Winning the Lottery

At their age, even if children resisted adults' calculated self-interest, they could not resist friendship with their peers. Although Lu Manzhen had not known Huo Jiu for long, the fact that he had agonized over the motive behind picking him up told her that he was, at the very least, a child who valued loyalty and affection. People like that cared most about the approval and fondness of friends and family.

As it happened, Su Zhuo was exceptionally gifted at making people like him.

By the end, Lu Manzhen spoke with genuine feeling. Though she did mean to curry favor with Su Shiyuan, those words were also sincere. Su Zhuo truly was a lovable child. Even though she was not his birth mother, after caring for him for several years, Lu Manzhen could not help developing a little motherly affection for him.

So, her efforts to persuade Huo Jiu to agree to the bone marrow transplant were not solely to please Su Shiyuan and help her and her son secure their footing in the Su family. She truly cared for Su Zhuo as well and hoped he would recover fully after the operation.

It was clearly something that could make everyone happy and benefit both sides. Why turn it into a lose-lose situation?

Su Shiyuan glanced at Lu Manzhen. After pondering for a long while, he nodded. "All right."

They had to give it a try, after all. If Huo Jiu could be willing to walk into the operating room himself, Su Shiyuan did not want to take things too far.

After all, he was Man Zhen's son. They would still have to live under the same roof in the future.

Early the next morning, while they were having breakfast, Su Shiyuan casually suggested, "Your mother and I are going to the hospital to visit Xiao Zhuo. You should come too."

"That's right!" Lu Manzhen chimed in with a smile. "We're all family. You haven't met Xiao Zhuo yet, have you?"

"What's the hurry? If we're meant to meet, we'll meet." Huo Jiu looked at the couple and smiled. "So, since appealing to profit didn't work, you want to appeal to emotion now?"

The smile on Su Shiyuan's face did not change, while Lu Manzhen shot Huo Jiu a mildly reproachful glare. She had discovered that Huo Jiu possessed an extraordinary talent for making people choke on their words.

Huo Jiu ignored them both and lowered his head to drink his porridge. Seeing him drink porridge while studying his notebook and memorizing things, Su Shiyuan could not help asking curiously, "What are you memorizing?"

"Lottery-winning numbers and drawing dates." Before Huo Jiu could answer, Lu Manzhen said with an amused smile, "He thinks that if he memorizes the numbers, he'll win the jackpot."

Su Shiyuan smiled at that. He also felt that while the boy was somewhat stubborn, he was astonishingly naïve in certain ways.

With that thought, Su Shiyuan's eyes flickered. He smiled and teased, "Come with us to the hospital to visit Xiao Zhuo, and I'll give you a hundred thousand yuan for your trouble. What do you say?"

A hundred thousand yuan was not even one-tenth of Su Zhuo's monthly allowance. Su Shiyuan only wanted to tease Huo Jiu and see how the boy would react.

Huo Jiu paused in the middle of drinking his porridge and looked up. "Do you think I'm that short on money?"

Su Shiyuan glanced at Huo Jiu's notebook and countered, "Aren't you?"

Huo Jiu gave a soft laugh and tapped the notebook beside him, which was filled with copied lottery-winning numbers. "I'll have money soon enough."

Su Shiyuan said, "Those are numbers from drawings that have already happened."

Huo Jiu's smile held a deeper meaning. "They can become future ones too."

Su Shiyuan shook his head and dealt a blow to the soul. "Do you have money to buy lottery tickets?"

Huo Jiu: "..."

Su Shiyuan smiled. "Don't look at me like that. I won't agree to let you work outside. Your mother has already put away your ID card and household registration booklet."

"But you can come to the hospital with me. In exchange, I'll provide you with some startup capital. What do you think of that deal?" Su Shiyuan asked leisurely, trying to tempt Huo Jiu with money.

As expected, Huo Jiu firmly refused.

"There's no need." Huo Jiu shook his head.

In any case, the money would not remain once Reload happened. Huo Jiu was not about to bow his head for startup capital that did not truly exist.

"Then what will it take for you to agree to go to the hospital with us?" Lu Manzhen signaled to Huo Jiu with her eyes before Su Shiyuan lost patience.

She hoped Huo Jiu would know when to stop and not truly provoke the chairman into anger.

Winning the Lottery

When living under someone else's roof, one had no choice but to lower one's head.

For the sake of a few peaceful days ahead, Huo Jiu still agreed to Su Shiyuan and Lu Manzhen's request that he visit Su Zhuo at the hospital. Just not this time, but—

Calculating the timing of Reload, Huo Jiu cautiously named a date—the second day after the plot point in this cycle—then hypocritically said, "...I'm not ready yet."

Having received a clear answer, Su Shiyuan no longer forced Huo Jiu to go to the hospital with them immediately. Unless necessary, he did not want to stir up Huo Jiu's rebelliousness.

The three people living under the same roof finished breakfast, each harboring their own thoughts.

The couple took the nourishing soup Aunt Zhao had simmered all night to the hospital to visit Su Zhuo, while Huo Jiu returned to his room and continued memorizing lottery-winning numbers.

Everyone tacitly maintained a peaceful coexistence until the plot Reloaded and returned once more to half a month earlier.

That day, after finishing breakfast, Huo Jiu left the house under the close protection of the driver Old Zhang and two bodyguards.

"Where would you like to go?" Old Zhang asked politely.

Old Zhang had been a driver for the Su family for over twenty years. Though he looked down from the bottom of his heart on the young master whom the new madam had brought along with her, he did not make it too obvious.

At the very least, the basic courtesies between employer and servant had to be observed.

"Lakeside Park." Huo Jiu leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes to rest.

When he had previously planned to run away and roamed the streets with a driver and two bodyguards in tow, he had noticed that a group of elderly people gathered at Lakeside Park year-round to do square dancing, play cards, and play Chinese chess.

Huo Jiu's first pot of gold would come from those old men, whose chess skills were not particularly good but whose addiction to the game was especially strong.

"Ten yuan per game of chess. Does the loser have to pay on the spot?" Huo Jiu asked as he walked beneath the shade of a tree and looked at the blackboard standing beside the small stone table.