Zhou Heng scratched his head. How should he put it? The name felt completely unfamiliar. Even when he tried to think of anyone connected to it, nothing came to mind.
Zhou Heng turned to Zhang Xuan and asked.
“I’ve never heard that name before. Should we call Lu Yile in? When it comes to finding people, he definitely knows his stuff.”
Zhang Xuan shook his head, a few traces of gloom settling over the boy’s face.
“There’s no need to get Lu Yile. I know Chu Ji.”
“Well, I only know of him. That’s why I don’t get it—how could someone like him have anything to do with you, Zhou Heng?”
Zhou Heng was confused.
“What do you mean, Zhang Xuan?”
Zhang Xuan shrugged.
“I mean exactly what I said. He and we aren’t from the same world. Even if you accidentally offended him, he shouldn’t come after you. It’d be beneath him.”
Among Zhou Heng, Zhang Xuan, and Lu Yile, Zhang Xuan’s family was the wealthiest. His father was the boss of a small company, earning close to a million yuan a year. His mother was a senior beautician at a well-known beauty company, with an annual salary of several hundred thousand.
But even a wealthy family like his was, at its core, much like the families of Zhou Heng and Lu Yile. All three belonged to the ordinary classes of society.
Chu Ji was different.
Zhang Xuan looked Zhou Heng in the eye and spoke seriously.
“If this society has an upper class, Chu Ji probably belongs to it. You know Lianwei Technology Co., Ltd., right?”
Zhou Heng nodded.
“The publicly listed company with the highest output value in the city?”
Zhang Xuan nodded.
“I’m not good at Chinese, so I don’t know how to describe just how impressive this company is. Anyway, Lianwei Technology Co., Ltd. has the highest output value in the city. Its chairman, who controls 65% of its shares, is definitely one of the three richest people here. And that top-three rich guy is Chu Ji’s dad.”
Zhou Heng sucked in a sharp breath.
“He’s that powerful? N-no, wait. Why would someone that powerful bother with an ordinary guy like me?”
Zhang Xuan nodded in agreement.
“That’s what I think, too. Why would someone like Chu Ji get worked up over a guy like you? Isn’t that embarrassing?”
Then the two of them turned to look at Tang De.
Tang De immediately shouted,
“You weren’t the ones who started it! It was Wang Ping. That guy went after the girl Chu Ji likes.”
Apparently afraid Zhou Heng would keep making him “wash his face,” Tang De blurted out everything he knew.
“You know Yang Yun from Class 5, Grade 11, right? She’s one of the top three beauties in the whole school. It’s not just that she’s pretty—her family’s an old, distinguished family with a long tradition of scholarship. She’s really famous. Chu Ji fell for senior Yang Yun at first sight as soon as he enrolled. For months, he pursued her fiercely, but she never once gave him the time of day.”
“Then Wang Ping showed up. Supposedly, when he saw Chu Ji couldn’t win senior Yang Yun over, he made a bet with the people around him and said Chu Ji’s family had been dirty for three generations, that they’d made their fortune in organized crime. Senior Yang Yun was a young lady from a family of scholars—how could she ever be interested in Chu Ji? Wang Ping, on the other hand, had a clean family background for three generations. He said he was sure he could win her over.”
“Chu Ji could’ve put up with Wang Ping pursuing senior Yang Yun too. But once Wang Ping dragged his parents into it, Chu Ji couldn’t take it anymore. So he found two thugs and planned to teach Wang Ping a proper lesson about how trouble comes from running his mouth.”
Zhou Heng quickly cut in.
“Were those two thugs Wang Yang and Xu Jin?”
Tang De gave an awkward laugh.
“Yeah. Boss Zhou, you’re something else. You beat up the underlings Master Chu Ji sent over. Do you know what those two told Chu Ji? They said you were backing Wang Ping, and that Chu Ji should know his place and stay out of your territory.”
Tang De had already put it very delicately. After those two thugs got beaten up by Zhou Heng and failed to carry out Chu Ji’s orders, they naturally dumped all the blame on Zhou Heng so Chu Ji wouldn’t be disappointed in them. They’d said every nasty thing they could think of about him.
And just like that, Zhou Heng had earned Chu Ji’s hatred.
Zhou Heng let go of Tang De’s neck. Once Tang De had stood up, Zhou Heng asked,
“How can you prove what you’re saying is true?”
Even if it was only one last attempt to struggle against it, Zhou Heng really didn’t want to face someone he had absolutely no way of dealing with.
Tang De took out his phone, found a number in his contacts, and called. Once the other person picked up, he said in a familiar tone,
“Hey, Brother Wang Yang! How’d things go with what we talked about yesterday?”
“How do you think? Once that kid Zhou Heng sees the evidence, he’ll bow his head and admit he was wrong. Heh, I thought he was something special. What a disappointment.”
Tang De pointed at the phone for Zhou Heng. Zhou Heng lowered his voice.
“Ask him about Chu Ji.”
Tang De nodded and ingratiatingly said,
“So after you pay him back this time, did Young Master Chu Ji say whether he wants to keep dealing with that piece of trash, Zhou Heng?”
