Jiang Luo was genuinely puzzled. “Do you have a sweetheart in Beijing or something? Why are you in Beijing again?”
What sweetheart?
Huo Zongzhuo laughed, his voice warm and gentle. “I wasn’t planning to come. Then I remembered that the last time I was in Beijing, I didn’t bring you any roast duck, so I made a last-minute trip. I’m packing up two ducks to bring back for you.”
Jiang Luo laughed. “You came all that way just for a duck?”
“Why a duck?” Huo Zongzhuo said. “Of course it’s for you.”
Then he added a line in Suzhou dialect: “Have a little conscience, will you?”
Jiang Luo thought Huo Zongzhuo sounded surprisingly soft and mellow when he spoke Wu—his accent carried a distinctly Jiangnan gentleness.
So Jiang Luo said, “Take me to Suzhou to look around sometime?”
“When I bring the duck back and you’ve finished eating it,” Huo Zongzhuo replied, “I’ll make time.”
“In Haicheng you’re really that busy?” Jiang Luo teased. “You still have to ‘make time’ on purpose?”
“I’m about to get busy,” Huo Zongzhuo said. “Pudong gave me a plot of land on its own. I can’t use the out-of-town banks I’m familiar with—I have to get loans from Haicheng banks, meet a bunch of people, and set up a new company here.”
Jiang Luo’s focus drifted a little. “Isn’t that great, though? You’ll be in Haicheng more. We can have dinner together every day.”
Huo Zongzhuo smiled. “As long as you think it’s good.”
Not long after, Manager Yu from Yong’an invited Jiang Luo to dinner at the Huating again.
Manager Yu, of course, had his agenda—Vilanito’s explosive sales were obvious to everyone, and Yong’an wanted to sign an exclusive contract with Jiang Luo.
In the middle of it, Manager Yu tried to be clever.
He had always been taking kickbacks from Jiang Luo, skimming a cut from the products sold in the mall. Now he wanted to keep taking them. Not only that, he didn’t want to give Jiang Luo the rebates the mall was supposed to offer for an exclusive deal.
In other words, Manager Yu wanted to give up nothing while making sure Vilanito was sold only at Yong’an and nowhere else.
Sitting at the table, Jiang Luo understood perfectly what Manager Yu was getting at and laughed inwardly.
He thought that Manager Yu and Guo Ronghai really were the same kind of parasite in their respective malls.
The difference was that Guo Ronghai hadn’t managed to work with him, while Manager Yu had enjoyed smooth cooperation all along.
Jiang Luo couldn’t care less how these parasites siphoned money from their malls—the malls weren’t his problem. He had no interest in worrying about that.
Jiang Luo had only his own position, and the plans he wanted to carry out.
So he refused Manager Yu.
Only then did Manager Yu bring up the mall rebate, trying to use it to change Jiang Luo’s mind.
Jiang Luo said, “Manager Yu, we’ve worked together very pleasantly all this time, so let me be straightforward. Vilanito is definitely going to enter the other two malls. No need to hide it from you—Sincere and Daxin have already approached me to talk.”
“And I’ll be frank with you too.”
“No matter how I cooperate with Sincere and Daxin, here at Yong’an, it was you who gave me the chance to work together in the first place. On Yong’an’s side, everything I owe you, rest assured, I won’t short you a single cent.”
“But please understand this as well. I’m running a company, building a brand. Sooner or later, the brand has to go public and spread.”
“Only operating in one mall doesn’t align with my philosophy of doing business and building a brand.”
“There’s no reason to leave money on the table, right?”
Manager Yu still wanted to persuade him a bit more, but Jiang Luo was so open and clear—and explicitly promised not to reduce his benefits—that Manager Yu reconsidered and stopped pushing.
After all, the mall belonged to the boss, not to him. Why bother worrying so much?
Manager Yu clinked glasses with Jiang Luo, and the two reached an understanding smoothly.
Manager Yu also asked casually, “Sincere and Daxin have both contacted you—did Pacific Department Store not?”
Jiang Luo replied, “You know how it is. Things got a little unpleasant back when we were working together selling dolls.”
Manager Yu immediately laughed. “Guo Ronghai is going to be in trouble. Their mall’s eldest young master just came over in September to take charge. He’s watching the business very closely. Vilanito is selling so well—Yong’an has it, Sincere and Daxin will have it too. If Pacific doesn’t, that Li kid is definitely going to pick on Guo Ronghai.”
Manager Yu went on chatting about the Li young master at Pacific, offering an offhand evaluation. “A real heaven-favored son—great family background, graduated from a top foreign school like Stanford, and supposedly good-looking too.”
“I heard from our boss that in Haicheng, families with some assets—especially those with daughters of the right age—have already started considering him.”
“Too bad he’s not a local Haicheng native.”
Jiang Luo hadn’t reacted much to the earlier comments, but when he heard “not a Haicheng native,” he laughed silently.
No matter how good the family background, how prestigious the school, or how wealthy—when it came to marriage in Haicheng, if you weren’t local, you were automatically a notch lower. The local uncles and aunties would nitpick you to death.
Just thinking about it made Jiang Luo want to laugh.
But then Manager Yu added something that wiped the smile right off his face.
“President Jiang, you’re a Haicheng local, right?”
“How old are you? Want me to introduce someone to you?”
“I’ve got plenty of Haicheng girls on hand—good conditions, too. Some are even only children.”
Jiang Luo hurriedly waved it off. “No, no—I’m from the countryside, the countryside. A real country bumpkin. Come on, let’s eat.”
Two days later, Huo Zongzhuo returned to Haicheng.
He came to Jiang Luo’s company, and the two ate roast duck alone in the office. The aroma drifted through the door cracks, filling the outer office with the smell of duck.
“It smells amazing,” several coworkers muttered, swallowing hard.
Inside the office, Huo Zongzhuo wrapped sliced roast duck with shredded scallions and cucumber, dipped it in sauce, and handed it to Jiang Luo.
Jiang Luo leaned over, didn’t use his hands, just opened his mouth. “Ah—”
Smiling, Huo Zongzhuo fed the duck into his mouth. “You really are like a kid.”
Jiang Luo chewed, hummed in approval, and nodded. “So good. Really good.”
Then he added, “What kid? I’m not that young. Manager Yu from Yong’an even wanted to introduce me to a girlfriend.”
Huo Zongzhuo’s hand, holding a piece of duck skin, paused imperceptibly.
He looked up, then continued wrapping duck as he asked, “He introduced someone to you?”
“Forget it,” Jiang Luo said, shaking his head. “Who has time for girlfriends? I’m busy with business.”
Huo Zongzhuo said gently, “Never dated before?”
Jiang Luo didn’t count his past life as this one, so he denied it. “No.”
He briefly thought of Ma Shuwei back at Oriental No. 1, but since he hadn’t been with her in this life, it didn’t count.
“What about you?” Jiang Luo asked casually. “You’re already twenty-nine. Still not dating?”
“Did you break up with someone before?”
Huo Zongzhuo handed over another wrapped piece. Jiang Luo opened his mouth, and Huo Zongzhuo fed it to him. “Never dated. Honestly, never had the time.”
Jiang Luo nodded, then said, “But you’ve been with women before, right?”
Cough.
Huo Zongzhuo nearly choked on air.
Jiang Luo looked at him. Huo Zongzhuo looked back. Jiang Luo chewed, blinked, his eyes widening in disbelief.
Wait—seriously?
A virgin?
Jiang Luo burst out laughing. “You’re really… not very capable, huh?”
So the rumors from his past life weren’t completely baseless after all?
Huo Zongzhuo replied calmly, “So what if there hasn’t been anyone? What’s there to be so shocked about?”
Jiang Luo leaned closer, chewing his duck, curiosity and gossip written all over his face. “Don’t you have needs?”
Huo Zongzhuo lifted his eyes, saw that Jiang Luo was genuinely curious, picked up an uncut duck leg, and stuffed it into Jiang Luo’s mouth. “Some things don’t need to be known.”
Jiang Luo laughed silently around the duck leg.
Thinking of how Huo Zongzhuo had also had no one around him in his previous life—maybe even into his thirties—Jiang Luo laughed even harder.
Until Huo Zongzhuo, seeing him laugh, said quietly, “Needs are saved for the person you like.”
Jiang Luo heard it and gradually stopped laughing, chewing the duck leg.
He nodded in agreement. “You’re right.”
In his last life, he’d been completely reckless.
“If you’re going to sleep with someone,” Jiang Luo said bluntly, “it should be someone you like.”
Huo Zongzhuo sighed. “Chinese people value subtlety.”
“There’s no need to put it so… explicit.”
Jiang Luo didn’t care about subtlety or explicitness. “Then you handle it yourself? Often?”
Huo Zongzhuo felt like ripping off a corner of the table and stuffing it into Jiang Luo’s mouth to shut him up.
“Eat your duck!”
He shot Jiang Luo a glare.
Jiang Luo chewed and laughed, grinning shamelessly.
Yet he was pale and handsome, and when he smiled like that, all people saw was brightness and charm—strikingly good-looking.
Huo Zongzhuo watched him, teeth itching, torn between wanting to swat his ass and wanting to pull him into his arms and dote on him.
By late November, Vilanito opened counters at Sincere and Daxin one after another.
Around the same time, workers at the Second Silk Factory began deciding whether to stay or leave.
Jiang Jianmin and Zhang Xiangping went to the office first. Later that same day, Wang Junwei and Bai Ting also went to the factory director’s office.
The difference was this: Jiang Jianmin and Zhang Xiangping chose to stay, signing employment contracts and continuing as workers at the restructured silk factory.
Wang Junwei and Bai Ting, on the other hand, signed the papers, took the lump-sum buyout for their years of service, and chose to leave the factory together.
Meanwhile, You Junyu—who had made money selling various imitation small goods—left Haicheng with the two friends he’d gone out to make his fortune with. The three of them stopped doing small-market business and moved on elsewhere.