"Really, it's good to break up with Lin Jiao. She's almost thirty, and I'm tired of her. Why not find a younger and prettier one after I dump her? There are plenty of other fish in the sea, right?"
At the barbecue stall, by a wooden table, Lu Ming said this to his friend Qin Yong while clutching a bottle of beer.
Qin Yong raised an eyebrow, "Really?"
"Definitely. I've wanted to end things for a while. Not doing so is just not an option. You don't know, just to get married, my parents had to borrow money and sell the house back in our hometown just to afford rent. Plus, the money I've saved over five years barely covers the million yuan down payment her mom asked for, not to mention a 300,000-yuan car, a 200,000-yuan bride price... We would have been in debt after the wedding. So why get married at all? It's worthless!"
Lu Ming continued, "Now she's run off with someone else, let that sap pay for it all. I can save my money and still have over a million left for some fun. How great, how wonderful! Ha-ha-ha-ha!"
Qin Yong, watching Lu Ming polish off his fifth bottle of beer and ignoring the skewers and rice noodles in front of him, sighed quietly, "As long as you can let it go, it's fine. Let's stop talking about her. We're here to drink and have some late-night snacks."
"I'm not hungry. Let me say something else," Lu Ming interrupted Qin Yong as he laughed. "Do you know how I found out Lin Jiao was cheating?"
"I don't," Qin Yong said quietly.
Lu Ming, his face flaming and eyes reddened by the alcohol, still managed a grin, "When I went to pick her up tonight, that guy happened to be sending her downstairs. At the moment the elevator doors opened, they even kissed goodbye. A bunch of people at the door saw him kissing my girlfriend. Ha-ha, it was so hilarious!"
Qin Yong managed no laughter.
Lu Ming continued, "The two didn't look embarrassed when they saw me. They even greeted me. I was a bit stunned then, spent all my time looking at the guy and almost forgot about Lin Jiao. You know, he was quite handsome. Some say he's the rich heir of Jiang Group, Jiang Yun. His Armani suit alone must've cost tens of thousands of yuan while his wristwatch, probably hundreds of thousands. He also had a Ferrari parked outside, that's his too. That alone is worth a hundred of me. I've been working hard to save 300,000 yuan for the past five years, only to find out it can't even buy a single tire of his car..."
"I swear, if I were a woman, I'd fall for him too."
"When he saw me, he was surprisingly polite and greeted me with 'Mr. Lu, right?'. I wanted to retort 'I'm your daddy', but I was tongue-tied and just stood there, looking stupidly at Lin Jiao."
"That dude told me, 'Thanks for taking care of Jiao Jiao,’ and then Lin Jiao told me ‘since you've seen it, don't consider getting married…’”
"We broke up."
"We were together for six years, and it only took four words to end it."
Upon saying this, Lu Ming heavily sniffed, took a deep breath, and said: “What a rip-off, I should've at least gotten another 'thank you' from her.”
The silent Qin Yong patted Lu Ming, "Come on, keep drinking, we'll make her say that 'thank you' later."
Lu Ming laughed scornfully: “No need, I don’t want to see that woman in this lifetime.”
Qin Yong hmmed, silently pouring wine and nodding, "Right!"
Lu Ming took the cup.
One drink down.
Another drink.
After a few drinks…
Lu Ming, who had remained nonchalant, finally let his spirits drop, his face flush with alcohol, “Yong Zi, why am I broke? Why did I only have 200k left after buying cars and houses? And this 200k had to be given away as betrothal gifts?”
"Haha, why can't this 200k be 2 billion or 200 trillion?"
"Do you think Lin Jiao left because I was too poor?”
Listening to Lu Ming's continuous rhetorical questions, Qin Yong patted Lu's shoulder, "It's not your fault, she's just too greedy."
Listening to Qin Yong's comforting words, the constantly murmuring Lu Ming suddenly felt as if a cord in his heart had completely snapped. He was reduced to uncontrollable tears, "Yong, six years, a whole six years! I gave her everything she wanted. What did I do wrong?"
"I bought her skincare products worth hundreds, an iPhone 13 for seven or eight thousand, handbags worth tens of thousands, and even the new car I bought for myself, I only let her drive. I treated her so well, why is she treating me like this..."
"Six years, and I never laid a finger on her. She, damn it, she went to a hotel with someone surnamed Jiang, right in front of me!"
"The person I loved with all my heart and soul has trampled all over my love. Damn it, it hurts so much wearing this 'green hat'..."
...
...
Clink.
In the quiet, dark room, the door was suddenly opened, allowing slivers of light to slowly seep in through the cracks in the wall. The person opening the door was Lu Ming.
After parting with Qin Yong, Lu Ming returned to his rented apartment alone. He opened the door, turned on the light, and upon seeing the room, was struck silent.
In the living room, decorations of roses and balloons sat untouched, and in the middle, there lay a diamond ring.
After meeting Lin Jiao's parents, Lu Ming planned to propose today. He would then, according to the plan, present a bride price to Lin Jiao's mother at six o'clock tomorrow morning and set a wedding date.
A wedding was inevitable, and a proposal ceremony was optional, but Lu Ming believed that this was the scene Lin Jiao had always dreamt of. He had to fulfill her wishes, give her a big surprise...
As the result, Lin Jiao gave Lu Ming a bigger surprise first.
After being silent for a long time, Lu Ming threw all the stuff away. But after doing that, he didn't feel better, instead the pain had become more intense.
"I need to retrieve the car and house keys tomorrow."
Lu Ming gritted his teeth.
He had already bought a new car and a new house. The only reason he hadn't moved into the new house was that the rented one was close to his office, and hence he didn't need to drive. As such, the keys to both the car and the house were with Lin Jiao.
Before, Lu Ming didn't think much of it, but now that she had betrayed him, there was no way he was going to let her enjoy living in his house and driving his car.
As the drunk Lu Ming lay on his bed, several messages popped up on his phone.
Ding—
"One day remaining until repayment date, a total of 1699.37 yuan will be automatically deducted at midnight on the repayment day. Please ensure that your repayment card has sufficient balance one day in advance."
"On June 09, the remaining balance and savings card will automatically repay 2498.36 yuan. You can log in ……."
"June 02 account bill is not paid in full. 29.87 yuan has been paid, 1992.66 yuan remains unpaid. Please repay on time."
As Lu Ming read the reminders for payment, remembering the extra money his parents had borrowed for him after selling their house back home, he took a deep breath, his head throbbing with a dull ache, "I guess I should use the betrothal gift money to repay my debts first, then find a way to transfer the money back to mom and dad."
He now felt incredibly relieved.
Thank goodness he hadn't transferred the betrothal gift money to Lin Jiao's mother yet, or else he and his parents would really have hit rock bottom by now.
The thought made Lu Ming wince in pain...
He had once solemnly promised his parents that he and Lin Jiao would be together for the rest of their lives, and only then did his parents agree to sell the house.
But what was he supposed to tell his parents now about the truth of the situation?
"Never mind, let's not talk about it for now..."
Lu Ming heaved a sigh, turned off the light, and fell into a hazy sleep in the pitch-dark night.
In his dream, Lu Ming felt a splitting headache. The recurring images of Lin Jiao and Jiang Yun kissing in front of the company, with his eyes nearly bursting with anger, dominated his mind...
However, he didn't realize the subtle changes happening in the real world.
Until morning.
The sound asleep Lu Ming hadn't noticed several pop-up news articles on his phone that he had never seen before:
"Shocking! Yesterday, a new property in Qing City went on sale, demanding a sky-high price of 65,000 corners per square! Unexpectedly, it still sparked a purchase frenzy. Has the housing price not really reached its peak? How many rich people are there in Dragon Country?"
"The list of rich and famous has been updated, the current Forbes world's richest man, top ten-thousand dollar owner Bezo's net wealth is 12,000 yuan, but according to Bezo, the world's richest man is someone else, even he does not know the identity of the person..."
"So who is the unheard and unseen invisible billionaire? The editor also wants to know, please comment in the section below..."
Disturbed by the incessant ringtone, Lu Ming woke up.
As the sunlight streamed in from the window, he struggled to sit up, picked up his phone and asked, "What's the time?"
Seeing that it was only seven in the morning, Lu Ming breathed a sigh of relief...
He was afraid that a hangover would make him late for work and lose his perfect attendance bonus.
That's how it is for workers. Even after enduring the pain of being betrayed by his girlfriend of six years, he was still worried about how it might affect his job the next day...
But after checking the time, Lu Ming glanced at the news and for a moment wondered if he was still drunk?
"A housing price of 65 corners? The richest man has 12,000 yuan? What kind of joke is this? It's 1,200 billion, right?"
What on earth are these absurd news headlines of the year?
The house price was clearly 65,000 yuan, how did it become a few cents?
The wealth of the world's richest man is "twelve trillion," but now it's mistyped as "twelve thousand," and they even dare to call him a ten-thousand-yuan household?
Upon reading these, Lu Ming couldn't help but burst into laughter...
The standards of social media journalism these days are going from bad to worse!
So, a ten-thousand-yuan household can be the richest?
If I have two hundred thousand, wouldn't that be earth-shattering?
