Chapter Nineteen: In the Rain
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“I’m singing in the rain,
Just singing in the rain~”
“What a glorious feeling,
I’m happy again~”
The rain kept falling. With no umbrella, Li Sheng pushed his bicycle along, softly humming the song from the old film *Singin’ in the Rain*. His already soaked, half-delaminated shoes tapped back and forth against the paving stones.
He had originally invited only Han Letian and Mu Yulu to the hot-pot restaurant for his birthday. Since neither of them could make it, there was naturally no point in going anymore.
Still, this day hadn’t been so bad, had it?
Someone had sung him “Happy Birthday,” he had eaten birthday cake, and there was still some money in his pocket—enough to buy slightly more expensive snacks, perhaps some premium chocolate.
Life was like a box of chocolates. You never knew what you were going to get. Li Sheng was, at heart, quite easy to satisfy.
Brrrrr—
The roar of an engine approached from afar. A bright-red four-door sports car swept into the street, its thunderous exhaust turning heads all along the way.
The young man behind the wheel sported an eye-catching gradient-green crop of hair. He wore a silver reflective Moncler jacket, one hand lazily patting the door from outside the window, platinum rings gleaming on his fingers. In his Ray-Ban sunglasses, the lights of the city’s high-rises streamed past.
A Ferrari Roma four-door coupe, with a 3.6-liter twin-turbo V8 engine, a length of 5,056 millimeters, a width of 1,974, and a zero-to-sixty-two time of 3.5 seconds—it was like a cheetah pacing through the jungle.
Whenever the young driver lightly pressed the accelerator and made the engine roar, the two boys in the back would cheer excitedly. Luo Zhengxin, sitting in the front passenger seat with a bandage across the bridge of his nose, would grin as well.
“This car isn’t actually the best,” said Lu Zhicong, Luo Zhengxin’s older cousin, with a quiet laugh. He clearly enjoyed the admiring attention. “I bought it mainly because the four-door version is sleeker and better-looking than the two-door. By the way, Zhengxin, you’ll be an adult next year, right?”
“Come to my house then. Pick any car from the garage—I’ll give it to you.”
“Wow!”
The two lackeys in the back exclaimed in unison, green with envy. Though they were both second-generation heirs from reasonably wealthy families, they were nowhere near Luo Zhengxin’s level, much less that of Lu Zhicong, who radiated the effortless air of a young nobleman.
The Roma’s price, straight off the lot, was already over two hundred and thirty thousand dollars—and that was before additional options.
The two underage hangers-on could only dream of such a gift. Even once they were adults, their parents might not be willing to spend that kind of money on such an extravagant “toy.”
“Thanks, Cousin.”
Luo Zhengxin smiled happily. The irritation caused by his sudden stomachache at the shopping mall the day before had faded considerably.
He looked out the window and caught sight of Li Sheng by the roadside. For a moment, he froze.
“Your friend?” Lu Zhicong noticed the change in his cousin’s expression and asked casually.
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“Uh…” Luo Zhengxin did not know how to answer. Fortunately, the two lackeys in the back were socially perceptive enough to speak for him.
“A classmate we met on the basketball court. There’s been some friction.”
They were not stupid enough to reveal that Luo Zhengxin had tried to humiliate someone, only to be struck in the nose by a basketball.
But Lu Zhicong had grown up high above everyone else. From their expressions alone, he could guess most of what had happened. His cousin had probably suffered a setback on the court.
He curled his lip, eased the sports car toward the curb, and drew level with Li Sheng.
“Hey, buddy.”
He lowered the window and whistled at Li Sheng.
“Your shoes are coming apart.”
Hearing the whistle, Li Sheng turned his head. When he saw the four people in the sports car, he understood.
Couldn’t win back his pride on the court, so he had to reclaim it off the court? How very childish.
“Thanks for pointing that out.”
Li Sheng, who had seen a much broader world and found this amusing, bared his teeth in a faint grin. He stopped his bicycle by the roadside, strolled into a nearby sporting-goods store, and bought an inexpensive pair of athletic shoes.
The rain was still coming down, so he did not change into them right away. Instead, he wrapped the shoebox in a plastic bag and continued pushing his bicycle along at an unhurried pace.
His relaxed composure left the four people in the sports car momentarily stunned.
The two lackeys in the back could not resist hissing mockingly at him, while the corners of Lu Zhicong’s mouth drooped despite himself, his smile vanishing.
As the heir to a wealthy family, he firmly believed that the fruits of several generations of his ancestors’ hard work and prosperity could not—and should not—be surpassed in a single generation by so-called “self-made elites.”
Lu Zhicong despised those so-called geniuses who boasted of their brilliance and looked down on spoiled heirs like him.
Why should they?
Why?!
One of my cars costs as much as one of your houses! One of my watches costs as much as you would earn by working yourselves to death for an entire lifetime!
Damn it, what were they pretending to be—so noble and above it all?
Lu Zhicong lightly pressed the accelerator, caught up with Li Sheng, and called out loudly, “Hey, buddy! Want a lift?”
When Li Sheng ignored him, Lu Zhicong shouted again, “That bicycle of yours probably won’t get you home in this weather. Why don’t you call your parents and have them come pick you up? It’s still raining, you know.”
“…”
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Li Sheng turned his head slightly and gave him a calm glance, as though looking at an insect.
Before Lu Zhicong could react, one of the lackeys in the back lost his patience. He instinctively leaned his head out the window.
“You little—”
Brrrrr!
A deep engine growl startled him into shrinking his neck.
All four people in the car, along with the pedestrians by the roadside, turned toward the source of the sound.
It was a car with elegance engraved into its very bones, black as ink. It measured 5,316 millimeters in length and 1,978 in width, and housed a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 engine. Its silver winged emblem gleamed beneath the rain.
A Bentley. A limited edition. It probably cost more than a million dollars above the price of the Roma.
The vehicle glided calmly past the sports car, rolled slowly ahead, and came to a stop beside Li Sheng.
Thud.
The driver’s door sprang open. A woman in a tailored suit, her hair tied into a ponytail, stepped out. She looked like a female butler who had walked straight out of a comic book.
She opened an umbrella and came to Li Sheng’s side. Taking the plastic bag containing the inexpensive athletic shoes from his hand, she smiled gently.
“Young master, please get in.”
“…”
Inside the sports car, the lackeys stared in disbelief. Luo Zhengxin was dumbfounded, while the smile that had just begun to lift Lu Zhicong’s lips froze in place.
The female butler opened the rear door. The pleasant scent of leather, mingled with the warm air from the climate control, drove away the chill of the rainy day.
Shao Wangshu lay back in the reclining seat, positioned just so that the sports car behind could not see her. Dressed in a white dress, she wore an innocent, radiant smile and silently flashed Li Sheng a victory sign.
Unable to stop himself from laughing, Li Sheng stepped into the car and sat down beside Shao Wangshu.
Thud.
The female butler gently closed the door behind him. Holding the umbrella in one hand, she folded the muddy bicycle by the roadside with the other, then placed it—and the inexpensive athletic shoes—inside the spotless, dust-free trunk.
Tap, tap, tap.
She stepped through the puddles at the roadside without sparing the sports car behind her a glance, returned gracefully to the driver’s seat, started the engine, and merged into the flow of traffic.