still full of questions, the girl's serious appearance made him feel that this was an important task that needed to be completed well, just like a martial arts exercise assigned by his master.

The two approached the dining table, where Khac Son was looking bewildered, while Mr. Khac Nguyen's table and his partner's family also turned their heads to look at them with extreme surprise.

"Gia Khue, this is..." Khac Son stood up, his voice filled with confusion when he saw that the girl he was trying to understand suddenly brought along a strangely dressed man.

"This is my boyfriend." Gia Khue said, her voice was terrifyingly calm, her hand wrapped around Bach Dang's arm naturally as if she had been familiar with it for a long time. "I'm sorry I didn't say it before. We just got angry at each other so he came here to make up. Mr. Son sympathizes, today's blind date must stop here."

Bach Dang stood next to him, following instructions, clasping his hands and bowing slightly to greet everyone according to the ritual he had been familiar with for twenty-five years on the mountain, causing the whole table to be silent for a few seconds because of this strange and unprecedented greeting.

"Hi everybody." He spoke, his voice a bit stiff but trying to sound as natural as possible.

Mr. Duong Khac Nguyen stood up, looked at Bach Dang from head to toe, both surprised and skeptical at this sudden appearance. But seeing his daughter holding a stranger's arm with a rare naturalness, he did not have the heart to expose it on the spot, for fear of making his daughter lose face in front of her partner's family.

"Ah, I see." He nodded, trying to keep his face calm. "So I guess it's not convenient to continue talking today. Let me apologize to the two of you here, see you another time."

Khac Son's family looked at each other, although a little confused, they politely nodded in agreement and quickly arranged to leave the banquet table in an awkward atmosphere. As for Khac Son, before leaving, he turned to look at Bach Dang once, his eyes were searching and curious, but he just nodded slightly to say hello and followed his parents to leave, not angry or upset, seemingly equally relieved to escape a forced blind date.

When the banquet table only had Mr. Khac Nguyen, Gia Khue and Bach Dang left, the atmosphere suddenly became tense in a different way.

"Gia Khue, can you explain to me?" Mr. Khac Nguyen asked, his voice was stern but not angry, his eyes still did not leave Bach Dang, there was a vaguely familiar feeling that lingered in his heart that he could not explain.

"I'm sorry dad, it's a long story, I'll tell it another day." Gia Khue replied, trying to keep a calm face, secretly calculating how to handle the situation in the most satisfactory way.

Mr. Khac Nguyen looked at his daughter, then looked at Bach Dang, who was standing still with a funny serious expression, like a student waiting for the teacher to comment on the test. There was something about this young man's appearance that made him unable to tear his eyes away, a strange familiarity that he had not yet been able to name.

"Okay, I won't ask any more." He finally spoke, sighing in relief. "But next time something happens, remember to tell Dad first. When Dad comes back, you two can talk naturally."

Seeing his father's shadow disappear behind the restaurant door, Gia Khue truly breathed a sigh of relief, let go of Bach Dang's arm, turned to look straight at the person who had just helped him, his eyes for the first time a little curious instead of cold as before.

"Thank you." She said, her voice softening somewhat. "What's your name?"

"Ky Bach Dang." He replied, clasping his hands together to bow once more out of habit, making Gia Khue unable to help but laugh out loud for the first time that evening.

"How do you clasp your hands in greeting like those teachers in martial arts movies?" She asked, still not amused, carrying her bag and walking out of the restaurant door to call a taxi to take her "fake boyfriend" somewhere to finish the matter. But when she looked back and saw him still standing still in the middle of the sidewalk, his hands not knowing where to put them, the restaurant lights casting a warm yellow halo on his bewildered face, she suddenly stopped, the idea of calling him a car to go "somewhere to finish the matter" somehow never came out.