Chapter 5

Hearing Huo Baichuan's question, Tao Yan opened his eyes and said slowly, "...I went to meet a client."

Huo Baichuan raised a brow and pressed on with interest. "What client?" As far as he knew, Tao Yan did not seem to have a habit of discussing work in entertainment venues.

Tao Yan looked steadily at Huo Baichuan and asked, "Are you very interested in my affairs?"

Huo Baichuan let out an involuntary scoff and awkwardly denied it at once. "Interested in what? I was just asking. Forget it if you don't want to say."

Chapter 5

At noon, the orphanage served lunch on time. Urged by the bell, Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan slowly headed downstairs into the cafeteria. Today's lunch was stir-fried cabbage with carrot slices, shredded potatoes in hot and sour sauce, and scrambled eggs with tomatoes. The colors were varied and the meal was nutritionally balanced, but the taste involuntarily reminded Tao Yan of school cafeterias from many years ago.

Huo Baichuan's expression was equally hard to describe. Even when he had gone on wilderness expeditions with his teammates, he had never eaten food this hard to swallow.

The old director carried his tray over and sat across from the two children. Smiling kindly, he asked, "The orphanage's food standards are far worse than the guesthouse cafeteria's. Can you two get used to it?"

Of course he couldn't! So Huo Baichuan began wondering whether he ought to drop by Lianhua District Police Station and mooch a stewed lunch while he was at it.

The old director saw through Huo Baichuan's thoughts at a glance. Still smiling, he continued, "If you truly can't get used to it, then study hard. When it's time to take the college entrance exams, work hard to apply to a police academy. Then you can eat government-funded meals for the rest of your life."

Huo Baichuan had not expected the old director to seize even mealtime as an opportunity to urge them to study. His mouth immediately tasted bitter. The already hard-to-swallow food became even more disgusting.

After lunch, Huo Baichuan dragged Tao Yan out onto the street to walk off their meal. With a miserable look on his face, he asked, "How long are we going to stay at the orphanage? Are we really supposed to go to high school?"

Tao Yan's expression remained bland, his dark eyes aimlessly searching the street. Huo Baichuan asked suspiciously, "What are you looking for?"

"A part-time job," Tao Yan replied blandly.

Huo Baichuan: "???"

"We have to find a way to make some money." At that, Tao Yan looked at Huo Baichuan, a faint smile appearing in his eyes. "Otherwise, how am I supposed to repay your vast fortune?"

The moment he heard that, Huo Baichuan perked up. "How do you plan to make it?"

Huo Baichuan asked eagerly, "Your memory's so good. Do you remember the winning lottery numbers from 1990?"

Tao Yan was speechless. He was not some prophet who had foreseen being sent back to 1990. Why would he have paid attention to something so pointless?

Huo Baichuan asked again, "Then do you want to buy stocks?" That was Tao Yan's old profession. But the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange would not be established until December at the end of the year. Besides, the two of them were penniless right now. They could not even scrape together the fee to open an account, let alone the capital to trade stocks.

Tao Yan glanced lightly at Huo Baichuan and saw him walking more and more slowly, his expression shifting as he pondered to himself for quite a while. Suddenly, he looked toward a group of old men at the street corner playing erhu and chess, and his eyes lit up. He said to Tao Yan excitedly, "I know what we should do!"

Before his words had even faded, Huo Baichuan grabbed Tao Yan by the wrist and pulled him over without discussion. He gave the old man playing the erhu an honest smile, flashing a mouthful of white teeth. "Sir, could you lend us that erhu?"

The old man was sitting beneath the roots of a tree, thoroughly enjoying his artistic pastime. Hearing Huo Baichuan's words, he froze. "You can play too?"

"I can't." Huo Baichuan pointed at Tao Yan with perfect confidence. "But he can!"

Tao Yan looked at Huo Baichuan expressionlessly.

Ten minutes later, Tao Yan sat on a small stool generously provided by an old man playing chess. He lowered his head to adjust the strings and test the sound. With a slight movement of his wrist, the mournful, desolate, plaintive, and sorrowful melody of "Moon Reflected on the Second Spring" drifted from the strings. The tune seemed to weep and lament, to resent and yearn, instantly drawing the attention of passersby on the street.

"Uncles, grandpas, aunties, older brothers, and older sisters!" Huo Baichuan took a deep breath and said with a grief-stricken expression, "My brother and I came to this fine place with no one to rely on. We were nearly beaten crippled and blinded by human traffickers. We finally escaped their clutches, but with no money in our pockets, we haven't had a full meal in days. We truly had no choice today but to shamelessly borrow this kind old gentleman's erhu and perform here in hopes of earning a few coins. Kind people passing by, please show us some mercy. Those with money, please give a little; those without, please give us some applause. Have pity on us brothers..."

The more Huo Baichuan spoke, the more emotional he became, and he could not help wiping at his eyes. He felt that at this very moment, his acting was even more polished than an Oscar-winning actor's. Moved by both the music and Huo Baichuan, the onlookers could not help sympathizing with them. Someone actually stepped forward and tossed them two yuan. "Go buy yourselves two bowls of noodles to fill your stomachs. Don't let yourselves starve."

With that kind person taking the lead, everyone else began generously reaching into their pockets as well. By the time Tao Yan had played a few songs, Huo Baichuan and Tao Yan had received more than twenty yuan in tips. Huo Baichuan perked up in delight, rolled up his sleeves, and called out, "Thank you, everyone, young and old, uncles and aunties, brothers and sisters, for your generous help. I have no way to repay you, so let me perform a set of martial arts to entertain you!"

As he spoke, Huo Baichuan lowered into a horse stance and, amid the cheers and shouts around him, began performing the fighting techniques he had spent a fortune hiring a retired special forces instructor to teach him. In an instant, his fists and kicks sliced through the air, fierce and powerful, adding even more flair to their street performance.

Tao Yan's skin was ultimately too thin. He still could not accept the audience's simple, enthusiastic cheers as calmly as Huo Baichuan did. He lowered his eyes, and his expression grew even more solemn.

Huo Baichuan, however, was the type who thrived before a crowd. Seeing more and more spectators gather and their donations become increasingly generous, he was immediately fired up. Not only did he perform a set of Military Boxing, but he also threw in a set of Intercepting Fist and the Eight Trigrams Fist he practiced with his family's old man to keep fit. The performance became even more entertaining. Even the few old men who had been watching beneath the tree roots while playing chess and instruments began applauding.