CH 8

When it is closer approaching June, the weather becomes hotter. Lu Chengyu drives to and from work every day. He glad that he doesn’t have to squeeze into the bus. Waiting for a bus at a bus stop in this weather is like frying eggs on top of your head.

Lu Chengyu’s graduation ceremony will be held on June 1st, he has passed his graduation thesis and defence. He was notified on May 30th. In his past life, he remembers that at this time of year, many parents took pictures with their children in Bachelor’s clothes at Q University with cameras, and graduates’ and their parents’ faces were filled with joy and pride.

Thinking of this, Lu Chengyu closed his mailbox, looked at the dense words on the word document, he exhaled, and continued to work on the project. He has looked up a lot of data in this project and even working on it every day. After investigating many markets, he had a general idea, which directly affected whether he could gain a firm foothold in Huading or not, so he didn’t want to screw it up.

In the afternoon, Lu Chengyu sent documents to Cao Jingshen’s office and told him that had to ask for leave on June 1st. Cao Jingshen knew he was going to attend the graduation ceremony, so he didn’t make difficult for Chengyu, “You’ll have to a party that evening since it’s a graduation ceremony. Come back to work on June 3rd.”

“Thank you, Chief,” said Lu Chengyu, putting down the document and smiling, “I am touched by your generosity.”

“There’s a lot of things that you’ll feel touch in the future,” Cao Jingshen take out a document and threw it at Lu Chengyu without raising his head, “Stop talking nonsense, help me send this document to the President Office. I’m going to the Personnel Department later. I don’t have time to go up.”

Lu Chengyu catches the document and stops talking. When he left the office, the smile on his face faded slightly while waiting for the elevator.

On the first floor of the president’s office, there is a solemn taste from inside to outside, which unconsciously arouses people’s spirits. Lu Chengyu knocked on the President Office’s door. When he went in, he saw Yan Mu writing on a notebook without facial expression.

Sensing him come in, Yan Mu stopped writing: “Is it documents? Just put it on the table.”

Lu Chengyu has become accustomed to the way his boss looks stiff and talks less. He put down the document and get ready to leave the room. He was stopped before reaching the door.

“The day after tomorrow is your university’s graduation ceremony. I have a research project to cooperate with your university. Let’s go together later.” After Yan Mu finish speaking, he hesitated for a moment and added a question, “All right?” These two words are somewhat stiff as if they were squeezed out from him.

“It’s just that, I don’t know if we are going from the same way.” Lu Chengyu hesitated for a moment, but when he looked at Yan Mu’s stern face, he changed his mind, “If it isn’t inconvenient to Boss, let’s go together.”

Although the change rate of his boss’s face and expression is very low, he can still see that the other side wants to agree with the proposal.

“Good, I will pick up you in the morning.” Yan Mu look at the door, “Go back to work.”

Lu Chengyu raised his eyebrows and irrefutably went out of the office. Of course, he didn’t forget to close the door behind him. In his heart, he knew that Yan Mu plan to give him an important position in Huading later on, or else, why would he spend money and energy to him? (T/N: It’s love..)

Chengyu remembered clearly about the man who wants to do unwritten rule [1] with him from his past life history. At that time, this man wanted to cooperate with Huading. Unfortunately, Huading’s board of directors look down to him, so he went to please the staff inside Huading. Afterwards, Chengyu didn’t know how that man did it but he really got on a big boat named Huading, made a lot of money and then he began to invest in the entertainment industry. The man was lucky enough to invest in a successful film as soon as he entered the circle, and then gain a firm foothold in the entertainment circle as well.

[1] unwritten rules: a sponsor or investor ask you to sleep with them, then they will provide chances in movie etc for you.

If it weren’t for this, that man wouldn’t have been so stable in the entertainment industry that no one can force him to stay out of this industry.

What he has to do now is to chop down that man’s source of money. Without it, there will be no problem. Without money, what kind of movie investment can he do? Without money and status, how can he threaten others to do unwritten rules with him?

Lu Chengyu sneers while thinking of this. His favourite thing now was to pit to death those who had offended him in his past life.

Ai yo [2], what a petty man, really making others ashamed of him and yet he would rather die than repent.

[2] 哎哟 [āi yō]: Oh, dear!; Ouch!; Ow!; Good gracious! 

Lu Chengyu has two Weibo’s account. One is an account of himself called “May you have abundance year after year” and the posts’ contents is proper, serious and full of high-grade information. In this Weibo, most of his friends are the people who know him from his college, high school alumni and some familiar relatives and friends.

Another account is called ” Extra Fish Yu” which full with all kinds of roasting and ridiculing post of wretched things. His followers are the people who he doesn’t know on the Internet. There are large fans in both of his Weibo. Lu Chengyu didn’t feel any discomfort being a guy with who post elegantly on one side and crudely on the other side, he even feels an indescribable sense of comfort in his heart.

[Extra Fish Yu]: The big boss said that he would drive with me to the university to attend the Graduation ceremony. What should I do in case I feel a loss in a luxury car, which is worth tens of millions of dollars? What should I do to make people feel that I am cool and noble, not that I have never seen the world before?

Soon, under this post, there’s a lot of people ‘like’ it and afterwards, people with correct advice slowly emerges. As for the word ‘together’ that been mention in comments, Lu Chengyu calmly ignored it. Everyone can joke casually across a network, but there will be serious people as well as people who are fooling around.

Early that morning, as soon as Lu Chengyu washed and changed his clothes, the mobile phone on the table rang. When he saw the caller ID is someone he doesn’t know, Chengyu hesitated to pick up the phone until he realized that Yan Mu’s car is downstairs.

He went to the window, opened the curtain and looked down. He saw the envious Maybach parked in the temporary parking space outside the building. Yan Mu is standing straight like a ramrod beside the car’s door and exuded his ‘don’t-come-close’ aura surrounds him.

When he went downstairs to Yan Mu, Chengyu saw Yan Mu’s posture remain unchanged. He smiled and said, “I am sorry for having kept you waiting for so long.”

“It’s okay,” Yan Mu looked at his wristwatch. “Get on the car, we’ll have breakfast before we go.”

Lu Chengyu opened the front passenger’s door and sat down. Then he showed Yan Mu the way to go to the breakfast shop for breakfast.

The breakfast shop is not big. There are several clean tables and the shop owner is a middle-aged couple. When they see Lu Chengyu come in, the proprietress greeted with a laugh, ” Xiao Yu is here. How old are you today?” When she saw Lu Chengyu followed by an extraordinary man, she asked, “This your friend, what do you want to eat?”

Yan Mu looked at the small breakfast shop and then looked at Lu Chengyu.

“He will be having the same as me.” Lu Chengyu took two pairs of chopsticks and sat down with Yan Mu on a small table. He said as he handed them to Yan Mu, “There are many thin stuffed buns in this shop. The eggs are all eggs from local chicken collected from the countryside. Soybean milk and fried sticks are also tasty and hygienic. Wait until you taste it.”

After taking over the chopsticks, Yan Mu listened to Lu Chengyu’s words and nodded, “I am not a picky eater.”

The proprietress quickly brought up what Lu Chengyu wanted. Two bowls of steaming steamed buns, four fried sticks, two eggs, two glass of soybean milk, plus two small pickles’ dishes that look crisp and delicious.

Then Yan Mu saw Lu Chengyu eating fried dough sticks and drinking soybean milk which is obviously greasy, but the person who sits in front of him can eat so well and quickly and he couldn’t find even half of the ugly appearance that he usually saw when other people eat this.

Yan Mu unable to restrain himself, he grabs a steamed stuffed bun [3] and put it in his mouth. This bun is a mushroom and chicken stuffing. It tastes delicious and not greasy. It tastes better than many big hotels.

[3]

Then he learns to eat fried dough sticks [4] like Chengyu. But since he was not fond of fried food since childhood, he finished a fried stick and didn’t taste anything special about it.

[4]

“Are you done?” Lu Chengyu finished his breakfast and saw Yan Mu had a small bag of a fried stick left in front of him.

“Full,” Yan Mu wiped his mouth and said with a wooden expression, “It’s delicious.”

Is he trying to explain that he didn’t finish eating wasn’t because he dislikes the breakfast’ taste but because he was too full to eat?

Lu Chengyu couldn’t help but look at Yan Mu’s eyes. Somehow he feels that Yan Mu who’s in front of him a quite dull, there must be something wrong in his brain.

Lu Chengyu naturally picks up the leftover foods and eats it. After that, he wiped his mouth and gets up to pay for the bill.

“I pay.” Yan Mu stood up after seeing Chengyu wants to pay for the bill.

“Take it as I’m paying for the gas,” Lu Chengyu laughed and took out some quarters to pay the proprietress. ” It doesn’t cost a lot boss, don’t mention it. If we have a big meal together in the future, I’m sure I won’t snatch the opportunity to pay from you.”

Speaking of this, Chengyu suddenly remembered that when he first met Yan Mu, he spends more than 8,000 yuan to pay for a meal. Suddenly felt a little pain in his heart.

“Fine.” Yan Mu nodded and he kept in his mind that he would pay for Chengyu when they had a big meal together.

When they returned to the car, Lu Chengyu took two pieces of chewing gum from his pocket and shoved one of it to his mouth and gave one piece to Yan Mu. When he saw the doubtful stares from Yan Mu, he began to explain, “Steamed buns’ smell is heavy. We should pay more attention to them on some occasions.”

Then, for the first time in his life, Yan Mu drive a car while chewing a gum. He felt that it is acceptable.

After they reach to the university, both of them went to separate ways. Lu Chengyu had to go to the auditorium to attend the graduation ceremony and take a picture of graduation while Yan Mu went to talk to the professor of the research institute.

After entering the auditorium, Lu Chengyu found the number area assigned to his class. He can see that Zhu Guanglin and Zhang Hong have arrived, while Chen Jin is sitting next to them.

When Zhu Guanglin and Zhang Hong saw Lu Chengyu, they asked him to come and sit down. Lu Chengyu smiled and sat down in the empty seat next to the three men. Then he said, “You three come early.”

“How can we come late? Both of us wake up before 6 o’clock today.” Zhu Guanglin touched his hair. “Then we came by bus. The crowded bus almost messes up the hairstyle that I did yesterday.”

“That’s just your usual hairstyle after you wake up, you didn’t go to any hairstylist yesterday and it’s not because of the bus,” Lu Chengyu raised eyebrows. “Don’t give a crap excuses for you messy hairstyle.”

“Shut up.” Zhu Guanglin gave him a slap on his back and saw Lu Chengyu dressed neatly. He looks so handsome and there was a refreshing smell all over him. Zhu Guanglin couldn’t help sighing, “Sure enough, a handsome guy can wear anything perfectly, even their hair and clothes are nicely lined.”

“Didn’t you know nowadays was face-seeing society[5]?” Zhang Hong approached and said in a slightly obscene tone, “By the way, Chen Ya asked people to inquire about your news the other day, do you know?”

[5] face-seeing society: a person worth (such as trustworthiness, attraction, etc) is being judged just by looking at his/her face.

Chen Jin, sitting next to him, heard Zhang Hong’s remark. His face changed slightly. Chen Ya was the class flower of his class. She was beautiful and had a good personality. She also lives around here. Therefore, he knows that her family conditions were very good. There are rumours in the class that she likes Lu Chengyu. Although it has not been confirmed, in recent years he has found that Chen Ya is really treated Lu Chengyu different from other people.

Maybe it is because of this that Lu Chengyu is so disdainful of his intention. Without him, there are Chen Ya, or Wang Ya and Zhang Ya, how could Lu Chengyu take a fancy to him?

Only he was foolish enough to go and confess, and the result was nothing but an embarrassment to each other.

“Where did you hear the gossip?” Lu Chengyu shook his head helplessly. “Chen Ya’s mother knows my mother and because I changed my mobile phone number without telling her, she asks Chen Ya to ask me. Don’t talk nonsense. Be careful, don’t make Chen Ya slap your face.” What Chengyu said was half true and half false. The true part is their mother really know each other, but the false part is the reason why Chen Ya was looking for him.

He had explicitly refused Chen Ya the other day and he didn’t want to talk about it. If this kind of thing spread out, maybe others will praise him as a charming devil seducer, but for girls, it is a very hurtful thing. Real men won’t gossip about women’s feelings.

When Chen Jin heard this, he had a bitter smile on his face. This man always does this. He is polite in everything he does. He suddenly realized that perhaps Lu Chengyu was just being ridiculous to him as to other female classmates.

He feels that he hates people like Lu Chengyu. Maybe what he needs is a man who is only good to him, a man other than Lu Chengyu.