Forced Me to Regress, Huh?

A few days passed.

These past few days, Cheng Zhu had been exceptionally busy.

Due to the increasing traffic of his store, Keep Coming, he and Wang Anquan had to reply to a large number of customer inquiries every day.

Over in Guanyun County, the factory owner who supplied Cheng Zhu’s products was named Chen Bin.

He and Cheng Zhu had become quite familiar with each other.

Chen Bin never expected that this young man, who looked a bit rough around the edges, could actually sell his goods so well!

He opened a new store. How many days has it been? And he’s already getting so many orders every day? Chen Bin thought.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t worked with e-commerce merchants before, so he knew how impressive this was.

Just yesterday, the factory’s biggest client had visited, so Chen Bin naturally had to treat such a major client to dinner at a hotel.

During the meal, after everyone exchanged toasts and enjoyed a few rounds of drinks, Chen Bin, feeling curious, asked the client—who ran a chain of physical stores selling adult merchandise—what level the store called Keep Coming was at?

This client had tried e-commerce last year, but it had ended disastrously, and he had lost a lot of money.

He looked at Keep Coming’s data and immediately fell silent.

After a long pause, he said, “Old Chen, do you know who’s running this store?”

“What’s wrong?” Chen Bin asked. “The owner of this store didn’t hire anyone to run it. It’s a young man who’s doing it all himself.”

The man sighed, picked up his wine glass, and clinked it with Chen Bin’s. “Well, then there’s nothing I can do. Otherwise, I’d really want to poach someone with such skills. The compensation is negotiable.”

With just this short sentence, Chen Bin had a rough idea of what was going on.

He couldn’t help but remember that before they parted last time, this young man had stood with him outside the factory, smoking.

The young man had surveyed the factory and then said arrogantly, “Boss, if our cooperation goes well, you’ll have to hire more employees and add a few more production lines next year.”

At the time, Chen Bin didn’t take it seriously and just assumed they were bragging while smoking.

Now, things were different. If the store Keep Coming could really maintain its momentum, it might break into the top ten in its category one day.

Damn, are all young people nowadays like this? He’s so smart. Chen Bin sighed repeatedly in his heart.

* * *

The afternoon in Hangzhou was scorching hot.

Cheng Zhu was reading a negative review on the backend.

The review read: “The gathering effect is poor.”

He looked at the size the customer had ordered. Sure enough, it was the smallest size.

He felt a bit helpless about this negative review.

Fuck, we’re selling adult products, not magic products.

If you’re so flat that your chest and back are touching, how’s it supposed to gather? And you had to buy this style, which only highlights the flaws!

But as an e-commerce merchant, he had to handle negative reviews as best as possible.

Cheng Zhu immediately handed the task to Wang Anquan.

This kid has been growing fast lately and should be able to handle it.

Sure enough, Wang Anquan quickly got in touch with the customer.

After finding out it was a female customer, he immediately said, “Sweetie, doesn’t your boyfriend think a smaller size is really cute?”

Then he proceeded to talk with her about all sorts of things. Anyway, he just kept complimenting her.

Cheng Zhu had long noticed that Wang Anquan had the aptitude to be a licking dog. Customers are gods, so I’ll leave this god for you to lick.

At 4 p.m., Cheng Zhu’s phone rang. The caller was his mother, but when he picked up, it was Little Youzi’s voice on the other end.

“Big Brother, Mom said to go to Grandpa’s house for dinner.”

“Okay,” Cheng Zhu replied.

After hanging up, he guessed his parents had probably gone to talk to the supermarket owner about the transfer.

His intuition told him that his mother going to his maternal grandfather’s house for dinner today was probably to… borrow some money?

The business of Yunlai Restaurant was indeed stable, but with two children to support, the family savings weren’t substantial.

He figured they had done the math and found they were still a bit short on money.

As mentioned earlier, Cheng Zhu’s paternal grandparents had passed away early, even before Old Cheng had gotten married. Therefore, Cheng Zhu and Little Youzi had never met their paternal grandparents.

Old Cheng, who had no parents, was once a poor young man, so back then, he had essentially been a live-in son-in-law. The entire family had lived in Cheng Zhu’s maternal grandfather’s house.

Cheng Zhu’s maternal grandfather had been a chef in his younger years. He had passed down all his culinary skills to Old Cheng, which eventually led to the opening of Yunlai Restaurant.

For Old Cheng, this man was both his father-in-law and his master.

He held the old man in both reverence and fear.

During Cheng Zhu’s rebellious phase, if Old Cheng beat him, he would sometimes call his grandfather to complain.

The old man had some savings. After hearing that Cheng Zhu got into university, his grandfather, who doted on his grandchildren, happily gave him a 5,000 yuan red packet.

His grandfather’s thinking was simple. He was getting old and might not have much time left. Money couldn’t be taken with you when you died, so he might as well be generous with his grandchildren while he still had the chance.

In other words, it was all thanks to his grandfather that Cheng Zhu had so much capital to bet on the World Cup finals.

After making money from the World Cup, he spent an afternoon buying some fruits and visiting his grandparents.

He didn’t buy anything too expensive because, at their age, elderly people would feel more distressed than anyone else when they saw you spend money.

But once he made a decent amount of money in the future, he would be better able to take care of them.

Cheng Zhu now tried to visit his grandparents once a week.

To say something harsh but realistic, many people could roughly count how many more times they would be able to meet their elderly relatives.

Cheng Zhu hadn’t visited his grandparents last weekend because the store had just gotten on track, and he had been too busy. Even when Jiang Wanzhou invited him to the movies, he had to turn him down.

Speaking of which, the summer blockbuster currently showing was called Tiny Times.

In Cheng Zhu’s opinion, given the current situation, if his parents really borrowed money from his grandfather, it wouldn’t be a bad thing.

First, he had confidence in his parents’ community fresh food supermarket. He was sure they’d be able to repay the money.

Second, wasn’t his second uncle, the gambling addict, coming to scam some money? Too bad, our family is already in debt.

At 5 p.m., Xu Yun arrived at her parents’ house with her son and daughter.

Old Cheng hadn’t come because someone needed to stay at the restaurant.

Outside the door, Little Youzi was the one knocking.

Inside, the familiar voice of their grandfather, Xu Chenglin, asked knowingly, “Who’s knocking on the door?”

“Grandpa, Grandpa, it’s me!” Cheng You’s childish voice called out.

When the door opened, the rich aroma of chicken soup greeted them. It was an incredibly appetizing scent.

Cheng Zhu immediately said, “Mmm, it smells so good.”

“I stewed a free-range chicken,” Grandpa Xu Chenglin said with a smile.

Cheng Zhu had never figured out whether free-range chickens and eggs were truly more nutritious.

He only knew that free-range chickens and eggs definitely seemed to taste better.

As he entered the house, he noticed that the living room was somewhat cool but not overly cold.

Clearly, the air conditioner had only just been turned on.

Elderly people generally only turned on the air conditioner in the bedroom on hot days, never in the living room.

Even so, this was still better than some elderly people who only used electric fans.

The two elders must have calculated the time and figured their grandson and granddaughter would be arriving soon, so they had turned on the air conditioner in the living room ahead of time.

During dinner, even though Old Cheng and his grandfather shared the same culinary skills and their dishes had many similarities in taste, Cheng Zhu still ate with great relish.

He devoured his meal with the enthusiasm of a pig, eating until he was completely stuffed before setting down his chopsticks.

He understood that bringing joy to the elderly was simple. They felt happiness when someone ate heartily in front of them.

If someone ate too little, they would become anxious, wondering if they had done something wrong.

As people aged, they would often become as sensitive as children.

After dinner, his grandmother went to the kitchen to cut some fruit, while his grandfather seemed to suddenly remember something, stood up, opened the fridge, and took out two bottles of fresh milk.

With a warm smile, he walked to the couch and placed a bottle in front of Cheng Zhu and Little Youzi.

Cheng Zhu was used to this by now. Except for last week, he had been visiting almost every week lately, and each time, fresh milk awaited him—clearly a thoughtful gesture from his grandfather.

Little Youzi was too absorbed in watching TV to pay attention to the milk.

Meanwhile, Cheng Zhu twisted off the cap and prepared to drink it.

The moment he took a sip, he realized something was off.

Fresh milk had a short shelf life, and it seemed this one had expired. It was likely prepared for last week, but Cheng Zhu’s busy schedule had kept him from visiting.

Although Cheng Zhu acted convincingly, Grandpa Xu Chenglin still noticed something was off. He picked up the bottle and said in frustration, “Ah, my memory! This has been here for over ten days now.”

It wasn’t about the money. He was just upset that he had given his beloved grandson spoiled milk.

The elderly man quickly got up to pour water for Cheng Zhu, muttering, “Ah, I’ve become old and muddle-headed, old and muddle-headed.

“It’s been nearly half a month since you last came, and now that you’re here, I ended up serving you expired milk.”

He kept muttering, “Old and muddle-headed, old and muddle-headed…”

Hearing this, Cheng Zhu felt especially uncomfortable.

He realized it was time to hire more staff. There was no need to handle everything personally. He had to free up time and continue visiting as often as possible, ideally every week.

Because Cheng Zhu knew the expired milk wasn’t his grandparents’ fault…

—It was because he had come back too late.