Chen Zhi leaned back on the sofa, staring at the tightly shut security door at the entrance, then glanced at the long black box on the coffee table.
He tugged at his hair in irritation.
What a mess tonight was.
His phone buzzed, the screen lighting up and casting a small halo of glow across the dim living room.
Chen Zhi glanced at it. It was a voice call invitation from the WeChat group [404 Father-Son Group].
His mind was a tangled mess, and he didn’t want to answer, but the invitations kept coming, as if they’d keep ringing until he picked up.
He sighed and swiped to answer.
“Holy crap!!!”
Chen Zhi quickly held the phone away from his ear.
“Chen Zhi! Are you seriously the nineteen-year-old founder of DeepSpace Tech, worth fifteen billion?”
Guo Yang was clearly losing it. “Dude, when I saw you limping out on crutches in today’s livestream, I thought it was some unfortunate guy who just looked like you. Then you opened your mouth, and you scared the hell out of me!”
Chen Zhi’s head throbbed.
“It’s the middle of the night. Are you summoning spirits?”
“Don’t change the subject!” The screen shook as Li Zicong and Zhang Tianyang squeezed into the frame.
The three roommates were in their shorts, huddled around one phone screen, staring wide-eyed at Chen Zhi.
“Brother Zhi, I’m speechless,” Li Zicong swallowed hard. “You’re worth fifteen billion US dollars? And you used to mooch my Hua Zi cigarettes in the dorm every day? Don’t you have a conscience? When you didn’t come back at night, we thought some rich woman from Guanghua had taken you in. Turns out you’re the biggest capitalist yourself!”
Zhang Tianyang’s voice was subdued.
“Last month on your birthday, the three of us pooled our money to buy you a cheap 19.9-yuan cake from outside the west gate.”
“You ate it with such joy, saying it was the best cake you’d ever had.”
“Chen Zhi, with acting skills like that, the Oscars missed out.” Zhang Tianyang sighed. “At the time, I thought we overpaid for that 19.9-yuan cake. Now I realize it was the most successful venture capital investment I’ve ever made.”
Chen Zhi looked at these three clowns on the screen, and his earlier irritation eased a little.
“Let’s keep things separate,” Chen Zhi said, shifting to a more comfortable position. “The money in the capital market is just numbers. But our 404 father-son bond? That’s priceless.”
“Get lost!”
Guo Yang cursed, then switched his tone to flattery.
“Godfather!”
Guo Yang rubbed his hands together, grinning slyly.
“Godfather, save one of those 3999 phones for me! I was scrambling under the covers earlier and couldn’t grab a single one!”
Li Zicong shoved Guo Yang’s face aside.
“Get out of here. With your slow fingers, you couldn’t snag a phone anyway.” Li Zicong looked at Chen Zhi. “Brother Zhi, I want one too. I watched the launch livestream today. That Moss is incredible. My iPhone suddenly feels so ordinary.”
Chen Zhi couldn’t help but laugh at their shameless antics.
“Look at you guys, so easily impressed.” Chen Zhi snorted. “One for each of you. I’ll have someone deliver them in a few days.”
“Long live the Godfather!”
Cheers erupted from the dorm.
Guo Yang kept shouting about how Chen Zhi had to treat them to a big meal when he got back to school. Chen Zhi grunted a few perfunctory replies and hung up.
The call ended with a tone, and the living room fell quiet again.
The smile faded from Chen Zhi’s face.
He tossed his phone onto the sofa and stared blankly at the empty room.
Those few minutes of joking with his roommates had briefly masked the mess.
Now, in the silence, all those chaotic thoughts came flooding back.
The success of the launch was expected.
Moss was a game-changer. Meizu’s solid hardware, combined with the friend-price of 3999—this combination crushed every competitor.
DeepSpace Tech’s valuation was bound to skyrocket.
The billion-dollar annual bet agreement was off to a perfect start.
But the romantic mess he’d left behind was a hundred times harder than corporate warfare.
Pei Ningxue had bolted. She returned her shares, cleared out her stuff, and threatened to go abroad. Though Chen Zhi had managed to keep her at Peking University with a bit of emotional manipulation, their relationship was now in shambles.
Lin Wanwan had finally exploded today. That girl, who had always followed him around since childhood with nothing but him in her heart, looked at him with a cold, unfamiliar gaze for the first time.
Li Zhiyi was the most understanding, so understanding it hurt. She seemed to guess everything, quietly cleaned up the mess, and even voluntarily left to give him space.
Chen Zhi rubbed his temples.
Living a second life, he could command the capital markets.
But when it came to handling women, he hadn’t improved much from his previous life.
Just as he was about to close his eyes and rest, his phone screen lit up again.
It was a text message.
From the bank.
[Dear Customer, your supplementary credit card ending in xxxx was used for a purchase of RMB 285,000 at 23:45 on August 15.]
Chen Zhi froze.
He only had one supplementary card.
That one was in Pei Ningxue’s hands.
Since that night in Jiangcheng when she’d left without a word, she hadn’t used that card. She’d even returned her DeepSpace Tech options, determined to cut all ties with him.
Now, in the middle of the night, she’d dropped 285,000 at SKP?
SKP closed at 10 p.m. She must have had the mall open just for her or had the boutique send items to her place to choose.
Miss Pei always had her lavish ways.
Chen Zhi stared at the message and suddenly smiled.
This woman.
At heart, she was still a tsundere.
If she was using his card, it meant she was still paying attention to him. Maybe she’d even watched tonight’s entire launch.
This purchase was like an outlet—a covert way of checking up on him.
The dark clouds in Chen Zhi’s heart lifted.
As long as she was still willing to spend his money, things could still be salvaged.
If she were truly done with him, she wouldn’t have even glanced at that card.
He opened WeChat, found her blocked profile, and tried sending a punctuation mark.
A red exclamation mark popped up.
She was still on his blacklist.
Chen Zhi wasn’t annoyed.
He tossed his phone onto the sofa, gripped the armrests, and slowly stood up.
The cast on his left leg was heavy, making walking difficult.
Limping to the entrance, he unwrapped the carbon-fiber crutches Lin Wanwan had bought him.
They were light in hand and felt excellent.
Chen Zhi propped them under his armpits and tried a few steps.
He turned to look at the night view of Beijing through the window.
The business battle was just beginning.
And the fires at home would have to be put out slowly.
No rush.
No rush.
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
nto another world, I bought a slave for the first time, never expecting the silver wolf girl to be so cute... Lin Feng: I know it's cold, but you don't have to sneak into my bed! Yuna: Just sharing body warmth, if you dare do anything naughty, I'll definitely...
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
