!!!
Wen Ran moved faster than he could think. Almost instantly, he reached out and grabbed Wen Pingping’s phone hand, quickly saying into the phone, “Wrong number—sorry about that,” and then hung up.
“Mom!!”
Wen Ran couldn’t understand how she could think Luo Xiao and the others were scammers. He hurried to explain, “They’re not scammers!”
“Don’t you remember? It wasn’t Luo Xiao who chased me—I chased him!”
“Luo Xiao does hiking, rock climbing, and independent travel—those hobbies burn money like crazy!”
“His brother stays in Kempinski suites, has a driver when he goes out, and rides in a Maybach!”
“His mom flew here on her family’s private jet!”
“What would they scam me for?”
“I told you—they’re really well-off!”
Wen Pingping, phone in hand and about to explode: “…?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Expensive hobbies?”
Wen Ran nodded.
“Kempinski? Driver? Maybach?”
He nodded again.
“Private jet?”
Another nod.
“Heh.”
Wen Pingping shook his hand off and took back her phone. “Do you even hear yourself?”
“Don’t you realize what you’re saying contradicts itself?”
“Rich, but fixes cars? Someone who fixes cars can get into Stan—”
“I took them yesterday to catch someone cheating, with Shang Ge and the others.”
That single sentence successfully cut Wen Pingping off.
You—
Just as Wen Pingping was about to erupt, Wen Ran hurriedly continued, “Afterward, Luo Xiao’s mom took all of us shopping. She paid for everything and even treated us to a buffet—four hundred per person.”
That made Wen Pingping pause again. This…
“Mom!”
Wen Ran pressed on. “It’s really not a romance scam.”
“Yesterday I casually picked out two outfits for Luo Xiao and spent over twenty thousand on Auntie’s card. She even thought I bought too little.”
“That buffet—over four hundred per person—we had at least fifteen people. That’s several thousand in food. She didn’t even blink when paying.”
“What kind of romance scam—”
Just then, the phone rang. It was a callback from the 110 dispatch desk. Wen Pingping answered, listened for two seconds, then said, “Sorry about that earlier—it was a misunderstanding.”
Hanging up, she ignored Wen Ran and sashayed briskly back toward the private room.
Standing at the door, phone already hung up, Wen Pingping smiled into the room and called out, “Have you all had some seafood?”
“Any dietary restrictions?”
“Do you eat spicy food?”
Once they were back outside again, Wen Pingping grabbed Wen Ran’s arm and said seriously as they walked, “I’ll believe you—for now.”
“If they’re scammers, or actors you hired…”
Wen Ran raised his hand to swear. “Then curse me to be single for life and never find true love.”
Wen Pingping dragged him off to order seafood. “It really was a Maybach? You didn’t misread the badge?”
“And that private jet—was it real?”
“Did you hear about it, or did you actually see the plane?”
“No wonder—I knew it. When I saw his mom in the elevator earlier, I could tell her outfit wasn’t cheap…”
“Mom, relax,” Wen Ran said soothingly.
When they finished ordering seafood and returned to the private room, Wen Pingping still wore a smile.
Wen Ran sat down. Luo Xiao looked at him: ?
Nothing.
Wen Ran whispered, “I ordered a huge king crab.”
Just then, the server came in and started setting down the cold dishes.
As the dishes were served, Wen Ran chatted with Luo Xiao and Luo Feng about the restaurant’s food. Meanwhile, Wen Pingping naturally resumed chatting and laughing with Ju Yaxin.
This time, though, Wen Pingping paid close attention. Out of the corner of her eye, she examined Ju Yaxin’s necklace and rings. When Ju Yaxin showed her photos of Luo Xiao on her phone, Wen Pingping scrutinized the details—what he was wearing, the background, the surroundings.
After looking, she saw that Ju Yaxin’s jewelry was real and clearly valuable. The photo backgrounds were all overseas, and Luo Xiao’s clothes as a student were indeed far from ordinary. Only then did Wen Pingping’s suspicion ease a little.
And she couldn’t be blamed.
A widow raising an only child, running a business in a big city—if she’d been naïve and careless, she’d have been stripped clean long ago.
If she hadn’t been vigilant, she’d have ended up like her old neighbors who were set up and swindled out of their massive relocation payouts.
And this was about marriage—about Wen Ran.
Scam her, she didn’t care.
But no one was allowed to scam Wen Ran.
He was her bottom line.
So once she realized Luo Xiao and the others weren’t scammers, Wen Pingping finally relaxed.
And once she relaxed, the thought that Wen Ran had found someone truly well-matched made her happy all over again—just as expected of her precious son! All that love she’d poured into him wasn’t wasted!
Wen Pingping was generous and open-hearted. As they ate and chatted, before long she said that since she had plenty of houses and cars anyway, it was fine—she’d cover the house and car.
Hearing that, Luo Xiao and Luo Feng both looked at her.
Seeing how generous Wen Pingping was, Ju Yaxin smiled. “That’s all flexible. You can pay, we can pay—it’s all for the kids to live in, after all.”
Then they talked about housing. “Our family does have a place here in C City, but it’s a shame—my husband and I don’t come often, so we hardly ever stay there.”
“Before, we thought Luo Feng could stay there when he came on business, but he found it too far and usually just stays in hotels.”
“Which property?”
Wen Pingping was picking at her food as she asked.
When Ju Yaxin mentioned Tan Palace, Wen Pingping froze for a split second. That was one of the top luxury residential compounds in the city. She started wondering just what kind of family background the Luo family had—to own a place there and not even live in it.
She thought her own family was already well-off, but nowhere near rich enough to live in Tan Palace.
Anyone living there had to be a tycoon.
Then she remembered Wen Ran saying Ju Yaxin had flown in on a private jet, and—
Wen Pingping thought to herself: Tycoons?
No way.
These days, as her friends often said, if your kid’s marriage runs into someone truly well-matched, that already means your ancestors’ graves are smoking with good fortune.
Tycoons?
Wen Ran, that walking abstraction, could pull something like that off?
Impossible.
Wen Pingping rejected the idea outright.
She didn’t like indulging in fantasies.
Better to stay grounded.
But Ju Yaxin happened to be a woman who was both practical and delicate, with a streak of romanticism.
She was smart and perceptive. She could tell at a glance that Wen Pingping—who had raised Wen Ran alone—was the strong, no-nonsense type, and she also knew Wen Ran’s family was fairly well-off. So she began to “show off her wealth,” subtly and without fanfare.
This kind of showing off wasn’t about vanity at all—it was pure mating instinct.
Ju Yaxin had already thought it through. Luo Xiao didn’t work, had no real career, wandered around all day, and practically lived like a drifter. Wen Ran, on the other hand, was beautiful and came from a good family. If she didn’t reveal at least some of their financial strength, how could a flash marriage possibly happen?
Especially since she dreamed of both her sons settling down as soon as possible.
So before coming today, Ju Yaxin had carefully chosen a set of jewelry—low-key, elegant, and very expensive.
As they chatted and Wen Pingping started bringing up housing, Ju Yaxin naturally mentioned the luxury property under her name and began to display the family’s means.
With an easy, casual tone, she added, “The house doesn’t really matter. Since there are options, let the kids choose for themselves—wherever they like. If they don’t like what’s already there, we can always buy a new one.”
“Before coming, I even looked online. I saw a development here in C City called something like ‘Jun-something Residence.’ It’s still under construction, but the units seem pretty nice.”
“And it’s not that expensive—just one or two hundred million. When the time comes—”
Ju Yaxin was still talking cheerfully and relaxed when Luo Xiao and Luo Feng, upon hearing the phrase “just one or two hundred million,” both instinctively looked at her.
Just?
One or two hundred million?
Mrs. Ju’s pure, romantic tendencies were acting up again?
No matter how you sliced it, one or two hundred million was not something you described as “just.”
What they didn’t know was that Ju Yaxin was putting on a full display for her son’s courtship—because that’s what moms do.
She was like this, and so was Wen Pingping.
Both of them were doing it for their sons.
Wen Ran, meanwhile, reacted just fine—mostly because he wasn’t really listening. He didn’t think about it much at all.
He was busy picking food for Luo Xiao, studying which dishes tasted good and what Luo Xiao liked.
Only Wen Pingping was truly stunned by that line: “just one or two hundred million.”
O-one or two… hundred… million? Just?
Wen Pingping smiled and said, “Luo Xiao’s mom, can your family really take out that much cash to buy a house? Your family situation must be really good.”
She was genuinely puzzled.
Ju Yaxin was genuinely showing off.
She replied, “It’s decent enough. Mainly because the family business is pretty big, and my husband makes good money.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Wen Pingping said as she used the serving chopsticks to put food on Ju Yaxin’s plate, speaking as she did so, “what line of work is your family in?”
That rich.
A place in Tan Palace they didn’t even live in, casually pulling out a couple hundred million.
“Didn’t Ranran tell you?”
Ju Yaxin knew better than to expect anything from Luo Xiao—that blockhead definitely hadn’t said a word. So she deliberately took out her phone while speaking. “Have you heard of Leo Group?”
“That’s my husband’s company.”
She handed over the phone as she spoke, showing Wen Pingping some photos. “This is my husband. And this one’s him speaking at a meeting, up on stage.”
Leo Group?
Wen Pingping looked at the screen. First she saw the photo: a man in a suit and tie, standing onstage, speaking, with a screen as large as a movie-theater backdrop behind him.
Then Ju Yaxin swiped away from the photo to a browser page—an encyclopedia entry that read: Leo Group, a multinational corporation headquartered in Singapore…
There was a lot of text. Wen Pingping skimmed it, quickly grasping that Leo was a massive international company with operations all over the world.
Then she saw that the current CEO and chairman listed on the page had the surname Luo—Luo Zhenting.
The man in the encyclopedia photo was the same man Ju Yaxin had just shown her.
!!
A real big boss. A real big company?!
As for just how big or how rich, Wen Pingping didn’t yet have a precise sense of it. She only knew this: the Luo family owned a multinational corporation, and Luo Xiao’s father was its chairman.
She was delighted inside, and it showed on her face. She praised Ju Yaxin as she handed the phone back. “You’re incredible. Young and beautiful yourself, two sons who are handsome and capable, and a husband who’s this impressive.”
Ju Yaxin smiled outwardly, but inwardly she was screaming: Flash marriage! Say yes already! We’re rich! Hurry and marry Ranran into the family!
But then, unexpectedly, Luo Feng calmly added a single sentence.
He said, “The group’s performance was pretty good last year. Dad and Mom squeezed their way back to being number one in Asia.”
“You could say they’re the richest—barely.”
Wen Ran: “…?”
Wen Pingping: “…?”
Wen Ran turned his head, looking at Luo Feng, then at Luo Xiao.
Wen Pingping looked at Ju Yaxin.
Huh?
Mother and son blinked at the same time. They had similar eyes, and the look of confusion on their faces was almost identical.
Ju Yaxin smiled gently, calmly, as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world. “It’s fine. We don’t compare ourselves to others, but people outside are always comparing us anyway.”
“‘Richest’ and all that—it just sounds nice.”
“At the end of the day, we still close the door and live our own lives.”
“Is that so?”
“R-richest?”
Wen Pingping’s voice trembled a little. She looked at Ju Yaxin, then instinctively grabbed her phone, ready to search it up immediately.
Wen Ran, meanwhile, stared up at the ceiling.
Was he not fully awake?
Why was he having such an abstract dream?
Luo Xiao, who had known this would happen, said nothing. He simply reached out, wrapped an arm around Wen Ran’s shoulder, and gave it a light squeeze to comfort him.
Wen Ran looked at him: Richest? In Asia?
By now, Wen Pingping had already found the result.
The browser’s AI informed her: According to online data, the current richest person in Asia is the chairman of the multinational Leo Group, Luo Zhenting, and his wife, with a combined net worth of approximately 750 billion.
Attached was a public photo of the billionaire couple. In the picture, the woman smiling sweetly and holding the man’s arm—
Was none other than Ju Yaxin.
Wen Pingping: “………………………………”
She had always known Wen Ran liked to drop bombs on her.
She just hadn’t expected one this big.
Hello, 110?
Wen Pingping wanted to call the police again.
Could someone come check for her—was this some new kind of scam?