Wang Anquan felt his soul had been strongly impacted.
"Don't let down good girls, bad girls... don't waste?"
Zhuge even specifically wrote it down in his notes?!
The bus arrived at the stop, reaching the residential complex where Cheng Zhu and Wang Anquan lived.
Cheng Zhu got off gracefully, with Wang Anquan immediately following.
At the complex entrance, the two parted ways, as their homes were in different directions.
"It's 4 PM now, probably nobody's home." Cheng Zhu thought.
His family ran a small restaurant called Yunlai Restaurant, located on the street across from the complex.
The restaurant wasn't big, just two rooms.
These days, private kitchens hadn't risen in popularity yet, and the food delivery industry was still in its development stage. So these kinds of small restaurants generally made money from dine-in customers.
Cheng Zhu's father, Cheng Donglai, was both the restaurant's owner and chef.
Overall, the restaurant's business was neither good nor bad.
This meant that during Cheng Zhu's youth, although his life had nothing to do with wealth, he never lacked for food and clothing.
Old Cheng didn't have great abilities, but he never let little Cheng go hungry.
Speaking of which, the restaurant business was quite tough—every day filled with smoke and fire, and occasionally encountering some difficult customers.
"First go home to change clothes and shower, then go to the restaurant for dinner at 5:30." Cheng Zhu thought.
After returning home, he went straight into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.
"Why is this hair so long, and permed so ugly." Cheng Zhu couldn't quite appreciate it.
These days, it seemed pretty popular to perm center parts or 60-40 parts. Right after graduating high school, many students started letting themselves go, going crazy with spending at hair salons.
"But this perfect hairline really makes me nostalgic." Cheng Zhu couldn't help saying.
Before showering, Cheng Zhu went to his closet to find a change of clothes.
He rummaged for a while and found that his long pants were either cropped or long enough to drag on the ground.
"Oh, I remember now—showing ankles was popular these days. Either wear cropped pants or roll up your pant legs." Cheng Zhu smiled.
He vaguely remembered that when rolling pant legs, there was a special technique that could make regular pants look like skinny jeans.
In the end, he selected a pair of black athletic pants.
After showering, he didn't rush out but sat at the desk in his room, picked up his phone, and checked all his current assets.
"A total of 12,312 yuan." Cheng Zhu murmured.
After the college entrance exam ended, elders in the family would give red envelopes.
People in Zhejiang Province were quite generous with red envelopes.
But given his family's circumstances, this money was on the high side.
Mainly because his grandfather was the type of old man with money in his pockets who always felt that at his age he couldn't take money with him when he died, so he was especially generous to his grandchildren—he alone gave a 5,000 yuan red envelope.
Cheng Zhu had already spent a small portion of this money during summer vacation, with over ten thousand remaining.
"If I remember correctly, this money would have been almost entirely spent on Li Xinyue during summer vacation." Cheng Zhu recalled.
"From having over six million in just one card to my entire fortune being only over ten thousand, tsk, this gap..." Cheng Zhu couldn't help but sigh.
But the strong never complain about their environment.
"So you're forcing me to regress, huh." Cheng Zhu thought: "Then not taking this opportunity to make some more money would really be unjustifiable."
"What can I do with over ten thousand yuan of capital in 2014?" Cheng Zhu pondered.
He checked the date—today was July 13th. Then he went online for a bit to adapt to this era. Very quickly, he had a plan for his first step.
"Within twenty-four hours, I can multiply this money several times!"
With this thought, he felt that if a person regressed, the advantage would indeed be huge.
Cheng Zhu couldn't help but think of a figure that netizens jokingly said had a system—thinking of his life that was like a power fantasy novel brought into reality.
That person was—"Lei Busi" (Lei Jun/Xiaomi's founder).
The President Lei once said: "As long as you stand at the wind outlet, even pigs can fly."
Returning to his youth, he felt he must seize more opportunities, or else this regression would be wasted.
"Go, young man, and meet the wind of destiny."
...
...
Tonight, Cheng Zhu would stand at the first wind outlet after his regression.
But before that, he needed to go to Yunlai Restaurant for dinner.
You know what, on the way to the restaurant, he inexplicably felt somewhat... nervous?
Apart from that, there was also excitement and anticipation.
"Mom and Dad are much younger now than they were then."
"Little Youzi is still in kindergarten."
Little Youzi was his younger sister, named Cheng You, currently five and a half years old.
His family was typically the type that favored daughters over sons—raising daughters like princesses while sons were at most bodyguards with swords.
Arriving outside Yunlai Restaurant, Cheng Zhu took a deep breath before pushing the door open.
As soon as he entered Yunlai Restaurant, he saw his mom Xu Yun busy at work.
Many people probably have this feeling—that from the time they have memories, mom has been a middle-aged woman.
How many people can still clearly remember what their mothers looked like when they were young?
Xu Yun was exactly forty years old this year, definitely a middle-aged woman, but compared to how she looked in Cheng Zhu's memories, she appeared much younger.
"What's wrong?" Xu Yun looked at her son who was staring at her in a daze, puzzled.
"Mom, you're really young. No, I mean you look really young today." Cheng Zhu blurted out.
"What nonsense!" The usually gentle Xu Yun actually involuntarily put on a stern face and immediately turned to walk away quickly, going to the fridge to get her son a bowl of iced mung bean soup.
This generation of mothers would ask their sons if the food they made tasted good, but rarely asked if mom looked pretty today.
Similarly, children rarely complimented their mothers on being young and beautiful.
Cheng Zhu's thinking was simple—you could exhaust yourself praising women outside and they might still think you're a simp. But if you casually praise mom once, she really will be happy all day.
Xu Yun was caught completely off guard today by her unconventional son's compliment.
After quite a while, she pretended to act normal and went to the bathroom, a bit embarrassed as she repeatedly looked in the mirror.
At first she couldn't see anything, but as she kept looking...
"It seems... there is a bit?" She couldn't help but say softly, joy spreading in her heart.
On the other side, Cheng Zhu pretended to drink his mung bean soup in his family's small restaurant. Sure enough, before long, a little head popped out from beside the cash register and let out a milky roar like a dragon, trying to scare him.
Cheng Zhu looked at this little Nezha hairstyle and pretended to be scared to death. The little girl immediately giggled.
He scooped up the little girl in one go, looking at her round chubby little face, her bright black eyes, and her cute Nezha hairstyle, feeling like he'd been hit with a beauty critical strike from his own sister.
"Little Youzi is only five this year—this is when she's the cutest." Cheng Zhu thought.
He'd always missed his sister from this period.
This current stage was also when his sister Cheng You was closest to him, especially clingy.
Later, when he left Hangzhou to start a business in Yiwu, first doing e-commerce then live streaming sales, he spent little time with his family, barely seeing Cheng You a few times a year.
After lifting her up a few times, Cheng Zhu put her down and had her sit beside him.
"Little Youzi, want brother to feed you a few sips of mung bean soup?" he said.
"Wait!" Cheng You raised one small hand like a little adult.
"What is it?" Cheng Zhu paused.
"Brother, I want to ask you something." The little girl said.
"Go ahead, go ahead." Cheng Zhu said with a smile.
"I wasn't home all day today, did you miss me!" Little Youzi lifted her head, raising her chubby little face.
"I missed you." Cheng Zhu said without hesitation, even with double meaning.
It's not that I haven't seen you for a day—I haven't seen you at this stage for many years.
Little Youzi immediately raised her small hand to pat her chest, letting out a long breath like a little adult, saying in her milky voice:
"That's good, I thought I was the only one secretly missing you at the restaurant."