Chapter 85: A forgotten Dream and Partners In More Than Business?

By midnight, the celebration had finally come to an end. The last few customers left after thanking the staff and promising to come back the next day.

The staff began cleaning the restaurant, though the lively mood from earlier hadn’t completely disappeared. A few of them were still talking about the performances as they put everything back in order.

Now the restaurant was quiet under the pale blue moon light.

Yu Liang found himself on the rooftop garden, one of the additions Meihua had insisted on during the expansion. Spirit flowers grew around the garden, glowing faintly in the moonlight. A stone bench was positioned such it overlooked the district below.

He wasn’t surprised when Meihua appeared beside him with two cups of warm wine in her hands.

"I thought you might be up here," she said, settling onto the bench. "You always disappears after big events."

"Yes, I do," Yu Liang admitted, accepting a cup. "Today was... good. I mean really good."

"It was perfect." Meihua’s smiled softly which looked particularly beautiful under the moonlight.

"It looks like I really did a good job then."

She glanced at him. "Don’t flatter yourself."

Yu Liang smiled and took the cup. "Too late."

Meihua shook her head, though the smile on her face gave her away.

"You did well today," she said eventually.

"We did well."

"Hmm?" She turned to him.

Yu Liang shrugged. "You were the big boss behind the scene who did all the work from securing the restuarant place to ingredients.... I mean evrything. While I just spend the money and gets praised for it."

"So you do admit that you need me?" She said proactively.

"I never said that."

"Well, you just did. Oh, how generous of you, Young Master."

Yu Liang laughed. "What are you even talking about and where did you even learn all this from?"

"I’ve had a good teacher."

He looked at her. "Who?"

Meihua took a sip from her cup, hiding her smile. "You."

They both laughed then sat quietly for a while, sipping their wine and enjoying the view of the city below. The cool night air drifted around them, carrying the faint scent of flowers from the garden.

"Remember when we first met?" Meihua asked out of nowhere. "You were just a customer, and I was pretending to be an attendant."

Yu Liang chuckled. "Yes and I knew something was off about you from the start."

"And I knew you were hiding something." She bumped his shoulder gently with hers. "Look at us now. Partners in crime."

"Partners in restaurant ownership actually," he corrected with a joking tone.

"Tch boring."

Over the months of building Heaven’s Table, they had gotten used to being around each other. Casual touches no longer felt strange, and their conversations had become easy and natural. Along the way, their business relationship had turned into friendship.

And at some point, their relationship became more than that. It was never spoken out loud by either of them, but it was obvious.

"I need to tell you something," Yu Liang said becoming more serious.

Meihua turned to face him with concern flickering across her face. "What’s wrong?" Her fingers unconsciously tightened around her cup.

"Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that... I have to leave for a while. Maybe a few months, it could be more or less."

"Do you have business elsewhere?"

"I need to get back to the sect now." He saw her confusion and continued. "Let me formally introduce myself. I’m a disciple of the Cloudwater Sect. I’ve been away for months now which is far longer than normally permitted. I completed several high contribution missions that bought me extended leave, but I can’t push it much further now."

"Cloudwater Sect?" Meihua nearly choked on her words as she stared at Yu Liang for a moment waiting for him to tell her he was joking.

"Cloudwater Sect?" Seeing that he wasn’t joking, she stared at him for a moment before repeating herself, this time louder. "You mean that Cloudwater Sect?"

Yu Liang raised an eyebrow. "How many Cloudwater Sects do you know?"

She ignored the question, still looking at him in disbelief.

"They’re one of the strongest sects in the entire region. A proper Top Tier powerhouse. They have many Nascent Soul Realm elders and there are even rumors that they have Soul Transformation ancestors in seclusion."

"Yeah, That’s the one."

"You... You’re... a sect disciple? Really?"

"Yes, Outer sect disciple actually."

She continued staring. "You’re an outer sect disciple of Cloudwater Sect and you’ve been doing what? Running a restaurant?"

"It seemed like a good investment opportunity, I guess."

A startled laugh escaped her mouth. "A good investment you say? Yu Liang, do you have any idea how many people would kill for a position in Cloudwater Sect? Millions of disciples already within their ranks and millions are more lining up every five years during recruitment, hoping desperately for apprenticeship. People are training their entire lives just so they can get a chance to pass the entrance trials. And you’re treating it like... like a part time job that you have to check in on occasionally?"

Yu Liang shrugged. "The sect is... complicated. There’s politics, hierarchy, and people competing with each other all the time. Being an outer sect disciple isn’t nearly as impressive as you seem to think."

Meihua looked at him for a long moment, then her expression softened. "You hate it, don’t you? The sect life."

"No," he said immediately. "I never said I hate it, The sect is fair in its own way, you get freedom when you earn the strength for it. That’s how this world works." He paused, searching for the right words. "It’s just... when I was a child, all I could think about was food. Times were hard back then, and there were days when having a proper meal was enough to make me happy. Due to this when I started thinking about what kind of business I wanted to build, a restaurant was the first thing that came to my mind."

He also wanted to tell her that it was only after everything that had happened today that he realized his childhood dream had finally come true but the first motive was something else so he though about being quite on this matter.

She nodded slowly. "That’s why you built this place. Heaven’s Table. It is what you have always wanted, isn’t it?"

"Maybe."

They fell silent again. His departure news was still hanging between them. Once he left for the sect, they wouldn’t be able to spend their days together like this anymore.

"How long will you be gone?" Meihua asked.

"Minimum three months. Maybe six. It depends on what missions they assign me." He turned to face her fully. "But I’ll come back. This place... Heaven’s Table, the staff, the customers, everything we’ve built so far, it matters to me."

"Just the restaurant?" She questioned suddenly.