Duan Ye arrived at the station and saw Zhou Ji.
He was lying on a row of benches at the exit, catching a nap.
Duan Ye rarely felt a headache. He walked over and casually kicked Zhou Ji. Zhou Ji woke up abruptly and saw that it was Duan Ye. Zhou Ji smiled, “Lao Duan, are you surprised? Unexpected, right? I’ve come to seek refuge with you!”
The station was bustling with people coming and going. Duan Ye’s back was sweating, with a mix of puzzlement and astonishment on his face. He stared at Zhou Ji and asked in a serious tone, “You should have been on the plane at this time. What’s going on?”
Zhou Ji sighed, his hand behind his head. “I really thought about it seriously. I didn’t want to go abroad. By the way, let’s make this clear from the start. My decision has nothing to do with anyone else. I just don’t want to go. Lao Duan, I escaped from the airport. Anyway, I’ve made up my mind. From today onwards, I’m sticking with you.”
Duan Ye’s scalp tingled.
For the first time, he experienced what it felt like to be in a ‘tricky’ situation.
Just when everyone thought Zhou Ji would follow his parents’ arrangement to go abroad for a golden opportunity, he had escaped and come to find Duan Ye.
Duan Ye : “…”
Looking at Zhou Ji, he really had no way out. He could only ask helplessly, “And your parents?”
Zhou Ji shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve thought it through. I’m not afraid of them cutting off my financial support. From today, I don’t intend to spend a dime of their money.”
Duan Ye glanced at Zhou Ji.
Zhou Ji conscientiously added, “Don’t worry, I know you have to support your family, earn money to marry Sister-in-law. I won’t leech off you. I said I’ll follow you and earn my own money.”
The two of them looked at each other.
Zhou Ji pondered for a moment, “But you might need to lend me a few hundred yuan first.”
“I haven’t eaten.” Zhou Ji said.
Duan Ye sighed, “Alright, let’s go. I’ll take you to eat.”
Zhou Ji slung his bag over his shoulder and followed. The two of them left the station, and Duan Ye brought Zhou Jito a nearby noodle shop. Duan Ye ordered a bowl of noodles for Zhou Ji, who seemed genuinely famished, and Zhou Ji devoured them.
Duan Ye stared at Zhou Ji, tapping the table with his hand.
Zhou Ji looked up, his speech slurred, “What’s up?”
“You know me.” Duan Ye pointed at his phone. “I need to make a call outside. If you’re not full, order more.”
Zhou Ji made a gesture, “Alright then, the ‘henpecked husband’ needs to report to his wife, right? Come on, spill the beans. Anyway, I wasn’t planning to keep it a secret.”
Duan Ye got up without paying attention to Zhou Ji’s teasing, took out his phone, walked out of the noodle shop, found a quiet corner, and dialed Jiang Yumao’s number.
Jiang Yumo had been exhausted from military training lately, too tired to eat anything. She had asked her roommate to bring her a glass of juice and then quickly took a shower. Sitting at her desk, she finally felt like she had survived another day. The four of them in the dormitory were getting along well, but they were still in the phase of adapting to each other.
Seeing Duan Ye’s incoming call, Jiang Yumo rallied her spirits, not wanting to worry him.
But when the call connected, Duan Ye’s first sentence was, “I’ll cut to the chase. Zhou Ji didn’t go abroad. He came to my side to find me.”
Jiang Yumo : “?”
She blinked in confusion, “What are you saying?”
Why couldn’t she understand him?
“He didn’t go abroad, he came to find me, saying he wants to follow me.” Duan Ye was also quite troubled, “He’s not planning to use his parents’ money anymore either. It’s clear that he’s not just acting on impulse; he’s made a real decision.”
Jiang Yumo finally grasped the situation, standing up excitedly, “What’s wrong with him!! Didn’t he already agree and decide to go abroad? He still didn’t listen!?”
Duan Ye comforted her, “Don’t worry.”
He paused, then half-jokingly said, “Maybe I did something wrong in my past life.”
Jiang Yumo worried more, her expression anxious, “What should we do? Will his parents make things difficult for us? Will they blame you?”
—What if they’re unreasonable and think that we’ve led Zhou Ji astray?
“They won’t.” Duan Ye reassured her, “I’m quite confident about that. And Zhou Ji isn’t that kind of person either.”
He thought for a moment, then explained to her, “Zhou Ji left the airport around noon. It’s been seven or eight hours now, and no one has come after him. He hasn’t received any calls either. I’m guessing his parents got the news a long time ago. If they were really going to do something, they wouldn’t have waited this long.”
Jiang Yumo still had some worries, “Why does he come up with things one after another?”
“Maybe not necessarily,” Duan Ye spoke fairly for his friend, “It’s been so long, he shouldn’t be acting on impulse. I think he really doesn’t want to go abroad. He said it himself, it’s not for anyone else.”
“Well, okay,” Jiang Yumo said, “He really is quite the Young Master.”
Duan Ye chuckled, “How’s your day been? Have you eaten?”
Jiang Yumo sighed. She hadn’t wanted him to worry, but with his question… she couldn’t help it, “It’s so scorching hot, I feel like I’m about to pass out. And why does university military training have to be this long?! I’ve gone through several bottles of sunscreen, every day I feel sticky all over. Our instructor is really strict, so strict. Now, whenever I see him, my legs go weak. And you know what? There are girls in our class who actually like him, they want to get his contact information. Oh my god!”
Duan Ye sensed her exasperation, wanting to laugh but restraining himself, not wanting to upset her.
“I wish I could fast forward to the end of this military training,” Jiang Yumo complained for a while and then said, “Ah, never mind, I won’t bother you with this. I need to call Zhiyu, I can’t keep this from her. When she finds out, she’ll definitely freak out!”
Duan Ye hummed in agreement, but said, “Maybe not necessarily.”
He said, “This time, it’s his own choice.”
Jiang Yumo paused, “…Alright then. Anyway, he’s been driving both of us crazy.”
After Jiang Yumo hung up the phone, Duan Ye returned to the noodle shop. Zhou Ji was genuinely hungry, finishing one bowl of noodles and ordering another. Seeing Duan Ye coming over, he didn’t even lift his eyelids, teasing, “Reported in?”
Duan Ye ignored him, focused on his phone, re-browsing rental ads.
A single room might not work out, but perhaps he could rent two rooms side by side or across from each other.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Zhou Ji on the opposite side. He had to admit, he might have accumulated a lot of bad karma in his previous life.
“Lao Duan,” Zhou Ji suddenly put down his chopsticks, his expression more serious, “This time, it’s not impulsive. I’m doing this because I want to. You said I should think about the future more than her. I’ve been thinking these days. I can accept my parents’ arrangement to go abroad for now. But what about later? In a few years, would I still have to follow their arrangements? I know they don’t approve of my liking Zhiyu. The reason they haven’t intervened is because they think I’m young, just eighteen, and Zhiyu is probably just one of my girlfriends in my life, at most we’ll date for a year or two and then break up. It’s not worth using those tactics.
“The reason they don’t agree is what? What’s the reason behind their self-righteous arrangement of my future?” Zhou Ji said with difficulty, “I haven’t been idle these days. I’ve thought it through. It’s because I’m still a young kid depending on them. I need to take money from them, rely on them to survive. I want to prove to them that maybe they do have good intentions for me, but I’m an adult now. Regardless of whether I’m impulsive or whatever, I can decide my own future.”
Duan Ye listened quietly.
“No pain, no gain,” Zhou Ji chuckled, “Call me naive if you want, call me foolish if you want. Anyway, I’ve decided that from now on, whether it’s good or bad, I’ll pay for it myself.”
“Lao Duan~” Zhou Ji called out to him, “Brother? I’m following you!”
Duan Ye got up and paid the bill. “Let’s go.”
Zhou Ji : “?”
“To buy daily necessities,” Duan Ye glanced at his backpack, “You only brought a few sets of clothes.”
Zhou Ji happily followed along, wanting to link arms with Duan Ye. In this unfamiliar city, the streetlights elongated their young figures. From a distance, one could still hear Zhou Ji’s triumphant voice, “Lao Duan, seriously, with our intelligence, we’ll definitely make a fortune! Just watch, we’ll surely achieve something!”
Duan Ye : “…Without you, that possibility would be even greater.”
Yanjing.
Mrs. Zhou took a deep breath, clearly on the verge of a breakdown. Although she was originally from the Hong Kong, she had spent a few years in Yanjing, so she spoke Mandarin fluently, “Why not bring him back? Zhou Chenglei, your bodyguards couldn’t even watch over a child. You let him escape?”
“Let him be,” Zhou Chenglei glanced at the email on his phone, speaking indifferently, “He’s already eighteen. Let him go.”
“What nonsense!” Mrs. Zhou was angry, but she was still trying to contain it.
“Let him be foolish,” Zhou Chenglei pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly exhausted too, “Foolish at eighteen is better than foolish at twenty-eight or thirty-eight. Don’t you know your son? He’s as stubborn as one can be. Even if we were to bring him back now, what good would it do? Do I need to remind you of your own foolishness at eighteen?”
Mrs. Zhou : “…”
Zhou Chenglei’s tone eased a bit, “Give him four years. If he hasn’t achieved anything in four years, I’ll make him come back obediently. By then, he’ll only be twenty-two. Let him struggle and work his way up from the bottom. Perhaps this approach suits him better than sitting in a classroom listening to professors. Forgive my bluntness, but we might have to accept one thing : he didn’t inherit our talent for academics.”
If he hadn’t met Duan Ye, Zhou Chenglei would never have allowed his son to behave this way.
But after meeting Duan Ye, he changed his mind. A father knows his son best. In their vast conglomerate, they could hire countless elites from prestigious schools, but what he needed to groom was a successor, not just a vice president. Starting from the grassroots and honing his skills might be a better, more suitable path for Zhou Ji.
Mrs. Zhou : “…”
She touched her forehead gently, “I’m worried about him suffering outside.”
Zhou Chenglei walked over, placing both hands on her shoulders to comfort her, “Don’t worry, he’s my son, and I won’t neglect him. Let’s just wait and see how far he can go in the end.”
The path he had walked was arranged by his parents, indeed smooth and flat.
So why couldn’t he let his son walk a different path, a path he had never taken before?
The only annoying thing is that Zhou Ji never says what he wants to do instead. I won’t go abroad, I want to do X. I want to work? Study? Start a business? Does he plan on what working in a coffee shop? What’s the point?
It seems he really just wants to follow Duan Ye. Zhou Ji truly sees Duan Ye as a someone worthy of respect, so if Duan Ye is learning something then obviously he should too, because there is no way it would be bad. And Duan Ye, with his personality, won’t let Zhou Ji suffer too much, mostly because this guy is practically a little tail. I suppose the author will show that Zhou Ji grows and matures from his time following Duan ge, and eventually maybe even finding his own path and embracing all the legacy behind him, you know, inheriting the business.
The point of Zhou Ji’s character is not having a very defined, clear goal but doing what he truly wants to do and seeing it through. This is it