novelraw Chapter 949 Things Have Changed
Chapter 949 Things Have Changed
Half an hour later, Yang Dan leaned against the car door, smoking.
There were several men and women standing in front of me, less than ten people in total.
"Brother Yang, these guys are so dishonest. They all say they're busy... Before, if Brother Yang made a phone call, they would be more eager to come over than anyone else." A young man wearing an earring muttered to himself while holding his phone.
"It's nothing, it's only human nature." Yang Dan pursed her lips, seemingly not taking it to heart at all.
He's been through a lot in the past few years, including his subordinates using fake chips to make money in casinos behind his back, and Ponzi schemes running away with the money. He's gotten used to it all.
"I didn't call you all out today for no reason, I just came back to let everyone get together, let's go!" Yang Dan stubbed out his cigarette and waved his hand.
The group of people entered a KTV they used to frequent.
"Oh, isn't this Young Master Yang? You didn't even call before coming. I'll arrange things for you right now!" The manager greeted him warmly, jogging forward.
"Why would you need to call Brother Yang? Are you out of your mind?" The young man with the earring glared at the manager unhappily.
There are three private rooms with the best decor, one of which is reserved exclusively by Yang Dan, so there's absolutely no need to make a reservation by phone in advance.
"I'm sorry, Young Master Yang. You haven't been here in a long time... That private room... We're just a small business, aren't we..." the manager mumbled, but the meaning was already quite clear.
Yang Dan's private box is no longer available.
In the past, Yang Dan would have kicked the manager to the ground long ago. But now, he waved his hand dismissively, saying, "Just find a large private room."
"Okay, please go ahead!" The manager wiped his sweat and gestured for him to proceed with great enthusiasm.
"This son of a bitch, still calling it a small business. We used to spend so much money here, we could have bought this whole KTV. And they didn't even leave a single private room..." the young man with the earring muttered unhappily.
The girls behind him seemed embarrassed, all keeping their heads down and remaining silent. In the past, they would have been the first to shout.
After the drinks and fruit platter were served, Yang Dan raised her beer: "Come on, let's have a drink!"
Seeing this, everyone quickly followed.
After finishing a bottle of wine, Yang Dan leaned back on the sofa and said, "While I was away from Qilin these past few days, some people thought they were getting ahead of themselves and started to look down on me, which is perfectly normal. But now that I'm back, I'm going to let them know that Qilin City still belongs to the Yang family!"
"Brother Yang is right, some guys just don't know who they are..."
"That's right, Brother Yang is back now. We'll go wherever you point!"
Several men and women began to regain their confidence.
"Brother Yang, what kind of business are you planning to start this time? Your family's factory... cough cough..." The young man with the earring stopped mid-sentence.
"It's alright, I know about the factory. But I'm definitely not coming back to bring it back. How much money can you make producing those sunflower seeds and egg yolk pies? My dad was just clinging on for the sake of a dream." Yang Dan shook her head.
He never thought much of food factories, and when his father spent millions to hire his sister as a spokesperson, Yang Dan thought he was out of his mind.
"So what should we do now?" someone asked.
"What's the situation at Qilin now?" Yang Dan had been gone for too long, so he glanced at everyone.
“The richest man in Qilin City right now is Ni Bei…” the man with the earring said after thinking for a moment.
Yang Dan understood after listening for a while.
Currently, the top-performing industries in the seven neighboring cities are categorized as follows: First tier: liquor and food processing; Second and third tiers: real estate and engineering; Fourth tier: auto parts and advanced manufacturing; Fifth tier: deep processing of specialty agricultural products.
Ni Bei is a liquor manufacturer. Since Yang Dingtian shifted his focus to other areas, he has become the new richest man.
But Yang Dan knew that this guy was definitely not as rich as her father.
Moreover, the Yang family was not only wealthy, but also powerful. Therefore, the locals all felt that Yang Dingtian had always been the local tyrant.
"Well, engineering and real estate are out of the question; I don't like traditional industries. I wonder what you guys think..."
"Click".
Yang Dan nodded, preparing to explain her plan. However, halfway through her sentence, the door to the private room was pushed open.
Several familiar faces walked in carrying bottles of liquor. The one leading them, a man with a buzz cut, sat down directly in front of Yang Dan and patted him on the shoulder: "Hey, it really is Yang Dan. I heard from someone that I just saw you, I didn't expect it to be true. Sorry, we took your private room."
Yang Dan glanced at the other party. It turned out that these people were Yang Dan's elementary school classmates and had all been bullied by him in the past.
Now that you've come here and are being sarcastic and sarcastic, it's obvious you're deliberately trying to embarrass him.
"It's alright. KTVs in a small place like Qilin are only this level. To me, all the private rooms are the same." Yang Dan chuckled.
"Oh, so Young Master Yang has already thought his hometown wasn't good enough after being away for a while. They say there's no place like home, and your old man doesn't want to come back after he went to Xinlu to develop his career..."
"Hey, you're not right. It's not that they don't want to come back, it's that they can't. I heard from outsiders that Yang Dingtian and Yang Qing got into trouble. These past few years, the higher-ups have been cracking down on bad practices, and suddenly the bad atmosphere in Qilin has disappeared. No wonder things have improved..."
The two men who had just followed the crew-cut man in spoke one after the other.
"What the hell? How dare you talk to Young Master Yang like that? Haven't you been beaten enough before?!" The man with the earring slammed his hand on the table.
"Oh, oh, oh, this is a society governed by law. You still want to resort to violence? It seems the bad habits in Qilin haven't been rectified yet. If you've got the guts, come and hit me. But if you lay a hand on me now, you'll be detained, you know?" The young man who had been speaking sarcastically pointed to his face provocatively.
"Alright, let's go sing in the private room. This place is too small, it can't fit so many people. Yang Dan, if you don't feel comfortable sitting here, come to our place!" Seeing that his goal had been achieved, the crew-cut man chuckled and downed his beer, then led the group out of the private room.
"Fuck your mother..." After everyone left, the man with the earring cursed again.
The other men and women looked at each other, their eyes filled with disappointment.
In the past, Yang Dan would have already smashed a beer bottle over the other person's head. Now, she only gave a token retort, which made them feel extremely embarrassed.
"Click".
"Damn it, here we go again? Damn it!"
Before things had even calmed down for two minutes, the door to the private room was pushed open again. The man with the earring was so angry he almost jumped off the sofa.
"Brother Dan!" Two tall, thin teenagers with unconventional haircuts entered the private room this time.
"You are..." Everyone turned to look at Yang Dan, who scratched her head awkwardly under their gaze, and then glanced at the two people at the door.
He really couldn't remember who they were.
“I’m Big Sheep, and he’s Little Sheep. You’ve been to our village before… My dad said we should call you cousin…” The boy in the lead touched his face shyly.
Only then did everyone realize that the two boys who came in looked somewhat alike, seemingly twins.
Yang Dan then remembered that she seemed to have seen them before. The two were relatives of her mother's family; one was named Zhang Feng, and the other Zhang Yun. Da Mei and Xiao Mei were their nicknames, just like Da Gou and Er Gou, which were very common in the countryside.
"Oh, it's you guys. Come in and have a seat." Yang Dan waved to them.
The two boys trotted over and sat down, but they seemed quite nervous.
"Weren't you in the village? How did you end up in the city?" Yang Dan remembered that the two families were quite poor. She had been back to the village a few times with her mother, but she wasn't very familiar with them. "We came to the city to play and sing with our classmates..." her younger brother, Zhang Yun, said.
"What do you want?" Yang Dan didn't think much of this poor relative. The Yang family had many relatives, and in the past, when people came to visit, it was either to borrow money or to ask for favors.
"Cousin, we two want to make some money..." Zhang Feng stammered, not being good with words.
“Let me tell you. Our family doesn’t approve of us. They say we’re wasting our time playing short videos while we’re in school. But our videos get a lot of likes, and our follower count is gradually increasing.” Zhang Yun nudged her brother with her elbow and then put her phone on the table.
Yang Dan glanced down and saw that they were just short videos filmed on campus and prank videos made at home, some of which resembled Stephen Chow's nonsensical style.
"And then?" Yang Dan looked at the other person's number of followers, which was nearly ten million.
He had previously been involved in the business of boosting data, so he knew very well that most of these follower counts were artificially inflated.
"We've discovered that live streaming is very profitable, and we want to start selling products through live streaming!"
"Then why don't you do it?"
“We only know how to make videos, we don’t know anything else. We don’t know anyone to contact manufacturers…” Zhang Yun lowered his head awkwardly.
"Live-streaming e-commerce? Just the two of you?" The man with the earring looked at the two dark-skinned country bumpkins in front of him and chuckled.
Several women covered their mouths and chuckled.
Two country bumpkins doing live-streaming e-commerce?
This is hilarious.
"So what are you two going to call yourselves?" Yang Dan asked, taking a sip of her drink.
“Wind and Cloud!” Zhang Feng blurted out.
This was a name the two brothers had come up with long ago; it not only included their names but also capitalized on the popularity of the classic TV series.
“Call them three!” Zhang Yun suddenly blurted out.
"Three sheep? Big sheep, little sheep, and where's the last one?" Yang Dan was amused.
"Cousin, now that you've come in, there are three sheep!"
"Cough cough!" Yang Dan spat out her wine after hearing that.
The people in the private room finally couldn't hold back anymore, and they all laughed so hard they were clutching their stomachs.
“Live streaming is not something you can do. Look at you... your appearance and your eloquence…” Yang Dan looked them over and then shook her head.
The two brothers looked disappointed upon hearing this.
“But since they’re our own people, we can give it a try first…” Yang Dan suddenly remembered that he was planning to make a big splash in Qilin, and now was the time to recruit more people.
"Really?" Zhang Yun's eyes lit up after hearing this.
"Eat watermelon and drink alcohol." Yang Dan didn't say much and directly raised the bottle.
Several hours later.
Yang Dan, drunk, ordered a price and got into the car, heading towards his home.
"So this is the home of the former richest man in the city..." After the car came to a stop, Jia Fang looked around at the famous villa and muttered to himself.
"What former richest man? He'll be the richest man from now on!" When Yang Dan heard this, she immediately felt very unhappy.
"Yes, yes, boss!" Bai Jia nodded hurriedly.
"You blind fool." Yang Dan pulled out some money and shooed the man away like he was swatting a fly.
I just sat in the back row and drank some alcohol.
After getting out of the car, the alcohol churned in her stomach, and Yang Dan leaned against the wall and vomited violently, spitting out stomach acid mixed with alcohol all over the ground.
"Ugh~"
"Ugh~ Ugh~ Damn it, they're all snobs..."
Yang Dan vomited and cursed at the same time.
"Stop throwing up, it stinks!" At that moment, a young man wearing sunglasses emerged from the shadows in the corner.
"Damn it, who are you? Standing in front of my house. Wearing sunglasses at night, are you crazy?" Yang Dan was startled and pointed at the other person, cursing.
"Me? I am Blind Swordsman! You seem to be in good spirits, even having the mood to drink. I thought you would hide at home and cry your heart out." Chen Xi lit a cigarette.
"Damn it, Chen Xi! What the hell are you doing at my house!" Yang Dan leaned closer to take a look and then took three steps back.
"I'm here to deliver something to you on someone's behalf," Chen Xi grinned.
On a pitch-black night, an enemy ambushed at the doorstep and uttered such words.
This immediately made Yang Dan realize that the other party had said they were bringing him a coffin.
He looked around nervously, then pointed at Chen Xi and shouted, "Don't do anything reckless! This is a society governed by law. You're still young, don't go down the path of crime..."
"Hahaha, it's hilarious to hear you say that. I'm just teasing you. Here, take this." Chen Xi took out a bulging file folder from his pocket.
"What is this?" Yang Dan asked, completely bewildered.
"Your sister asked me to give this to you."
"Why didn't she come herself? Where is my sister?"
"There's a message from her in here; you'll see when you read it yourself," Chen Xi said, exhaling a puff of smoke.
"What exactly do you know? Where is my dad?" Yang Dan pressed.
"Um... I guess he's in jail. Your sister probably stayed with him to take the blame for you. But that's just my guess..." Chen Xi ruthlessly revealed the possibility that Yang Dan had long considered but had been reluctant to believe.
"You're talking nonsense! Did you come here today to mock me? I don't want anyone's pity, I don't want anyone to take the blame for me. I will take responsibility for my own actions. I am the strongest. I will revive the Yang family and become the hero of the Yang family!" Yang Dan was drunk at this time and had been wronged several times. Now he vented all the anger that had been bottled up inside him.
"You should just live your life properly. Hero? Heroes need to make sacrifices. Your sister... isn't a hero either. In my opinion, she's just a fool who sacrificed her life to protect a good-for-nothing like you." Chen Xi shook his head.
"Shut up! You have no right to talk about my sister." Yang Dan lunged forward, trying to throw a punch, but stumbled and fell to her knees with a thud.
"Stop acting like a child. The people who were blocking your way have all fallen. From now on, you have to learn to stand on your own." Chen Xi looked at the person lying on the ground, sighed, and silently turned away.
"Waaaaah~" Yang Dan behind her was crying like a child.
He clutched the brown paper bag tightly, hot tears falling onto the back of his hand, a suppressed sob, like that of a dying wild animal, rising from his throat. (End of Chapter)