Early the next morning, after getting up, Li Rui called his landlord to say he was moving out and would forfeit both the remaining month's rent and his deposit.
He did not want any of his ragged clothes or worn bedding either and asked the landlord to throw them away. Having pocketed two months' rent for nothing, the landlord cheerfully agreed.
Then he drove his McLaren P1 to meet the twenty bodyguards staying at a nearby hotel. The sight of them gave even Li Rui quite a shock.
Although he had known these bodyguards were all powerful men standing between 1.8 and 2 meters tall, the impact of seeing them in person was truly intense.
When Li Rui drove his McLaren P1 into the shopping plaza with ten Land Rover Range Rovers following behind, the area within fifty meters became a vacuum. Never mind other vehicles-even pedestrians dared not approach. Anyone could tell this was a big shot they could not afford to offend.
All these bodyguards had on them were a pair of shoes, a pair of trousers, and a tank top each. He had to get them some proper outfits.
He also had to buy them phones. Although he could contact the biohumans through the system, they were living in the real world, after all, so phones were a better way to stay in touch.
Li Rui wanted to outfit these bodyguards in black suits and sunglasses, but with their builds, there were simply no suits available that would fit. Bodies like theirs required custom tailoring.
With no other choice, he bought each of them several sets of track pants and short-sleeved shirts. Although he got them sunglasses too, they looked a little like street loafers no matter how he looked at them, though their explosive muscles also made them look somewhat like fitness trainers.
After buying their clothes and getting each of them a phone, Li Rui set off toward home with his bodyguards.
Chuning County was three hundred kilometers from Star City. Driving his black McLaren P1 with ten Land Rover Range Rovers behind him, Li Rui traveled for three and a half hours and reached the village entrance at noon.
Fortunately, thanks to good government policies in recent years, every village entrance had a decent concrete road. Otherwise, a supercar like this might not even have been able to get in.
Supercars were only really suited to showing off in the city. In the countryside, an off-road vehicle was still the way to go. He wondered whether he should go to Wang Zhongtian and buy a few more cars.
He shook his head. Buying cars could wait until he had time. He was almost home, and seeing his parents came first.
As the black McLaren P1 and ten Land Rover Range Rovers entered the village, villagers familiar to Li Rui began discussing the convoy.
"Where did this big shot come from? Why would they come to our village?"
"You can tell these cars aren't cheap, especially that sports car at the front."
"Does anyone know how much that sports car at the front costs?"
A villager asked the people nearby.
"That looks like a McLaren P1. I've seen it on Douyin. It costs over thirteen million! The cars behind it are Land Rover Range Rovers. Those cost 1.3 million each too!" a boy of about fifteen or sixteen exclaimed.
Though he was young, he loved all kinds of cars and came across car videos every day. In the internet age, these children knew far more than some older people.
Hearing the boy's words, the people around him began discussing even more loudly. In the countryside, owning a car worth a hundred thousand or so was already something that gave you plenty of face.
There might be a few cars like the 1.3-million-yuan Land Rover Range Rover in town-every town had some rich people, after all-but there certainly were no cars worth over ten million.
Li Rui could not hear all their discussions from inside his car, but he could guess them with eight or nine parts out of ten accuracy.
Seeing one familiar figure after another outside his car, Li Rui grew excited too. He lowered the window and greeted them one by one, his face blossoming into a smile.
Li Rui's village was small, with only sixty or seventy households. His father, Li Yongzheng, alone had eight male cousins. Including some more distant relatives, over half the villagers were related in one way or another.
Seeing Li Rui poke his head out of the car window, the villagers were all astonished.
"Isn't that Yongzheng's boy, Li Rui?"
"He really does live up to being one of our village's few university graduates. He hasn't been back for a few years, and now he's made so much of himself?"
The villagers' discussions rose one after another.
"Xiao Rui?" a middle-aged woman called out in delighted surprise.
"Second Auntie, it's me! Have you been keeping well these past few years?" Li Rui asked with a smile.
"It really is you, Xiao Rui! You haven't been back in years. I almost didn't recognize you. What have you been doing all this time? You've really made something of yourself!" Second Auntie said happily.
After exchanging pleasantries with Second Auntie, Li Rui drove back to his house.
Before he even got out, he saw his father, Li Yongzheng, and his mother, Wang Sumei, waiting outside the door.
After getting out, he called, "Dad, Mom," his eyes moist. He had really failed to live up to expectations all these years, accomplishing nothing since graduating from university. If not for his heaven-defying luck in obtaining the system, he would still have been too ashamed to come home.
Papa Li and Mama Li were astonished by the supercar, but they had been somewhat prepared. After all, their son had transferred five million to their daughter yesterday, so they knew he had made some money away from home over the years.
But that was also because they had no idea how much the car cost. Otherwise, they would certainly have been even more astonished. It was over thirteen million, after all-a sum that would take the couple, who farmed at home, hundreds of years to earn.
Still, when they saw the ten Land Rover Range Rovers and twenty bodyguards behind Li Rui, Papa Li and Mama Li asked in surprise, "Xiao Rui, what's all this?" As they spoke, they gestured with their eyes toward the iron-tower-like bodyguards and vehicles behind him.
"Dad, Mom, these are all my bodyguards. Your son's made a little money out there these past few years. It's perfectly normal to hire some bodyguards to keep me safe, right?" Li Rui said with a grin.
Once they learned these people were all their son's bodyguards, Papa Li and Mama Li did not dwell on it beyond marveling inwardly that their son had become like the big shots on television. They quickly welcomed Li Rui inside and fussed over how he had been.
Meanwhile, the bodyguards stood at ease in the courtyard, like so many standing door gods.
Before long, more and more onlookers gathered outside Li Rui's house. The village was only so big, and news that Li Rui had driven home in a supercar like that with ten luxury cars in tow spread in little more than ten minutes. Villagers and relatives came over to visit, and the entrance to his house immediately became lively.
Looking at the imposing bodyguards, none of the villagers dared approach. Only after Li Rui invited them in did they dare enter one by one.
After half an hour of pleasantries, they saw all the relatives off. Only then did Papa Li and Mama Li ask Li Rui, "Xiao Rui, just how much have you earned these past three years?"
"You transferred five million to your sister and bought a sports car like that. We heard them say it costs over thirteen million. And you've hired so many bodyguards. Just how much money have you made?"
At his parents' questions, the corner of Li Rui's mouth lifted. "Not much, just ten billion or so," he said smugly. Then he tilted his head up at a forty-five-degree angle to look at the sky, wearing an expression that said it was nothing.
A moment later, having heard no reaction from his parents, Li Rui slanted his eyes slightly to see their expressions. What he saw instead was his parents turned to stone, their mouths slightly open as they stood motionless.
What did ten billion even mean? As far as Papa Li and Mama Li were concerned, the richest person they knew of was a villager's son-in-law, a mine owner supposedly worth thirty or forty million.
Even knowing that Li Rui had bought a thirteen-million-yuan car and hired so many bodyguards, they had taken it as a young man showing off. Perhaps that thirteen million, along with the five million transferred to their daughter and the cost of hiring the bodyguards, already accounted for their son's entire fortune.
They had never imagined they would hear their son say he had earned ten billion. Ten billion! That was money they could not spend in ten lifetimes.