Chapter 10

Ning Luo looked into Ning Yang's dark, unfathomable eyes and tried to win him over with science. "Look, it is known that a uterus can get pregnant, so the thing that can get someone pregnant is a uterus."

"Go on."

Ning Yang listened to his bullshit with his arms crossed, standing there coldly as if he were ready to settle scores after the fact.

Ning Luo could not keep making things up. Embarrassed by Ning Yang's stare, he scratched his cheek and let his gaze wander. When he turned and saw Ning Father coming downstairs, it was like seeing a savior. He ran over at once.

"Dad!"

Ning Father had just come out of Ning Xibai's bedroom. The gloom on his face immediately cleared when he saw Ning Luo, and he patted his head. "I saw you talking to your eldest brother just now. What were you talking about?"

Ning Luo held up his phone, his little canine teeth practically gleaming with pride. "Big Brother transferred me money. I'm rich again!"

Ning Father's hand paused. "How much did your eldest brother transfer to you?"

"Five million."

"Five million?" Ning Father frowned, took out his own phone, put on his reading glasses, and tapped away furiously. When he finished, he waved a hand grandly. "Dad will transfer six million six hundred and sixty thousand to you. From now on, your monthly allowance will be six million six hundred and sixty thousand."

As he spoke, a benevolent smile appeared on his usually stern face. He rubbed Ning Luo's head again and again. "Remember, Dad's love comes before your eldest brother's. Don't let your brother surpass Dad."

Ning Yang was so disgusted by his attempt to compete for favor that he turned away, out of sight and out of mind.

Ning Luo did not understand, but he was impressed. "Huh? Oh, okay."

Then he flashed Ning Father a brilliant smile, sweet as candy.

Looking at the eleven million six hundred and sixty thousand now in his hands, he felt as though it was not real.

[So my sexual orientation has already stopped being a secret in this entire family?]

Ning Yang abruptly whipped his head back around and frowned as he stopped him. "Ning Luo."

"Go upstairs."

[That's right, I'm moneysexual! I have a powerful desire to possess and share money, so can someone scan my payment code?]

Ning Yang's voice overlapped with the voice in his head.

Ning Luo's excited, rising tone seemed to mock Ning Yang for worrying over nothing.

"Huh? What am I going upstairs for?" Ning Luo asked in confusion.

Ning Yang pressed his lips together.

For one fleeting moment, he had actually worried that Ning Father would hear Ning Luo openly coming out through his inner thoughts.

In truth, Ning Yang had worried for nothing. Ning Luo's previous stunt of dragging Ning Xibai into the mess had already blown the roof off. Coming out now would be nothing more than an itch to Ning Father.

Ning Yang patched things up. "Go upstairs and get ready to head out. Go sign the filming contract."

"Okay, right away."

Ning Luo did not suspect anything. After greeting Ning Father, he thumped upstairs to change clothes. Halfway through changing, he remembered what he wanted to ask about Ning Xibai. Before leaving, he pulled Ning Father into a corner and asked quietly, "Dad, did Xiaobai tell you he doesn't want to go to Africa? Did you agree?"

Ning Father instantly became wary. "Why are you asking that?"

Before Ning Luo could explain, he rattled off at top speed, "There's no way I'd agree! What's wrong with sending him to Africa? He's a grown man, are you afraid something will happen to him? Would I, his father, mistreat him? I'm just sending him out to relax. You're a kid, don't overthink it."

With that, he gave Ning Luo a shove. "Go on, your eldest brother is waiting for you."

Ning Luo was pushed out the door like a puppet on strings.

Ning Father watched his retreating back, his expression turning stern as he thought of something.

One plea had failed, so they sent another person in?

There was definitely something fishy between those two!

Ning Father made up his mind. Ning Xibai would go to the production crew for closed-set filming, and once filming was done, he would be packed off to Africa. The two-month Africa trip would become three months.

He refused to believe that after three months without contact, his third son would not give up!

Ning Luo had no idea that one sentence from him had given Ning Xibai an extra month of blissful time close to nature. If he knew, he would probably be dancing in his room and singing "Good Luck Comes" all night.

The moment Ning Luo stepped outside, he was bundled into a car. Clinging to the window, he asked Ning Yang, "Big Brother, aren't you coming?"

"No." Ning Yang glanced at his phone, his tone slightly cold. "I have some things to deal with. I had the secretary pick you up."

He watched the car carrying Ning Luo drive away.

Ning Luo had secrets, but he had helped him in the end.

Rather than fixating on that, the urgent matter was arranging people to deal with the Chen Family's scheme.

And... Ning Xibai. What role exactly was he playing in all this?

The magazine shoot they had discussed had finalized the candidate for its interior feature. Such a minor matter was only casually mentioned by Lu Tingzhou's manager during a video call.

"I heard his background is pretty impressive. On the day he signed the contract, the CEO's secretary from Chuzhuo brought him there." Manager Nie Wentao said to Lu Tingzhou on the screen.

The man on camera wore a light apricot thin sweater and lounged lazily against a sofa, with floor-to-ceiling windows behind him. Sunlight streamed through the glass without reservation, falling over him. His long fingers looked translucent as jade beneath the light as he held a cat teaser wand, playing with a cat.

"Ning Yang's secretary?" After Nie Wentao confirmed it, the man gave a faint laugh. His emotion was so subdued that it was impossible to tell whether he meant praise or mockery. "That is indeed someone with a background. What's his name?"

His hand never stopped moving. Every time the cat was about to catch the feathers on the teaser, he lifted it away. After several rounds, the cat became so angry that it turned around and presented its butt to him.

Lu Tingzhou was not in a hurry. He scratched beneath its chin with his index finger, and before long, the kitten was acting cute with him again.

Nie Wentao took in the entire scene. "You really do have a twisted sense of humor... His name is Ning Luo. Come to think of it, those two share a surname."

He answered his own question, completely missing Lu Tingzhou's subtle pause upon hearing the name "Ning Luo." Lu Tingzhou raised his eyes and looked at his manager on the other side of the screen. "Ning Luo? The Luo with the horse radical?"

"Yeah. You know him?"

Lu Tingzhou was not wearing glasses at home. Without them softening his features, his eyes looked sharper, and his black pupils held ink-dark depths that seemed impossible to dissolve. When he looked over, Nie Wentao felt an oppressive pressure.

But the sensation soon disappeared.

"I know him. The second son the Ning Family just found," Lu Tingzhou said, confirming his guess. He rubbed the cat's head, lowered his eyes, and smiled. "A very interesting little friend."

It was unclear whether he meant the cat or Ning Luo.

Nie Wentao had only brought it up in passing, and quickly moved on to other matters.

"Your brother really is useless. He diverted our money to invest in a company with a history of plagiarism. If you hadn't told me to investigate, I never would've known he could do something so brainless! Doesn't he know that artists care most about their reputations?" The more Nie Wentao spoke, the angrier he became, and he began rambling on without end.

Lu Tingzhou listened quietly the whole time. It was impossible to tell whether he took any of it to heart as he idly played with the cat in his arms.

"Having someone like that around is infuriating. All he does is drag you down," Nie Wentao concluded after his long speech.

"Oh, and something else is strange. I received an anonymous warning before, telling me to watch that company. I didn't think much of it at first. I only remembered when you told me to investigate."

Lu Tingzhou asked, "Where did you receive it?"

"Everywhere. The studio's backend, your backend, both got it. It was a new account with nothing on its profile."

Lu Tingzhou asked for the Weibo username. After ending the call, he searched it and found that the other party had changed their name.

Then, looking at the new account that Nie Wentao claimed had "nothing on its profile," he pondered for a moment before messaging Nie Wentao.

[L: Are you sure there was nothing on the profile?]

[Nie Wentao: I'm sure. What's wrong?]

Nothing much.

Lu Tingzhou looked at the 231 Weibo posts on the person's profile. He merely wanted to know what kind of passion could make someone post so many updates in such a short time.

[Crotch.On.Fire: The Earth will keep turning without Lu Tingzhou? Keep coping then [fist] The Earth will keep turning without Lu Tingzhou? Keep coping then [fist] The Earth will keep turning without Lu Tingzhou? Keep coping then [fist] The Earth will keep turning without Lu Tingzhou? Keep coping then [fist]]

[Crotch.On.Fire: I cultivated the path of heartlessness for ten years, thinking I had seen through worldly desires. Yet the instant I opened a photo of my husband, my defenses shattered. My nosebleed poured out, I slapped myself wildly, harder and harder, but I'm so pathetic—my tears still flowed from the corners of my mouth.]

[Crotch.On.Fire: I lie in the intensive care unit, knowing my days are numbered. My powerless hand struggles to rise, a tear rolls down from the corner of my eye, and with my last remaining strength, I type these words: Husband, marry me!]

Someone had passed by his Weibo and called him crazy.

[Crotch.On.Fire: So funny. If I don't go crazy online, then what am I supposed to do online? Recite the Great Compassion Mantra and save all living beings?]

Of the 231 posts, most were about him, while a small portion complained about the bad boxed lunches and terrible weather of the day.

As Lu Tingzhou read, he suddenly laughed. He used his alt account to like one of the posts, then poked the kitten napping beside him.

"Far more interesting than you."

Ning Luo had no idea that the real person had already found his alt account. Otherwise, he would not have been so carefree after signing the contract, preparing to visit the production crew to check on its progress and stop by the food street behind it, casually calculating how much of his ten-odd million he should invest in the crew.

Yes, the first thing he did after getting rich was invest in Wang Lin's production crew.

In the original novel, Wang Lin's crew had still become a hit despite being stabbed in the back by investors, suffering financial hardship, and having a viciously terrible second male lead actor.

In the second season, without those problems, it had exploded in popularity, proving that Wang Lin's directing skills were solid. He had simply been unlucky and constantly stacked with debuffs.

Now that those problems were gone, there was no reason it would not be a hit.

Ning Luo felt that even more money was already beckoning to him.

He was a pure 24K money-spraying fool now, hehe!

Ning Luo hummed a tune. "Aiya~ This money just can't be spent~ No matter how I spend it, I can't spend it all~~"

Wang Lin did not have his cheerful mindset. Stress had brought fever blisters to the corners of his mouth.

You never knew until you investigated, but once he did, it was shocking. Fu Gangqun had more nerve than Wang Lin imagined. Not only had he committed embezzlement and misappropriated public funds, he had even gotten into pimping. Wang Lin had been sickened when the matter came to light.

And Fu Gangqun's mother had the nerve to call him, asking him not to make a fuss for the sake of their family ties. Every relative in the family came to persuade him, and Wang Lin was so furious his anger blazed.

To make matters worse, Cui Xiangyang had confirmed that he would not be investing.

Wang Lin's heart, like the losses in the accounts, had become a gaping hole with wind pouring through it.

He squatted in the open area outside the production crew, weathered and worn, gazing at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle as he took a drag of his cigarette.

Then he suddenly heard someone say—

[Why is someone squatting here to take a shit?]

Wang Lin inhaled a mouthful of smoke into his lungs and coughed desperately. Secondhand smoke sprayed from his nose, making him look like an ice machine. He turned to look at Ning Luo, who had appeared at some point.

"...I'm smoking."

"Oh, oh, I disturbed you, right?" Ning Luo realized. "Director Wang, carry on. I just came to see how things were going."

Mostly to buy some food.

The sorrow and melancholy that had just welled up in Wang Lin's heart were slapped to pieces by Ning Luo's chatter. After finally catching his breath, he stubbed out his cigarette and said, "No need to look. He took my money and went off to keep Li Zhigang company."

Ning Luo spotted a little cart selling grilled sweet potato skins setting up shop. His gaze followed it, and he swallowed. "That serious, huh? What did the United Nations say?"

Wang Lin said, "That bastard Cui Xiangyang not only refused to invest himself, he even dragged other investors into running away."

Ning Luo saw grilled cold noodles right after that. The owner already recognized him and waved enthusiastically. Ning Luo felt that smile called for extra vinegar and extra spice. "Oh, oh. Then you really need to drive carefully."

"Ning Luo," Wang Lin called gloomily.

"This world will drive every normal person insane. Tell me, why can't the apocalypse come in the next second? We can die together. You don't want to live anyway."

Ning Luo immediately tore his gaze away from the grilled squid, his pitch shooting upward. "No!"

He had only just gotten ten million!

As long as he had not spent even a cent of it on himself, Ning Luo could not die in peace.

Even in death, he would pry open his coffin lid and shoot eerie beams from his eyes straight at the Zhejiang college entrance exam question-setting team, forcing Zhejiang examinees to write 5.2 million reading comprehension analyses for him. He would tell them that he could die, but romance would never die.

Ning Luo tried to reason with Wang Lin and get him to pull himself together. Looking around, he pointed at a high-rise in the distance. "Director Wang, look. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was a skyscraper."

Wang Lin said, "Really? Then why do I feel so exhausted that the pyramids were built by me overnight?"

Ning Luo continued, "The world is beautiful. The sky is blue, and the clouds are white."

"The buildings are jumpable, and there's no money."

Ning Luo said, "..."

He fell silent for a moment, then said, "Forget it. Today, my persona is that super-rich guy. You need money? I have it."

Ning Luo pulled out his bank card. Feeling incredibly manly, he flicked it out with a flourish. "Ten million! Director Wang, take it. Spend it however you want!"

After saying that, he shoved one hand into his pocket and gazed at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle, waiting for Wang Lin to shower him with praise so he could say ten million was nothing and start showing off.

The card smacked onto Wang Lin's face with a slap.

Wang Lin peeled it off, the corner of his mouth twitching. "You took the wrong one. This is Lu Tingzhou's photo card."

It was even a still from a bathing scene, his upper body half bare, a whole expanse of pale flesh.