Wang Manning was stunned.
Thirty million!
Wang Yuxin was young enough that the figure meant nothing definite to her, but Wang Manning was nearly an adult, and she knew perfectly well what a sum thirty million was.
So this shameless cousin of hers was actually this impressive.
No wonder he had been able to find a girlfriend with a background like that.
No wonder even his girlfriend’s mother liked him this much.
Heavens.
There’s a multimillionaire standing right next to me, and he’s my own cousin.
Wang Manning felt as though somebody had hit F5 and refreshed her whole world.
When she turned to look at him again, she found that his looks had gone up considerably, and his earlier negative image had vanished without a trace.
Xu Ye carried on with the subject. “I go back to Shanghai around the middle of this month. There are things at the company I need to deal with. Then I’ll come back to collect Qingqing when term’s nearly started.”
Chen Hansong finally showed some sense. “If you don’t have time, I can take Qingqing to school.”
“No.” He had barely finished before Chen Qingqing was shaking her head. “Dad, we’ve already agreed. You don’t need to take me.”
“I—”
Only after she had said it did Chen Qingqing realize the words might have hurt her father. She turned her head away immediately, too embarrassed to look at him again.
Seeing the state she was in, Xu Ye reached over to tease her on purpose.
Chen Qingqing saw the wandering hand coming and slapped it away, but he wouldn’t let it go — he seemed to want to reach for her thigh the way he had last time. With this many people around she was hardly going to let him get away with it, and the two of them started scuffling.
Jiang Meilin glanced over, then looked elsewhere.
Chen Hansong’s eyes went round.
You little devil. Taking advantage of my daughter right in front of me?
He picked up a plate of unfinished barbecue and gave an order in a low voice. “Xu Ye. These skewers have gone cold. Take them and warm them up.”
Before Xu Ye could say anything—
Jiang Meilin got in first. “They’re perfectly edible. Since when are you so particular?”
Xu Ye read the jealousy in his father-in-law’s eyes, and while he laughed to himself he was also thinking: Old man, you can’t even take that? Watch closely. I’ll give you something worse.
At that thought.
Xu Ye lifted the hem of his T-shirt. “This dirty patch — you don’t think I got it while I was grilling, do you?”
Chen Qingqing looked at the mark on his shirt and nodded. “Probably.”
“Give it a sniff and see if it smells of anything. If it’s oil, it’ll be hard to wash out.”
Chen Qingqing thought nothing of it and leaned in to smell — and the moment her head came close, Xu Ye bent down and kissed her on the forehead.
The whole sequence was seamless.
Chen Hansong was left dumbfounded.
Traitor!
You absolute traitor!
And Chen Qingqing? All she did after being kissed was pout and give his arm a light punch with her small fist.
That reaction told him something.
Namely, that this was not the first time Xu Ye had kissed his daughter.
At that thought.
Chen Hansong suddenly felt short of breath.
……
It was past nine before Xu Ye drove home.
They had sat in the courtyard eating skewers and talking until after eight, then spent twenty minutes clearing up, and finally gone back to the living room and talked for another half hour.
On the way back, Wang Manning switched into chatterbox mode again…
“Cousin, what do my sister-in-law’s parents do?”
“Cousin, when did you start the investment company?”
“Cousin, which film did you invest in? It wasn’t Monkey King: Hero Is Back, was it? The one that was so popular a while back?”
“…”
Xu Ye couldn’t take any more of it and said irritably, “Are you a children’s encyclopedia? Where do you get this many questions?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Don’t ask what you shouldn’t ask and don’t say what you shouldn’t say. If the two of you do as I tell you there’ll be plenty in it for you later. If you don’t, then… on your own heads be it.”
Wang Yuxin was the first to raise her hand and swear loyalty. “Xu Ye-gege, I definitely won’t say anything.”
Wang Manning chimed in. “My mouth is very tight too.”
Apart from real family and friends you have opened your heart to, most people don’t want to see you doing better than they are. Xu Ye’s thinking was to keep it quiet as long as he could and lay his cards on the table when that was no longer possible. He had already done the groundwork for that anyway.
The truth was that ever since he had pulled his first real windfall out of the stock market, the thrill of making money hadn’t been as sharp as it once was.
To anybody else, thirty million out of a single project was an exciting thing. Xu Ye himself was perfectly calm about it — he had, after all, seen this result coming from the very beginning.
“Cousin, where’s your company?”
“Shanghai.”
“How many employees?”
“Ten or so.”
“Cousin, what do you do for fun, then?”
“Look at black stockings.”
“What?”
“I’m joking. I like listening to music when I have nothing to do.”
“That’s what I thought. How could you possibly like—”
Wang Manning hadn’t finished before Xu Ye laughed. “Exactly. How could somebody like me possibly like listening to music.”
“…”
Xu Ye dropped Wang Manning at her hotel, and once her message came through on his phone he took Wang Yuxin back, and only then drove home himself.
Old Zhang and Old Xu were sitting on the sofa watching TV. Xu Ye showered first, and when he came out he sat down with them.
Old Xu patted him on the thigh. “Where did you eat tonight?”
“My mother-in-law’s.”
“Make yourself useful at other people’s houses. Don’t let your girlfriend’s parents look down on you.”
“Not a chance. Going over to hers is like going home now.”
“Little brat. Listen to you brag.”
“Dad, don’t tell me you don’t believe it.”
Old Zhang remembered something. “Son, there’s a new development gone on sale over by South Lake Park. Why don’t we go take a look sometime?”
“What, are you two buying me an apartment?”
“We’ll have to sooner or later. You can hardly go on living with us two old things after you’re married.”
“We’ll see. There’s no hurry.”
“The good floors go all at once. Once they’re gone you won’t be able to buy one.”
“Neither of you needs to worry about housing. For all you know, I’ll be buying a villa and living in a mansion one day.”
Old Zhang laughed in exasperation. “Then you can buy it yourself. Your dad and I don’t have that kind of money.”
Xu Ye put an arm around Old Xu’s shoulders, with no respect for his elders at all. “Don’t worry. I’m going to make a great deal of money.”
The family of three sat talking about nothing in particular.
By nearly ten they had all gone off to their own rooms.
Xu Ye lay down on the bed and called Qin Zhiwei…
“Hello?”
“Zhiwei, get yourself ready. I’m going back to Shanghai in the middle of this month and you’re coming with me. I’ll drop you off in Suzhou.”
“Huh?”
“My girlfriend tells me Shen Xinyi wants to travel somewhere. If you bring it up yourself, she should say yes.”
“Brother. You are my actual brother.”
“I’ll have finance settle your summer wages early. If it isn’t enough when the time comes, come to me.”
“Father. You are my actual father.”
Qin Wenliang happened to be passing his son’s room, heard what was going on inside, walked in and cuffed him across the back of the head. “Come on, then. You tell your old man — apart from me, how many fathers have you got?”
Qin Zhiwei was exasperated. “Dad, I’m joking with Xu Ye.”
Xu Ye added quickly, “Uncle, I never told him to call me that. That was his own idea.”
Hearing Xu Ye’s voice, Qin Wenliang finally left the room.
Qin Zhiwei got up, locked the door from the inside and went on. “Oh — Xu Ye, when I’m talking to Shen Xinyi lately we always get halfway through and then I don’t know what to say next. What am I supposed to do about that?”
“When you’re talking to a girl, use more question marks.”
“Question marks?”
“Say she asks you have you eaten? and you answer yes. How is she supposed to keep going from there? But if you say I have, have you? — she’ll answer you right away, won’t she?”
“Christ. I think I’ve got it.”
“I’m hanging up. I need to make a video call to my girlfriend.”
“Oh.”
(End of Chapter 280)