Chapter 14: It's You

Young men Chen Yan's age usually don't care much about things like jade. He only remembered that near the University City in the east of the city, two streets away, there was a district of imitation ancient architecture, a traditional folk tourism zone planned by the government.

There was an antique street there, with a few jade shops—when he was in university before, he occasionally went to play near that area with classmates on holidays.

He called a ride-hailing car, and as Chen Yan headed toward the antique street, sitting in the car, he thought to himself whether he should consider buying a car.

He had solved the housing issue, living in such a huge mansion. It was comfortable, certainly, but that place was actually a bit remote; the wealthy people in the compound all came and went in private cars.

Money is a man's courage. With seven figures in savings on his card and gold worth eight figures in the Hong City vault, Chen Yan felt restless.

However... when the ride-hailing car was driving and nearly two streets away from the folk tourism zone, it got stuck in traffic... after all, it was near the end of the year, and there were many tourists.

Chen Yan immediately gave up the idea of buying a car.

For instance right now, encountering a traffic jam, stuck dead in the road.

If he were driving himself, he would inevitably get anxious and angry.

If he were a passenger, he could just sit in the back row and play on his phone.

Moreover, he wouldn't have to worry about parking every time he arrived somewhere.

Well, actually, this fellow Chen Yan was quite lazy.

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The flow of people inside the tourism zone was bustling.

It was near the end of the year, the number of tourists was considerable, and with the Western Christmas in two days plus the New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, almost all merchants were launching various holiday promotions, discounts, and customer appreciation events.

And in the nearby University City, many students with nothing to do before winter break liked to wander around here.

It was now afternoon; Chen Yan followed the crowd into the tourism zone, first casually buying a skewer of candied hawthorn—he had loved sweet and sour things since childhood.

Unfortunately, he took one bite and spat it out.

The black-hearted merchants in the scenic area used inferior hawthorns inside the candied hawthorn; they were both sour and astringent.

Nevertheless, the lively atmosphere of the end of the year still made the whole street look full of life, with merchants' various energetic promotional slogans and signs, the noise of tourists...

For a moment, it even made Chen Yan almost forget what he had come here to do.

Passing a popular milk tea shop he had seen online, there was a very long queue at the entrance.

Just as Chen Yan walked past, he suddenly heard a familiar voice calling him.

"Brother! Brother!"

Chen Yan stopped, turned his head, and saw a tall, thin boy waving at him, then running out of the queue in three quick steps.

"Brother!" the boy said, smiling and patting Chen Yan's shoulder: "It really is you! I thought I saw wrong just now."

"Yo! President Zhao!" Chen Yan said with a smile, greeting him.

"What president, just Xiao Zhao, Xiao Zhao!" the boy nodded and bowed respectfully.

This Xiao Zhao was an alumnus one year junior to Chen Yan; when they were at school, the two were quite close.

"Brother, why did you come here? Aren't you working today?" Xiao Zhao was very enthusiastic.

Chen Yan shook his head; he didn't want to explain in detail about leaving before the internship period ended, so he vaguely said, "Today is a day off," then asked back: "What about you? No classes?"

Xiao Zhao chuckled; he was lean and thin, with no flesh on his face, and when he smiled, he looked a bit sleazy: "No classes, came here to work."

Saying this, he pointed to the milk tea shop behind him.

Chen Yan laughed: "Taking a job to stand in line?"

"Yeah, I gathered the heads, brought over a dozen classmates, fifty yuan per head."

Xiao Zhao didn't hide anything, and Chen Yan nodded familiarly.

Many popular shops are actually hyped up with fake heat; they pay people to pretend to queue, creating a false impression of "customers filling the store, exploding popularity, hugely welcomed," then hype it up.

And since the University City is nearby, students on campus are low-cost labor, so recruiting heads is cheap.

Chen Yan had done this kind of work many times before at school, earning some pocket money—often together with this Xiao Zhao right in front of him.

The difference is, Chen Yan only came occasionally to earn some pocket money, while Xiao Zhao was the leader of a small group of part-time workers on campus.

Xiao Zhao was a sharp person; although he looked a bit sleazy, his character wasn't bad, and his heart wasn't black. Most importantly, he knew how to handle things—he could always find temporary jobs others couldn't find.

As the leader, he never cheated his fellow students; even when taking a cut, he charged less than others, which made many students willing to work with him.

Actually, back then, Chen Yan was initially curious why Xiao Zhao was so good at getting jobs and leading people.

Later, after the two became close, he asked around and found out that Xiao Zhao's parents were leaders of extras groups in Hengdian.

No wonder; it was family tradition.

While at school, Xiao Zhao had already expanded his business to levels many on-campus work groups couldn't reach.

His business scope ranged from acting as decoys queuing for shops to distributing flyers in residential compounds, all sorts of things.

He even inherited the family tradition, leading classmates to expand their business into the entertainment industry.

During a summer vacation before, he took dozens of classmates to Hengdian; under his parents' connections, he led the classmates to work as extras in Hengdian for over twenty days, playing government soldiers in the morning, mountain bandits in the afternoon, Japanese invaders during the day, and eunuchs at night.

Among them, two female classmates, because of their fair looks and good temperament, even managed to get two lines of dialogue in a play.

One line: "Young master, this doesn't seem right..."

One line: "Master, you can't!"

Chen Yan couldn't even imagine how chaotic the plot of that play must have been!

Anyway, Xiao Zhao's business scope was all over the place; he could always help classmates get various money-making orders, and he could also negotiate the best prices, earning him the nickname: President Zhao.

By all rights, with such skills, Xiao Zhao should have been extremely popular at school, with a group of juniors and junior sisters following behind him, kissing up to him.

But he always treated Chen Yan with great respect, calling him "Brother" every time he opened or closed his mouth.

The two had met while doing part-time jobs; originally their relationship was average, neither close nor distant. However, one time everyone went to Jiangbei as a group to act as decoys.

On the way back, to save money, they didn't take a vehicle but chose to cross the river by ferry.

When the ferry was about to dock, Xiao Zhao leaned over the ship's railing to look at the scenery; somehow he got jostled, flipped over, and fell into the river water.

He himself was a landlubber; after falling into the water, he could only flail blindly, and although the people on the boat were making a huge fuss, no one dared to jump in to save him.

At that time, Chen Yan dove straight into the water, hauled little Zhao out in a few strokes, then, almost by grabbing his hair, dragged him hard onto the shore.

Children raised in the countryside of Jiangnan mostly had good swimming skills.

After this incident, little Zhao showed Chen Yan great respect, never addressing him by his full name again, always calling him "Brother" upon opening his mouth.

Later, the friendship between the two gradually grew stronger.

Little Zhao befriended Chen Yan naturally because of the debt of saving his life.

And Chen Yan valued the other person because he felt this person knew how to be grateful.

Since childhood, Old Grandma had taught Chen Yan: a person who knows how to be grateful cannot be bad.

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After exchanging pleasantries with Chen Yan, little Zhao pulled over a student who had just "bought" milk tea at the milk tea shop, took that cup of milk tea from the other's hand, and stuffed it into Chen Yan's hand.

"Brother, treat you to this. The taste is okay; I've had several cups these past two days."

Chen Yan didn't like drinking milk tea, but since it was given by little Zhao, he accepted it with a smile: "Let's have a meal together this weekend."

"Great! But not this week. I took a job this weekend, leading people to the airport to act as fake fans welcoming a celebrity."

Well, President Zhao indeed has many business dealings.

Chen Yan and little Zhao chatted by the roadside for a few minutes; before parting, he secretly opened his Heavenly Eye and used the Art of Observing Qi to scan little Zhao's fortune.

Seeing that little Zhao's recent luck was good, with no black qi or bad luck detected, he left with peace of mind.

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After bidding farewell to little Zhao, Chen Yan strolled casually for a few hundred meters and entered that antique street.

After walking into a few shops, Chen Yan was actually somewhat disappointed.

What real things could there be in an antique street within a scenic area?

And jade ware shops mostly sold crafts.

Let alone genuine high-grade materials, even much of the so-called ordinary jade material was over eighty percent fake.

Chen Yan casually scanned using techniques learned from the Artifact Identification Chapter and saw that many jade stones displayed in the counters were actually quartzite—a common material used to fake jade.

And some legitimate jade materials were extremely expensive; even the most ordinary low-grade Bai Yu, a jade plaque the size of a matchbox, cost at least several thousand yuan to start.

This trade is just like that.

Although Chen Yan knew he was being ripped off, he helplessly bought two jade plaques anyway, one Bai Yu and one green jade.

Tucking them in his pocket, he walked out of the Hu Yuqi shop and back; passing by that milk tea shop, he suddenly saw a crowd gathered there, with someone loudly scolding something.

Chen Yan's heart stirred; seeing among the crowd several students who looked like they were from his own school, they must all be shills accompanying little Zhao.

Chen Yan walked over quickly, parted the crowd, and saw little Zhao sitting on the ground, holding his forehead with his hand.

"What happened?"

Chen Yan immediately went over, squatted down, and reached out to pull little Zhao's hand.

"Should be nothing serious..." little Zhao waved his hand; after loosening his palm, Chen Yan saw a small crack on the skin and flesh at the corner of this fellow's eye, with a drop of blood oozing out.

The injury wasn't serious, but Chen Yan, upon seeing it, frowned and asked: "Who hit you?"

"No, no one hit me," little Zhao shook his head helplessly.

Chen Yan grew suspicious—just a moment ago, when he and little Zhao parted, he had specifically opened his Heavenly Eye and used the Art of Observing Qi to check him; he should have been smooth sailing, free of illness and disaster, recently.

And now, Chen Yan secretly used the Art of Observing Qi to look at little Zhao again and couldn't help but utter an "Eh."

Under the current Heavenly Eye, a faint, barely perceptible wisp of black qi hovered on little Zhao's forehead.

However, probably because the blood calamity was resolved, the black qi was dissipating rapidly; within just a few breaths, the black qi had vanished into nothingness, completely gone.

Chen Yan was stunned: according to the "Fortune Cycles," a person's fortune generally does not change abruptly without reason.

Unless you suddenly did something utterly heinous and inhumane, there is only a small probability that a person's fortune would undergo an abrupt change.

But in the short ten-plus minutes just now, could little Zhao possibly have gone out to bully men and women, or dug up someone's ancestral grave?

Or... did he just come into contact with some evil and ghostly thing?

Chen Yan's expression became solemn.

"I was standing there fine, then suddenly something flew down from an upstairs window and hit me."

Little Zhao had already climbed up from the ground: "Should be nothing serious now; I was sitting on the ground just now because, at the instant I was hit, my eyes went black, I thought I was blinded, and the scare made my legs go weak."

Speaking, little Zhao touched the wound at the corner of his eye, wincing in pain, his teeth bared, hissing as he drew in cool air.

The students accompanying little Zhao stood nearby, pointing at the upstairs window and loudly scolding.

It should be the second floor of a restaurant along the street.

The "weapon" that hit little Zhao was also found: a broken mobile phone smashed into four or five pieces on the ground.

Just at this moment, a figure ran quickly down the steps of the restaurant along the street.

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A thin, petite girl, her expression hurried, with anxiety and shame on her face.

She ran over in a flash; the girl's harmless-looking small face was full of regret and nervousness; before she even stood steady, she hurriedly apologized: "Sorry, sorry, really sorry, I didn't mean to..."

Before the girl finished speaking, she saw Chen Yan standing beside little Zhao, and her mouth suddenly froze; an expression of surprise appeared on her face—besides surprise, it seemed to carry a hint of fear.

Chen Yan studied the other person for two glances, then smiled: "It's you."

Upon hearing this, the girl's first reaction was to raise both hands and cover her nose.

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【Today's two updates are finished.

Please add this book to your bookshelf~】

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