I was exposed for adding my female boss to my group of female friends.

"Come on, tell me, what is my true identity?"

Seeing Chen Ya sit down naturally next to Liu Ruying, Xu Shao's first reaction was to fly into a rage.

Even he didn't sit so casually next to Liu Ruying, but he just sat there so casually, and the two of them were very close together.

His heart was filled with jealousy.

But then he thought that if he lost his temper at this moment, it would play right into the other person's hands. After taking a deep breath, he regained his composure.

Young Master Xu looked at him, thought for a moment, then came up with a plan. He narrowed his eyes, smiled wickedly, and said:

"You really want me to reveal your true identity? Aren't you afraid?"

"Why should I be afraid?" Chen Ya asked.

"Don't try to bluff me."

"What bluffing?"

"Didn't you want to date Liu Ruying?" Young Master Xu glanced at the girl beside him and then said, "Do you think your true identity is worthy of the girl next to you?"

Before Chen Ya could speak, he continued:

"Do you know that we are from completely different worlds than you?"

"Are you from another world?"

Startled by Chen Ya's question, Xu Haoyu paused, then his emotions flared even more, and he shouted:

"If it weren't for the Lu family's kindness in taking you in like a stray dog, you wouldn't deserve to sit here, you wouldn't deserve to speak to us, do you understand?"

"I drive a Maserati, and Liu Ruying's brother has a Ferrari. Do you understand? Do you realize the difference?"

He moved Chen Ya's cup to the center and pointed to it, saying:

"You invited Liu Ruying, so you offered her this? Do you know what we were drinking at that table? The men were drinking 53 Red Star Moutai, the women were drinking Black Horse Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon, and what about you? Watermelon juice!"

He slammed the cup on the table, concluding with a resounding statement:

"To put it bluntly, you want to seduce Liu Ruying? You're not worthy!"

His voice was loud enough for everyone else in the bar to hear, and they all turned to look at him.

Some people stood up to see what was happening.

Some people were whispering and occasionally bursting into laughter, as if they had overheard what was being said.

Even two people from Xu Dashao's previous private room came out, their hands in their pockets, watching the commotion.

Liu Ruying felt her face flush and turn pale in turns, her eyes welled up with tears, and she couldn't catch her breath for a long time. After a long while, she finally spoke:

"I treated him to the watermelon juice."

Xu Haoyu paused for a moment, then said, "It's not important. What's important is that I want him to understand the gap between us."

He slammed his keys on the table and said:

"Ruying, I won't keep you in suspense any longer. To tell you the truth, he's just a country bumpkin. He's not even a 'phoenix man' (a man from a poor background who achieves success). A 'phoenix man' is someone who gets good grades and flies out of poverty. What about him? He's a mudfish who never went to school and crawled out of the mud."

“This mudfish even went to Japan to work illegally. If it weren’t for his father making a name for himself in Beijing and marrying into the Lu family, he would have had a worthless life and wouldn’t even have the right to sit here.”

Xu Haoyu leaned down and stared at Liu Ruying, saying:

"Ruying, it's okay if you reject me. I'm willing to be rejected by you, even a thousand times. But I'm very unwilling to accept that you choose this man."

“I don’t care if you’re willing to sit on the back of a bicycle and laugh. I can buy you a hundred bicycles so you can experience that feeling. But if you follow this person, you’ll only be looked down upon. People will say things like, ‘How could the woman I, Xu Haoyu, have my eye on be with someone like this? How could the beauty queen of Peking University have such poor taste?’ I can’t accept that.”

"Do you know who I'm having dinner with today, Sister Hua? I brought my classmate to help me fend off the drinks. You should be sitting next to me, and I should be the one helping you fend off the drinks. You should be the focus of the banquet, enjoying the admiring glances of those in higher positions, instead of sitting here with this person dressed in cheap, mismatched clothes, having your whole class dragged down."

Xu Haoyu pointed to the keys he had slapped on the table and said:

“I’m giving you a choice. If you want to stay with him, then you can stay here and I’ll leave right away and never bother you again. If you don’t want to stay with him anymore, then take this bunch of keys and come with me to Sister Hua’s banquet.”

After saying that, he blinked and said, "I've had some drinks. After the party ends, could you drive my Maserati home for me? You can keep the keys; you can drive that car however you like from now on."

He spoke in a voice that was neither too loud nor too soft; it could be heard within ten meters.

The lip-ringed henchman, who had shared a couple of drinks with him, was standing not far away and asked the crew-cut guy next to him:

"So, what do you think the woman should choose?"

"I don't know how to choose, but anyway, Young Master Xu is really domineering and a romantic!" said the crew-cut man.

"Yeah, damn it, anyone who doesn't choose him would be an idiot."

"There's an idiot sitting across from him," the honey badger said with a disdainful expression.

...If this were a domineering CEO romance novel, most girls would fall for Young Master Xu's charm.

Perhaps in other people's eyes, Young Master Xu is nothing more than Liu Ruying's lapdog.

But in reality, before meeting Liu Ruying, he had never lacked women in his life.

He has a very high IQ in relationships.

For some girls who value material things, this kind of offensive is generally irresistible. He used this tactic to steal away the girlfriends of many men.

However, Liu Ruying is not that kind of girl.

Liu Ruying's scheming is far more resilient than that of girls who only care about immediate gains.

She looked at the other person and simply asked, "Were you having dinner with Sister Hua?"

Young Master Xu smiled smugly: "Yes."

Why do we eat?

He smiled casually and said, "I've successfully completed a business deal with Sister Hua, and we'll be developing into long-term partners. This time, I negotiated it entirely on my own; I didn't ask my dad for a single contribution."

Chen Ya suddenly asked, "Who is Sister Hua?"

"Holy crap, you don't even know Sister Hua? You dare to come all the way to Beijing?" Young Master Xu made an exaggerated expression.

Chen Ya asked casually, "Is it very famous?"

“It’s more than just being famous,” Young Master Xu said dismissively, tapping the table with his hand. “Let me put it this way: if she just frowns even slightly, someone like you will be blown away like ashes, without a trace. Do you understand?”

Liu Ruying replied to Chen Ya:

"Sister Hua is the legal representative of Bee Flower Enterprise. She came from the underground to the mainstream and is very powerful and well-known in the underworld. Moreover, her man is said to have a very powerful background."

After listening, Chen Ya nodded.

Liu Ruying, a college student who doesn't run a business, is able to speak so clearly about this kind of person.

He admired her more and more.

Xu Haoyu took the opportunity to say to Liu Ruying, "Look, I even skipped my meal at such an important banquet to come and talk to you so much. Do you know how much I've sacrificed for you?"

Liu Ruying frowned and said, "I understand that you've done a lot for me, but... you can't force a relationship to be happy, you understand?"

"A melon is enough, why does it have to be sweet? What you crave isn't sweetness, but water; I need to quench my thirst."

Xu Haoyu spoke with deep emotion, but there was something strange in his eyes. There was another, unspoken meaning behind his words.

Liu Ruying suddenly felt very tired, and she looked at Chen Ya.

This was the first time she had felt dependent on him—she hoped he could drive Xu Haoyu away, just like fulfilling his duties as a boyfriend.

But clearly, her thoughts did not reach Chen Ya.

He simply smiled faintly and asked Xu Haoyu:

"You said I'm not from your world. Liu Ruying belongs to the Liu family, but which family are you from?"

Xu Haoyu put his feet up on the chair, smiled disdainfully, and said to Liu Ruying:

“Ruying, do you see? That’s how mud loaches are. They don’t understand anything. Even if I explain, they won’t understand.”

After saying that, he looked down at Chen Ya and said:

"Then let me tell you, my father is a high-ranking official in Beichen, I won't go into too much detail, but I want to give you a proper introduction to my aunt."

"Do you know about the four major families? My aunt's husband is from the Qin family."

After saying that, he looked at Chen Ya, seemingly wanting to savor his shock.

But Chen Ya disappointed him.

"Do you know which family I belong to?" Chen Ya asked.

"Whose family are you? Aren't you the stepson that the Lu family picked up from outside?" Xu Haoyu was taken aback.

He thought he had missed gathering information, wondering what kind of background Chen Ya had.

Chen Ya said, "I am from the Chen family. King Wu of Zhou enfeoffed Gui Man, the Duke of Chen Hu, a descendant of Shun, in the land of Chen, and his descendants took the surname Chen. Going back four thousand years, my ancestors were the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors."

"puff!"

Young Master Xu laughed, thoroughly amused. His eyes widened, and he pointed at Chen Ya, saying to Liu Ruying:

"Did you hear what he was saying? He thought I was messing around with him, and he was spouting off about emperors and so on. It's hilarious..."

Liu Ruying frowned and said to Chen Ya, "This is not a time for jokes. The family he mentioned can really make you... Sigh, you don't understand now, but you will in the future."

She was a little disappointed.

She had hoped Chen Ya wouldn't be so indifferent. Even if his trump cards were still no match for Young Master Xu, she still hoped he could stand up for himself and give her a good beating.

Perhaps for Young Master Xu, his bank savings are nothing, and he has no power, but at least... she can see that he does care about her face, doesn't he?

And now, he remains unmoved, not only completely disregarding his own reputation, but also allowing himself to be ridiculed.

Liu Ruying was really disappointed.

However, she soon came to terms with it.

She had already prepared herself mentally before choosing this person.

At first, they will definitely be ridiculed by more than one person.

But once they acquire their uncle's wealth, they will surely make those who mocked them speechless.

She will have the last laugh.

Young Master Xu laughed wildly, hysterically, and doubled over with laughter.

But he quickly stopped smiling.

He narrowed his eyes to slits, licked his lips, and said:

"I thought you'd learned something at the Lu family, but it seems you really don't know anything. Someone as clueless as you is practically a rare find in this day and age. Well then, I'm going to have some fun with you. Let me think about how..."

He paused, then said, "By the way, let's start with your Chen Hai. Doesn't he want to get the cooperation qualification from Beichen? Let's guess, if I go back and say a word to my dad, will he still be able to do it?"

Chen Ya smiled and asked, "You have this kind of ability?"

Young Master Xu stared at him, then licked his lips, which were bright red: "Guess if I can?"

"Stop fooling around," Chen Ya suddenly said, shifting his sitting position.

He took out a bright yellow object from his wallet, held it in his hand, placed it in front of Young Master Xu, and asked:

"Do you know what this is?"

Young Master Xu winked and looked at him: "I don't know, and I don't need to know."

“This is a bullet casing,” Chen Ya said.

Xu Haoyu said, "You were in the army? Or are you trying to show off what you can get your hands on? Let me tell you, if I wanted to, I could get my hands on a real gun too. What you have..."

"In 1942, the Japanese army carried out a large-scale mopping-up operation aimed at eliminating the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army. They also tightened their control over bullet casings, which made it impossible for the Eighth Route Army to make reloads by collecting bullet casings. As a result, the bullet supply was in dire need. Therefore, the ammunition factories in the base areas began to use copper and zinc to synthesize brass and make their own bullet casings."

Chen Ya interrupted Xu Haoyu and said something completely unrelated, leaving both Xu Haoyu and Liu Ruying somewhat confused.

He ignored their emotions and continued:

"Since there were no mines, the Eighth Route Army began to purchase coins for remelting and refining. Ancient copper coins contained a lot of zinc, which was very suitable for making bullet casings. So they sought out landlords and wealthy households to purchase square-holed copper coins."

“These homemade bullets were produced in very small quantities, but they were not non-existent. Among these few homemade bullets, there may have been Wuzhu coins from the Han Dynasty, Kaiyuan Tongbao coins, and Hongwu Tongbao coins from the Ming Dynasty…”

"These copper coins may have witnessed the most prosperous era of China. They may have accompanied Zhang Qian on his arduous journey across thousands of miles, followed Zhu Di in conquering the northern deserts, or even helped Wang Yangming quell a rebellion..."

"And later, they were all turned into bullets and fired at the invaders to defend our homeland."

Chen Ya gripped the bullet tightly in his hand, looked at Xu Haoyu and said:

“My grandfather was not a high-ranking official or a nobleman. In his early years, he was a cattle herder in Shaanxi Province. He once saved a member of the Eighth Route Army. This bullet casing was left behind by that soldier.”