Chapter 3

Jiang Luo found himself laughing at how he used to be. He even flashed a smile, raised a brow at the girl, and tossed out a casual line:
“Your eye shadow looks great today.”

The girl giggled and playfully scolded him. “When does it not look great?”

She went back to her work, and Jiang Luo headed inside.

The moment he stepped in, he entered a fairly large hall.
The dance lights weren’t on yet—only the regular ceiling lights, dim and warm. The place was decorated in dark tones, so the whole room looked shadowy.

He swept a glance across the space and spotted several guys lounging in the long booth near the center.

As he approached, memories clicked into place—he roughly remembered who these people were.

He walked over and greeted them. “Bro Chu, Bro Lu, Bro Yu.”

He silently snorted to himself.
Listen well—give it two more days and you won’t get to hear me call you “bro” anymore.
Next time, you’ll be calling me Young Master Jiang.

“Oh, you’re here early today.”

Jiang Luo didn’t sit down—not because there wasn’t space, but because he simply didn’t feel like it. He came for Huazi, nothing else.

He asked right away, “Huazi isn’t here?”

“In his office,” one of them replied. After saying it, he exchanged a mischievous look with the guy beside him.

Jiang Luo didn’t notice and didn’t overthink it, assuming the office wasn’t off limits. He headed straight there based on his memory.

As soon as he left, the group behind him watched his back.

When he was out of earshot, one guy said, “Why mess with him? He’s just a kid.”

The one who’d pointed him toward the office snorted. “So what? It’s just teasing a kid. It’s not a crime.”

“What, you gonna drag me out to be executed?”

They burst out laughing.
They were street punks—slick, hardened, and they never took someone like Jiang Luo seriously.

Meanwhile, Jiang Luo reached the office next to the staff locker room and stopped.

He could hear it—heavy breathing, a woman’s faint moans. Very soft, but unmistakable. He instantly understood what Huazi was doing inside.

He also remembered—last life, they pulled this exact trick on him. He’d knocked on the door, ruined Huazi’s fun, and got cursed out while Huazi pulled his pants up.

Messing with him, huh?

Jiang Luo sneered inwardly.

He didn’t knock. Instead, he leaned against the locker room doorframe and waited quietly.

He didn’t wait long—after a low, muffled groan and the woman’s breathy whimper, he knew they were done. He stepped back into the locker room.

Soon the office door opened. A waft of cheap perfume drifted out as the woman walked away on clicking heels.

Only after she left did Jiang Luo step out. He went to the office door, knocked twice, and called, “Huazi.”

“Come in.”

Jiang Luo pushed the door open.

A man around thirty with a pitted face and dark skin was sitting behind the desk lighting a cigarette. When he saw Jiang Luo, he exhaled a cloud of smoke and jerked his chin. “What’s up?”

The room reeked of cheap perfume, smoke, and something musky. Jiang Luo waved a hand lightly in front of his nose but didn’t show anything on his face. He smiled. “Must be nice being the boss.”

Lu Fuhua understood exactly what he was referring to. Leaning back, smoking smugly, he chuckled. “What, you jealous? With that face of yours, you’ll have girls lining up for you.”

“You’ll get your fun soon enough.”

Then he asked, “So? What do you need?”

Jiang Luo walked up to the desk, not beating around the bush. “Huazi, I want to borrow some money.”

Borrow money?

Lu Fuhua raised a brow. “How much?”

Then added, “And what’s a kid like you borrowing money for?”

Standing in front of the desk, Jiang Luo didn’t explain what for. “I want to borrow five thousand. If five isn’t possible, two or three thousand works.”

“I’ll pay you back in seven days at the fastest, one month at the latest.”

“If you lend me five thousand, I’ll return six thousand.”

“If you lend me two thousand, I’ll give back twenty-five hundred.”

“I can sign an IOU.”

Lu Fuhua smoked and arched a brow. “What kind of trick did you find that lets you turn five thousand into six in just days? Even loan sharks don’t pay that much.”

Jiang Luo didn’t flinch. “Can you lend it to me? If yes, I’ll write the IOU. If not, forget it—I’ll find another way.”

Lu Fuhua narrowed his eyes. “Let me ask you again—what for?”

“What’re you doing with it?”

“How can money multiply like that?”

“Can’t tell me?”

“I can.”

Jiang Luo said it calmly. “Stock trading.”

Stock trading?

Lu Fuhua snorted. “Those few stocks—up, down, down, up. How many people actually make money?”

He knew stocks; he knew every path where people tried to flip cash.
But he didn’t believe for a second that stocks made money—he’d tried himself and lost a lot. He’d hated the market ever since.

He took a few long drags and finished his cigarette fast, crushing it into the ashtray. He advised, “Kid, give it up. Stocks? You’ll lose everything you own before you know it.”

“You think you buy and it magically goes up so you profit?”

“You ever think it can fall? Fall all the way to zero?”

Jiang Luo thought, That’s because you don’t know how to buy.

It was 1990—April. You could buy and sell stocks, but the Shanghai Stock Exchange wasn’t officially open yet, and neither was the Shenzhen one.

People in the future only know that Maotai costs thousands per share, but they don’t know that in this era, once the Shanghai exchange fully liberalized prices, the index shot from 600 to 1400 in just five days, and a stock called Yuyuan Mall would later blast upward to an unprecedented 10,000 points.

The “five thousand becomes ten thousand” he mentioned? Absolutely doable.

Once he had ten thousand, he could double it again.

Twenty thousand becomes forty thousand. Forty becomes eighty. Money compounding endlessly.

He’d been reborn into this era.
He was absolutely determined to ride this wave and seize his own brilliance.

Lu Fuhua, meanwhile, was thinking about something entirely different.

A couple of days ago—just two days—his cousin, the real owner of Oriental No. 1, told him that he had an important “friend,” apparently very interested in Jiang Luo. He told Lu Fuhua to think of a way—spend money if necessary—to let Jiang Luo “keep that friend company.”

How to “keep company,” exactly?
No need to spell it out. Lu Fuhua knew perfectly well.

He wondered why all these rich bosses nowadays were so obsessed with backdoor entertainment.
Aren’t women better?

If it were a woman, he had a hundred ways to arrange it. But Jiang Luo…

He thought about it—he couldn’t drug the kid and dump him on someone’s bed. That wasn’t what his cousin wanted; his cousin wanted Jiang Luo to “willingly” accompany the man.

And Jiang Luo was a normal guy—barely eighteen, full of hot blood. How could he possibly be willing?

Since he had other things to deal with lately, he temporarily set the matter aside and forgot about it.

Now Jiang Luo came looking for him and brought up money, which reminded him. His mind started working.

“小姜啊。”

Lu Fuhua beckoned him. “Come here, sit. Since you’re here, I actually have something to discuss with you too.”

Jiang Luo took the seat across from him, staying alert and thinking hard. He tried to remember whether something like this had happened in his previous life.

He wasn’t sure. It was all too long ago.

Lu Fuhua took out another cigarette and handed one to Jiang Luo. Jiang Luo took it and put it between his lips but didn’t light it, leaving the lighter on the table.

Lu Fuhua didn’t mind. He lit his own, took a drag, and said, “Here’s the thing. Our club’s owner—my cousin—has a close friend who recently came to Haicheng.”

“You know my cousin. He’s busy. Lots of business.”

“So he was thinking of finding someone dependable, young, sharp, to show his friend around the city.”

Jiang Luo’s mind moved fast.
The “showing around” here didn’t mean sightseeing. It meant being taken to bed.

He sneered internally.
No one gets to sleep with me unless I want them to. Who do they think they are?

He also thought back—did this ever happen last life?
He didn’t remember it at all.
If something this outrageous had happened when he was still acting like a straight guy who spent his days chasing girls, he would’ve exploded. There was no way he’d forget.

Jiang Luo didn’t beat around the bush. “Huazi, I’m not selling my ass.”

Lu Fuhua paused. He knew the kid was sharp, but not this sharp—he figured it out instantly.

Lu Fuhua was direct too; he wasn’t the type to mince words.

He raised a finger. “Go keep him company. Just a few days. I’ll give you a thousand.”

“Give, not lend. You don’t pay it back.”

“And that friend of my cousin’s is loaded. He won’t be stingy. If you make him happy, he’ll definitely reward you.”