Chapter 4

Chi Ning sat down and looked at the screen.

A few minutes later, a young man in a windbreaker appeared on-screen. He had his hood up and walked slowly, swaying slightly. After stopping in front of the milk crate, he stuffed an envelope and a bottle of bayberry juice from his bike basket inside.

It was obvious at a glance that he was the person injured yesterday.

Chi Ning got to his feet. "Uncle, we can stop here."

"Alright." The security guard turned off the screen. After hesitating for a moment, he cautioned, "President Chi didn't order you any bayberry juice. You'd better not drink something from an unknown source."

"I know." Chi Ning answered him, but the moment he left the surveillance room, he pried off the cap and took a sip.

The deep crimson juice, fragrant with bayberries, flowed down his throat and swept away the summer heat and irritability.

Chi Ning drained it in one go and let out a satisfied breath.

Delicious!

Why did it taste so much like the bayberry juice Qin Heng had made in his previous life?

That little unlucky guy had been injured these past two days, so he definitely would not be setting up his stall. Once he recovered, Chi Ning could go support his business again.

Chi Ning rinsed out the empty glass bottle. Just as he was about to toss it into the trash, he remembered the scar on that person's forehead, so similar to Qin Heng's, and froze.

An absurd guess surfaced in his mind.

Could that little unlucky guy be Qin Heng?

Chi Ning pulled his hand back from above the trash can, carried the bottle to his room, and placed it on the windowsill.

Sunlight streamed through the window into the empty bottle, then refracted onto the bookshelf, forming a curved rainbow halo.

Chi Ning looked at the blooming yellow roses in the garden below, ruthlessly snipped off three with a pair of scissors, and put them into the glass bottle.

Admiring flowers, napping, sunbathing.

Now that he had suddenly become free, he felt immensely empty beneath the leisure.

Chi Ning sat in the recliner by the window and stared at the roses for an hour, until he felt like he was wilting too.

What did other people do when they were not in school?

He could not just lie in the sun all day, could he?

He ran through the ways he had entertained himself in his previous life.

Only three words came to mind—read papers.

No, he had not been reborn just to read papers.

Chi Ning rolled over in the recliner, and his phone fell out of his pocket, hitting the floor with a smack.

Looking at the phone, a brilliant idea popped into his mind.

His older brother liked to have fun, and their father had double standards.

So if he went out to have fun with his older brother, then when their father came back, he should not blame only his older brother, right?

That way, without a comparison target, his brother would not become more rebellious by the day.

He could first build up his relationship with his older brother, then persuade him to quit street racing and develop some safer hobbies, preventing him from dying in an accident while racing along mountain roads with his bad friends.

Kill two birds with one stone.

Chi Ning picked up his phone and called Chi Yang. "Brother, where are you? I'm so bored at home by myself. Take me out to have fun?"

-

Inside Yangcheng's largest entertainment center, Chi Yang listened to his younger brother's voice over the phone while looking at the gaudy, gilded decor before him and the KTV host writhing against his friend. He refused, "It's not fun here. This isn't a place you should come."

Chi Ning smiled.

Should not go?

Then did that not make it even more necessary to go?

If he went and had some fun, then the paparazzi hyped it up a little, what shareholder with any brains would still think he could be the heir?

Chi Ning snorted. "If you won't take me out, I'll find an internet café and play there by myself."

In 2001, internet cafés were all the rage. This era had not yet begun banning minors from going online. Aside from being a little expensive, a little chaotic, and having somewhat slow internet, there was nothing bad about them.

"Don't go." Chi Yang immediately grew nervous.

His younger brother had skin more delicate than a young celebrity's and had never suffered a bit in his life. His brain was only sharp when it came to studying; at other times, he was like a blank sheet of paper. He was also stubborn as a little lamb and would not even realize if bad people caught him and turned him into grilled lamb skewers.

How could he let him go to an internet café alone?

Even if he wanted to have fun, Chi Yang had to keep him under his own watch.

Chi Yang sighed and gave in. "Forget it. Come here instead. I'm at the South Harbor Grand Hotel. Wait for me on the first floor."

"Okay."

Chi Ning smiled. His older brother probably thought he did not know what the South Harbor Grand Hotel was. But after inheriting the family business in his previous life, he had gone there several times for business entertainment.

The South Harbor Hotel was inside Gangnan Universal Entertainment Center, Yangcheng's largest commercial entertainment venue. It had every kind of business, legal and illegal.

Chi Ning opened his wardrobe, intending to change into something that matched an entertainment center. But at a glance, the wardrobe was filled with either white dress shirts or black short dress pants, all in identical styles, neater than copy and paste.

Chi Ning: ...

He reluctantly found a shirt with loose sleeves, pulled on a pair of black school uniform pants, and had the driver take him to his destination.

Yangcheng truly deserved to be a city that would develop into the nation's foreign trade center.

Even in 2001, Gangnan Universal Entertainment Center already possessed the imposing grandeur it would have in the future.

Chi Ning entered the South Harbor Grand Hotel and saw Chi Yang leaning against the front desk.

He wore a loose sapphire-blue shirt with two buttons undone, revealing the collar of a white undershirt. His hair stuck up messily around his head, yet it looked rather good despite the disorder.

Chi Yang leaned against the front desk and beckoned to Chi Ning. "Come here."

Chi Ning walked over. Before he could steady himself, he saw his older brother pull out five red bills from his pocket and casually toss them onto the counter. "First floor. Add one person."

The woman at the front desk had beautiful wool curls. She glanced up at Chi Ning, her eyes widening in shock, then looked at Chi Yang with an expression that said, Are you even human?

Having worked at the front desk for so many years, she knew what she should not ask. She could only feed the money into the bill counter, then tear off a promotional ticket from the side and hand it to Chi Yang. "Go out. Last building."

Chi Ning had never seen this kind of ticket.

When he came here in his previous life, Gangnan had already used card payments.

Curiously, he pulled one out and unfolded it. It listed several fitness activities, such as bowling and billiards.

Chi Ning curiously peered into the South Harbor Grand Hotel and saw a woman in a red dress stagger out of the elevator, carrying a handbag and clacking along in high heels.

Just as he was about to take a closer look, someone grabbed the back of his neck and turned him aside. Chi Yang's voice sounded beside his ear again. "Let's go."

Chi Ning's eyes curved.

His older brother might not know how to express himself, but he did like quietly looking out for him.

The two of them held hands and entered the first floor of the recreation center like elementary school students.

The air-conditioning was strong, but few lights were on, making the place feel somewhat gloomy. Only several overhead lamps above the pool table at the far end were lit.

A man in a black shirt with a cigarette hanging from his mouth raised a cue and viciously jabbed the black ball on the table. "Fuck, why did picking someone up take so long?"

Chi Yang walked over and kicked him in the ass. "Didn't I tell you not to smoke?"

"Fuck, who kicked me—" The man in the black shirt turned around, and his arrogant tone immediately dropped. "Brother Yang?"

Chi Ning quietly lifted his foot and copied his older brother's move, gently kicking the leg of the nearby pool table.

Pretty cool. He would learn it first.

Maybe it would come in handy someday?

The man in the black shirt stubbed out his cigarette, opened the window beside him, and fanned the smoke outside with an ingratiating smile. "Is this your younger brother?"

"Yeah." Chi Yang pressed Chi Ning onto the sofa beside them, rang for a waiter, and said, "Get him a bottle of juice."

Chi Ning smacked his lips, remembering the bayberry juice from that morning. "Do you have bayberry juice?"

"Yes, we do." The young waitress smiled sweetly and soon brought over a small glass.

Chi Ning took a sip, found it not as good as the one from that morning, and put it down critically.

The man in the black shirt looked at Chi Ning's clothes, so proper they might as well have been a school uniform, then at Chi Yang, who was wild and uninhibited at the forefront of fashion. His mouth started running again. "Does he even know how to have fun? You brought him here before his pubes even came in?"

Chi Yang paused as he chalked his cue.

There was no real friendship among bad friends. When they joked around normally, they were always unrestrained and foul-mouthed.

But his younger brother was treasured by the entire family, afraid he might break if they held him and melt if they kept him in their mouths. Even Chi Baichuan had never said a single word like that. What right did these people have?

"You want to bully my brother?" Chi Yang smacked him with the thick end of his pool cue. "Did you ask me first?"

The man in the black shirt hissed. "Alright, alright, I get it. Your precious little brother."

He yielded verbally, but inwardly he was unconvinced. What real brotherly affection was there among Yangcheng's wealthy families?

This kid looked like a little white rabbit. Who knew how he might fight over the family fortune once he grew up?

"Since you're here to have fun, what's the point of sitting around?" The man in the black shirt grinned as he pulled out a cue and handed it to Chi Ning. "Know how to play? If not, big brother can teach you."

"I don't." Chi Ning's eyes curved into crescents.

The man in the black shirt froze.

He had grown up in Yangcheng and had never seen such a beautiful, refined boy. Compared to Chi Ning, even the KTV hosts selling alcohol looked crooked and ugly. If he could get to play with Chi Yang's younger brother...

The smile on Chi Ning's face did not reach his eyes.

He really wanted to know which people had called his older brother to go street racing on the mountain roads in his previous life. Could one of them be among the people before him? He was not skilled at scheming for power, but he could at least do his best to keep his older brother away from trash.

"You can play with me, but I only have one older brother." Chi Ning stood up, tilted his head, and asked, "How about this? You take my surname, Chi?"

Chapter 4

"What did you say?"

The man in the black shirt stepped forward aggressively.

He was tall and powerfully built, a full one meter eighty-five, making Chi Ning appear somewhat disadvantaged.

Chi Yang shifted to stand in front of Chi Ning and said in a deep voice, "Jiang Shijie, don't go too far."

Jiang Shijie dared to glare at Chi Ning because Chi Ning never appeared in public, and the Chi family might not necessarily value this younger son.