Chapter 4

Zhang Chun stood rooted to the spot, stunned. She’d never expected the usually mild-mannered Liu Xun to be so blunt.

He turned and went another way. Biting her lip, she leaned close to Cai Lingling and whispered, “Look at that attitude! And he still wants to chase you? Those limited-edition shoes alone cost almost four thousand yuan. Everything together must be at least ten thousand. Just wait till he sees the bill. He’ll be dumbstruck!”

Cai Lingling was furious too, and an indefinable irritation churned inside her. She snorted. “Who cares if he chases me? If he wants to embarrass himself, he deserves it!”

“Wait, you don’t think he’s secretly from a rich family, do you?”

“How could he be? We’ve known him for three years. He wears Peak and Li-Ning, not even Nike, and he buys his milk tea at Bifengtang. What kind of rich kid is that?”

“I know him. He just wants to show off in front of us, but too bad…”

Before she could finish, Liu Xun reached the register. The sales associate folded the clothes, scanned the tags, and smiled. “Sir, four T-shirts, two pairs of trousers, and one pair of shoes come to thirteen thousand two hundred yuan.”

In Qingdu in 2010, that was enough to make an ordinary family gasp.

A short distance away, Zhang Chun’s lips curled in anticipation. She could hardly wait to see Liu Xun sweating with embarrassment. Cai Lingling watched his back, sneering inwardly.

The scene they expected never came. Liu Xun didn’t even frown. He took out a bank card and handed it over.

“Put it on the card.”

The associate accepted it with both hands and operated the terminal. It beeped, and a receipt slid out.

“The transaction went through, sir. Please sign here.” She offered the receipt and pen with both hands, her smile a little more sincere than before.

Liu Xun signed with a flourish, tucked the card into his inner pocket, and accepted several Armani shopping bags. The entire transaction was effortless. Carrying the heavy bags, he walked away without a backward glance.

Zhang Chun and Cai Lingling stood frozen like statues. After a long silence, Zhang Chun spoke in a dry voice. “Lingling… looks like Liu Xun really is a rich kid in disguise.”

“I don’t know. He told me before that his parents worked down south…”

Cai Lingling’s thoughts were a mess. In high school, Liu Xun had been one of the boys girls occasionally mentioned when discussing the handsome guys in class. Having someone like him pursue her so devotedly had been a source of pride.

But she’d never really felt anything for him. There had always seemed to be something missing, some quality that could truly move her. Just now, though, watching him pay so casually, she’d felt a sharp sting in her chest.

……

After leaving Armani, Liu Xun went to Meida Watch City. At the time, brands like Rolex and Breguet didn’t yet have their own stores here; their watches were sold at authorized multibrand counters.

Plenty of people were browsing, but most only looked through the glass. Prices of tens of thousands of yuan were astronomical to an ordinary family, and few actually bought anything. Among several middle-aged men, Liu Xun attracted no attention.

Nearby, a balding man in a short-sleeved shirt was gesticulating and haggling noisily with a sales associate. While she was occupied, Liu Xun scanned the display and settled on a green Rolex Submariner.

At the time, the green model was unpopular compared with the black one. The black version was in such demand that buyers had to join a waiting list; the green could be bought on the spot. Once it became a craze online in later years, he might even make a little profit.

Not that he cared whether he made money on the watch. He expected his stock investment to earn him an average of 120,000 yuan a day. In his previous life, he’d coveted this watch for far too long.

“Excuse me. I’ll take this one. Card, please.”

The associate seemed not to hear him, still locked in her argument with the balding man. Liu Xun wasn’t offended. He simply raised his voice and repeated himself.

She finally turned. “Rolex Submariner, reference 116610LV. Twenty-eight thousand yuan!”

“Card.”

“Sir, there’s no discount on this model. Perhaps you’d like to look at…”

“Card.”

“Right away! Here’s your receipt!”

Liu Xun fastened the green Submariner around his wrist. The metal bracelet felt cool against his skin, giving him an unfamiliar sense of reassurance.

He left the watch center and went straight into the Apple store next door. After he told the owner what he wanted, the man led him into a small stockroom. The door closed, shutting out the music and noise outside.

“Hong Kong iPhone 4, 32 gigabytes, eighty-six hundred. US version, 32 gigabytes, sixty-four hundred.”

Liu Xun knew the iPhone 4 wasn’t on sale in mainland China yet. The Hong Kong version was unlocked and ready to use with a SIM card. The US version was locked and could only be unlocked with software for now; a careless system update would turn it into a brick.

“Hong Kong version, 32 gigabytes. Card.”

He didn’t hesitate for a second. He wasn’t an Apple devotee; Android phones of this era were simply too unpleasant to use.

After paying, he inserted his SIM card and activated the phone. He connected to the store’s Wi-Fi and downloaded QQ. With a familiar double cough, the app loaded.

Cai Lingling’s chat was pinned at the top, with more than twenty new messages. He couldn’t be bothered to read them and opened his mother’s messages instead.

“Xun, school starts tomorrow. Don’t spend all your time playing. Settle down and take care of yourself.”

His nose prickled. His parents had gone south for work when he was in high school. They held management jobs rather than doing physical labor on an assembly line, but they were still so busy they only made it home a few times a year.

Before his rebirth, they’d long since retired and were always nagging him about grandchildren. Unfortunately, he hadn’t managed to give them any. The old couple couldn’t sit still; they kept picking up odd jobs at hot pot restaurants, saying the extra money would give him a better chance on blind dates.

They’d had so little comfort in their lives.

After a moment, Liu Xun typed back: “Don’t worry, Mom. Soon you won’t have to work down there anymore. When you come home, I’ll find eight wives to take care of you both!”