Hu Xiaoniu looked at Qing Chen’s back as he left, feeling somewhat familiar.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen Qing Chen before, but he felt the attitude that he was giving.
It was the natural arrogance and fake politeness that they were giving before to other classmates.
That was surprising to Hu Xiaoniu, and as he looked at Qing Chen leaving the building, he said, “Don’t you think that something is weird?”
Zhang Tianzhen said, “Bai Waner and Wang Yun are both very beautiful and are his new neighbors, but he didn’t seem to have any interest in talking to them.”
“Yeah,” Wang Yun nodded, “Not like most boys who want to pursue us. He is more like avoiding us.”
“I asked Nan Gengchen, the person sitting next to him. He said for the past years, he had always been the top three students in the grade, so it’s natural for him to be a little cocky.” Bai Waner said as she smiled, “Godly students in our old school were also like this.”
Hu Xiaoniu smiled and shook his head, “Him, a top student in a small city, could not be compared to godly students back in our school.”
In fact, Hu Xiaoniu wasn’t saying this to make fun of people in Luo City, but the truth was that education resources in top-tier cities were much more abundant than in smaller cities.
Students of smaller cities could read English fine, but even students in the Luo City Foreign Language School couldn’t speak or listen well in English.
However, in larger cities, any student could speak English almost perfectly.
They probably had countless awards and were experiencing life in the north pole over the summer.
It was like living in two different worlds.
“Whatever, let’s not talk about this right now. We would just be neighbors at most,” said Wang Yun, “Let’s talk inside.”
As she talked, she already opened the door.
The workers already left, and the apartment looked freshly new.
There wasn’t a ton of renovations done on the interior, mainly because of the short notice the workers got, but they still managed to add a carpet to most parts of the space, and the walls were all coated with a protective material with new wallpaper.
For the four of them, it was barely enough to suit their living standards.
“You know, we could just stay in a hotel, why bother coming here? Our common target is Liu Dezhu, and Jiang Xue didn’t seem to be anything special as far as I can tell,” said Bai Waner.
Hu Xiaoniu answered, “Don’t be so short-sighted. Since we have decided to leave City 7 and head to City 18, we must try to make some friends who are currently living in the city. Didn’t you hear He Xiaoxiao’s recommendations? We need a team.”
Wang Yun is still a little unconvinced, “Why do you keep suggesting to build a good relationship with Liu Dezhu. In my opinion, it’s perfectly fine to buy information and resources from him directly.”
Zhang Tianzhen shook his head, “Since we chose to come to Luo City, then we must be prepared to endure some hardships. This is what Xiaoniu and I agreed upon since the beginning. Here at City 18, we have yet to build up a foundation, so what we can do is to use our power from the Outer World to affect the Inner World.
Hu Xiaoniu was the leader of the group. He nodded and said, “What we need to do is to keep a good relationship with Liu Dezhu, so everyone should refrain yourselves from your usual habits and mix in with the students. Although without money, we can’t do anything, we still can’t get everything with money. We need to understand that there are plenty of people who have more money than us, so once they started pouring in with money to buy resources from Liu Dezhu, relationships would be more important.
“Right, how are you doing over there? We planned for us to be in the same class, but they won’t let us because the class was full.” Wang Yun said.
Hu Xiaoniu said, “Liu Dezhu is quite easy to talk to, but he didn’t want to reveal much about the Inner World.”
Zhang Tianzhen said, “You think he’s easy to talk to, but in the end, you still didn’t get anything you wanted. He looked dumb, but was actually smart.”
“Yeah, that’s a good summary,” concluded Hu Xiaoniu.
“Oh,” Wang Yun suddenly said, “Have you heard that Yangyang is also planning to transfer.”
“Yangyang?” The others were shocked.
Yangyang was not a bizarre name.
It was plain and simple, but from their reactions, it was easy to tell that this name had its unique position in Hai City。
Zhang Tianzhen said, “Wait, I remember that Yangyang’s grandparents live here in Luo City. Would she end up in the same school as us?”
“Let’s talk about that later. I haven’t heard that Yangyang is a time traveler,” said Hu Xiaoniu, “Let’s go visit our new neighbors first.”
As he said that, he took out a delicate box and walked upstairs with the others.
Knock, knock, knock. Hu Xiaoniu knocked on the door.
A voice came from inside, “Xiaoyun, go open the door for me. Qing Chen might be here.”
Soon, Xiaoyun’s sweet voice approached, “Brother Qin Chen, I’m coming.”
The door opened.
Wang Yun smiled at the little girl and said, “Hi there.”
With a bang, the door closed again. Li Tongyun said from inside, “Mom, it’s not Brother Qing Chen.”
Jiang Xue asked, “Who is it then?”
Li Tongyun said, “Not important.”
The apartment door wasn’t soundproof, so Hu Xiaoniu could hear the cartoon playing on the TV inside and the previous conversation. Sure enough, the door wasn’t opened for them again.
Wang Yun and Bai Waner looked at each other, “Qing Chen… Why does this name sound so familiar?”
They didn’t even realize that their neighbors in this building consist of a direct descendant of the Li Corporation and the only student of Li Shutong. They spent all that effort moving here, yet their target was entirely wrong.
…
At this time, Qing Chen was standing in an alley in the northern part of the city.
The alley was an old one. The buildings were mostly traditional Chinese style. Beside the walkway, the walls were all gray with black roofing on top.
When it was raining, the raindrops would collect on the roof edges and slide down smoothly to the ground.
A gold shop had two red lanterns beside its doors and a blackboard that wrote: Buying gifts, gold, and herbs.
In a coat and cap, Qing Chen walked to the counter and asked, “How are you buying gold?”
An old man who was making a bamboo basket looked up and asked, “You got your receipt?”
“No,” said Qing Chen.
Receipt simply means a proof of purchase when buying gold that specified where the gold came from.
Normally, legal gold shops would always ask for a receipt. If the seller didn’t have it, most shops wouldn’t buy it.
The old man glanced at him and put down the basket in his hand, “It’s hard without receipts. If you really want to sell it to me, I’ll buy it for 2201, and I won’t ask where you got it from.
Today’s gold price was 380 yuan2 a gram.
Qing Chen thought about it and said, “Deal. I’ll sell 39 grams.”
That would add up to 8580 yuan3, a large enough sum of money for him to solve most of the problems he was having right now.
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