The instant Li Ziran spoke, the old man began examining him in a strange, peculiar manner. His utterly focused expression gave Li Ziran a faint sense of guilty unease, as though he had been caught stealing.
Although he felt that the old man's goodwill stemmed from his own value, looking back on their past interactions, Li Ziran seemed never to have brought the other party even the slightest profit.
Such an arrogant judgment could very well provoke the other party's disgust, but the words had already left his mouth. There was naturally no room for regret.
A gamble was something whose outcome could never be foreseen.
The calmer the other party became, the more Li Ziran felt this gamble had no foundation. The stairs from the second floor to the first were not long, yet every step seemed like a hammer blow striking his heart. That hunched, bent back was like an unshakable mountain.
At this moment, Li Ziran found himself somewhat laughable. They were both struggling to survive—why would this man help him for no reason at all? What he regretted even more was voicing his proposal for business just now. The other party did not care about his paltry scraps of profit.
He might lose a rather good friendship.
Just as he did not know how to ease the tension, the old man's unhurried voice drifted over. "You want to do business?"
"I do!" Li Ziran answered instinctively.
"But you aren't qualified!" Before Li Ziran could say more, the old man began laughing in an odd fashion. There was not the slightest mockery in his expression; he seemed merely to be stating the simplest fact in the world.
For a moment, Li Ziran did not know how to respond. It seemed that, at this very instant, the connection