I met my whole family through Baidu Tieba.

Upon hearing this, Shen Kang nodded, "That's true. I'm not bragging, but I'm quite busy these days, juggling my studies and career. If someone else came looking for me, I really might not have time to see them. It's all thanks to you, Brother Zhang..."

Zhang Weihong listened to Shen Kang's endless boasting, which seemed to go on and on, so she took the initiative to speak, interrupting Shen Kang and bringing the topic back on track.

So, how do you plan to celebrate the Lunar New Year this year?

Seeing that the topic had been brought back to the forefront, Shen Kang didn't try to address the issue directly. After thinking for a moment, he said, "I really haven't decided. I might go to an orphanage, or I might be busy at the company. Anyway, I really don't have much of a concept of the New Year. Economic conditions are much better now. It's not like in the past, when we only had new clothes to wear during the New Year, so we only thought about the New Year back then. Now we can wear new clothes whenever we want, so why would we care about the New Year?"

Zhang Weihong said, "I've been thinking about it. Even though everyone in the orphanage grew up with you, they're not family. It would be even worse to spend it at the company. Besides, don't you get a holiday for the New Year at Anjia?"

Shen Kang waved his hand dismissively, revealing his capitalist nature: "We service industry workers, what do we mean by 'New Year'? Those who want to relax can relax, those who don't, triple pay! Hey, you know what, I also went to the front lines to do cleaning during the New Year, getting triple pay every day, it's pretty good..."

Zhang Weihong interrupted him again, "And what about Miss He?"

"How would I know about her? I've never told her about this."

"What about Professor Xiao?"

"I have no idea about that either; I haven't seen him for almost half a year."...

The two of us, I know what you're saying, and I know you know what I'm saying, but we just don't say it outright, we keep dodging the question back and forth.

As the Tai Chi practice progressed, Zhang Weihong glanced at his watch and realized there wasn't much time left—he was indeed very busy—so he stopped practicing Tai Chi and prepared to end the conversation.

"...Alright, I have another show to catch up on right away, so I'm not going to waste time arguing with you. I'll just give you a number."

Zhang Weihong held up one finger.

One million.

"Chairman Zhou is someone who likes to mentor younger generations. He is very optimistic about your project and is interested in investing one million. Moreover, it's a pure investment with absolutely no expectation of return. He doesn't ask for shares, it's not considered a loan, and there are no performance requirements."

"..."

Shen Kang had genuinely never heard of such an investment. "Purely free?"

Zhang Weihong nodded. "You can understand it that way."

Shen Kang thought about it for a moment.

Then he said, "Is it true that this investment can't be finalized yet? He still needs to investigate further, and it won't be until at least after the new year before he can decide whether to invest?"

Zhang Weihong laughed, "Congratulations, you're even answering questions first now."

"..."

Shen Kang felt that Jay Chou had really misjudged him.

I've already set my goal for next semester as becoming a billionaire entrepreneur, how could I be tempted by a mere million?

"Okay, I understand. I'll think of something."

……

Xiaodong Street

At the entrance of the print shop, a boy came out carrying a stack of newly bound review materials. He looked down and flipped through them, noticing that one page was printed crookedly. He hesitated whether to go back and argue with the owner.

There were seven or eight people lined up under the tent of the express delivery point next door; they were all there to send their luggage after finishing their exams.

A girl struggled to drag a woven bag half her height onto the scale. The deliveryman glanced at the weight, quoted the price, and she groaned, starting to take books out of the bag, saying she wanted to reduce the weight by two kilograms. The person behind her impatiently stomped their foot, their phone rang, and the first thing they said was, "Almost there, almost there, I'll go back after I finish this."

The door to the laundry room was open, and a boy in slippers was squatting by the door smoking. There was a plastic basin next to his feet, filled with unwashed but unfolded clothes, with a lone sock on top.

His gaze wandered aimlessly, sweeping over the line outside the printing shop, over the girls queuing under the courier station tent, over the handwritten discount posters pasted on the glass door of the boutique supermarket...

Then three black Mercedes-Benzes, forming a convoy, slowly drove in.

The boy in slippers stopped smoking. The cigarette was between his fingers, and the ash fell off and landed in his plastic basin without him noticing.

In the courier queue, the girl who had been wailing just moments before stopped taking out her book, squatted on the ground, tilted her head back, and watched the three delivery trucks slowly move by. The boy behind her who was on the phone also forgot to speak, and the phone rang with the voice of "Hey? Hey? Are you still there?"

The boy in front of the print shop finally put down the stack of documents. The page that was printed crookedly was blown up by the wind, rolled twice on the road, and stuck to a water stain. No one picked it up.

The three cars pulled over to the side of the road in front of the boutique supermarket.

The doors of the two cars opened simultaneously, and four men in black suits with buzz cuts got out. Their movements were synchronized, their gazes were unified, and they all had earphones clipped to their ears.

After getting off the bus, they quickly dispersed, with two people surrounding the middle bus. One of them raised his hand, pressed his earpiece, and said something that no one around could hear.

The boy squatting by the laundry room door took the cigarette out of his mouth very slowly, as if he were doing a slow-motion replay.

He pointed at the group of men in black suits with the finger he was holding the cigarette, his lips moved slightly, and what he said was hard to hear, but judging from his lip movements, it should have been "Fuck!"

It was completely quiet under the tent at the courier point.

The girl who was squatting on the ground taking out books was holding half a stack of books, remaining motionless in her half-squatting position. Everyone behind her craned their necks, the queue was broken up, and several boys ran out from the back of the line and took a few steps to the side of the road to get a better look.

The print shop owner also came out from behind the counter, holding a bottle of glue with the cap not screwed on. He stood at the door, squinting at the license plate, his expression like he was solving a somewhat uncertain math problem.

The back door of the middle car opened.

A sneaker stepped on the ground.

Then came faded jeans, a dark blue down jacket, and a young face.

The boy at the courier station was on the phone with his mouth open, his phone to his ear, and he forgot to close it.

The person who got out of the car looked no different from the others, except that he was a bit more handsome; they were about the same age and dressed similarly. There was a small stain on the cuff of his down jacket, and the knees of his jeans were a lighter color than the rest of his clothes.

He stood between two bodyguards in black, but his expression was as natural and calm as if he were standing in front of a cafeteria queue window, without any extra emotion.

He even raised his hand to straighten his collar, which had been rubbed askew by the seat, his casual gesture exactly the same as the guy at the courier station who had answered the phone earlier and said, "It'll be here soon."

Then he turned around, bent down, and pulled a snakeskin bag from the back seat.

It was dark green, bulging, and had four faded large characters printed on it.

Urea fertilizer.

With a flick of his wrist, the bag, weighing thirty or forty pounds, landed steadily on his shoulder.

The boy by the laundry room door dropped his cigarette, which landed in the plastic basin, right on the lone sock, burning a small hole and sending up a wisp of smoke. He didn't look at the sock. He stared at the four words on the burlap sack, his expression frozen in shock.

Under the tent at the courier point, the girl holding the book finally came to her senses and asked the person next to her in a whisper, "What did he write on his bag?" The person next to her didn't answer because she herself hadn't finished processing what she had just seen.

The print shop owner slowly screwed the cap back on the glue, his eyes never leaving the young man.

His face held an indescribable expression—not shock, not confusion, but more like that of a college student who, after reading printed papers for twenty years, suddenly sees an anomaly in their own shop's doorstep that doesn't match any of the known samples—Boss Shen is that powerful?! He seems like some rich kid? Why does he usually act like an idiot?

The young man carrying the snakeskin bag walked towards the boutique supermarket.

As he reached the door, the automatic sensor door of the supermarket opened with a ding. He carried the bag of urea fertilizer, stepped over the threshold, and disappeared among the supermarket shelves. The sensor door closed again with a ding.

Along the roadside, four bodyguards quickly got into their cars. The three Mercedes-Benzes restarted and slowly drove away along the same route, their taillights flashing, before quickly turning the corner.

The queue at the courier station had completely dispersed. The people who had been waiting in line were now gathered in small groups, their expressions varied, but they were all talking about the same thing.

"What was he carrying? Urea?"

"Urea fertilizer. My family used to buy the exact same bags when we farmed. Exactly the same."

"No, the key point is... that car. That bodyguard. And then he carried a bag of fertilizer?"

"Maybe he's just dressed like someone from our school," someone tried to offer a reasonable explanation. "He might be the son of some big shot, just stopping by to buy something."

"The son of a powerful figure dressed like this? The son of a powerful figure carrying bags of urea fertilizer? Do you think that makes sense?"

The person who tried to offer a reasonable explanation fell silent.

The boy at the laundry room door finally noticed that his socks were smoking. He hurriedly picked up the cigarette butt and threw it away, but his attention was clearly still on what had just happened.

As he brushed the cigarette ash off his socks, he said to the guy next to him who had just come out of the laundry room, "You didn't see it just now? Three Mercedes-Benzes, four bodyguards, and then a guy in sneakers got out, carrying a bag of fertilizer, and went to the boutique supermarket to buy some things."

"What is this? Fertilizer?" His buddy asked, holding a basin of washed clothes, with a look of disbelief that read, "What kind of cigarettes do you smoke to produce this kind of hallucination?"

"I'd be a dog if I lied to you."

Why would he buy fertilizer at a specialty supermarket? Specialty supermarkets don't sell fertilizer.

"So I don't think he went to buy fertilizer. He just used fertilizer bags to pack things."

"That's even weirder, isn't it?"

At the entrance of the print shop, the owner bent down to pick up the piece of paper that had been blown away by the wind and printed crookedly, rubbed off the water stains, and threw it into the trash can. As he straightened up, he glanced at the entrance of the boutique supermarket, then shook his head.

He was unaware, of course, that a completely different scene was unfolding inside the boutique supermarket while he was speaking.

Shen Kang stuffed the fertilizer bag under the shopping cart, then pushed the cart between the shelves, throwing in two large bottles of Coke, two large bottles of Sprite, several bags of potato chips and sunflower seeds, as well as snacks like preserved plum beef jerky.

These things were all bought for Wang Pan and the others.

After all, the things in the burlap sack were prepared by Jay Chou for Zhou Man, and they weren't suitable for them to eat. But it wouldn't make sense for him to carry a whole bag of food back without sharing any with them.

So, when Zhang Weihong was about to take him back to his dormitory after they finished talking in the car, he told Zhang Weihong to just park the car here on Xiaodong Street.

The plan was to buy some things first, then bring them back together and share them with Wang Pan and the others, so that the contents of the snakeskin bag could escape unscathed.

After selecting a bunch of items, enough to shut Wang Pan and the others up, Shen Kang pushed the shopping cart to the cashier to pay.

The cashier kept looking up at him while scanning the barcode.

"What's wrong, Xiaomei? Is there something on my face?"

Shen Kang touched his face and asked this question.

They were all on the same street, and he knew the cashier at the boutique supermarket.

"without."

The cashier, Xiaomei, quickly shook her head and continued scanning the codes, but she would occasionally look up and steal glances at Shen Kang, who was standing in front of her.

She had just heard the commotion outside the door and seen the shadows of the black-clad bodyguards and the Mercedes-Benz. Now, the owners of those three Mercedes-Benzes were standing in front of her, placing pickled chicken feet and braised chicken wings on the checkout counter, with a snakeskin bag printed with "urea fertilizer" stuffed under the shopping cart.

She scanned all the barcodes and gave a number.

Shen Kang took out his money, received his change, said thank you, and then walked out of the supermarket carrying a full bag of snacks and a bag of urea fertilizer.

The sun is shining brightly outside.

At the courier station, several students who hadn't left yet watched him carry a bag of fertilizer out of the supermarket, and their eyes all followed him.

Shen Kang walked unhurriedly, the snakeskin bag on his left shoulder swaying back and forth, and the potato chip packaging in the plastic bag he carried in his right hand reflected the sunlight.

The boy at the laundry room entrance had already picked up his plastic basin, but he didn't leave. He watched the figure carrying the snakeskin bag walk further and further away, and finally couldn't help but say to the guy next to him, "I declare that this is the most outrageous scene I've seen in my three years of college."

His friend, also carrying a basin of clothes, watched the departing figure and nodded.

"Outrageous, but handsome."

"What's so handsome about him? He's dressed similarly to you."

"He only looks handsome when he's dressed similarly to me. Think about it, if we were dressed like this, carrying a bag of urea fertilizer, and got off a convoy of Mercedes, could we walk so naturally? The way he walked just now was like he was going downstairs to buy a Coke after eating."

His friend thought about it and realized that was indeed the case.

That's the most puzzling part.

……

Shen Kang carried a snakeskin bag and bought a bunch of things, but he was too lazy to bother anymore. He planned to put everything back in the dormitory, rest for a while, and then go eat.

When they arrived at the dormitory, no one was there; Wang Pan and the others were probably still eating in the cafeteria.

Shen Kang casually put his things down, poured himself a glass of water, drank a few sips, rested for a while, and then decided to get up and go to the cafeteria for lunch.

Just then, footsteps were heard coming from the stairwell.

A short while later, Wang Pan and his group appeared at the entrance of the dormitory.