After parting ways with Wang Yaofa, Liu Chuanfeng returned to his residential compound. The buildings looked somewhat weathered, with some of the exterior wall paint even peeling off. However, in just a few years, this area would be slated for demolition and redevelopment. Even without exerting himself now, Liu Chuanfeng could live quite comfortably as a second-generation demolition beneficiary.
"Alone again."
After Liu Chuanfeng unlocked the door, the house was silent and empty, something he was already long used to.
It might have been better when he was a little younger, but as he entered middle school, his parents became increasingly busy, only returning a few times a month, and often coming back separately. This wasn't because their relationship was poor; it was almost entirely due to their work.
His father, Liu Guanshan, was a lawyer and a general partner at a law firm. In recent years, the mounting number of cases on his hands meant he was frequently away on business trips; this time, he wasn't even in the country. Meanwhile, his mother, Sun Lan, was an accountant at an accounting firm and was currently in Modu. She had come back a couple of nights ago to discuss college applications, left him some living expenses, and then hurried back to work.
From many people's perspectives, both of his parents were exceptionally capable and held very respectable jobs. But in Liu Chuanfeng's eyes, they were nothing more than high-level corporate wage earners, spending the vast majority of their time working to make money for others, while having only a sliver of time to enjoy life or even accompany their own family.
This was also why his relationship with Zhang Jingyi's family had gradually drifted apart.
Ah, it seemed that just in the last few days, a major crisis had struck Zhang Jingyi's family, and it was after this incident that he rarely heard any news about her.
As for the exact details, he wasn't very clear either. He only remembered that Zhang Jingyi's father, Zhang Yunhai, had been hospitalized, apparently after getting into a car accident while on duty, and he had even gone to visit him afterward.
Liu Chuanfeng lay in bed pondering this for a long time without remembering the specifics, so he simply got up to take care of his own affairs instead.
He got up and took a fairly large candy tin out of his desk drawer. Zhang Jingyi had given it to him back in elementary school, saying these were her favorite candies brought back by her mother from an overseas business trip. There had only been two boxes in total, and she had given him one.
Sigh, good girls always like to give the best they have to the boy they like.
As for bad girls, they always show their best side to the man they like, and then flip themselves over to reveal the rest.
Opening the box, it was filled with colorful banknotes—his unspent New Year and pocket money saved up since childhood. Being able to save this much was also thanks to having a good buddy; hanging out with Wang Yaofa meant there were rarely any occasions where he needed to spend his own money. Even today's massage had been paid for by Wang Yaofa; his only expense today had been a ten-yuan scallion pancake, which was also his biggest expenditure in the past week.
Three purple notes, twenty-two blue-black notes, five brown notes, two green notes, and one hundred and twelve pink notes. Looking at it this way, he was a person of considerable modest wealth; many people wouldn't even have this much money in their hands after working for a full year following graduation.
On top of that, there were quite a few one-yuan, fifty-cent, and ten-cent coins.
No wonder this box felt so heavy. In this instant, Liu Chuanfeng felt that his parents being a bit busy wasn't such a bad thing after all—he lacked for nothing in food or clothing, lived an affluent life, and nobody nagged him.
"In my past life, all this money ended up being spent on that girl."
Liu Chuanfeng recalled this roughly in his heart and now regretted it to death. She wasn't even as good as Sun Qianyao; what was the use of having a cute, sweet voice? Other girls had long legs and could even do front splits—who could possibly turn that down?
Since he had been reborn, however, not a single cent of this money would be spent on any girl.
Liu Chuanfeng took five hundred yuan out of the box as his startup capital. Even if this five hundred yuan venture failed, using this twelve-thousand-plus yuan to try his luck at the sports lottery center would still allow him to live comfortably for twenty or thirty years.
Still, who would ever complain about having too much money? Naturally, it couldn't be *too* much either; putting aside whether he had the capability to handle a massive fortune, secondly, he always remembered that saying: when wealth reaches a certain level, it stops belonging to you.
Therefore, Liu Chuanfeng decided to stick to his comfort zone. There was no need to push himself so hard; as long as money kept coming in steadily, that was enough.
Liu Chuanfeng calculated the dates: within two weeks, he would flip this sum three to four hundred times.
Suffering for two weeks versus suffering for a lifetime—there was no real choice to be made here.
He never wanted to taste those miserable days ever again.
He wanted to live a sweet life.
That night, he slept exceptionally soundly, until a rat-a-tat-tat knocking shattered the tranquility of early morning.
There was a reason people called him Wang Yaofa. For this first serious business venture of his, Wang Yaofa had woken up exceptionally early. Compared to Liu Chuanfeng's damned relaxed attitude, Wang Yaofa hadn't gone to sleep until three o'clock this morning. He hadn't played video games, nor had he studied any hour-and-fifty-minute videos; he had simply spent the time browsing various entrepreneurial case studies online, hoping to glean fresh knowledge from them.
And many of the arguments on those web pages shared one common trait: diligence.
That was why he woke up so early today, getting out of bed as early as six o'clock while his house was still pitch black. He quietly pushed the door open by himself, found a tricycle he had managed to secure the previous night, and pedaled shakily for fifteen minutes before arriving downstairs at Liu Chuanfeng's building.
Yet, what he was met with was not his good buddy's smiling face, but a dark one.
"What time is it?"
"Just what time is it?!"
"Pangzi!"
"Give me one reason not to beat you up!"
Liu Chuanfeng gritted his back teeth, feeling utterly furious. He had been right in the middle of a youthful, reckless dream—a feeling he hadn't experienced in so long. He wasn't sure who the heroine was, but her legs were definitely Sun Qianyao's. It had been years since he last tasted that sensation, and just as he was about to reach the climax of the feeling, this fat idiot had ruined it.
"Ahem."
Seeing his state, Wang Yaofa instantly stepped back two steps and explained timidly, "I thought starting a business meant waking up early and sleeping late, working from dawn to dusk, and putting diligence first."
"I didn't expect..."
"It seems we don't really need to?"
"How about you go back and sleep for a bit longer?"
"Huuu—"
"Sleep my foot!"
Liu Chuanfeng slowly let out a breath of stagnant air. Since the guy was being so diligent, you couldn't really blame him; when starting a business, diligence was indeed a good thing. Judging by the current situation, it seemed he would have to wait until tomorrow to try and dream his way back to those legs.
"Did you bring breakfast?"
"No."
Wang Yaofa scratched his head and followed him inside, empty-handed except for a key.
"I only brought money."
With that, he dug into his pants pocket, pulled out a thick stack of brand-new, crimson banknotes, and gave them a vigorous flick. "I only brought two thousand yuan this morning. My dad just gave it to me last night. Is this enough?"