Page 25

Sure enough, children from wealthy families were different.

Of course, inward snark was one thing. In front of the Ye family, no one dared show even the slightest hint of disapproval.

This continued into filming the next morning. No matter how Ye Mingzhao performed, Director Li, seated behind the monitor, approved every take in one go and lavished praise on Ye Mingzhao's acting.

If Ye Mingzhao had not noticed something was off when watching the playback himself, he might really have believed he was a born Best Actor!

"Director Li, our Zhaozhao is acting for the first time. If there's anything he hasn't done well enough, please say so. Scold him if you need to. It's all for the good of the project, so don't hold back on our account."

The Ye family had noticed it too. Madam Ye spoke with a smile, and Director Li smiled and agreed, yet nothing changed.

An hour later, the Ye family took the initiative to leave.

Ye Mingzhao saw his family out of the set. Before parting, he handed a newly bought phone to Chu Hengyi. "This is for you."

Ye Mingxi smacked his forehead. He had accidentally sat on and crushed Chu Hengyi's phone yesterday, yet he had forgotten to compensate him!

Fortunately, Ye Mingzhao had remembered.

Ye Mingxi looked at Ye Mingzhao with gratitude, spread his arms, and gave him a bear hug. He also rubbed Ye Mingzhao's full, round back of the head. "Our Zhaozhao is so thoughtful."

Then he burst into laughter at Chu Hengyi and shamelessly declared, "Consider this phone my compensation to you."

Chu Hengyi: "..."

Expressionless, Chu Hengyi thanked Ye Mingzhao.

The first thing he did after getting off the plane and returning to Xinhai was find someone to dismantle the phone and see whether a listening device had been installed inside.

The young guy responsible for taking it apart looked at Chu Hengyi suspiciously. "This is a brand-new phone..." Do you have so much money that you're burning it?

Chu Hengyi was concise. "Take it apart!"

The young guy shrugged and followed Chu Hengyi's instructions, dismantling the new phone into pieces. He found no listening device. He privately mocked this guy for watching too many spy dramas—he had a persecution complex!

Chu Hengyi pulled out several hundred yuan and had the man put the phone back together.

The instant he turned it on, Chu Hengyi froze—the contact list, which should have been completely blank, had an extra contact. Its note read: "The person you care about most"!

Chu Hengyi glanced at the number, and his face darkened. Just as he was about to delete the contact information, the phone suddenly rang. "The person you care about most" appeared openly on the caller ID, bouncing gently up, down, left, and right along with the ringtone.

Chu Hengyi took a deep breath. He only answered reluctantly after the phone rang a second time. "What the hell are you playing at?"

On the other end, Ye Mingzhao's tender, lingering voice carried a trace of soothing amusement. "What's wrong? Why are you so fired up?" Had he dismantled the phone, discovered that he had done it for nothing, and wasted several hundred yuan more?

Chu Hengyi impatiently emphasized the point. "The contact note!"

"Ah~" Ye Mingzhao responded lightly. Propping his chin on one hand, he teasingly asked, "Is the note I gave you wrong?"

Chu Hengyi: "..."

Chu Hengyi was speechless. A faint sense of grievance welled up in him, and he could only change the subject. "We're not close, are we?"

At least in this life, the two of them had barely crossed paths!

Ye Mingzhao chuckled and relaxed into the new lounge chair the production team had replaced for him. "My second brother sat on your phone and broke it, so I compensated you on his behalf. The two of you sat on my chair and broke it—aren't you going to make any gesture at all?"

Chu Hengyi's face darkened. He precisely caught the implication behind Ye Mingzhao's words—

Ye Mingzhao and Ye Mingxi were close, so he could take it upon himself to compensate for Ye Mingxi. But since the two of them were not close, Chu Hengyi ought to compensate Ye Mingzhao for the chair he had broken at market price.

—This was clearly a retort to Chu Hengyi's earlier claim that they were not close.

Chu Hengyi laughed in anger and blurted out, "Don't worry. I'll definitely compensate you with the sturdiest chair possible. Even if four people sit on it, it won't collapse!"

Clearly, he was implying that Ye Mingzhao's lounge chair had been cheaply made and broke the moment someone sat on it.

Smiling, Ye Mingzhao replied, "I like blue. Blue represents melancholy. What color do you like?"

Chu Hengyi did not want to have such a pointless conversation with Ye Mingzhao and simply hung up.

Then he downloaded an e-commerce app, custom-ordered a lounge chair, and had it sent directly to Ye Mingzhao's production set.

That afternoon, Ye Mingzhao received a blue-and-white lounge chair and could not help smiling. He casually snapped a photo and sent it to Chu Hengyi: [The chair arrived. Why is it blue and white?]

After sending that message, Ye Mingzhao received no reply from Chu Hengyi for a long while.

Thoughtfully, Ye Mingzhao was about to send a second text—

"Um..."

Ye Mingzhao looked up to see Jiang Shangyun clutching his phone as he timidly approached. He carefully asked, "Can we add each other on WeChat?"

Ye Mingzhao's expression softened. "Of course."

Ecstatic, Jiang Shangyun opened WeChat, pulled up his QR code, and held it out before Ye Mingzhao.

Ye Mingzhao casually scanned it with his phone.

A friend request notification immediately popped up on Jiang Shangyun's screen.

Ye Mingzhao's WeChat name was simply his real name, and his profile picture was his own ID photo. It looked unexpectedly proper.

Jiang Shangyun's fingers trembled slightly as he tapped accept. The moment he added Ye Mingzhao as a friend, he felt so happy he was about to pass out.

"Then I won't disturb you anymore." Jiang Shangyun bowed to Ye Mingzhao, then walked away clutching his phone, his steps floating.

Ye Mingzhao watched Jiang Shangyun's retreating figure with the corner of his lips curved upward. His gaze settled on Jiang Shangyun's WeChat account.

Jiang Shangyun's profile picture was a chubby little dog, and his WeChat name was Clouds Over the River. Tapping his fingers lightly, Ye Mingzhao opened his Moments and saw that the background image was a harmonious family portrait of three.

Ye Mingzhao's gaze settled on the still-charming woman. The next second, a text message popped up on his phone screen.

[I'm only paying for half that chair!]

Ye Mingzhao chuckled. The frost gathered in his eyes melted slightly. He casually sent Chu Hengyi a friend request with the message: [Which half is yours?]

This time, Chu Hengyi completely stopped replying. He did not approve Ye Mingzhao's friend request either.

Propping his chin on his hand, Ye Mingzhao sent another friend request: [Do you believe in miracles?]

In the original novel, the newly reborn Chu Hengyi had no capital for revenge. In order to quickly acquire his first pot of gold, he relied on memories from his previous life and bought at the bottom of a "monster stock" that would hit the daily limit forty times in a row over the next month or so.

Ye Mingzhao blinked, clearly recalling the name of that stock—

Lanhe Yaoji

A gain of more than 810% allowed Chu Hengyi to earn tens of millions of yuan in just a month and a half. It also laid a solid foundation for his later bribery of informants, setting traps, framing Ye Mingzhao, aggressively buying futures and stocks at the bottom, and joining forces with the Ye family's competitors to short Ye Group.

Ye Mingzhao opened his mobile banking app. The real estate, stocks, and funds under his name had already been entrusted to a lawyer for disposal when Chu Hengyi had first returned to the Ye family. Most had been transferred into Chu Hengyi's name. Only a large flat in the center of New Sea City remained; it had originally been intended as a gift for the Chu family. Unfortunately, the Chu family had failed to live up to expectations, so it ultimately ended up under Chu Hengyi's name as well.

But Ye Mingzhao had not left with nothing. He still had over a million yuan in spending money in his account. Adding the acting fee the Beggar Prince production had just transferred in, he had a little over four million yuan in total.

Ye Mingzhao lazily raised an eyebrow and used all four million to buy Lanhe Yaoji—

At this very moment, this stock, which would soar wildly over the coming months, was still ignored by everyone.

Watching the share price rise in an instant, Ye Mingzhao's lips curved into a gentle smile. He casually sent Chu Hengyi a third friend request—

[Do you think there are absolutes in this world?]