Chapter 527: Daily Life

In a residential complex along the famous Daling River in Longcheng, Wang Yan and Wei Lan were with the elderly couple, Wang Dong and Zhang Xia, looking at the first floor of a seven-story western-style house.

This complex had been completed less than two years ago. The unit was a three-bedroom, two-living room, two-bathroom layout; the floor plan was nothing special, just the standard square type. The renovation wasn't particularly inventive, but overall, it looked quite decent. Most importantly, the unit came with a large courtyard. The original owner had built a pavilion and even tilled the soil to grow vegetables. Although his parents had been away from the land for many years, they were both experienced farmers; it would be quite nice for them to grow crops and tend to flowers in their spare time.

Wang Yan asked, "I think it looks good. Mom, Dad, what do you think?"

"Oh my, as long as your father and I have a place to stay, that's enough. This house costs 1.5 million. It's a waste for just the two of us to live in. It's not easy for you two to earn money, so don't spend it recklessly."

Wang Dong also nodded. "It's not like our bodies aren't up to it; we can still climb stairs. If you really want to buy one, don't get one this big. It's too wasteful for just your mother and me. Let's go look at cheaper ones; a house for 500,000 or 600,000 would be perfectly fine. Xiao Li, sorry to trouble you, but please take us to see some cheaper ones."

Xiao Li was a chubby male salesperson in his thirties. Naturally, he was unwilling. "Uncle, this is your son being filial. Look, even if I wanted to buy one for my parents, I couldn't afford it. Right, brother?"

Wang Yan nodded with a smile, and Wei Lan said, "Dad, Mom, Wang Yan and I are in Lin'an, and you two are here. If we don't get you settled, we won't have peace of mind in Lin'an. Besides, we're already married, and we're planning to have children soon. If we buy you a small house, the kids won't have room to play when they visit."

"Alright, Brother Li, we'll take this one. Contact the owner and see if he has time. I'll talk to him. Let's get this done quickly; I still have a lot to handle back in Lin'an."

The house was clearly decided on; it was just that the elderly couple didn't want their eldest son to spend too much money. They believed in saving where they could, and it wasn't like their current house was unlivable. It wasn't strictly necessary to spend over a million to buy a big house. Parents always considered things so simply—making do was enough.

The salesperson surnamed Li was efficient. Without waiting for Wang Yan's parents to say another word, he turned and ran into the courtyard to make a call.

"It's over a million! You child, why are you so impulsive? Look at more places first." Zhang Xia patted her eldest son with annoyance.

Wang Dong was much more direct. He knew his eldest son's mind was made up, so he sat down on the sofa and bounced a bit to test the firmness...

"Mom, we've been looking at houses for two days. I don't have enough money for a villa, you said you were scared of the high-rise duplexes, and I don't like the old or small houses. This one is just right—it's convenient to go in and out on the first floor, and there's a courtyard to grow vegetables and flowers. You two, your main task now isn't to earn money or save it for me, but to live comfortably. Otherwise, what's the point of your eldest son earning over two million a month?"

Wang Yan smiled. "Regarding the supermarket we talked about earlier, I took a look outside, and two have already opened. I think it's a long shot; we'd probably lose everything if we opened one. How about this: I'll leave you two 500,000. If you want to do a small business, look around and do whatever you like. If you don't want to, just eat, drink, and take care of your health. Dad, that work Mom does is light, but you definitely can't do that construction work anymore. If you really can't sit still, find some easy work. We aren't counting on you to earn money now."

He wasn't afraid of losing money; he was mainly worried his parents couldn't afford to. If they really lost money, they wouldn't be able to eat or sleep, worrying day and night. So, giving them the money directly was simpler. Although they likely wouldn't spend it, having a safety net was different from having none. In the past, he didn't give them money because he didn't have much himself and was saving for a house. Of course, even though he didn't give them cash, he bought plenty of miscellaneous things; Wei Lan would order them online, and they'd be delivered to the house in bulk. Now that he was earning two million a month, giving his parents a sum of money to put their minds at ease was a good thing.

Wang Dong nodded. "We'll listen to you; whatever you say goes. Your mother and I were just saying, we never imagined you'd earn so much money in the blink of an eye. You've got real ability. You two don't worry; your mother and I definitely won't hold you back."

Facing their son's filial piety, the couple couldn't object. Things were different now; the money was in their son's pocket, so he could spend it however he wanted. It wasn't like they could stop him by disagreeing. So, what else was there to say? They might still nag a little, but since the money was already spent, they might as well enjoy it.

"Oh, Dad, look at what you're saying. What 'holding us back'? It's only right for us to be filial to you."

Zhang Xia looked at Wei Lan with a smile. "Xiao Lan is a good child. Wang Yan, she's also an only child, and your father-in-law's side only has the two of them at home. Pay more attention to them in the future, you hear?"

"How could I not know that? I video chat with my father-in-law to discuss calligraphy whenever I'm free. Our relationship is great."

Zhang Xia glared at her grinning eldest son. She really didn't know when this little brat had learned calligraphy. Sometimes she felt her son was a stranger; the changes over the past year had been too fast and too great, and since they didn't live together, it led to a gap in her understanding. Wang Yan would go through a trip lasting a few years at the shortest, or a hundred years at the longest, experiencing countless vicissitudes. Even though he hid it well, he was still her own son, so things were bound to be different...

Longcheng wasn't big; a taxi started at five yuan, and a circle around the city only cost fifty. Once the salesperson surnamed Li contacted the owner, it didn't take long for him to arrive. After some intense haggling, they settled on 1.5 million. The house itself was 130 square meters, and counting the large courtyard, the price wasn't expensive.

They signed the contract and paid a 30% deposit, with the rest to be paid in full once the paperwork was finished. While the paperwork was being processed, they could move in. Wang Yan helped them move and purchased some new items. By the third day, he left his parents 500,000 and, amidst their urgent reminders to hurry up and have children, returned to Lin'an.

They first went to the pet shop to pick up the cat and dog, then returned home together. As soon as Wei Lan entered, she let out an "oops" and collapsed onto the sofa. Watching the cat and dog darting around the room, she sighed, "It's finally over. Getting married is really tiring."

Wang Yan smiled as he tidied up the things they had brought back. "It only happens once in a lifetime. Now that it's all done, from now on, we'll just live comfortably."

Wei Lan giggled. "So good!"

"What do you want to eat tonight?"

"Dumplings upon arrival, noodles upon departure. Let's have... Zha Jiang Mian."

Wang Yan nodded decisively. "Alright, then you get some good rest. I'll make it once I finish tidying up these things."

"I haven't updated my videos in a long time; my private messages are about to explode. I'd better edit one and post it quickly. Hubby~~ bring the computer over, I don't want to move."

They became clingy after getting married, but it was only for this period... Wang Yan shook his head with a smile, went to the study to get her laptop, handed it to her, then tidied up and went to the kitchen to start cooking.

The cat and dog, one small and one large, frolicked in the house, chasing and playing. Sometimes they ran to Wang Yan's feet, sometimes to Wei Lan's side. Sometimes the cat climbed the cat tree, and sometimes the dog trotted around with its beloved plush toy. The "one-line" river view outside the balcony was hazy, and the sunset glow accompanied by the evening clouds shone through the window onto the floor, making the cat and dog's fur glisten. It was extremely beautiful.

This was the unfolding of a new life...

Because of the move, they naturally changed their running spot. It was no longer West Lake, but the prosperous Qiantang River, which had been famous since ancient times for its "thousand horses galloping and mountains rolling."

There was never a shortage of early risers. Even though Wang Yan came out before six, the thin mist on the river hadn't dissipated, but there were already many people running, walking slowly, walking dogs, and sightseeing.

Jogging to the viewing path, Wang Yan shook the dog leash. Receiving the signal, the dog barked and took off running. Wang Yan followed behind, holding the leash, sprinting all the way.

Through the power transmitted to his hand by the leash, Wang Yan knew the dog was very excited because the road here was very straight and had no slopes; it was running very happily.

He ran back and forth on the riverside viewing path for an hour, covering nearly twenty kilometers at a pace of 3:10—a stable output, well within the range of what an ordinary person could accept as impressive. He found a secluded spot to practice his martial arts as usual, then slowly walked home with the dog.

He got home and started making breakfast—toasting bread, frying steaks, and so on—then woke up the sleeping Wei Lan, fed and watered the cat and dog, and they ate.

While eating, Wei Lan scrolled through her phone, chatting with Wang Yan about interesting comments. Perhaps having flipped through some previous videos, she asked with an "oh," "By the way, didn't we run two ads before—Yi Yi and that 'What to Eat Today'? How are they doing now?"

Wang Yan shook his head with a smile. "They were just games, and there wasn't any large-scale promotion, so what could happen? 'What to Eat Today' has more, with over 30,000 users. Yi Yi was launched recently and doesn't have much of a reputation, so it only has 4,000-plus users. However, our translation quality is higher, so after users get tired of playing with the dialects, the retention rate is relatively high. They're mostly students, so there's some stickiness. The future is promising."

"Doesn't that mean losing money?"

"It's alright. 'What to Eat Today' basically didn't cost much; the cost was just Ma Zichen's salary for a month or so. Now with over 30,000 users, the ads have already earned it back. As for Yi Yi, although Zhang Xu's salary is a bit high, it's nothing. It's considered a proper product, and the functionality is indeed solid, so the future is promising. Relying on user recommendations, it can be built up bit by bit. It might not make a fortune, but it definitely won't lose money. But then again, in the internet business, how can you not lose money? I sell the Body-Strengthening Pill just to subsidize the internet business and some future research, to engage in technology."

"Engage in technology? I've never heard you mention that before. Tell me, what do you want to do?"

"In the short term, artificial intelligence, then making mobile phones and computers. In the long term, it's the sea of stars. Didn't Musk go to space? We'll strive in that direction."

Wei Lan stared blankly at Wang Yan. She could accept artificial intelligence, as it had always been popular and some companies had achieved great success. But making mobile phones and computers—that was a bit problematic. After all, mobile phones and computers were already a cutthroat market. Over the years, many companies had been glorious, and many brands had died. Moreover, this kind of hardware research required pouring in countless amounts of money, and there was no guarantee of results. As for the very vague "sea of stars," that was even more of a pipe dream.

However, she didn't discourage him, just nodded. "That's great, I support you."

Wang Yan laughed. "People need to have some ideals and a goal. You know the Body-Strengthening Pill is selling well. Currently, production is limited, and the customer base hasn't been fully developed. My next step is to set up a factory, purchase equipment, and start large-scale production. In the future, we definitely won't be short of money—the kind you can't spend no matter how hard you try. Because I have great confidence in the formula; even if I published the ingredients used, with the current level of technology, they wouldn't be able to crack it for two or three hundred years. So with so much money, if you don't find something to do, what would you do?"

"Is it really that amazing?" Wei Lan's eyes were full of doubt.

"Time will give you the answer."

"Whatever." Seeing Wang Yan's smug expression as he raised an eyebrow, Wei Lan rolled her eyes and changed the subject. "I remember Da Zhi Hu and Douyin have software for pushing content efficiently. Should I write a soft article and post it everywhere to promote it?"

"Of course you can. I'm very gratified that you could think of this, my wife. Actually, I wanted to do it before, but I never had the time. You go ahead and do it when you go to work today."

Wang Yan nodded without hesitation to show his approval. He had to affirm Wei Lan's idea and her efforts for their product. Although it was indeed useless—after all, she wasn't in that industry and wasn't a big blogger, so the influence of a random article would be limited—her attitude was good. If she wanted to find something to do, let her go.

After breakfast and washing up, they drove the newly purchased small BMW to work. He added another task: finding time to teach Wei Lan how to drive...

Wang Yan and Wei Lan first went to the health supplement company, chatted happily with the two women, one big and one small, and distributed wedding candies before heading to the software company.

Upon meeting, there was another round of auspicious greetings. After distributing the wedding candies, Wei Lan returned to the health supplement company.

Zhang Xu asked with a smile, "How's married life, boss?"

Wang Yan shook his head. "We were already living together before, so it's the same, nothing special."

Chen Yang winked. "Brother Yan, when do you plan to have children?"

"Yeah, Brother Yan, you're a big boss, you're not afraid that raising a child will affect your quality of life. The three-child policy is there; you have to contribute to the country." Xu Haiyang chimed in.

Only Ma Zichen didn't make any lewd jokes, just giggled there.

"We're working on it. Both of us are only children, and both sets of parents are urging us, so how could we escape it?" Wang Yan waved his hand. "Alright, alright, get to work, get to work. Tell me how things have been going lately."

Currently, the software company's main business was intelligent customer service. The revenue from this area had already exceeded the 200,000 from harassment calls. So even though Yi Yi was losing money, the software company as a whole was profitable.

After a rough understanding, Wang Yan assigned tasks: Zhang Xu was responsible for improving Yi Yi and adding new features; Chen Yang and Xu Haifeng would continue with intelligent customer service; Ma Zichen would maintain "What to Eat Today" and develop the web version of Yi Yi, consulting the other three if there were problems. It was shameful to say, but Zhang Xu had previously developed the app directly and hadn't made a web version. However, the front-end code was similar, and the back-end calls were also similar, so Ma Zichen's work wasn't very complicated and wouldn't take long.

After giving instructions, Wang Yan sat there and started planning the next step. The beginning of the plan naturally involved increasing staff and expanding the company, so he was recruiting.

There were, of course, many application scenarios for artificial intelligence—smart homes, biometrics, etc. However, to do those things, hardware support was still needed. Although he could outsource production, without brand recognition, doing such things was quite difficult. Moreover, those products couldn't reflect the high level of his technology. Another reason was that the things consumers needed in their daily lives were all part of big companies' ecosystems; he didn't have an ecosystem, which was the problem. If he could really make money easily, did they think he wouldn't do it?

The problem now was that his artificial intelligence couldn't reach consumers; people didn't know who this "Wang" person was. Of course, he never wanted to be famous; he just wanted to establish the company's brand, let people know what his company did, and know that his company's technology was very good. So, he needed a product that would appear on consumers' mobile terminals—that is, mobile phones—in the current mobile internet era to introduce their company.

This product needed to apply artificial intelligence to interact with users while also having a certain level of fun. Thus, a product similar to a personal intelligent butler with game and entertainment qualities was born.

Currently, artificial intelligence was "mentally challenged." Although his intelligence was also "mentally challenged," he could ensure that ordinary people wouldn't be able to tell at all, which was the most important point. Every mobile phone had an artificial intelligence voice assistant that collected user data and analyzed user habits to facilitate people's lives.

What he wanted to do was replace this assistant that nobody usually used. The method was to develop a high-freedom daily management and cultivation game, allowing the player's character to break the fourth wall, come out of the game, and take over the phone. It could achieve interaction and manage the phone; if it could improve the phone's performance to a certain extent, that would be even better.

And this game would be developed as much as possible according to the real world, allowing for free conversation, shopping, construction, etc. If his technology could one day truly realize a "true virtual world," then this game would be that world.

Of course, he didn't know how long it would take to succeed. But replacing the voice assistant on the phone shouldn't be a big problem. After all, who could refuse a virtual character jumping around on their phone? Just like "stealing vegetables" back in the day, this would be about "watching over a virtual person eating"...

To develop a game, he needed an engine responsible for rendering, physics, and a series of implementations, as well as application engine developers, design personnel who needed inspiration, and so on.

Of course, Wang Yan couldn't play that game now. The reason was simple: he didn't have that much money. So he was just finding a few engine developers to come over and work on the foundation.

Actually, he had ready-made game engines on his hard drive, both 2D and 3D, but he couldn't take them out. It was the same old story: the resume didn't match. He could be a genius, but he couldn't be a genius who suddenly appeared out of nowhere with everything ready. After all, the perverted Body-Strengthening Pill was already impossible to explain.

To have money, he had to wait until he officially built the factory and started professional production. Because he was currently doing everything by hand, there were still some problems. It was just because they were currently relying on phone calls one by one, word of mouth, and the fact that it was indeed miraculous—even the price was an insult to the efficacy—that he could safely do it by hand. Moreover, although he could get over two million a month, it was only a few hundred consumers, and it couldn't even be considered influential.

Once he officially built the factory and started production, he wouldn't be short of money. He would take out loans and leverage debt; the bank's money would be his money.

Currently, he was still a makeshift team and couldn't recruit top-tier talent, but he wasn't in a hurry. He would put the conditions out there; what if a wild one appeared? In addition, he was also investigating technical players from various major game companies, targeting people first so he could get everything in place at once. It was just right now; he would look through those codes and functions first, create 20% of the core, and get the framework done so that work would be fast later.

He couldn't find top technical talent, and he wasn't in a hurry. But he wasn't idle either; he recruited two accountants to be responsible for the financial and tax work of the two companies. Previously, the financial work for these two companies had been handled by an accounting firm. Now that his monthly turnover was quite large, he should have his own accountants.

For such a small company, he didn't need those high-and-mighty people; having a certificate and being able to practice was enough. The company's financial work wasn't very complicated, and ordinary people could do it. It was the same: lots of money, few things to do. He didn't intend to get into anything messy; it was very safe.

One of the two was older and experienced, and the other was younger and just had a junior certificate. The older one was in charge, and the younger one ran errands and learned—it couldn't be better.

Just like that, over half a month passed, and as expected, the message from the "Living Ancestor" arrived on schedule.

"《Shinjuku Incident》 A-Watching Ajie: Live well."

Live. And live well.

Wang Yan frowned. This kid was so hard to satisfy. He stopped what he was doing, closed the programming interface on the computer, logged into the video software, and searched. It showed no resources, only some clips uploaded by users.

He didn't care, tapped away on the computer for a while, found the resources, downloaded them, and started watching.

《Shinjuku Incident》 is about... as usual, Baidu it...

After watching, Wang Yan knew why the video software didn't have it. The subject matter was relatively sensitive, bloody, and violent; it hadn't even been released domestically.

As for this task, A-Watching Ajie was indeed quite miserable—his face was scarred, his hand was cut off, and his hand was even roasted on an iron plate. One could only say that fate was cruel. "Live well"—although the requirement was quite high, it wasn't impossible; he would just have to support him. That was the job he did; otherwise, what else could he do?

However, Wang Yan quite liked the background of this movie: Tokyo, Japan. Although they were all gangsters, he had stepped into the Japanese gangster circle more than once. But whenever he was a gangster, he was the boss, and he didn't move easily; his subordinates went out to do things. This time, he was going in person, which was a bit different. Thinking about it, it was quite interesting. After all, he had always been a nationalist...

Wang Yan smiled, checked some information, and when he returned home in the evening and Wei Lan was fast asleep, he got up gently and went to the study. Without hesitation, he skillfully pulled out the panel, operated, and selected... ===== CHAPTER 528 =====