With just a simple sentence from his sister, Cheng Zhu's heart melted.
Damn, my sister is so fucking cute!
With Cheng Zhu's current mindset and level, ordinary women couldn't move his heartstrings at all.
But with Little Youzi's milky voice saying one sentence, if she asked him to do anything right now, he would do it.
Smitten, completely fucking smitten!
Doesn't he need to earn a whole castle for the princess?
Make money, work even harder to make money in this life!
While drinking mung bean soup, Cheng Zhu fell into reminiscence.
"Thinking carefully, I do have regrets about Little Youzi." Cheng Zhu thought.
In his memory, his sister Cheng You was a particularly lively and mischievous little girl when she was young.
But after starting middle school, she gradually became more reserved and introverted.
Cheng Zhu only learned by chance later that in middle school, she'd been verbally abused by several female classmates. Just because she developed early and even loose school uniforms couldn't hide it, they implied she was slutty.
This made Little Youzi start hunching her shoulders and chest. Over time, her entire posture couldn't be corrected, and she became less and less confident.
And for girls, their overall bearing and temperament are really important.
The same face paired with different bearing and temperament can undergo earth-shattering changes.
These things were told to him by Little Youzi's best friend later, making Cheng Zhu want to tear apart those girls' foul mouths.
That girl really loved chatting with Cheng Zhu, feeling that her best friend's older brother was completely different from the boys at school.
Cheng Zhu had been having his sister take Pilates classes at hundreds of yuan per session, and hiring special people for posture correction, but her personality was hard to change back.
"Need to pay more attention to these issues in the future." He thought.
With this thought, he got up again and headed to the restaurant's kitchen.
"You're here?" His dad Cheng Donglai glanced at his son and said flatly.
The Cheng family was famous for favoring daughters over sons. Cheng Donglai was passionate as fire toward his daughter, a total daughter slave, while he'd always taken a hands-off approach with his son—just don't cause trouble outside.
"Dad, is there anything I can help with?" he asked.
Comrade Old Cheng, while stir-frying pepper pork, glanced at him with slight surprise and only said a few words: "Go blow the AC outside."
Cheng Zhu didn't insist and obediently left the kitchen domain.
Old Cheng looked at his son's back and muttered: "This is really weird, this lazy guy actually volunteering to help?"
After Cheng Zhu returned to sit at the dining table, he began calculating in his mind again.
"If I remember correctly, Second Uncle will come to scam money this year, emptying out our family savings. The next few years will be pretty hard on Old Cheng."
"His health hasn't been great later on, probably because he was too exhausted during those years."
This world is like this for poor people—any problem that can be solved with money must instead be solved with things more precious than money: health, life, time, dignity...
People, many trade health for money when healthy, then trade money for health when sick.
Fortunately, Cheng Zhu's career went fairly smoothly later, and he especially cared about his parents' health. Old Cheng's body actually got better year by year, and his mom Xu Yun also grew younger.
His career luck was good—he was fortunate that his money-making speed kept up with his parents' aging.
"Children want to care for parents but parents won't wait"—some people aren't so lucky.
"But since I've regressed, I should at least let them live more comfortably." Cheng Zhu thought.
Make money, still need to make money as fast as possible!
Thinking of this, he immediately picked up his phone and opened WeChat. For his first pot of gold, he needed to contact someone now.
This person was named Jiang Wanzhou, another childhood friend of Cheng Zhu's besides Wang Anquan.
The two had been in the same class in elementary school, same class in middle school, same school in high school—you could say they grew up together.
The name Wanzhou came from "fishing boats sing at evening, the sound exhausts the shores of Pengli."
Yes, from the "Preface to Prince Teng's Pavilion" that everyone memorized to death during their student days.
When Cheng Zhu was studying, he found memorization painful, but after leaving campus, as he grew older, he understood that the things in those Chinese textbooks were actually all brilliant pearls.
He first scrolled through his chat history with Jiang Wanzhou, reviewing recent chat content to get into the current state.
Soon, his gaze focused on a message—that was Jiang Wanzhou telling him his cousin had opened a new bar and inviting Cheng Zhu to check it out together.
Many people during school days seemed to have that "effeminate" classmate, and also had super wealthy classmates. But in Cheng Zhu's youth, these two merged into one—Jiang Wanzhou.
He had a feminine appearance for a male body, spoke with a soft voice, and had feminine mannerisms and expressions. From inside to outside he exuded a gay aura, like a scheming bottom.
If Cheng Zhu was hot and sweating profusely on his face, he'd just wipe it with his hand.
Jiang Wanzhou would raise his two little hands and fan beside his face, especially coquettish.
But this guy, despite seeming so gay, had a heart that wanted to be a domineering CEO. Can you believe it?
"What kind of domineering CEO walks with little steps in a black coat?" Cheng Zhu mentally complained.
But you had to admit, this guy Jiang Wanzhou was really fucking rich.
During school there were rumors his family owned an entire street of shops.
Cheng Zhu didn't believe it back then because he saw Jiang Wanzhou never spent money carelessly, never wasted food, and never showed off wealth.
When he told Jiang Wanzhou about this rumor, he immediately waved his hands in denial: "How is that possible! It's not that exaggerated!"
"That's what I thought!" Cheng Zhu laughed along.
Later he learned that Jiang Wanzhou's family really did own an entire street of shops, and the reason he denied it was because the shops on the opposite side of the street weren't his family's. In his concept, only if both sides of the street belonged to his family could it count as owning a whole street of shops.
This could only count as half at most.
After that, Cheng Zhu started calling him President Jiang, while he still called Cheng Zhu "Zhuge"—everyone using their own terms.
Speaking of which, having such a super rich second-generation childhood friend, Cheng Zhu's entrepreneurial path should have been easier.
But actually it wasn't.
He and Jiang Wanzhou seemed to not have the fate to partner up.
But doing business separately, both would be very successful.
You could say "separately they're both awesome, together they're a pile of shit."
Cheng Zhu later felt: "His yin energy is too heavy, probably clashes with me."
At this moment, he directly typed: "Didn't you say last time you'd treat me to drinks at your cousin's [Wine Hidden]? How about tonight?"
Look at that—actively finding someone to treat him, and picking the time himself.
"Who are you being so informal with, call me President Jiang." President Jiang's tone was displeased, but the message was an instant reply.
"President Jiang! Treat me!" Cheng Zhu sent a message to fleece him.
He could understand Jiang Wanzhou's towering resentment, because he'd just scrolled through their chat history and found that Jiang Wanzhou had asked him to hang out plenty during summer vacation, but the original Cheng Zhu had prioritized romance over friendship, prioritizing his second brother over his little brother, only caring about dating and neglecting him for a long time.
This emperor will now release you from the cold palace!
Besides this, Cheng Zhu also sent an invitation to stay at a hotel together tonight.
The reason was simple—he'd be making money until very late tonight. If he came home at dawn, his parents wouldn't have a good attitude. Better to just not come home and lie that he was staying at Jiang Wanzhou's house.
As for Jiang Wanzhou's family, it was quite miraculous. They couldn't accept their son playing until dawn before coming home, but they could accept him... not coming home at all.
For someone like Cheng Zhu, his family forbade him from staying out because they feared he'd mess around outside.
For someone like Jiang Wanzhou, with his enchanting appearance since childhood visible to his family, they feared he'd never mess around his whole life.
"This is also thanks to it being 2014—there aren't that many scheming bottoms and calculating tops on the market yet."
"Otherwise, once social attitudes change, the Jiang family would probably worry about him even more."
Of course, Cheng Zhu was very clear that Jiang Wanzhou really wasn't bent. This gay circle delicacy had no interest in men—he was just naturally enchanting, no helping it.
When Mom Xu Yun heard Cheng Zhu was staying at Jiang Wanzhou's house tonight, she originally wanted to ask more questions, but having been complimented by her son today, she was in a good mood and didn't pry.
After nightfall, before even ten o'clock, Jiang Wanzhou drove his Mercedes G-Class to pick up Cheng Zhu.
The two had just finished their college entrance exams and immediately speed-ran to driving school, quickly getting their licenses.
The difference was that Cheng Zhu having a license was useless—he had no car. Jiang Wanzhou's family had too many cars and he didn't know which to drive each day.
This generation of Mercedes G-Class hadn't been redesigned yet and hadn't earned the title "scumbags drive G-Wagons" like it would years later.
In 2014, many people didn't even know this car's price and thought it was just a regular Mercedes.
But you know what, the old G-Class's comfort really wasn't great. After getting in, Cheng Zhu felt very uncomfortable and a bit disdainful.
At Jiang Wanzhou's age, logically he should prefer his mom's white Bentley Continental convertible.
But don't forget, although he was gay as hell, he had a heart that wanted to be a domineering CEO, so even his car preference leaned toward the more imposing.
After Cheng Zhu got in the car, he forcefully closed the door, listening to the Mercedes G-Class's distinctive sound like a bullet being chambered.
"Long time no see, President Jiang!" Cheng Zhu said sincerely.
"You still know it's been a long time?" Jiang Wanzhou gave him a Bone-Softening Palm, patting his left arm.
After speaking, he said somewhat sourly: "Why isn't Zhuge going on dates today?"
Only then did Cheng Zhu recall that when he was dating Li Xinyue, Jiang Wanzhou firmly opposed it. He'd always felt Li Xinyue wasn't that great, but Cheng Zhu completely ignored him.
"Broke up." Cheng Zhu said.
"What!?" Jiang Wanzhou was shocked, his right hand continuously patting Cheng Zhu's shoulder, his expression gradually becoming delighted.
"Can you fucking drive properly first!" Cheng Zhu felt alarmed by this driving novice.
"So you got dumped and thought of finding me to drown your sorrows. When you were dating, even dinner time was hard to schedule with you—I had to book appointments." Jiang Wanzhou said sourly.
"Dumped my ass! Can you stop being so desperate for attention?" Cheng Zhu rolled his eyes at him and said irritably: "When you read domineering CEO novels, which side do you actually identify with?"
"What bullshit are you spouting~" Jiang Wanzhou got angry.
Only then did Cheng Zhu notice he'd specifically worn gold-rimmed glasses today.
Too bad the domineering CEO vibe still hadn't been brought out—instead he looked more like a refined bottom.
Cheng Zhu stopped teasing him and got to the point: "President Jiang, how's business at your cousin's bar?"
"It wasn't doing well before, but recently it's been great. World Cup, you know—suddenly there are way more customers, all drinking and watching soccer. My cousin's a serious soccer fan himself. Last time he even asked if I wanted to bet on games, said he'd place a thousand yuan bet for me to play."
Due to certain reasons, Cheng Zhu had also met Jiang Wanzhou's cousin in his past life. The guy was quite straightforward, a rich second generation who loved face and showing off.
He seemed casual but actually had plans in mind as he said: "Oh really, could he help me place some bets too?"
"Sure, just add him on WeChat when we get there and transfer money to him. He keeps telling me his betting odds are better than the sports lottery." Jiang Wanzhou said.
After speaking, Jiang Wanzhou got a bit interested and asked: "How much are you planning to bet? This CEO will play along with you."