Let's have dinner sometime-your treat

When the young man smiled, the curve of his lips was lovely, and the little mole beneath his lower lip seemed especially lively. He looked just like the child in Shi Yan's dreams.

His smile lifted Shi Yan's mood, but an unwelcome voice beside them cut that smile short after only a few seconds.

"Li Yi, have you lost your mind?" Zhou Xuanze's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Do you know the Zhou family and the Shi family are competitors? Just to spite me, you're actually asking Shi Yan to keep you? Have you no shame?"

"Shamelessness runs in the family. You'll have to ask my parents about that. I can't let the Lu family's ancestral specialty die out with me."

Li Yi leaned against the car after saying that and asked Shi Yan with a smile, "Well? Do you agree, Young Master Shi?"

Shi Yan said coldly, "I'm not interested in keeping anyone."

Li Yi wasn't disappointed. Smiling, he took out his phone and held it out. "Add me. If you change your mind later, you can ask me."

"Li Yi, don't you dare!" Furious, Zhou Xuanze reached to snatch Li Yi's phone, but Li Yi pointed at the luxury car. "The latest Pagani. It's been on the road for less than an hour."

Caught completely off guard by this move, Zhou Xuanze froze. "So what if it's the latest model? It's not as if my family doesn't have luxury cars!"

"If you damage the bodywork, they'll have to ship parts over from Italy. The paint, the shipping, and..." Li Yi pointed at the man inside the luxury car. "Compensation for his lost working time will run into the millions.

"Aren't you trying to start a business on your own? Your little company probably can't just produce a few million in cash whenever it likes."

Zhou Xuanze actually backed away two steps. To maintain his image of being poor in Li Yi's eyes, he could only swallow his anger and watch Shi Yan reach out through the car window. With a beep, they added each other.

"Let's have dinner sometime-your treat." Li Yi lowered his head and entered a contact name: Sugar Daddy Shi.

"All right." There was a smile in Shi Yan's voice. He honked twice. "I'll head off. You take care of your business."

"Bye~" Li Yi waved with a smile.

"Bye." Shi Yan drove away, the smile fading from his face as the window rose. He tapped his phone a few times and gave the person on the other end a few brief instructions.

In excellent spirits, Li Yi watched the Pagani leave.

The man who had bought him in his previous life didn't seem nearly as cold, heartless, and unapproachable as the rumors claimed.

He seemed like a pretty nice person!

"All right, I already made everything clear back at the café." Li Yi turned to Zhou Xuanze. "If there's anything you still don't understand and need explained again, you'll have to pay my personal consultation fee. Ten thousand a minute."

Li Yi pulled up his payment QR code. "WeChat or Alipay?"

Zhou Xuanze frowned at him. "Li Yi, is this another way of trying to get my attention?

"I admit it, you succeeded!

"I take back what I said about breaking up. As long as you come back and finish signing the contract with me, I can forget what happened earlier."

"WeChat or Alipay?" Li Yi shoved his phone in his face.

"Fine. You insist on making me play along, huh?" Zhou Xuanze took a deep breath. For the sake of today's contract, he put on a good-natured smile and an indulgent air. "I'll play along this once."

Beep! Payment of 5,200 yuan received through Alipay.

"Send it again! With a gift amount like that, I'm worried you'll take me to court later to get it back." Disdainfully, Li Yi pushed his phone a little closer.

Zhou Xuanze nearly laughed in anger. "It's only 5,200 yuan, and I'd take you to court? Li Yi, even if I'm starting a business on my own, I'm still a member of Beicheng's Zhou family!"

"I know. So are you sending it or not? If not, I'm leaving." Li Yi put his phone away.

"Yes!" Zhou Xuanze gritted his teeth and transferred another ten thousand.

At the payment notification from his phone, Li Yi smiled, put it away, and turned to leave.

"Wait." Zhou Xuanze called him back. "I've transferred the money. Aren't you supposed to come sign the contract with me now?"

"Honestly." Li Yi sighed. "Second Young Master Zhou, you have some serious problems with your brain and ears. Don't avoid treatment. Get help quickly, or it'll be too late."

"What do you mean? You're playing me again?"

"Oh dear, you figured it out! Too bad there's no prize~"

The anger in Zhou Xuanze's eyes deepened, and his face filled with disgust. He grabbed Li Yi's arm. "Li Yi, what exactly are you playing at? I've already taken back what I said about breaking up. Don't tell me you want something else?

"I told you, we have to wait until I've achieved something with my business before my family will stop opposing the engagement party. Can you stop being so willful at a time like this?

"Why can't you be as sensible as your older brother?"

"Engagement?

"Do you think you're some premium cow dung that every flower has to plant itself in?

"We've broken up. Only an idiot would get engaged to you.

"Lu Junjia is sensible, so go get engaged to Lu Junjia. May you-a scoundrel and a dog-last forever."

Li Yi shoved him away and even lowered his head to brush off his arm, as if afraid something unlucky had rubbed off on it.

"You..." Hearing him mention Lu Junjia again, Zhou Xuanze knew he must be jealous again.

"What happened between Junjia and me was a misunderstanding. It's all just rumors people made up."

Zhou Xuanze offered that perfunctory explanation. Deciding that today really wasn't a suitable day to sign the contract, he said, "Forget it. You're in a bad mood today. We'll discuss the contract another time. I'll give you time to think."

With that said.

Zhou Xuanze quickly turned and left, afraid Li Yi would take the opportunity to cling to him again and demand to be coaxed.

"Tch! As if I care." Li Yi took out his phone and checked the time. It was almost seven, so he decided to have his first hot pot since his rebirth.

To celebrate being reborn!

He had just gotten over ten thousand yuan for nothing. He was going to order the most expensive hot pot and eat as much meat as possible.

Only when the steaming hot pot arrived did Li Yi truly feel that he was still alive. He wasn't going to repeat a single one of the stupid things he'd done in his previous life!

In his previous life, when he had first returned, he had been cautious in everything he did to please his family. But how had that family treated him?

They had made him stay in the most out-of-the-way guest room, only a little better than the servants' rooms, yet several times worse than the room of Lu Junjia, their adopted son.

His room had really been just a room, while Lu Junjia's had been a suite with a walk-in closet, a gaming room, a bathroom, and a bedroom.

The bedroom alone had been bigger than the guest room he lived in.

Lu Junjia had received two hundred thousand yuan in spending money every month, not including the extra money the Lu family occasionally gave him.

Yet he had received only a thousand a month. The Lu family never gave him any extra spending money, nor had they even bought him clothes or shoes.

How ridiculous. He was a young master of the Lu Group, yet he lived worse than an adopted son.

The Lu family never waited for him at meals, either. No one ever cared whether he came to the table.

But they would wait for Lu Junjia when he got home late from school.

They would save food for the eldest when he worked overtime.

They would remind the second son to eat when he was away performing concerts.

In the name of his fans, they would order lavish takeout for the third son when he was away filming.

Only he was treated like an outsider!

No matter what he did, he couldn't warm this family's hearts. Now he had given up.

Li Yi popped a piece of beef, hot to just the right degree, into his mouth and narrowed his eyes in satisfaction.

In this life, he wouldn't take anyone else into consideration!

He would live however made him happy!