Chapter 10: Earning a Living
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Lu Fan’s instinctive “Sis” ruined the entire mood.
Bai Lu turned her head and said softly, “Before you came home yesterday, Auntie exchanged our birth details with my mother. I’m five months younger than you.”
“Lu Fan, do you like women who are older than you?”
“Uh, not really.”
“From yesterday until now, you’ve called me ‘Sis’ four times in total. I’ve been keeping count.”
Lu Fan looked embarrassed. “Have I? I don’t remember that.”
“You have.”
“Oh.”
“I understand. Men always have strange preferences. Some like older women, and some like younger ones. It’s fine—I don’t mind. If you want to call me Sis, I’ll just be your older sister.”
Lu Fan said helplessly, “I was just… I really don’t have that kind of preference. From now on, let’s just call each other by our names.”
“I’m serious. It’s only a form of address. Either way is fine.”
“Heh, Bai Lu, look—the scenery here is really beautiful.”
“Mm. The corn is almost ripe.”
Instead of taking Bai Lu to Jiang City’s bustling downtown, Lu Fan brought her to the university district near East Lake.
Construction there had begun in the 1990s, and by now six universities had established campuses in the area.
The most famous was Jiangnan University, which ranked near the top even among the nation’s Double First-Class universities.
There were also Jiang City University of Technology, Jiangnan University of Science and Technology, Jiang City College of Foreign Languages and International Trade, Jiang City Medical College, and Jiangnan Institute of Industry.
Jiang City University of Technology and Jiangnan University of Science and Technology were both provincial key universities.
In his previous life, Lu Fan had attended Jiangnan Institute of Industry, which was barely considered a second-tier university. He had majored in marketing, then the most popular field of study.
Later, when he looked for work, he found that his options were quite broad. Running sales in a major city, he could adapt to almost any industry.
It was only later that Lu Fan gradually realized that sales depended more on a person’s natural talent than on their major.
“Bai Lu, I’ll be studying around here in the future.”
“Really? That’s wonderful! I thought you were going to study somewhere far away. This way, I’ll be able to come home from time to time too. By the way, which university are you going to attend?”
Lu Fan smiled. “I’ve only just finished the exams and haven’t filled out my applications yet. I’ll probably do it the day after tomorrow. I still have to go to school to submit them.”
“I believe you’ll definitely get into a good university.”
“You believe in me that much? My grades in high school weren’t particularly good. I usually ranked somewhere around tenth in my class.”
“I just believe in you.”
Lu Fan took Bai Lu for several laps around the pedestrian street at the intersection of the various campuses.
At that time, some of the shops were closed, and there were not many students on the street. Every so often, they would encounter a few, probably upperclassmen preparing for the graduate school entrance examination.
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Lu Fan copied down the information from several shops that were being offered for transfer or sublease, but he did not call to inquire. Instead, he left with Bai Lu.
He had been reborn for two days now, and it was not as though he had never considered how to make money.
The problem was that he lacked start-up capital. No matter what he did, it seemed difficult.
It was not that he could not bring himself to ask his parents for money. The key issue was that they did not have any money either.
Normally, there would have been no need to hurry. But he was no longer living only for himself. He had a family to support, and he also had to provide for Bai Lu and Bai Shuang.
He could not possibly let them follow him around and starve!
On the way there, Lu Fan had been taking stock of his own strengths.
He had studied marketing, and the job he had done for the longest time was sales. He had sold electronic products, medical equipment, women’s personal-care products, and franchise opportunities.
Later, during several entrepreneurial ventures, he had handled everything himself—building factories, developing products, managing marketing, and finding sales channels. He was something of an all-purpose player.
Now that he thought about it, he realized that he seemed capable of doing almost anything, yet he did not appear to excel at anything in particular.
After pondering for a while without coming up with any clear direction, he stopped dwelling on it.
For now, all he needed to do was earn enough money to support the two girls and cover his own tuition and living expenses.
That meant earning two or three thousand yuan a month would be enough.
There was no need to aim too high.
When they reached an intersection, Lu Fan suddenly asked, “Did you bring your ID card?”
“Huh? My ID card?” Bai Lu’s face instantly flushed crimson, and she lowered her head, looking dazed.
“I didn’t bring it. Can we use yours?”
Lu Fan frowned. “I don’t know. Come on, let’s go inside and ask.”
Bai Lu followed behind him, her heart pounding like a drum. It was only when she saw Lu Fan leave his bicycle outside an Internet café that she let out a soft curse.
She did not even know whether she was cursing herself or someone else.
The Internet café attendant did not ask either of them for identification. Without even looking up, he tossed two access cards over, took their ten yuan, and lowered his head to continue playing his game.
Most of the computers in the café were empty. There were not many customers, but the smell was still rather choking, with nearly half the people smoking.
The two of them casually chose two computers. Lu Fan patted the bulky CRT monitor, feeling a strange sense of familiarity.
Back when he had studied here, he had spent at least three days and two nights a week in Internet cafés.
Half-Life, Red Alert, Legend of Mir—those games were both youth and poison.
Lu Fan opened a website and searched for some of the major events of that year.
On January 14, humanity successfully cloned a monkey for the first time.
…
After looking through them for a while, he decided that these major events would not be of much use to him.
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He then found the Jiang City Information Port website and began reading some local news.
Bai Lu sat beside him without turning on the computer in front of her. Instead, she gazed admiringly at Lu Fan as his fingers clattered across the keyboard.
“Go ahead and play. There are games and movies on here.”
“I’ve never been to an Internet café, and I don’t know how to play anything. I’ll just watch you.”
Lu Fan bent down and turned on her computer.
“Computers will become more and more widespread in the future. You need to keep up with the times. You have to learn how to use this thing. By the way, you don’t have a QQ account yet, do you? I’ll help you register one.”
Lu Fan found the penguin icon on the desktop, only to discover that it was still called OICQ at the time.
Looking at the familiar interface, he entered his own QQ number. After entering the password incorrectly three times in a row, he began recovering the account through the security questions.
But the very first question stopped him cold.
What is your mother’s name?
Confidently, he entered: Xia Hongying.
The answer was wrong.
He then tried Old Xia, but that was wrong too.
Hongying?
Wrong again!
Lu Fan held his breath and thought carefully before entering another name: Mei Chaofeng.
At last, he passed the verification, and Lu Fan let out a sigh of relief.
The second question: What is your father’s name?
This time, Lu Fan had an idea. Instead of honestly entering Lu Dawei, he typed in his nickname: Lu the Monkey.
The third question: Who is your favorite person?
Damn it. Had he really been so careless back then? Why had he set so many questions?
He first glanced at Bai Lu and saw that she was controlling the mouse, dragging it around on the screen.
After thinking for a moment, he quickly entered a name: Sun Shiya.
Wrong.
He entered another: Zhao Manrou.
Wrong again.
It was not until he entered the fifth name, Xiao Yao, that he finally passed the verification.
Lu Fan let out a bitter laugh. During adolescence, boys fell for a different kind of girl every so often. In hindsight, that was perhaps understandable.
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