"Chen Yansen, what did my dad say to you?"
On the way back, as soon as Meng Jie got in the car, she immediately grabbed Chen Yansen and started interrogating him.
"He… he asked me if we were dating."
Seeing how anxious she looked, Chen Yansen couldn't help but give a knowing smile and casually teased her.
"What!? How could he ask that!"
Meng Jie froze for a moment, her composure instantly crumbling. When she saw Wang Zihao in the front seat trying to hold back his laughter, she felt utterly mortified. 'This is so embarrassing!'
"So how did you answer?"
After fuming for a moment, Meng Jie grabbed Chen Yansen's arm again and asked cautiously, afraid he would give her an answer she couldn't accept.
"How did you want me to answer?"
The experienced Chen Yansen kicked the question right back to her.
"Tell him the truth, of course."
Meng Jie said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Mm, we're on the same page. I told him the truth."
Chen Yansen nodded, praising Meng Jie.
"So, what did you tell my dad?"
Meng Jie pressed on.
"I told him the truth."
Chen Yansen spread his arms, stretched lazily, and a mischievous smile played on his lips. He was starting to sound like a broken record.
When Meng Jie realized what he was doing, she fumed, grinding her teeth and muttering curses under her breath, the blush on her cheeks refusing to fade.
In reality, Meng Zhenguo would never ask such a question. With his experience and shrewdness, he only needed a few minutes of simple conversation to grasp a person's character, their future academic and career plans, and from there, determine if they would be a positive influence in Meng Jie's life.
What he hadn't expected, however, was that Chen Yansen was on a completely different level.
During their back-and-forth, a conversation full of hidden meanings, the only information he managed to obtain was what Chen Yansen had intentionally revealed. He hadn't managed to get a single bit of the information he truly wanted.
Therefore, Meng Zhenguo had a love-hate relationship with Chen Yansen.
He loved that Chen Yansen's maturity far surpassed his peers. With this exceptional quality, he was bound to do very well for himself in the future—more than good enough to be his son-in-law.
He hated that his own daughter's emotional intelligence and capabilities were what they were; she couldn't handle a man like Chen Yansen at all. If the boy turned out to be a philanderer, Meng Jie would be the only one to suffer.
After thinking it over, he decided to just let it be for now and go home to talk it over with his wife first.
The hour-long car ride passed in the blink of an eye.
Curiously, Meng Jie followed Chen Yansen and Wang Zihao into the old house in West City.
CLANG!
Wang Zihao dropped the cash box on the floor, then plopped down and eagerly began to count the money.
"Have you two been doing this the whole summer?"
Meng Jie asked in astonishment, pointing at the boxes piled up like mountains inside the room.
"Not really. Today was only the second day. On the eighth, we're going to Zhenyang Pass. You want to come?"
Chen Yansen rolled his pant legs up to his calves and sat unceremoniously on the bluestone slab.
"Hmph! You're just trying to exploit me for free labor again!"
Meng Jie sat down next to him, her tone dissatisfied. She wasn't an idiot; she knew exactly what he was up to.
"Relax. I'm not paying you, so it doesn't count as exploitation."
Chen Yansen stated with a straight face, his handsome features completely at odds with the sly expression on his face.
"Guess how much we made?"
Wang Zihao looked up abruptly, a wide grin on his face as he asked Chen Yansen.
"400 MP3s and 200 MP4s… I could figure that out in my sleep. Including the profit from the day before yesterday, it should be a little less than forty-eight thousand."
Chen Yansen said casually with a slight raise of his eyebrow, making forty-eight thousand sound like forty-eight.
"How much did you say!?"
Meng Jie was completely stunned, her face a mask of disbelief.
Her dad was a bank manager, and including bonuses, his monthly salary was around 8,000 yuan. In Chunshen, back in 2010, this income definitely put him above 99.9% of ordinary people.
But now Chen Yansen was telling her that in just two days, he had earned half a year of her father's salary!
"Sales have far exceeded my expectations. We don't have much stock of the MP4s left. I plan to order another batch."
Chen Yansen ignored the astonished Meng Jie and, after a moment of thought, explained the situation to Wang Zihao.
"How many should we get?"
Wang Zihao quickly asked. It was clear he had no objection to Chen Yansen's decision.
"I'll sync up with you tomorrow. I need to re-evaluate the population size, purchasing power, and market saturation of the remaining towns before I can determine the order quantity for the second batch."
Chen Yansen said without hesitation.
Being rashly aggressive and being timidly hesitant were both major taboos in business. Only thorough market research and rational analysis would allow him to make the right decisions.
Meng Jie took all of this in. She felt that Chen Yansen's words and actions weren't those of an eighteen-year-old boy at all; he was more like a big boss who had been navigating the business world for years.
"Okay."
Wang Zihao grunted in agreement. To be honest, he didn't understand most of what Chen Yansen said, but he knew one thing clearly in his heart: 'Who cares? I just have to follow his lead.'
"Come on, I'll walk you home."
Chen Yansen let out a long breath and patted Meng Jie's head before turning to lead the way out.
"It's actually pretty fun, selling things with you guys,"
Meng Jie said softly with her head down.
"Be at the old house at seven in the morning on the eighth." Hearing this, Chen Yansen suddenly stopped, turned around, and looked at her for a moment. Then, he reached out a finger and gently pushed her black-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose.
"Take off your glasses next time. I want to see a different you."
Chen Yansen's words were gentle, like a warm current washing over Meng Jie's heart.
"Never mind, I'll walk home myself. You don't have to see me out."
Her heart was pounding from his teasing. She hastily threw out the sentence and ran home without looking back.
Her posture was so "manly" that it made Chen Yansen burst out laughing!
Hearing the laughter behind her, Meng Jie ran faster and faster, muttering "Creep!" under her breath.
In the period that followed, the sales team was officially formed.
On every even-numbered day of the lunar calendar, the three of them would travel to markets around Chunshen, starting from the closest and moving outward, to sell their goods.
Wang Zihao's gift of gab grew smoother and smoother, and Meng Jie's money-counting skills became just as practiced.
It wasn't until late August quietly approached that they finally sold out the entire second batch of goods.
"August 8th, Baoyi Town. Sold 147 MP3s, 85 MP4s. Revenue: 24,118. Profit: 11,024…"
"August 10th, Zhenyang Pass. Sold 235 MP3s, 98 MP4s. Revenue: 31,017. Profit: 14,479…"
"August 12th, Fengzhuang Town…"
"August 14th, Shan Jue Town…"
"…"
"In total, we sold 2,987 MP3s and 1,390 MP4s. After deducting costs for the chartered van, gas, and food, we're left with a little over one hundred ninety thousand in profit."
In the courtyard of the old house in West City, Wang Zihao held a dog-eared notebook, reporting their recent sales figures one by one.
The 23 defective products weren't included; they were packed up and returned to the manufacturer.
Having been influenced by Chen Yansen for so long, Wang Zihao was now spouting words like 'revenue' and 'gross profit.' He was like a completely different person, his growth astonishingly fast.
"Like I said before, your three thousand yuan investment gets you five percent. I rounded it up for you to an even ten thousand."
Chen Yansen tossed a thick stack of cash from a bag, and it landed right in Wang Zihao's arms.
"Hehe, thanks, Brother Sen."
Wang Zihao held the money, brought it to his nose to smell it, then rubbed it against his face, muttering, 'It smells so fucking good.'
"Human Dao Fire +1!"
A string of translucent text floated before Chen Yansen's eyes. The system, which had been silent for days, finally had a use.
'System! Add the point!'
Chen Yansen shouted in his mind.
A wisp of white gas, as thin as a strand of hair, materialized from thin air. It then shot into the space between his eyebrows with a WHOOSH. Chen Yansen instantly felt a bone-chilling cold rush through his veins and into his heart.
The sensation came quickly, and left even faster!
Before Chen Yansen could even react, the chill had dissipated. The constitution value on his panel had also changed from '1.16' to '1.17'.
However, he felt as if his body hadn't changed at all.
Except for his right foot, which had gone numb from squatting, now it seemed to be fine.
'Damn system! Get out here and talk!'
Chen Yansen was furious.
After cursing for a while, he finally remembered that this crappy system was just an inanimate object. At last, he sighed in resignation. 'Still have to work hard and make money!'
"♫ She's just my little sister, she says that purple has a certain allure ♫"
Music suddenly blared as the phone in his pocket vibrated wildly. Chen Yansen snapped back to his senses and casually pressed the answer button.
"I'm giving you ten minutes to get your ass back home!"
On the other end of the line, Chen Guobin, clutching a wooden stick as thick as a bowl, roared into the receiver in a towering rage.