Chapter 95: The Consequences of Breaking a Promise

The weather had been as warm as if spring had arrived early. But then, suddenly, after a northwest wind swept through at midnight, bringing with it a sky full of dark clouds, the temperature dropped several degrees.

The unexpected cold snap of late spring caught people off guard.

Before daybreak, Su Chunfeng, who had risen early, went to the base of the west wall next to the kitchen and fired up the small heating boiler that had just been stopped for two days. Only then did he leave the house and head to the fields for over an hour of physical training and cultivation. By the time he returned home, the inside of the house was already comfortably warm.

He walked into the bedroom and saw his younger brother still sound asleep, buried under the quilt. Smiling, he walked over and yanked the quilt away. “Get up…”

“Ow!” Su Chunyu shivered violently and hurriedly snatched the quilt back, wrapping it around himself. Awake now, he complained, “Why, bro? It’s so early in the morning. What if I catch a cold?”

“The early morning is the best time for reading and memorizing,” Su Chunfeng said with a laugh. “Get up and read for a while.”

“Ah, dear mother…” Su Chunyu wailed helplessly as he dragged over the clothes next to him and slowly started putting them on. “Bro,” he said, “how come you seem like you never need to sleep? You’re always so energetic. If I had as much energy as you, I’d have gotten first place long ago.”

Su Chunfeng scolded him, “It’s just about using time wisely. What does it have to do with energy? Stop whining and get up quickly.”

“Fine! Big bro!”

Just then, Su Chunfeng heard his father’s call. “Xiao Feng, come here…”

“Yeah.” Su Chunfeng responded and turned to go to the bedroom in the east room.

Chen Xiulan was already up early, busily making breakfast in the kitchen. Su Cheng had delivered three truckloads of goods the day before and didn’t get home until half past eleven at night. Exhausted, he had collapsed into bed as soon as he got home. He had no energy left to call Su Chunfeng and ask what Chen Xian’s opinion was on that contract document after reading it.

Su Cheng, lying under the covers, lit a cigarette. His eyes, bloodshot from fatigue, were slightly swollen. He looked at his son who had entered and said, “How did the talk with your grand-uncle go yesterday?”

“Pretty much settled,” Su Chunfeng said with a smile. “I agreed to give him twenty percent of the shares!”

“What?” Su Cheng was shocked.

“Twenty percent of the shares, that is, but it’s twenty percent from our shares after deducting the shares that will go to the Erdaokou Town government.” Su Chunfeng knew his father would find this hard to accept, so he pulled over a chair and sat down, explaining as he did, “When negotiating with the Erdaokou Town government, we ordinary folks don’t understand all those twists and turns. It’s easy to get trapped… And even after signing the contract, we’ll need to deal with various government departments for the later development, construction, and operation. It would be very difficult for us, being clueless. So I thought, if we could give a small portion of the shares to my Third Maternal Grandfather and let him help handle these complicated matters, it would save us a lot of trouble.”

Su Cheng was taken aback for a moment. “He agreed?”

“No, but he said he’d have my aunt, Yufang, help handle these things.” Su Chunfeng chuckled. “So I agreed that after the deal is done, I’d give that twenty percent of the shares to my aunt.”

“Give them to her?” Su Cheng was even less pleased. That Chen Yufang’s character and behavior were really not likable.

Su Chunfeng said calmly, “Actually, it still amounts to giving it to my Third Maternal Grandfather… After all, he’s a person of status; he can’t just agree to take those shares right in front of me. And if he really didn’t want them, he wouldn’t have agreed to let my aunt Chen Yufang take them either, right?”

After thinking for a moment, Su Cheng couldn’t help but laugh wryly. “You kid, where did you learn such clever tricks?”

Su Chunfeng scratched his head and gave a simple, honest-looking smile.

He believed he didn’t have much social experience, nor enough knowledge or time to handle such extremely complex, tedious business matters that involved many different aspects. At the same time, he knew that given his father’s current life experience and personality, he couldn’t handle these things perfectly either.

Who could be willing to let go of such a good money-making opportunity?

So he had to seek help from external forces—and Chen Xian naturally became the best choice.

First, Chen Xian was family. Although retired, his influence and connections still existed in Pingyang City. Otherwise, his son wouldn’t have been promoted instead of being affected after his retirement. Second, Chen Xian was trustworthy. Because he knew Su Chunfeng possessed unusual abilities, he surely felt some apprehension in his heart and definitely wouldn’t dare to entertain other ideas lightly. Also, without some benefit, given Chen Xian’s nature, how could he be willing to put in continuous effort?

“Ah.” Su Cheng tossed the cigarette butt on the floor and got up to start putting on his clothes. He sighed. “The road of the world is hard to travel, with money as the horse; the fortress of sorrow is hard to breach, with wine as the army… We’re just short on money. Otherwise, we could directly contract the land and not cooperate with their town government at all. Who cares about them?”

“Dad, don’t think about that,” Su Chunfeng said with a smile. “At least, that piece of land is ours now.”

“Yes,” Su Cheng said. “We can only hope it really makes money. Right now, we’re just spending money. If we earn money, we still have to share it with others…” Although he said that, Su Cheng was growing increasingly convinced that this business would definitely be profitable. Because someone as shrewd and experienced as Chen Xian cared so much about it, and even Li Sheng, after just hearing a general outline and learning where the land was, couldn’t wait to invest and take shares. That was enough to show the value of that land.

The father and son, who were basically clueless about contracting land from grassroots government departments for development and such, would never have imagined that last night, Chen Xian and his daughter Chen Yufang, after a fierce argument over the contract document, discussed at home how to proceed with this contracting plan—they had no intention of engaging in any joint development with the Erdaokou Town government. Their goal was to directly secure the usage rights for those several dozen acres of land, then inject some capital themselves and try to secure thirty percent of the operational shares from Su Cheng.

They didn’t want more than that!

Initially, Chen Yufang felt that since they were going to do this, they must get at least seventy percent of the shares. After all, their relative Su Cheng had no money; wouldn’t he still need to rely on her father Chen Xian to help get a loan? So giving them thirty percent was already an act of charity, considering they were family.

But Chen Xian warned his daughter unequivocally that they could take at most thirty percent; otherwise, Chen Yufang was not to get involved at all.

Back to the matter at hand.

Seeing his father’s reluctance, Su Chunfeng was about to offer some comforting words when he heard the telephone ring in the living room outside.

Who would call so early?

Su Chunfeng got up, walked out of the bedroom, sat on the sofa, and picked up the phone. “Hello, who is this?”

“Su Chunfeng!” An explosive, furious roar came through the receiver; it was Zhang Lifei.

Su Chunfeng hurriedly grimaced and held the receiver a bit away from his ear. Well, this stood-up girl was about to go crazy—yesterday, after returning from the city, Su Chunfeng had heard from his mother that Zhang Lifei and Wang Haifei had really come to his house looking for him. But they hadn’t seemed particularly upset. On the contrary, they had chatted politely with his mother for quite a while before leaving.

Through the phone, Zhang Lifei’s loud questioning kept coming out. The noise was as if she wished she could crawl through the phone line and give Su Chunfeng a few scratches with the Nine Yin White Bone Claw.

Su Cheng, putting on his clothes, walked out and frowned. “Who is it?”

Immediately, there was silence on the phone.

“My classmate, a classmate,” Su Chunfeng answered, extremely embarrassed. He brought the receiver to his ear and whispered into it, covering the mouthpiece. “Lifei, calm down first. Listen to my explanation…”

“Hmph!” A stifled snort came through the receiver. Probably, having just heard Su Cheng’s rather displeased “Who is it?”, she was also feeling quite awkward on the other end.

Su Cheng, frowning and looking somewhat displeased, seemed to realize something. He shook his head with a smile and walked out.

Su Chunfeng felt even more embarrassed. He whispered reproachfully into the phone, “Lifei, look at you, why get so angry? Let’s talk properly. Can you be a bit more ladylike? I didn’t break our promise on purpose. And you, shouting so loudly like a shrew just now—my dad heard everything…”

“It’s still your fault!” Zhang Lifei said, and then she actually started crying. She had only wanted to vent her anger at Su Chunfeng, but who knew his father would happen to hear? This, this was so embarrassing.

“Hey, Lifei, don’t cry, don’t cry.” Su Chunfeng panicked. Faintly, he could hear a woman’s voice from the other side, trying to console her.

Great, this might make Zhang Lifei’s parents mistakenly think he had done something to their daughter…

“Don’t mind me, I’m just angry!” Zhang Lifei’s voice arguing with someone came through the phone. Then, he heard Zhang Lifei say angrily, “Su Chunfeng, I don’t care. You have to come find me to play today. Otherwise, I’ll never speak to you again… I, I’m so annoyed with you!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll go, I’ll go…” Su Chunfeng quickly agreed to this young lady who was mixing coquettishness with tantrums.

“Then it’s settled. I’ll be waiting for you at home. Hmph!”

Click!

The call ended.

Su Chunfeng held the receiver, stunned for a long while. He couldn’t help but lean back on the sofa, looking up with a long sigh. “I have to go…”—Going to Nandou Village right now, scrambling to apologize to Zhang Lifei, probably wouldn’t get him beaten out of the house with a stick by her parents, but at the very least, he’d be met with cold, hostile stares, mistaken for a scoundrel.

But words once spoken are like water poured out. Not going wasn’t an option either.

During breakfast, Su Chunfeng was extremely embarrassed and stayed silent, afraid his father would bring up the earlier incident again—your female classmate’s temper is really too bad, isn’t it?

Fortunately, Su Cheng had already learned the general details of what happened from his wife in the kitchen earlier, so he didn’t say anything. It was only after the meal, when Su Chunfeng said he was going out, that Su Cheng said meaningfully, “Chunfeng, your studies should be the priority now. Of course, it’s okay to be friends with a few girls. Ah, your mom and I aren’t that feudalistic. But, well, you know? Be careful. Don’t mess around, understand?”

“Understood, understood.” Su Chunfeng, his face red, walked out—his dad was thinking too much. What did he mean by ‘be careful, don’t mess around’?

Was it really like that…

Sullenly riding his bicycle out of the village, Su Chunfeng thought it over and decided to go to Wang Haifei’s house first. On one hand, to apologize to Wang Haifei; on the other hand, to ask Wang Haifei to accompany him to Zhang Lifei’s house. That would definitely be better than a highly suspect boy going to Zhang Lifei’s house alone.

But finding Wang Haifei was also a tricky matter, not to mention having to lead the girl out of her house right in front of her parents.

Thinking it over, Su Chunfeng steeled his heart, turned his bike around, and sped all the way back home.

Who cares!

However, as soon as he got home, his resolve mostly evaporated. Resignedly, he picked up the phone and dialed Zhang Lifei’s home number. With sweet words and coaxing, he swore solemnly that he would definitely find time in the future to go to the No.1 Middle School with Wang Haifei to play with Zhang Lifei…

In short, he expended an enormous effort to finally calm down the nearly berserk Zhang Lifei.

Putting down the phone, Su Chunfeng wiped the sweat that had broken out on his forehead. He thought viciously, “If this were face-to-face, I’d rather endure some Natural Backlash and use Art Casting to confuse her. That would be a lot simpler!”