Xu Ye spent the day at home. In the evening, once Old Xu was back, he drove over to Red Leaf Estate to collect Chen Qingqing and went straight on to Encounter Music Bar.

Since starting university he had been in touch with Pei Youwei a few times, mostly the usual polite formalities — she would ask how university was treating him, he would ask how business at the bar was doing, and each time it ran to a few lines and then petered out.

He parked at the curb. Chen Qingqing got out and didn’t walk over to the bar on her own; she waited for Xu Ye to get out and come round, and the two of them went to the door together.

With the year-end coming and winter on top of it, business was very quiet. When Xu Ye pushed the door open, Zhang Xiaonuan, sitting behind the register, was mildly surprised. She craned her head toward the door and — perhaps not recognizing him at first glance — said, “Welcome.”

Xu Ye said quickly, with a grin, “Xiaonuan jiejie, it’s been a few months and you don’t even know who I am?”

Once he had come under the light bulb, Zhang Xiaonuan took a proper look, and said in astonishment, “Xu Ye — it’s you! God, you’ve changed so much since you went to university. Boss! Boss!”

“What are you shouting for, what are you shouting for? I’m not deaf.” Pei Youwei’s familiar voice came out of the storeroom.

“Boss, Xu Ye’s here,” Zhang Xiaonuan called.

“Xu Ye?”

There was a burst of footsteps, and Pei Youwei came out of the storeroom. The moment she saw him, her face took on exactly the expression Zhang Xiaonuan’s had.

“My God, Xu Ye. You look even better than you did over the summer.”

Xu Ye laughed out loud. “Trust you to notice that.”

He didn’t think he had changed much himself, but to anyone who hadn’t seen him in a long time he had, and the change was across the whole of him. His clothes, his hair, his expression, the way he carried himself… no single one of them was a dramatic difference, but taken together they gave the impression of a man you had to look at with fresh eyes after only three days apart.

Pei Youwei walked a full circle around him, clicking her tongue. “Not bad. Not bad at all. Underneath, though, you’re the same as ever — still not an ounce of shame in you.”

“Boss, my girlfriend is standing right here. Could you say something nice?”

Pei Youwei giggled and took Chen Qingqing’s hand. “So the two of you did end up together. I guessed as much the first time you came in, actually. Come on, sit wherever you like — business is dead anyway, so we may as well talk. I really do envy the pair of you.”

She pulled Chen Qingqing down into a seat, and Xu Ye sat down opposite.

Seeing that no customers were coming in, Zhang Xiaonuan brought over three cups of tea and sat down beside them as well, listening with genuine interest.

“Xu Ye, how’s university life?”

“Not bad. Made some friends who are complete clowns, ended up class president, and started a bit of business of my own.”

Zhang Xiaonuan was startled. “Someone like you made class president?”

Xu Ye was about to explain when Pei Youwei put on the air of someone who had been through it all. “Xiaonuan, this is what you don’t understand. At university, the thicker your skin, the better you get on.”

Xu Ye asked, offhand, “How come I haven’t seen Zhou Ying?”

“She left. Her family introduced her to someone, and I think they’re getting engaged over New Year. Business hasn’t been busy in the second half of the year, so I didn’t take anyone else on.”

“Engaged already? Did her family push her into it?”

“No. The man’s family are reasonably well off, and he’s passable-looking.”

Xu Ye nodded and didn’t ask anything further.

People who hadn’t been to university generally married earlier, and Zhou Ying had reached an age where marriage was on the table. There was nothing in it worth pressing.

Pei Youwei asked, “You said just now you’d started a bit of business at university?”

“Mm.”

“Doing what?”

“Opened a fruit shop, then set up a trading company. Both of them with roommates and friends, but I’m the big boss.”

Pei Youwei was half-believing. “Really?”

“What would be the point of lying about it?”

“So should I be calling you Boss Xu now?”

“I wouldn’t say no.”

“Look how pleased with yourself you are.”

Xu Ye gestured at the empty seats around them. “Boss, with business this dismal, are you still making any money?”

Pei Youwei was about to answer when Zhang Xiaonuan got in first. “Three straight months of losses.”

“What?”

Xu Ye was puzzled. “Then why keep it open? The rent alone must come to a fair amount over a year.”

Pei Youwei sighed. “I never opened this place to make money. It was to have something to do. It’s just that for the first two years it broke even, even turned a little profit, and since then it’s been losing a bit the whole time.”

“Opening a bar and not to make money — Boss, is there a hole in your head?”

“There’s a hole in your head.”

Pei Youwei genuinely hadn’t opened the bar to make money. Without it, she would find herself thinking constantly about the fiancé she had lost in an accident. There had been a stretch when it kept her awake night after night, and she eventually went to see a therapist, who suggested she find something she enjoyed doing. That was where the bar came from.

She was not short of money. Her father was a senior official inside the system — retired now, but with connections that reached all the way up — and her brother was second-in-command at the police bureau. That was why a woman could run a bar here in peace all this time.

She had thought that as long as the place didn’t lose money she would keep it going indefinitely. But three consecutive months of net losses had in fact started her thinking about getting out.

It was only that, being a woman on her own, she always wavered when it came to actually deciding.

“The thing is, a quiet bar like this is aimed at young people. If you opened one near a university you might do quite well — but Jiangzhou doesn’t have many universities. Carry on like this and you’ll only lose more and more.”

Hearing how methodically he laid it out, Pei Youwei asked, “So what do you think I ought to do?”

“When it’s time to cut, cut. Either shut it down outright, or, if you still want to be running something, switch tracks.”

“Switch tracks?”

“Mm. Pick an industry that actually makes money.”

That got her interested. “And which industries make money these days?”

“You’ve asked exactly the right person.”

Xu Ye cleared his throat and set it out point by point. “If you want to make money in this country, you sell beauty to women, time to the rich, health to the old, education to children, and to men you sell…”

“Sell what?”

“You sell… virility.”

All three women sitting there promptly rewarded him with a flat look.

Pei Youwei, though, thought he had a point. She took a sip of tea and smiled. “There’s actually something in what you say. So what do you think I should switch to?”

“In my opinion — and it’s only my opinion — adult products are going to take off. Get in now and there’s a good chance you’d make money.”

He wasn’t wrong about that. As the years went on the industry climbed steadily from 2014 onward, and after 2018 it went into an outright boom.

But Pei Youwei said at once, flatly and with total finality, “There is no chance of me doing that.”

“Why not?”

Pei Youwei shot him a look. “Because I have some shame.”

Xu Ye had nothing to say to that, and let it drop.

Before long, though, she said, “I studied fashion design at university, and I’m still quite interested in it. Do you think I could make a go of that line of work?”

“Then combine what you love with what I just said. Do swimwear, or lingerie. You handle nothing but the design and the running of it — you can hire people for the rest.”

“That does sound rather interesting.”

“If you decide to do it, I can invest.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious.”

Xu Ye stood up, pulling Chen Qingqing up with him, and said with a perfectly straight face, “Let me introduce us again. I’m Xu Ye, head of Qingye Investment. This is my partner, Chen Qingqing.”

(End of Chapter 187)