Forcing Me to Be Reborn?!

Wang Anquan felt like his soul had been hit by a formidable force.

"Good girls shouldn't be let down, and bad girls... shouldn't be wasted?"

Brother Zhu actually wrote it down in his notes?!

The bus arrived at its stop, at the neighborhood where Cheng Zhu and Wang Anquan lived.

Sashaying off the bus, Cheng Zhu disembarked first, quickly followed by Wang Anquan.

At the entrance to the neighborhood, they said their goodbyes, as their homes were in different directions.

"It's four in the afternoon, probably no one's home," Cheng Zhu thought to himself.

His family owned a small restaurant, the Yunlai Restaurant, located across the street from the neighborhood.

The restaurant was small, consisting of just two rooms.

In those days, private kitchens weren't yet popular, and the delivery industry was still developing. So places like this little restaurant mostly made money from dine-in customers.

Cheng Zhu's father, Cheng Donglai, was the owner and chef of the restaurant.

Overall, the business was neither particularly good nor bad.

This meant that although Cheng Zhu grew up without any real wealth, he also never had to worry about food and clothing.

Cheng had limited skills but never let Little Cheng go hungry.

Looking back, running a restaurant was quite tough, with the smoke and flames every day, and occasionally dealing with difficult customers.

"I'll go home first, change clothes, and take a shower. I'll head to the restaurant for dinner at five-thirty," Cheng Zhu decided.

Upon arriving at home, he went straight to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror.

"This hair is so long and such an ugly perm," Cheng Zhu couldn't help but think.

During those days, perming hair in the style of a middle part or a four-six part seemed to be the trend. Once high school was over, many students let loose and splurged at hair salons.

"But this perfect hairline is really something to miss," Cheng Zhu couldn't help but say.

Before showering, Cheng Zhu looked for a change of clothes in the wardrobe.

He searched for a while and found that his trousers were either cropped or so long they dragged on the ground.

"Oh, I remember now, showing ankles was the fashion at that time. Either wear cropped pants or roll up the trouser legs," Cheng Zhu chuckled.

He faintly remembered a special method of rolling up the trouser legs to create the look of tapered pants.

In the end, he picked out a pair of black sweatpants.

After the shower, he did not rush out but sat at the desk in his room, took out his phone, and checked his total assets.

"I have a total of 12,312 yuan," Cheng Zhu murmured.

After the high school graduation exams, his elders would give red envelopes as gifts.

In Zhejiang Province, people were quite generous with their red envelopes.

But given his family's financial situation, this amount of money was more than expected.

Mainly because his maternal grandfather was the type of old man who always had money in his pockets, always thinking he couldn't take it with him due to his age, so he was very generous with his grandsons and granddaughters, giving him alone an envelope of 5,000 yuan.

Cheng Zhu had already spent a small part of this money during the summer vacation and still had over 10,000 left.

"If I remember correctly, most of this money would have been spent on Li Xinyue during the summer vacation," Cheng Zhu recalled.

"To go from having over six million in one account to all my assets being just over ten thousand, gee, that's quite a drop," Cheng Zhu couldn't help but sigh.

But the strong never complain about their circumstances.

"Force me to rebirth, right," Cheng Zhu thought. "It would be a shame not to make some more money, given this opportunity."

"With just over ten thousand as a starting fund, what can I do in 2014?" Cheng Zhu pondered.

He checked the date; it was July 13th. Then he went online for a while to get used to the era and quickly had a plan for his first steps.

"Within twenty-four hours, I could multiply this money several times over!"

At that thought, he realized that if a person were reborn, they would indeed have a huge advantage.

Cheng Zhu thought of someone the netizens jokingly referred to as someone with a system in their body, reminiscent of a life from a fantastical story brought into reality.

He was—"Lei Bu Si."

Mr. Lei once said, "As long as you stand at the right place at the right time, even pigs can fly."

Returning to his youth, Cheng Zhu felt he had to seize something more, or else the rebirth would be for nothing.

"Go on, young man, meet the winds of fate."

...

...

Tonight, Cheng Zhu would stand at his first important juncture after rebirth.

But before that, he was going to have dinner at the Yunlai Restaurant.

And, believe it or not, he felt oddly... nervous on his way to the restaurant?

Besides that, there was also excitement and anticipation.

"My parents at this time are much younger than they were back then."

"Little Youzi is still in kindergarten."

Little Youzi was his sister, her name was Cheng Youu, and she was five and a half years old.

His family typically favored girls over boys, treating their daughter like a princess while the son at best could hope to be a sword-bearing royal guard.

Arriving at the Yunlai Restaurant, Cheng Zhu took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

As he entered Yunlai Restaurant, he saw his mom, Xu Yun, bustling about.

Many might have this feeling, that ever since they can remember, their mom has always been a middle-aged woman.

How many people can clearly remember what their mother looked like when she was young?

Xu Yun was exactly forty years old, indeed a middle-aged woman, but compared to the image in Cheng Zhu's memory, she looked much younger.

"What's the matter?" Xu Yun, puzzled, stared at her son who was staring blankly at her.

"Mom, you're really young. No, I mean you look really young today," blurted out Cheng Zhu.

"What nonsense!" Xu Yun, usually gentle, furrowed her brow involuntarily and quickly turned to grab a bowl of iced mung bean soup from the fridge for her son.

This generation of mothers might ask their sons if the food they prepare tastes good, but they rarely ask if they look pretty.

Likewise, children seldom compliment their mothers on looking young and beautiful.

Cheng Zhu's thought was simple; lavish praises on an outsider woman, and she might still regard you as a sycophant. But casually compliment your mom, and truly, she would be happy all day long.

Today, Xu Yun was unexpectedly flattered by her son's unconventional praise.

It took her a while to pretend everything was normal and went to the bathroom, where she bashfully looked at herself in the mirror back and forth.

At first glance, she didn't notice anything, but as she kept looking...

"I guess... there's a bit?" she whispered to herself, joy spreading at the bottom of her heart.

Meanwhile, Cheng Zhu sat in his family's little restaurant, pretentiously sipping the mung bean soup. Soon enough, a little head popped out from beside the checkout counter, and with a roar like a fierce dragon, tried to startle him.

Looking at the tiny Nezha-like hairstyle, Cheng Zhu pretended to be utterly frightened, and the little girl immediately giggled.

He picked up the little girl and looked at her round chubby cheeks, her shining black eyes, and the endearing Nezha hairstyle, and felt like he'd been struck by his sister's cuteness.

"Little Youzi is only five this year; this is when she's at her most adorable," he thought to himself.

He had always missed his sister from this period.

Cheng Youu at this current age was also the closest to him, extremely clingy.

Later, when he moved from Hang City to start a business in Wu City, first getting into e-commerce and then live-streaming sales, he was away from his family, seeing Cheng Youu only a few times a year.

After giving her a few rounds of "lift high" play, Cheng Zhu put her down to sit next to him.

"Little Youzi, do you want your brother to feed you some mung bean soup?" he asked.

"Just a moment!" Cheng Youu, small but savvy, raised a hand.

"What's up?" Cheng Zhu looked puzzled.

"Brother, I wanted to ask you something," said the little girl.

"Go ahead," Cheng Zhu said with a smile.

"All day today, I was not at home. Did you miss me?" Little Youzi looked up, her chubby face lifted.

"I sure did," Cheng Zhu responded promptly, in a way that had a double meaning.

It wasn't just a day I haven't seen you; it's been many years since I've seen this version of you.

Little Youzi immediately placed her small hand over her chest, breathed a sigh of relief like a little adult, and said in a sweet voice:

"That's good. I was worried it was just me secretly missing you at the restaurant."