Sentenced to a lifetime of bachelorhood.

"Don't order too much. There are only three of us; ordering more than we can eat is just a waste."

"Three people? Who else is coming?"

Guo Jinglin flipped through the menu. After a blank, subconscious question, his eyes suddenly lit up with excitement. "Is it that girl??!"

"Girl my foot."

Chen Ze was truly exasperated. In a sense, with a mental age of twenty-six, he and the twenty-year-old Guo Jinglin were, to put it mildly, not exactly on the same wavelength. Xiao Guo was still a young lad at heart, his mind filled with hormones and nothing but the desire to play.

"It's a childhood friend of mine. I forgot if I mentioned him to you before, but he'll be here soon." To prevent Guo Jinglin from guessing wildly and coming up with nonsense, Chen Ze gave him the straight truth, dashing the other man’s fantasies.

"Oh, I see."

Sure enough, once he heard it wasn't a girl, Guo Jinglin displayed a level of maturity far beyond his years, practically transforming into an ascetic master. Chen Ze couldn't help but smile helplessly at the sight, then looked thoughtful as the waiter took away the Moutai.

He wasn't a man who played the financial markets; he didn't possess the skills or methods of other transmigrators who could stir up storms in the stock market. However, he had actually tried day trading once, though the memory remained somewhat embarrassing and vivid.

At the end of 2020, the State Administration for Market Regulation officially released the draft guidelines for anti-monopoly in the platform economy, a move primarily targeting e-commerce and internet-based businesses. Following that, any stock linked to the internet, especially e-commerce, began to plummet. Before that, given the global situation and the backdrop of economic recovery, stocks had been surging aggressively. 2021 was a watershed moment: new viruses emerged, the real estate market imploded, and the market was filled with wailing.

Chen Ze had been one of the victims, so he vaguely remembered the trends of a few stocks. Having been reborn, he didn't intend to dabble in this field much, but there were two stocks he absolutely had to buy. The first was Moutai; one could make money on that with their eyes closed.

Moutai was currently trading at 568 yuan. Before his rebirth, it had been 1,720 yuan. That was a threefold increase. While it wouldn't lead to unimaginable wealth, living a modestly comfortable life was guaranteed.

The other stock was Pinduoduo. It hadn't gone public yet, but it was coming soon—next month, he believed. The opening price was 19 dollars. Chen Ze remembered this so clearly because he had bought five hundred shares of Pinduoduo back then. He had bought in at 139 dollars a share and held onto them, watching the price rise to 171 dollars, then steadily plummet down to 89 dollars a share. He had really wanted to dump them at the time. It was his first time trading, and he was panicked. But he figured Pinduoduo wouldn't be delisted. He held on until 2024, when it hit 147 dollars a share, and sold immediately.

Actually, he had made a small profit, but he was truly speechless; stock trading was too taxing on one's nerves. In this life, Chen Ze wouldn't be greedy; once it went from 19 dollars to over 160, he would sell. A ninefold increase in two years was enough to satisfy him. Stocks were inseparable from the broader situation. Combining the background of the time, Pinduoduo’s dive was quite similar to the trajectories of Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com. Even the Shanghai Composite Index and the Hang Seng Index had started to fall in 2021 due to various international situations and market factors.

Whether Chen Ze would buy these stocks was another matter; after all, it was better to be cautious given the butterfly effect. One had to remain calm when it was time to curb one's desires. However, Moutai and Pinduoduo were must-buys; what happened in the future would be dealt with when the time came.

...

"My friend is here. Wait for me."

Not long after they ordered and started chatting, Chen Ze's phone rang, and he headed out of the private room. When he reached the lobby, he immediately spotted a young man standing awkwardly with a crossbody bag.

"Liang, over here."

Chen Ze called out and waved. In the opulent, high-end lobby, the young man turned around.

"You came at the perfect time. The food will be out soon. It's in a room upstairs, let's head up."

Putting an arm around the young man’s shoulder, Chen Ze showed his closeness, a stark contrast to the young man’s reserve.

"Brother Ze, when did you get back?"

Hearing the question, Chen Ze looked at the shy young man, not minding the reserve or calling him out on it. "I’ve been back for a week. I heard you were in Tianjin, and since I was organizing this today, I thought we should get together properly."

The young man was named Zhang Liang. The very same Zhang Liang from the "Zhang Lang Spicy" days. He wasn't very tall—about 1.7 meters in shoes—and he was thin and a bit dark-skinned; people nicknamed him "Little Monkey Zhang." He was from the same village as Chen Ze and they had grown up together, literally running around bare-bottomed. He was two months younger than Chen Ze, and they had been classmates from primary school all the way through junior high.

Actually, following the trajectory of his previous life, Chen Ze and Zhang Liang hadn't had much contact after 2018. That was the reason for the young man’s current awkwardness; he was naturally quite shy. In Zhang Liang’s view, their friendship was limited to seeing each other a few times during the Chinese New Year; they almost never kept in touch otherwise.

In truth, this was normal. It was best for friendships to be grounded in some form of mutual benefit, otherwise, they easily devolved into nostalgic acquaintances. Only when both parties had a functional, healthy relationship could a friendship endure. Just like Chen Ze and Guo Jinglin—once Chen Ze regained his footing after 2021, the two naturally stayed in closer contact.

This was a realistic society, and the worst thing one could do was rest on past laurels. The social climate was so pragmatic that only those without ability constantly talked about how things used to be. As long as one's current state was good enough, there was no need to dwell on the past. Anyone who couldn't let go of the past did so only because they were currently struggling.

This was reality, but it was also human nature. Chen Ze, having been reborn, might not dare to say much else, but his mind was very clear.

"There's another friend in the room."

After reaching the second floor, Chen Ze patiently explained before leading Zhang Liang into the room.

"Youcai, let me introduce you. This is my childhood friend from back home, Xiao Liang."

Guo Jinglin, who had been looking at his phone, stood up. He was surprised by the thin, frail-looking Zhang Liang but smiled on the surface. "I guess he’s already introduced me, but don't listen to his nonsense. I’m a decent guy, just call me Old Guo."

Guo Jinglin was dressed in an excessively trendy style, almost to the point of wearing a massive gold chain around his neck—it was quite exaggerated. Zhang Liang had never dealt with someone like this. He glanced back at Chen Ze before hesitantly saying, "Hello, Brother Guo."

"Hey, sit down and let's talk, Liangzi."

Knowing Zhang Liang’s situation, Chen Ze pushed him into a seat and turned to the waiter. "Please, you can start serving the food."

Did Zhang Liang smoke now? Chen Ze had somewhat forgotten. But seeing Guo Jinglin offer the young man a cigarette, he didn't stop him, only waiting for the waiter to bring the fruit platter before signaling for them to eat.

Just as he had thought, before his family went bankrupt, Chen Ze and Zhang Liang had practically no contact. Because the other man lacked ability and wasn't good with words, Chen Ze hadn't even been interested in hanging out with him. But everyone has their moments of glory, and everyone has a trough in their life. After his family went bankrupt, the fair-weather friends who had once flocked to him scattered. Chen Ze had personally felt the sting of that blatant differential treatment.

Before the bankruptcy, everyone followed his lead. After the bankruptcy, when he called people, they acted like he was a plague god; some didn't even pick up, and others blocked his number. Out of all those childhood friends and fair-weather companions, Zhang Liang was the only one who remained unchanged. At the time, Chen Ze had even childishly borrowed ten thousand yuan from him just to test him.

Sometimes he didn't know whether to call Zhang Liang honest or if their friendship was truly as firm as gold, but he had actually lent it to him. One had to realize that Zhang Liang’s family was very poor—two brothers, a father who didn't work, and a sick mother. Never mind whether he was the one shouldering the family burden; the matter of getting married alone was something Zhang Liang had to handle entirely on his own. In this day and age, for a young man with no education and average looks to consider marriage on his own was essentially a death sentence for his bachelorhood.

The gift was small, but the sentiment was heavy. After borrowing that ten thousand yuan, Chen Ze, a man who believed in reciprocating kindness and settling scores clearly, had brought Zhang Liang along when he started his business later. He might not have had thirty or fifty thousand, but he had twenty thousand. Through long contact, he discovered that Zhang Liang was simply an honest man who valued relationships. If such a person were born into a poor family without meeting a benefactor, they would basically live a miserable life forever.

However, Chen Ze, having experienced the highs and lows of his past life, had been willing to pull Zhang Liang up, and he was even more willing to do so in this life. There were many such people in today's society, but meeting even one was truly precious. Knowing how to strike the right balance was the mark of a great leader.

...

"By the way, Zezi, I heard from my dad that you're starting your own business? How come I haven't heard you talk about it?"

Three rounds of drinks in, after the food had been sampled, Guo Jinglin finally revealed his true intentions.