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

Lu Ruixiang laughed and scolded, "How can that be the same? Qin Yun Chu is the eldest daughter of the Qin family."

“But Chen Hai isn’t bad either!” Chen Sheng raised his voice, then lowered it again, whispering to Chen Hai, “Son, keep going. I’m not very capable in this life. I can only provide you with this platform, but I’m willing to give you everything I have. If you like it, go for it! Whether you succeed or not is another matter. Just don’t let your life be filled with regrets!”

Chen Hai's gaze was resolute: "Yes. That's for sure."

The family dinner was filled with a happy atmosphere. Chen Sheng's heart, which had been clouded by the shadow of one son, was swept away by the success of the other.

He firmly believed that Chen Hai had a bright future.

……

As night fell, the weather gradually became chilly.

Chen Ya and Lu Qingxuan stood on the edge of the field, facing the wind, and wrapped their clothes even tighter around themselves.

Wearing tall boots, Lu Qingxuan stamped her feet on the frozen ground to warm herself up, then tilted her head and asked Chen Ya:

"Is this lighting good enough? Should we make a call now?"

The two waited until dark. Perhaps because she had used up a lot of energy, her stomach started growling. Fortunately, she was wearing enough clothes, so Chen Ya couldn't hear it.

Chen Ya looked up at the sky and said, "Let's fight."

Lu Qingxuan took out her phone and dialed Lu Xiaojie's number, while Chen Ya set off fireworks nearby.

"Hey, look out the window, keep an eye on things... never mind, why don't you just film a video?"

After hanging up the phone, Lu Qingxuan pulled her hand out of her sleeve, gave Chen Ya an "OK" sign, and then ran off into the field.

Chen Ya lit the fireworks and stepped back, standing a meter away from Lu Qingxuan. Lu Qingxuan walked over and stood beside him.

"Did you light it?"

"It's lit. The fuse is very long."

"Should we stand further away?"

"No need, it's more spectacular from below."

"really?"

"do not know."

Lu Qingxuan recalled a Japanese anime, "Is the view of fireworks from below or from the side?" She didn't know the answer, but today it was from below, and on the day of the old man's birthday banquet, it would be from the side.

Suddenly, a loud bang rang in her ears, startling Lu Qingxuan.

Fireworks, like shooting stars, soared into the sky and burst into bloom.

In the east wind night, flowers and trees are bloomed, and the stars are like rain.

A pair of warm hands were placed on Lu Qingxuan's ears, covering them.

Lu Qingxuan felt her heart pounding wildly, the sound of her blood surging against her eardrums almost drowning out the explosion of the fireworks.

She slowly reached out her hands, groped behind her, and placed them on the ears of the person behind her.

Perhaps the fireworks in the sky are magnificent whether viewed from the side or from below, but perhaps the fireworks on the day of the birthday banquet were not nearly as overwhelming and deafening as tonight's.

Lu Qingxuan only knew that Chen Ya looked up at the fireworks that streaked into the sky like shooting stars flying in reverse, his face reflecting a flood of colorful light, but she didn't look at the fireworks, she just looked at his profile that was covered in the colorful light of the fireworks.

Chapter 279 The day of the big birthday has finally arrived.

Under the cover of night, the fields resemble a dark sea, with the raised ridges like frozen waves. As the dazzling fireworks gradually fade, the eternal light of billions of stars is revealed in the sky.

Chen Ya and Lu Qingxuan walked across the undulating fields, their legs straddling the withered yellow straw, while the neon lights of the distant capital city resembled an isolated island.

"He sent the video over." Lu Qingxuan closed her phone. "The effect is pretty good."

"That's good," Chen Ya replied.

Lu Xiaojie filmed a video from the top floor of Mingyue Tower, pointing in their direction. The fireworks they lit looked very small at that distance, but the large congratulatory message formed in the air after the special fireworks exploded was clearly visible from that distance.

that's enough.

Lu Qingxuan marked her current location on the mobile map and drew a guide line on the roadside with lime powder.

On her birthday, people will naturally come here based on her location.

Having lost the wooden pole used for marking lines, Lu Qingxuan clapped her hands and said, "Are you going straight back, or would you like to have a meal together before going back?"

"If you treat me to a meal, I'll eat before I go back."

Lu Qingxuan rolled her eyes at him: "You're too materialistic. Let's go, let's go eat. You don't need to pay."

"Are you driving or should I drive?"

"You drive. I'll use Mattel to find a restaurant with a high rating."

Mattel is a food and group-buying app that also allows you to order takeout.

Chen Ya got into the car, glanced at Lu Qingxuan's phone screen next to him, and said, "Wow, 800 per person? You're too generous."

“Are you mocking me? This is the restaurant where I usually order takeout,” Lu Qingxuan said. “If I were to take you out to eat, I would definitely find a place that costs at least 2000 yuan per person and let you eat some things you don’t usually eat.”

Chen Ya felt that she and Chen Ya had different concepts about daily diet.

"There's no need to be too formal. It's just the two of us, not some business dinner. We can eat at a street food stall. I'm not picky about food, so there's no need to spend too much."

Lu Qingxuan shook her head and said, "What's the big deal? You helped me earn so much last time, I should have treated you to a meal long ago. Besides, it's not my fault this time."

Seeing Chen Ya's puzzled expression, Lu Qingxuan lowered her eyes and gave a sly smile:

"I'm sorry, I was just busy getting you to do things and didn't tell you that the family actually allocated funds for our event, and they gave us a lot of money, so we hardly spent any."

"There's even funding?" Chen Ya was astonished.

All they did was drive around and light the fireworks, that was it. They even bought the fireworks in advance, so apart from the gas cost, they didn't spend any money at all.

“Of course there is funding. There are so many things to do in the family, we can’t possibly finish them all. Selfless dedication doesn’t work that way,” Lu Qingxuan said.

How much funding was allocated?

Lu Qingxuan's eyes gleamed: "5 yuan."

"???"

This number was somewhat beyond Chen Ya's comprehension.

“It’s okay, even if we eat at a restaurant that costs 10,000 per person, we won’t spend it all. After we finish eating, we’ll see how much is left and we’ll split the money between us… Oh, right, we need to keep 3000 to return, but we need to coordinate our stories and say that we only have 3000 left.”

After Lu Qingxuan finished speaking, she winked at Chen Ya.

Chen Ya had always thought Lu Qingxuan was the kind of person who was "loyal to the Lu family," but today he realized that she was actually quite cunning.

"It's clearly a small matter, how did you manage to get 5 yuan in funding?"

Lu Qingxuan was taken aback, then chuckled and said, "You thought I asked for it? No, it was my great-grandmother and the others who gave it to me. I didn't even ask for it."

Are they really that nice to you?

“It’s not just that they’re good to me. That’s how it is in the family,” Lu Qingxuan explained while swiping her phone. “Whenever the family needs to do something, they are very generous with the funding. They are very lenient with the budget. Forty or fifty thousand is just considered a small amount.”

“I think I know why the Lu family is declining so rapidly,” Chen Ya said.

Upon hearing this, the light in Lu Qingxuan's eyes dimmed, but she then said:

“We are considered lucky, because we received the funding because we had something worthwhile to do. Many people in the clan are supported by a lot of money, but just to prevent them from causing trouble, it costs millions of yuan every year.”

"Parasite?"

"I don't want to talk about those people like that, after all, they are my relatives, some of them are even elders," Lu Qingxuan said, her expression revealing her disdain for them.

She stared out the window, seemingly worried about the family's future, while Chen Ya watched her coldly from the side.

"You could remind your great-grandmother to be aware of prices. Inflation isn't that severe yet, and money isn't worth that much."

Lu Qingxuan shook her head and said, "Of course I can't say that, my dad would scold me to death, and I'd offend the whole family. Besides, do you think Great-Grandma is so generous with money because she's senile?"

After a pause, Lu Qingxuan said, "She's not confused at all. The Lu family is currently relying on this money to survive. If they weren't generous with the money, the Lu family would be in even worse shape than they are now."

Chen Ya frowned, as if he had thought of something, and then asked:

"Actually, I have a question. Aihua Company no longer belongs to the Lu family, and your father's and your second uncle's companies are not profitable enough to cover such expenses. Where does the Lu family's money come from?"

Lu Qingxuan turned to look at Chen Ya: "The Aihua Company incident... it was indeed a heavy blow to our family, depriving us of a large source of income, but do you really think the family relies solely on Aihua?"

"Why not?"

Lu Qingxuan shook her head: "That's not how it is. Before Uncle Yuanlong was arrested, Aihua Company was an important business in the family, but it was not the family's source of wealth. The family's usual expenses were paid from the accounts of the old master and great-grandmother."

Chen Ya asked, "Then where did their money come from?"

Lu Qingxuan smiled: "There are mainly two parts, of course, one part can be ignored, which is just one part."

She paused for a moment, then said, "Part of it was my grandfather's retirement pension, and the other part was the dividends from the shares of several domestic companies that my uncles, my father, and I pooled our money to buy."

Chen Ya became interested: "Is that so? Which companies are involved?"

“I don’t know much either. Only my dad and the others know the specifics,” Lu Qingxuan said. “All I know is that our Lu family is a major shareholder of Taimei Group and Fulong Group.”

"TaiMei Group".

Chen Ya's mind raced.

Not long ago, they visited Qi Yunche's sister's courtyard house. Qi Yunche was kidnapped, and Chen Ya suspected that it was Zuo Wenzong, the boss of Taimei Group, who was responsible.

Despite the dire situation, the TaiMei Group is not a small group. At least the "Taimai app" that Lu Qingxuan is currently using on her phone is the core product of the TaiMei Group.

Besides food group buying, ride-hailing, air tickets, hotels, tour groups, and so on, ThaiMei Group's business covers a large part of life.

It can be said that Taimei Group is showing signs of becoming one of the leading domestic enterprises.

As for Fulong Group, it's an old acquaintance—

Liu Ruyan and Liu Ruying, their Liu family, are the controllers of the Fulong Group.

Considering that Old Master Lu personally arranged the marriage between the Liu family and Lu Ruixiang's family, it can be inferred that the reason Old Master Lu was able to become a shareholder of Fulong Group was because he knew people from the Liu family and had a good relationship with them.

But it's interesting that they are still shareholders of the Taimei Group.

Because Zuo Wenzong also had some connection with the Liu family—his wife's surname was Liu.

Amidst this complex web of relationships, Chen Ya sensed a hint of gossip.

“I heard that Taimei Group is having some trouble lately,” Chen Ya said. “They have a huge funding gap, and there is a high possibility that there will be severe turmoil within the company.”

Lu Qingxuan knew what he was talking about, and thinking about it, she became worried.

TaiMei Group employs millions, even tens of millions, of delivery riders. Due to policy changes, these riders must be recognized as having an employment relationship, meaning that TaiMei Group must pay social security contributions for them.

However, if social security contributions were paid for them, it would create a funding gap of over 4500 billion yuan, which the Taimei Group simply could not afford.

In other words, Taimei Group must either secure financing before its cash flow dries up, or abandon its core business.

If they fail, the group could very well collapse in one fell swoop.

“Recently, the family’s dividend income has indeed been affected,” Lu Qingxuan said. “I overheard my great-grandmother and the others saying that the dividends from Taimei Group’s shares are decreasing and they can’t even be sold anymore… They are very worried.”

"TaiMei was listed on NASDAQ a few years ago, right?" Chen Ya asked.

"I'm not quite sure about that."

"Ah."

Chen Ya thought of something.

Zuo Wenzong seems to be playing a bit too elaborately.

Lu Qingxuan took Chen Ya to a restaurant where the average cost per person was 3000 yuan. While waiting for their food, Chen Ya quietly took out his phone and sent a message to a contact he hadn't used in a long time:

"Can you find out exactly how much money the Taimei Group owes?"

……

……

The days passed quickly, like a nimble cat that disappears in the blink of an eye, leaving only its tail wagging in front of you.

Soon, the day of Old Master Lu's birthday finally arrived.

These past few days, Lu Qingxuan has been preparing for her birthday celebration every day, and she has received continuous praise from her great-grandmother and the others. Even she herself feels that her status in the family has risen somewhat.

Liu Ruying unexpectedly received a task from her stepfather and stepmother: to represent the Liu family at Old Master Lu's birthday banquet. This made her nervous, fearing that she would run into Chen Ya at the banquet, yet also somewhat looking forward to it.

Because if Old Master Lu hadn't forgotten his previous promise, he would very likely have officially decided on Chen Ya and Liu Ruying's marriage at the birthday banquet.