Chapter 141 — Old Buffon's Origins

"My dad's factory is planning to host Shu Ya's concert." Seeing that Chen Shutang didn't believe him, Yang Ce felt rather frustrated. How could you have so little faith in your man? She's just a minor star—hardly so unattainable. And as for net worth, he was no longer the man he used to be.

So Yang Ce dropped this heavyweight bombshell.

Sure enough, Chen Shutang's expression changed the instant she heard it. "You're serious?"

"Why would I lie to you?" Yang Hengye said. "My dad's factory was restructured, remember? It's now the Songjiang Mingyang Heavy Industry Group. To make a name for itself, it decided to host a concert to build up some buzz."

"Oh... so that's how it is." Chen Shutang said awkwardly. She hadn't expected her casual promise to take effect so soon—naturally, she didn't feel good about it.

Granted, even if the factory hosted the concert, Yang Ce would have very few chances to interact with Shu Ya—and besides, there were so many concert organizers nationwide. Which of them could truly form that kind of connection with a star?

Still, Chen Shutang felt a little uncomfortable—wasn't this creating an opportunity for Yang Ce? And one she had tacitly permitted. But Chen Shutang wasn't the type to go back on her word; what she had said, she didn't intend to retract. So she said, somewhat huffily, "Then you'd better work hard."

"Work hard at what?" Yang Xu smiled wryly and shook his head. "You—and you still say you're not a little jar of vinegar. I'd say it's aged vinegar by now."

"I'm not! I never said you couldn't keep in touch with her," Chen Shutang said, suddenly embarrassed at Yang Cenbin's remark.

"Heh." Yang Ce just smiled and said nothing.

"You're impossible!" Chen Shutang, flustered by Yang Hengye, took a sip of the juice in her hand and then, as if pretending to forget the previous topic, said, "Oh, right—our high school reunion is in a few days. Are you going?"

"High school reunion? Who organized it?" Yang Xutang was taken aback and asked.

"Liu Haiyan, our class's Youth League secretary, called me about it. She's probably the one who started it," Chen Shutang said.

Yang Ce understood. When Chen Shutang mentioned the reunion just now, the first person he thought of was Wang Lin—but at a time like this, how could Wang Lin have the mood to organize such things?

"If you go, I'll go." Yang Xu said offhandedly, "Anyway, back in high school, there weren't many people I was close to—just you and Zhang Bin."

"That's because you were always skipping class." Chen Shutang thought about it and had to agree—Yang Ce really hadn't had many good friends in high school.

"Then I'll sign you up," Chen Shutang said.

"All right." Yang Yuting nodded. He didn't know when it had started, but every so often there'd be a reunion—whether middle school classmates or high school classmates, it was always the same.

But the nature of these reunions had increasingly changed flavor—from the initial catching up on old times, they had now become contests of comparison.

Comparing universities, comparing family backgrounds, comparing boyfriends and girlfriends—in short, at this kind of gathering of the status-obsessed, Yang Ce found himself thoroughly bored.

A pack of familiar strangers sitting around shooting the breeze—going at all was a waste of time. But since he was with Chen Shutang, he could treat it as a change of venue for their date. No big deal.

He and Chen Shutang chatted a while longer about amusing incidents from high school, and then, seeing that it was getting late, Yang Ce walked her home, and they agreed to keep in touch by phone.

Yang Ce reflected that this had been the busiest New Year of his life; never before had he rushed about nonstop doing one thing after another the way he had now.

Every year at New Year's, his eldest uncle would organize a family dinner, but this year he had been so swamped by the Yaoguang City affair that he simply had no time to play host.

When Yang Dashan learned how the matter on Baolin's side had been resolved, he felt both relief and deep gratitude toward Yang Ce. Yang Dashan knew perfectly well that without Yang Juehuan's connections, he would at best have been beaten half to death—if he survived at all.

After handing over the accounts and the paperwork, Yang Dashan went back happily to run his sand quarry. This time, he probably would not dare set foot lightly in any unfamiliar field for the rest of his life.

Mingyang was financially powerful to begin with; with Yang Juehuan's backing, funding had already ceased to be a problem, and now that it had swallowed Wang's Century Xiongfeng Group, its capital was more abundant than ever. It paid off its bank loans in one go, carried out a thorough renovation of Tianzixiao City, and reopened under the new name "Nightless Sky Entertainment Carrier."

Nightless Sky was an old name in Songjiang's entertainment industry, so the moment it reopened, it drew crowds of customers who had come on its reputation, and business was booming.

As for Yang Ce and Zhang Bin's jewelry company, it too had entered its final preparatory stage amid much anticipation. The shop on the commercial street had been secured with ease thanks to Wu Zhongjie's connections, and after a round of renovation, it was simply waiting for opening day.

A jewelry company was not like other businesses: it needed a stable channel for raw materials and excellent jewelry designers, and neither could be done without.

"Boss, where have you been all this time?" Zhang Bin complained with great dissatisfaction. "You've been gone since New Year's."

"Haven't I been off securing supply sources for our company?" Yang Ce said shamelessly. "I've lined up a diamond mine in South Africa—from now on we can source our diamonds straight from there."

"Holy shit," Zhang Bin said, stunned. "Tell me, is that for real? A diamond mine? You're going that big?"

"Cut the crap—diamonds are the most valuable thing in jewelry. Without a good purchasing channel for this stuff, how are we supposed to make any money?" Yang Lanxu said. Thank goodness he had found such an excuse to bluff his way through; otherwise that fellow Zhang Bin really would have been resentful.

It was plain that Zhang Bin had not had a good New Year—he had been following up on the jewelry company the entire time, from renovation to preparations for opening, all of it run by him alone.

"By the way, when do you have time? Let's take a trip abroad," Zhang Bin said.

"Abroad again?" Yang Puqi was taken aback. "What are we going abroad for?"

"Didn't your godfather line up a few designers for us? He wants us to go to Europe to invite them, see if we can get them to come," Zhang Bin said. "Otherwise our jewelry designs won't have any distinctive character."

"Do we really need to go abroad in person for this?" Yang Ce shook his head. "I've just come back from abroad, you know."

"I don't want to go either, but the designers won't come to us," Zhang Bin said helplessly. "Only if we go in person can we see whether we can work something out."

"Hold on, let me make a phone call." Yang Ce suddenly thought of Old Buffon. Wasn't that fellow highly influential in Europe? Then he might as well ask him and see if he had a way.

In the end, Old Buffon readily agreed to help Yang Ce invite a few designers over, and he said offhandedly that several well-known designers worked exclusively on jewelry for his family, so sending a few over would be no trouble at all.

Zhang Bin stared at Yang Ce in astonishment—a single phone call had solved a major problem. He was utterly amazed. "Who did you call?"

"A business partner of my father's, a very powerful figure in Europe," Yang Ce explained casually.

Fortunately, Zhang Bin did not press further.

Domestic coverage of international news—especially international news unrelated to the global situation—was sparse. In newspapers and magazines, reprinted foreign news was almost nowhere to be seen.