The seafood feast ran over an hour.
By the time they came out of the mall, the sky had gone dark.
After walking the four girls back to their dorm, Xu Ye was ready to head to the hotel and sleep. But seeing Chen Hansong standing there, he felt it wouldn’t look right to just leave. He was casting about for something to say when Chen Hansong spoke first.
“Xu Ye. I want to talk to you.”
Xu Ye agreed readily. “There’s a café right on campus.”
“Lead the way.”
They found the café, each ordered a hot latte, and settled into a corner table.
Coming to a café at this hour was, frankly, a little awkward — the place was almost entirely couples. Some were whispering into each other’s ears, some were lying across their partner’s lap, and a few had gone so far as to just openly start making out.
It had to be said: art-school students really were a bit more uninhibited than students at ordinary universities.
The scene, however, was a fresh irritant to Chen Hansong. He couldn’t help mentally superimposing Xu Ye and Chen Qingqing onto every couple doing these things.
“I can’t interfere in the matter between you and my daughter anymore. But I hope you won’t do anything, in some moment of impulse, that hurts her.”
Chen Hansong got straight to the point — stating his position and warning Xu Ye in the same breath.
“I’ve already given Auntie my word on that.”
“That whole playbook you use on women — none of it works on me. If my daughter is hurt in any way on your watch, I will absolutely not let you off.”
“So this is what Uncle wanted to talk to me about?”
Chen Hansong pulled out his phone, swallowing his pride. “Add me on WeChat first. Going forward, I also want to know what Qingqing does every day.”
“I can add you on WeChat, but there’s no way I’m reporting her daily movements to you.”
Chen Hansong frowned. “Don’t you tell Qingqing’s mother everything about her every day?”
“Auntie is Auntie. You’re you.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Auntie supports me being with Qingqing.”
“What exactly gave you the impression she supports the two of you?”
Xu Ye said, “I called her my mother-in-law and she didn’t object. Does that count?”
Chen Hansong’s heart clenched. He hadn’t realized Jiang Meilin had gotten this muddled.
He put his phone away and said, with some anger, “A few years earlier, and you could forget about ever being with my daughter!”
“…”
Xu Ye took a sip of his coffee and answered Chen Hansong with silence.
His blood pressure climbing, an admittedly absurd idea suddenly surfaced in Chen Hansong’s mind. He straightened his back and said something that nearly made Xu Ye laugh out loud. “Let’s make a deal. I give you a sum of money, and you break up with my daughter. How about it?”
Xu Ye stared for a good long moment, then looked up at Chen Hansong. “How much?”
Chen Hansong hadn’t expected Xu Ye to start haggling with him right away. Xu Ye’s image plummeted in his estimation on the spot. Suppressing his anger, he named a figure he was sure a boy Xu Ye’s age couldn’t possibly refuse.
“I’ll give you a hundred thousand yuan.”
A hundred thousand in 2014 was still real money — enough for a down payment on an apartment in Jiangzhou City.
But hearing it, Xu Ye nearly lost his composure.
He held it together for a while, wiped the smile from the corner of his mouth, and said to Chen Hansong with great sincerity, “Uncle. I’ll give you a million yuan. Starting right now — can you stay out of what’s between me and Qingqing?”
“…???”
Chen Hansong was completely dumbfounded.
What the—?
A million?
Did I hear that right?
Chen Hansong assumed Xu Ye thought the offer was too low. He sneered. “A million. Heh. Can you even produce that?”
Xu Ye opened the brokerage app on his phone and held it out to Chen Hansong.
Chen Hansong glanced at Xu Ye, then looked down at the phone.
When he saw a seven-figure number displayed in the account-assets field, his eyes went perfectly round. He snatched the phone up off the table, swiped through the app, confirmed it was a legitimate brokerage platform — and his expression grew steadily more incredulous.
A freshman who’d just started university, with over a million yuan sitting in his brokerage account. What did that even mean?
To put it in perspective: at this point in time, having more than 500,000 yuan in bank savings put you above 99 percent of the entire country. As a city-level bank branch president, Chen Hansong knew this better than anyone.
How did this kid manage it?!
Chen Hansong looked up abruptly, asking with some agitation, “This much money — where did it come from?”
“I earned it.”
“How?”
Xu Ye said calmly, “Over the summer I won some money on a lottery ticket, which gave me a bit of starting capital. Then in my first month of university I opened a fruit shop on campus — the returns were quite good. After that I started a trading company running an unmanned vending machine business, and now over a hundred machines are installed across university campuses, each bringing in a decent return. I put all of that money into the stock market. Uncle Chen, you’re a bank president — you know that A-shares have been climbing steadily since the summer. I got lucky. A lot of the stocks I bought hit consecutive limit-ups, and that’s how you get the number you’re looking at now.”
Chen Hansong knew about Xu Ye’s stock trading. The first time he’d ever met Xu Ye had been at the bank — the day Xu Ye came in to open a brokerage account.
Hearing all this, Chen Hansong felt his head buzzing.
An eighteen-or-nineteen-year-old university student — opening a fruit shop, starting a trading company, playing the stock market — and clearing over a million yuan in under half a year.
Had he not seen it with his own eyes, Chen Hansong would never have believed it.
So a moment ago, he wasn’t haggling with me at all. He just found my little “deal” laughable.
Chen Hansong suddenly didn’t know what to say.
Xu Ye put his phone away and said with a smile, “Uncle Chen, I know you’ve looked down on me this whole time. But maybe someday down the road, when you see what I’ve achieved, you’ll be even more surprised than you are right now.”
Chen Hansong started to say something, then stopped.
Xu Ye tucked his phone into his pocket and shrugged. “Life’s unpredictable — who can say what the future holds? But you can rest easy on one thing, Uncle. Until I’m capable of giving Qingqing a better life than she has now, the thing you’re worried about won’t happen. That much, I’ll see to.”
With that, he stood to leave.
Chen Hansong suddenly looked up. “If a day like that really comes, I’ll apologize to you.”
“No need for an apology. But you should trust your daughter’s judgment.”
Watching Xu Ye walk out of the café, Chen Hansong felt an inexpressible sense of defeat. He’d always believed that the stronger a person’s ability to make money, the more outstanding that person was. And now Xu Ye had suddenly produced over a million yuan — which, by Chen Hansong’s own standard, made Xu Ye exactly that kind of outstanding person. He didn’t want to admit it, but he had no choice but to.
An ordinary university student with no background whatsoever, earning over a million yuan in less than half a year — say that to anyone, and it wouldn’t just be called outstanding. That would have to be called a dragon among men.
Chen Hansong walked out of the café, out of the school, and was just about to go find a hotel to stay in when Jiang Meilin called.
He pressed answer and, a little dispirited, put the phone to his ear.
“How’d it go? Everything go smoothly?” Jiang Meilin asked.
Chen Hansong said quietly, “Smoothly enough, I suppose.”
Hearing his tone, Jiang Meilin’s slender brows knit slightly. “What did you do? Why do you sound so worn out?”
“Nothing. Just finished talking with that Xu Ye kid.”
Jiang Meilin laughed. “Why aren’t you calling him ‘that little bastard’ anymore?”
“Meilin,” Chen Hansong asked, “did he ever show you his brokerage account?”
Jiang Meilin was puzzled. “Brokerage account? What brokerage account?”
“He made over a million yuan in less than half a year. Opened a fruit shop at university, started a trading company. I really did underestimate him. I misjudged him.”
“But you can’t blame me for that. What father on earth would be happy to watch his daughter fall in love with some boy at eighteen?”
“I won’t interfere in their business anymore. But whatever happens, you have to keep me informed about how Qingqing’s doing at school. I… am her father, after all.”
Jiang Meilin said, “Alright~”
(End of Chapter 129)