Half an hour later.
The black Maybach slowly drove into a private club located in the city center.
It was a quiet haven amidst the bustling city. High walls blocked out the outside world's gaze. There was no signboard at the entrance, only two antique stone lanterns.
As soon as the car came to a halt, a uniformed waiter stepped forward to open the door.
Chen Zhi grabbed his backpack, stepped out of the car, and looked around.
Pavilions and terraces were scattered about, accompanied by the sound of babbling streams.
"Let's go."
Pei Ningxue walked beside him, her voice very soft.
She looked a bit nervous, her hands gripping her backpack straps so tightly that her knuckles turned slightly white.
Obviously, she was filled with anxiety about the upcoming meal.
Chen Zhi, on the other hand, couldn't care less.
Walking through the winding corridors, the two were led into a private room named "Listening to the Waves."
The room was huge and extravagantly decorated.
A massive circular mahogany table sat right in the center, large enough to accommodate twenty people at once.
At this moment, only one person was seated at the enormous table.
Pei Dongcheng.
He had changed into casual clothes, but the oppressive aura of someone accustomed to being in power remained strong.
Seeing the two enter, Pei Dongcheng put down his teacup.
His gaze bypassed Pei Ningxue and landed directly on Chen Zhi.
Scrutiny.
Inquiry.
And a trace of hostility that hadn't completely dissipated.
"Sit."
Pei Dongcheng was a man of few words.
Pei Ningxue's body stiffened, and she subconsciously moved toward the seat furthest away from her father.
But Chen Zhi grabbed her arm.
Under Pei Dongcheng's slightly surprised gaze, Chen Zhi casually pulled out the chair directly opposite him and plopped down.
Then he patted the seat next to him, gesturing for Pei Ningxue to sit there.
"Hello, Uncle."
Chen Zhi tossed his backpack onto an empty chair and smiled radiantly. "This place is pretty nice. Must be hard to find, right? I was wondering why the GPS couldn't navigate here."
Pei Dongcheng looked at this teenager who completely ignored conventional rules, his eye twitching slightly.
A normal student, seeing such a scene and facing a business tycoon like him, would be trembling with fear, or at least restless and constrained.
But Chen Zhi?
He was as relaxed as if he had just returned to his own home.
"Chen Zhi, is it?"
Pei Dongcheng didn't take the bait, his fingers gently tapping the table. "Earlier at the school, you certainly gave me a huge surprise."
"I wouldn't call it a surprise."
Chen Zhi picked up a hot towel from the table and wiped his hands, his movements slow and methodical. "Mostly, I just can't stand people throwing money in others' faces. Even though I like money too, some things just can't be bought."
Pei Dongcheng sneered.
"One million."
He stared into Chen Zhi's eyes. "An ordinary middle school student casually pulling out a cash card with one million. Do your parents know?"
As one of the people at the very top of society, he had quickly verified the authenticity of the deposit.
But this was exactly what he couldn't figure out.
He had someone investigate Chen Zhi's background.
Both parents were ordinary working-class people; his father worked in a regular company, and his mother was an ordinary clerk. Their family background could only be described as making ends meet with a little to spare.
This one million was of unknown origin.
Pei Ningxue also looked at Chen Zhi nervously.
She wanted to know the answer too.
Chen Zhi put down the towel, picked up his teacup, and took a sip.
"Da Hong Pao? The flavor is a bit weak."
He smacked his lips in distaste, then looked at Pei Dongcheng with an innocent expression.
"This is my New Year's red envelope money. I've been saving it for over a decade. Is there a problem?"
"..."
Pei Dongcheng almost laughed out of anger.
Red envelope money?
Your family gives you a hundred thousand a year in red envelopes?
"If you're not willing to tell the truth, I won't bother asking."
Pei Dongcheng waved his hand, signaling the waiter to serve the food.
Since this kid wanted to play mysterious, he'd let him.
Soon, exquisite dishes were brought to the table one after another.
Australian lobster, abalone, shark fin—all heavy-hitting delicacies.
Chen Zhi's eyes lit up.
He was genuinely hungry.
"Since we're here to eat, I won't hold back."
Chen Zhi picked up his chopsticks, accurately grabbed the plumpest piece of lobster meat, and stuffed it straight into his mouth.
He nodded while chewing. "Mhm, this is good, cooked perfectly. Ningxue, try this."
Saying that, he very naturally used the serving chopsticks to place a piece in Pei Ningxue's bowl.
Pei Ningxue looked at the lobster meat in her bowl, then at her expressionless father, momentarily unsure if she should touch her chopsticks.
At the Pei family's dining table, the rule was no talking while eating.
She would absolutely never dare to eat before her father picked up his chopsticks.
"Eat up, what are you spacing out for?"
Seeing her not moving, Chen Zhi urged, "Your dad paid for this, so it's a waste not to eat. If you don't eat and all this food gets thrown away, it'd be a crime."
Pei Dongcheng watched Chen Zhi wolfing down the food, his brows tightly furrowed.
Was this kid truly stupid or just playing dumb?
Could he really not feel the aura he was exuding?
"Chen Zhi."
Pei Dongcheng suddenly spoke up, interrupting Chen Zhi's meal.
"Do you think you and Ningxue belong to the same world?"
Not this line again.
Chen Zhi swallowed the food in his mouth, pulled out a tissue, and elegantly wiped his mouth.
He looked up at Pei Dongcheng, a mocking expression entirely unsuited to his age appearing on his face.
"Uncle Pei."
"It's 2015 now, not the Qing Dynasty."
"Count back three generations, and whose family didn't start out in the dirt?"
Chen Zhi pointed at the table full of exotic delicacies.
"You can afford to eat all this now because you were lucky and caught the right wave of the times."
"As for me."
Chen Zhi paused, leaning forward slightly, his pitch-black eyes flashing with light.
"I am the next wave."
The private room instantly fell silent.
So quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Pei Dongcheng's pupils shrank sharply.
Arrogant.
Utterly and completely arrogant!
Where did this kid get his confidence?
Just as the atmosphere was deadlocked, Chen Zhi's phone suddenly rang.
The notification sound for a special contact seemed exceptionally piercing in the quiet room.
Chen Zhi didn't even look before answering it directly.
From the other end of the line came Lin Wanwan's slightly awkward voice.
"Hey, Chen Zhi."
"Are you done eating yet?"
"Xiaobai says it's hungry and wants to eat the noodles you make."
Chen Zhi's previously sharp aura instantly collapsed.
He glanced at the table full of delicacies, then at Pei Dongcheng, whose face had turned livid.
"Almost, almost."
Chen Zhi coaxed gently into the phone, "Wrapping up now, I'll head back and make it right away."
He hung up the phone.
Chen Zhi stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder again.
"Uncle Pei, thanks for the hospitality."
"I have a bit of an emergency at home. My dog is about to give birth, so I have to go back and see if they're male or female."
After saying that, without waiting for Pei Dongcheng to react, he turned around and walked out.
Reaching the door, he paused and looked back at Pei Ningxue, who was still sitting blankly in her chair.
"Aren't you leaving? Waiting to stay behind and wash the dishes?"
Pei Ningxue woke up as if from a dream.
She glanced at her father.
Pei Dongcheng didn't say a word.
Pei Ningxue gritted her teeth, grabbed her backpack, and quickly chased after that arrogant figure.
The private room door closed.
Leaving only Pei Dongcheng alone, facing a table full of barely touched expensive dishes, falling into deep self-doubt.
Just who exactly was this kid?
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!
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
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?!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
