Chapter 125: An Industry Worth Over a Billion

“Come, come, sit at our table. This is really too rare,” Sister Wang quickly said as she made room to one side.

“No, no, we still have dishes over there. We just wanted to come say hello and see everyone,” Zhang Yang said politely.

“Oh, don’t be so formal. We used to be colleagues, and we can still be friends now!” Sister Wang said with a smile as she came over and grabbed Zhang Yang, then looked at Bei Wei. Seeing her picturesque features and radiant, dewy complexion, she could not help but marvel inwardly.

She had the vague feeling that compared with when Bei Wei had still been at the company, her looks and temperament now carried something extra that was hard to describe.

Something even more stunning.

“She really looks like someone nourished by love,” Sister Wang suddenly said with emotion.

The moment Bei Wei heard that, her cheeks flushed red, and she looked a little shy.

Beside them, several young new employees were dazzled by the scene.

“Supervisor Wang, Supervisor Wang, are these our former colleagues?”

“Yes. She used to be the great beauty of our company, and Zhang Yang stole her away. Oh right, that handsome guy is Zhang Yang.” Former supervisor Wang Shijie nodded lightly after hearing the new team members’ questions.

Among the young newcomers were a few second-generation rich kids who considered their families fairly well-off, the sort who never lacked girlfriends around them.

But a woman this beautiful-they really had never seen one before.

“Brother Zhang, right? I just joined the company. Come, let me toast you.” One of the small rich kids, who was basically just drifting through his job, raised his glass. “To make our company’s top beauty willingly resign and leave together with you, you really are something. Brother Zhang, when are you going to teach us a few tricks?”

“There’s no special trick. Nothing but sincerity,” Zhang Yang said with an easy smile, casually pulling Bei Wei into his arms.

“Ah?” The young rich kid froze. “Sincerity actually works?”

He looked at Zhang Yang’s tall and handsome figure, then laughed to himself. Right, someone handsome to that degree really could win with sincerity alone.

“I really envy you, Brother Zhang. Being born this handsome. Unlike us, all we have are a few lousy bucks.” He shook his head and sighed, glancing at the car keys he had placed on the table, suddenly feeling a little dejected.

At that, Xiang Youde could not help laughing.

“Brother Xiang, what are you laughing at?” The young rich kid looked confused.

“I was just thinking-forget looks. Even when it comes to money, you’d better not show off in front of Zhang Yang.” Xiang Youde shook his head and sighed. “That little bit of money of yours doesn’t amount to much.”

“Since when is having money not an advantage?” The young rich kid blinked and looked at Zhang Yang.

“That depends on who you’re comparing yourself to,” Xiang Youde said. “Zhang Yang drives a Bentley. He’s got both looks and money. Even if he taught you his moves, which part could you actually learn?”

“Alright, Old Xiang, why say all that in front of the newcomers?” Zhang Yang said, amused.

These days, he could not even be bothered to casually show off his wealth in front of people. It was boring and lowered his own status. Showing off once or twice in front of ordinary people had some novelty, but after too many times, his threshold had long since risen.

For things that no longer gave him any feeling, he found them tiresome.

“Come on, stop being modest. By the way, did you drive your Bentley here today? Let us old colleagues have a good look,” Xiang Youde said eagerly.

“No, I didn’t drive the Bentley.” Zhang Yang shook his head.

“Ah? You didn’t drive the Bentley? Don’t tell me you two came by taxi?” Xiang Youde asked.

“No. Here, want to take a look at this car instead?” Zhang Yang laughed and casually took out his Cullinan key and placed it on the table.

He knew Old Xiang’s temperament and simply shut him up directly.

The double-R Rolls-Royce key on the table was especially eye-catching.

“What is this? Looking at you, did you bring some other car? Something even flashier than your Bentley Continental GT?” Xiang Youde muttered as he leaned in and directly picked up the key.

“Brother Xiang, y-you… you don’t even recognize a Rolls-Royce key anymore?” The young rich kid stared at the double-R logo and instantly broke out in sweat.

Outside the private room, someone could vaguely be heard calling out loudly.

“Whose Cullinan is it?”

“Which boss owns the Cullinan?”

When they got to their room, Zhang Yang casually took the key back from Xiang Youde and gestured with it. “My Cullinan. Is something wrong?”

The man outside immediately put on a big smile. “We’ve got a car that needs to pass through here, and we’re really afraid of hitting your car. We couldn’t afford it. Would you mind…?”

As he spoke, he took out a cigarette and was bowing and greeting him at the same time, his attitude extremely respectful.

“Alright then,” Zhang Yang agreed readily and walked out of the room.

The instant Zhang Yang left, the private room exploded into noisy chatter.

“Bei Wei, why is Zhang Yang driving a Cullinan now? Didn’t he drive a Bentley?” Xiang Youde asked dryly, his mouth almost hanging open.

“Well… I think he has both. There’s no contradiction, right?” Bei Wei looked at Xiang Youde’s flushed and agitated face, hesitated, then answered with a slightly amused tone.

“Ah?” Xiang Youde’s eyes went blank, and he collapsed into his chair.

At that point, the new employees finally understood what Xiang Youde had meant earlier.

Right-if that was the case, then with both looks and money crushing everyone else, wasn’t he basically unbeatable?

“Bei Wei, I’m so insanely jealous of you!” Several of the female colleagues in the room sounded sour beyond words.

Back then, when Bei Wei chose Zhang Yang, they had thought she had been blinded by love.

Even though Zhang Yang had already been devastatingly handsome at the time.

Looking at it now, this hidden treasure of a man had been right there in the company, and yet Bei Wei had been the one to discover him.

“You… you don’t have to be like this, do you?” Bei Wei said, a little embarrassed.

“Wait… damn, I didn’t notice just now. What you’re wearing… and using…” One of the girls had sharp eyes and finally noticed that everything on Bei Wei from head to toe was unbelievably…

The moment she said that, several young girls in the room crowded around.

“A Chanel dress!”

“Bulgari jewelry!”

“My god, that watch-and that bag of yours, that has to be well over a hundred thousand, right?”

When they counted it all carefully and realized that what Bei Wei was wearing and carrying added up to several hundred thousand, every one of them looked both envious and jealous.

At that moment, the young rich kid did not dare say another word.

The girl might be beautiful, but the cost of keeping up with someone like that was even greater. Only now did they realize how laughable his earlier request for advice had sounded.

Not long after, the private room door opened and Zhang Yang walked back in.

“Huh? Why is it so quiet?”

He immediately felt that the atmosphere in the room was very strange, especially the way several of his former female colleagues were looking at him. Their gazes were especially heated.

“You really are willing to spend on Bei Wei, Zhang Yang.”

It was Sister Wang, full of emotion, who finally broke the strange silence in the room.

“What do you mean willing or not willing to spend? I just went out to move my car.” Zhang Yang looked baffled.

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing. Everyone’s just emotional. They envy Bei Wei for having good judgment and even better fortune. Everything she has now is what she deserves.” Sister Wang sighed. “Judging from the way you do things now, buying things in the hundreds of thousands… sooner or later you’ll be buying Bei Wei a house and a car too, won’t you?”

“This…” Zhang Yang blinked, looked at her, and said nothing.

Sister Wang had her mouth open, tongue dry, as an unbelievable thought suddenly rose in her mind.

Could it be…

“Sister Wang, Zhang Yang already bought them for me,” Bei Wei suddenly said with a bright smile, lightly hugging Zhang Yang’s arm. “Another day, we’ll invite everyone over to our place.”

She did not mention that the house was in Cuihu Tiandi or that the car was a Panamera.

But that one casual sentence was already enough to leave all their former colleagues in deep shock for a long while.

After dinner, outside the little restaurant.

With the door of Zhang Yang’s Cullinan open, everyone’s curiosity was thoroughly satisfied.

“Brother Zhang’s Cullinan is the BB version. It’s seriously impressive.” Although the young rich kid did not own a Cullinan himself, he had always longed for one and knew more about it than anyone else.

“What BB version?” Xiang Youde leaned into the car, marveling at the starlight headliner overhead.

“It means the Daddy version-the daddy of all Cullinans. It’s worth over ten million,” the young rich kid said.

They looked and took photos, but all with restraint. No one brazenly climbed inside, let alone pretended to sit in the driver’s seat.

After quite a while, everyone finally said their goodbyes.

After all, for office workers like them, being able to come out together for a meal at night was already a rare chance to relax. They all still had work the next day.

They were not like Zhang Yang and the others, free to live however they pleased.

“We’re off, everyone.” Zhang Yang sat in the car, rolled down the window, and waved goodbye to the people outside.

There was no lingering sentimentality, only ease and carefree composure.

Late at night, the Cullinan drove through the streets of Shanghai.

Zhang Yang was driving, with the sweet and lovely Bei Wei in the passenger seat. Outside the window was Shanghai’s dazzling nightscape, and overhead the starlight headliner occasionally flashed with the effect of shooting stars streaking past.

The feeling was beyond words.

That night, Zhang Yang and Bei Wei returned together to COFCO Haijing No. 1.

Late in the night, while Bei Wei was still sleeping soundly, Zhang Yang woke up alone, went to the balcony for a cigarette, and took the chance to study the newly acquired 10% industry exchange coupon in his mind.

The system was very thoughtful.

The moment he focused his attention on the coupon, all the eligible industries available for exchange appeared one by one in list form in his mind.

And according to the system’s introduction, all of them were high-quality assets in good operating condition.

He could also customize the filters himself-distance, value, type, all of it.

“Mm, only show properties in Shanghai, priced above one billion and below 1.5 billion.”

After a round of filtering, the originally complex list was immediately cleared down, leaving relatively few options.

Zhang Yang scanned up and down once and instantly found his target.

“Hm? Zhonghuan Landmark, a whole 5A Grade A office tower, seventeen floors plus forty thousand square meters (~430,556 sq ft) of commercial space, valued at 1.6 billion, currently priced at 1.4 billion. Isn’t that basically being sold cheap?”

He carefully checked the information on the asset and was immediately very satisfied.

The asset mainly consisted of an office tower and its attached forty thousand square meters of commercial space, all currently operating normally. Although Zhang Yang did not yet know the exact occupancy rate, the information was not hard to find.

With a bit of checking, he could already find the companies currently settled there, and they all looked quite high-end, definitely not shell companies.

As for the businesses in the attached commercial area, even if they were not all luxury brands, quite a few were household names. In terms of tenant quality, ten Starlight Plazas in Yinghai would not compare.

As for the scale?

Although the forty thousand square meters of commercial space was not huge and could not compare with those true commercial complexes that easily reached over a hundred thousand square meters (~1.08 million sq ft) of floor area, in land-scarce Shanghai, it absolutely could not be underestimated.

What did it mean to possess such an asset while living in Shanghai?

Adding that together with the Starlight Plaza back in his hometown of Yinghai, he could already be considered a genuine billionaire with assets worth two to three billion.

“But only what I actually obtain is truly mine.” Zhang Yang stubbed out his cigarette and fell into thought.

For an asset worth 1.4 billion, he would at least need to prepare 140 million.

Thinking about it carefully now, the idea he had during the day about mortgaging the house had been somewhat too simple. Borrowing against the original value of the house was a pipe dream. Even getting seventy or eighty percent of its value would already be quite remarkable.

Or perhaps he could try selling it.

“Selling it…”

To be honest, Zhang Yang felt a little reluctant. As for the reason, it went without saying.

But whether he sold it or mortgaged it to raise funds, time would not wait for him. He had no idea whether the asset might suddenly be sold, or whether the sale conditions might change, or the price might increase.

“Forget it, I’ll try mortgaging it first.” Zhang Yang muttered to himself.

If the mortgage amount turned out to be decent, he could combine it with the cash he already had and find other ways to make up the rest. If it really came down to it, selling the house would be the final option.

If he truly tried his best and still missed out on the asset, then it would simply mean he had no fate with it, and he would just have to look for other opportunities.

With that thought, he finally had a direction.

Returning to the bedroom, Zhang Yang casually pulled Bei Wei’s soft body into his arms.

Bei Wei murmured husband softly, snuggled deeper into his embrace with her eyes closed, and slept even more soundly.

Sleepiness soon overtook Zhang Yang as well, and he gradually drifted into dreams.

That night, with the sound of ship horns drifting from the Huangpu River, the two slept peacefully until daylight filled the room the next morning.

“Husband, time to wake up.”

Early the next morning, before Zhang Yang was fully awake, he heard the sound of the curtains being drawn open.

Opening his eyes, he saw the little sweetheart’s lightly dressed figure standing by the window.

Hearing his movement, Bei Wei turned back with a smile, her black hair cascading over her shoulders, her bright eyes and white teeth shining.

“Husband, you’re awake?”

For a moment, Zhang Yang felt slightly dazed.

Was there anything more wonderful than waking up in a riverside penthouse by the Huangpu River and seeing such a bright and intelligent girl turn back and call him husband?

For a brief moment, Zhang Yang even thought about the difference between dopamine and endorphins.

The pleasure brought by dopamine was fleeting, lasting only for a moment.

But endorphins seemed more long-lasting, bringing a deeper and more enduring sense of happiness.

Perhaps that was the difference between physical pleasure and emotional connection.

For Zhang Yang, naturally he wanted both-the fleeting rush of dopamine and the lasting warmth of endorphins.