Heartthrob, Your Image is Crumbling!

Chapter 337: End of Semester Daily Life

In the days around New Year's Day, Zhou Yuwen did indeed spend more time accompanying Tao Tian.There was no helping it. Who told Tao Tian to possess such a natural allure? Not to mention, her pair of Big Thunders was a sight he could never tire of.

Tao Tian's figure was truly excellent. Unlike the other girls who were still quite green and inexperienced, which hadn't given him much of a feeling before.

But ever since he became intimate with Tao Tian, looking back at the other girls...

To be honest, it really did evoke the feeling of "once having seen the vast ocean, other waters are not water."

It was exactly like the classic poem described, where the maiden's frail and languid form had to be supported after freshly receiving the emperor's favor.

With cloud-like hair and a flower-like face adorned with golden hairpins, they passed the spring nights within the warmth of the hibiscus bed curtains.

Of course, happy days were always fleeting.

Zhou Yuwen was not an emperor born with everything handed to him; he still had to work hard and grind away.

After spending a hasty week like this with Tao Tian, Zhou Yuwen practiced an equal distribution of favor by having a couple of meals with Lu Lin and Zheng Yanyan. He also stayed over at Qu Jing's place for two days, since living upstairs and downstairs made it incredibly convenient.

Aside from that, Zhou Yuwen also maintained constant contact with Jiang Xinyi.

Although New Year's Day had passed, the Chinese New Year would soon arrive.

That meant the various celebratory activities in Jinling City had not decreased in the slightest; instead, they were multiplying by the day.

Because Zhou Yuwen's labor company had an ample supply of part-time students who remained relatively stable and rarely caused unexpected issues during their shifts, they were deeply favored by merchants big and small. Some businesses even came out of admiration for their reputation, bypassing Zhao Jun to contact Zhou Yuwen directly.

Zhou Yuwen pushed all of these various merchants over to Gao Yang.

He felt that Liu Shuo was still a bit too hot-headed when dealing with people.

Gao Yang, on the other hand, was much more composed.

Liu Shuo continued his previous role, handling the more covert operations and developing members in Jiangning and Pukou. Although Zhou Yuwen's food delivery and labor businesses hadn't truly taken off in Jiangning and Pukou just yet, the Xuhuai Association was in full bloom across both locations.

According to Zhou Yuwen's estimates, given another semester, they could occupy at least eighty percent of the market in those two university towns.

The main task at the end of this semester was to first recruit riders from among the members Liu Shuo had developed. Then, next semester, they would formally raise the banner of Xianlin Delivery and let those cross-river dragons—Meituan and Ele.me—experience the true power of a local tyrant.

For the first few days of early January, Zhou Yuwen and Zhu Hong kept in touch.

And as time went on.

The top management of Meituan's Jinling division also gradually fell into place.

Zhu Hong invited Zhou Yuwen out to eat with them on several occasions.

Honestly speaking, these managers were nothing impressive. Seeing how young Zhou Yuwen was, they tried to use their status to suppress him, even claiming that his food delivery company was just child's play and wasn't worth much money.

Fortunately, Zhou Yuwen had brought Liu Shuo along.

Zhou Yuwen could tolerate the condescending words from those older men. After all, they were treating them to a five-star hotel; he only needed to stay silent and enjoy the delicious food.

But Liu Shuo was not about to indulge them. Listening to them repeatedly say "young man" with their passive-aggressive attitudes...

Liu Shuo could not hold back and directly jumped up. "Damn it, eat if you want to eat, and piss off if you don't! Who the hell are you trying to act like the big bad wolf for?"

Meituan's standards were quite high, having invited Zhou Yuwen to the Grand Golden Splendor Hotel.

However, they never expected a modern university student to lack such basic manners, leaving them completely dumbfounded.

As a result, Liu Shuo pointed right at the most boastful middle-aged man and snapped, "What the hell are you staring at!? Do you think we wanted to come here to eat? If you hadn't come begging my brother, would I even be here?"

"Damn it, coming here just to take this kind of bullshit? Brother, let's go. We aren't eating!" Liu Shuo declared, standing up with a swagger.

The reason Liu Shuo was so bold was simply because he didn't understand the scope of the situation.

He still thought that the business he and Zhou Yuwen were running was just small-scale messing around.

After Liu Shuo finished causing a scene, Zhou Yuwen merely offered an apologetic smile to the bosses who had just been acting so arrogant and superior. "Gentlemen, I apologize. My younger brother just has this kind of temper. Please don't take offense. This is to cover the meal for my brother and me. It was a pleasure meeting all of you."

Having said that, Zhou Yuwen slipped a few hundred-yuan bills under his plate, smiled faintly, and led Liu Shuo away.

Zhu Hong, who was also seated at the table, could not help but laugh at the sight.

She had warned them a long time ago that Zhou Yuwen was not as easy to deal with as they thought.

But some of these veterans always liked presuming on their age to act high and mighty.

Now look what happened, right?

They only ended up embarrassing themselves.

Nevertheless, they still refused to accept it.

When Liu Shuo was there, looking at that glaring, large, dark-skinned fellow, not a single one of them had dared to speak out in anger.

But the moment Liu Shuo left.

The man leading the group slammed his hand on the table. "This is absolutely outrageous! Zhu Hong, where did you find these fools! Are they really acting like this as university students?"

Facing the man's fury, Zhu Hong merely squinted her eyes with a smile. "President Wang, I told you before that Zhou Yuwen is no ordinary university student, but you refused to believe it. Now do you believe me?"

Wang Qingfu was in his forties and wore gold-rimmed glasses. As Meituan's general manager in Jinling, his way of thinking was somewhat outdated due to his age. He had been a prominent figure in his early years, making quite a bit of money, and even held a small share of stock in Meituan.

He pushed up his glasses and scoffed. "These university students simply don't understand the immensity of heaven and earth. They had some good luck, made a little noise, and got carried away. They know absolutely nothing about capital."

After saying this, Wang Qingfu sat back down in his seat. He asked Zhu Hong, "If we bypass these two young men, how much would it cost to completely take over their market?"

"A conservative estimate would be two million yuan. But to be completely honest, President Wang, I don't recommend it."

Zhu Hong was a pragmatist; she naturally had everything thoroughly investigated.

She stated that she couldn't uncover who was backing Zhou Yuwen, as his channels for gathering information were incredibly comprehensive.

"He seems to have already anticipated that we and Ele.me are going to have a tough battle to fight."

"And what does that have to do with him, a mere university student?"

Wang Qingfu declared that Meituan could easily afford a mere two million in extra expenses. But if Meituan were to be held by the throat in Jinling by a few university students, the whole industry would laugh their heads off if word got out.

Zhu Hong reiterated that two million was only a conservative estimate.

"But I've chatted with Zhou Yuwen, and he seems very confident about taking down the Jiangning and Pukou markets. If that happens, our costs could multiply by ten."

"Are you saying..."

"We would need to spend an extra twenty million yuan," Zhu Hong said with a calm smile, her bright red lips looking particularly alluring.

Wang Qingfu hesitated for a moment, pondering it over. "I really do need to consider this matter carefully."

If bypassing Zhou Yuwen only cost an extra two million yuan, Wang Qingfu could make the call. After all, it wasn't his own money, and it didn't exceed the budget.

But twenty million...

That forced Wang Qingfu to think twice.

He went back and carefully reviewed a massive amount of data, ultimately concluding that this young man was bragging entirely too much.

"Once our funds are in place after the New Year, we can roll out a comprehensive expansion. Can his single university town operation really compete with our publicly listed company?"

Zhu Hong replied, "President Wang, there's one thing I must remind you of. Young people nowadays seem to place a high value on loyalty and brotherhood. If Zhou Yuwen manages to unite these university students to boycott us, we might end up incurring even more additional expenses."

Wang Qingfu let out a soft chuckle. "Brotherhood?"

"Zhu Hong, what era are we living in? Do you really believe in that?"

"As long as our commission rates are higher than theirs, how long do you think their so-called brotherhood will last?"

"My fear is that we won't be able to establish a significant gap between our commission and his in a short timeframe. If that's the case, I'm afraid all the delivery workers will choose them," Zhu Hong said with a shrug.

Wang Qingfu insisted that was impossible.

He was just a single university student.

Even if he made a couple of million by writing novels.

"Would he really dare to burn those millions to fight us?"

"Uh, President Wang..." Zhu Hong wanted to say something else.

But Wang Qingfu cut her off, frowning as he said, "Why are you so afraid of a university student who hasn't even grown all his hair yet?"

"You women are all the same, always second-guessing everything. I've eaten more salt than you've eaten rice! Listen to me on this, and we definitely won't go wrong!"

Originally, Zhu Hong had wanted to offer Wang Qingfu a well-intentioned warning, but seeing his stubborn insistence...

Zhu Hong decided not to press the issue and simply gave a soft laugh. "All right then, President Wang."

The university was scheduled for break on January 20th. For the final week, Zhou Yuwen tossed all company matters over to Gao Yang and Liu Shuo to handle, while he started honestly spending his time studying in the library.

He had missed a lot of classes this semester. Although You Changjin had personally guaranteed Zhou Yuwen that he absolutely would not fail any subjects.

Zhou Yuwen still felt that relying on oneself was better than relying on others. Furthermore, Zhou Yuwen actually had the capability.

After his rebirth, he could basically learn anything just by looking at it once.

Plus, he had the memories of his past life.

One week was more than enough time for Zhou Yuwen to memorize these textbooks backward and forward.

Logically speaking, Zhou Yuwen was not short on places to review.

But he couldn't withstand the girls' pleading, claiming that the library had the right atmosphere.

And so, Zhou Yuwen found himself dragged directly to the library by girls like Su Qing and Zheng Yanyan.

Actually, the first one to seek Zhou Yuwen out was Su Qing.

While Zhou Yuwen was doting on Tao Tian, he hadn't given Su Qing the cold shoulder.

Facing his ex-wife, aside from maintaining a mutual respect, the two actually got along quite harmoniously. Of course, Su Qing constantly thought about becoming Zhou Yuwen's girlfriend once again.

Meanwhile, Zhou Yuwen always used the excuse that he was too tired and didn't want to date right now to reject her.

Su Qing had even considered forcing herself onto Zhou Yuwen.

But Zhou Yuwen stubbornly refused no matter what.

Helpless, she could only give up and console herself with the thought, 'Forget it. At least he's still single right now. As long as he doesn't date other girls, it's fine.'

At the end of the semester, Su Qing pestered Zhou Yuwen to go study at the library, citing the reason that he used to accompany her to the library for every exam in the past.

Zhou Yuwen replied, "Even you know that was in the past, right?"

"That was ages ago. Do you even need to go study right now?" Zhou Yuwen asked.

Su Qing answered, "Review the past to learn the new!"

"I've been studying a lot recently and discovered so many points of knowledge I didn't notice before."

"(Impressive)"

"(Smug)"

Their chatting was quite entertaining. Eventually, Zhou Yuwen really couldn't withstand Su Qing's endless wheedling and followed her to the library.

Aside from Su Qing, Shen Yu was also there.

With the cold winter weather, Shen Yu's skin looked especially dewy and radiant.

The two exchanged greetings, then quietly went about reading their books in the library.

Su Qing would lean over toward Zhou Yuwen to tease him.

But Zhou Yuwen just stated, "Don't disturb my studying."

Su Qing pouted and scoffed, "What could you possibly learn?"

"Are you looking down on me?"

Zhou Yuwen was completely speechless. He handed his textbook to Su Qing and let her randomly quiz him.

They fooled around for a while, but seeing that Zhou Yuwen was genuinely studying in earnest, Su Qing merely pouted again and stopped disturbing his reading.

In the afternoon, Zheng Yanyan sent Zhou Yuwen a message asking where he was.

Zhou Yuwen asked her what was up.

Zheng Yanyan replied, "Linlin and I are planning to go to the library to study. Are you going?"

Zhou Yuwen asked, "Is the massive space at home not enough for you to study in?"

"It's just not the same! The atmosphere is totally different. Hubby, where are you? (Playful)"

Zhou Yuwen glanced at Su Qing in front of him and replied, "I'm currently at the library. Come on over."

And so, Zheng Yanyan pulled Lu Lin along to the library to find Zhou Yuwen.

They spotted him from a distance, but upon walking over, they discovered that Su Qing was sitting right beside him.

As their four eyes met, sparks instantly flew in all directions.

Zheng Yanyan was the first to speak, "Why are you here?"

Su Qing immediately sneered, "That's what I should be asking you!"

The two exchanged several passive-aggressive remarks, but Zhou Yuwen finally spoke up to intervene. "We're all here to study. What's there to fight about?"

"Look at Linlin and Shen Yu, aren't they doing just fine?" Zhou Yuwen said.

By this time, Lu Lin had already sat down. Those two girls were still very well-behaved.

It was only Zheng Yanyan and Su Qing who argued the moment they saw each other.

In truth, Zhou Yuwen had no idea what the two of them even had to argue over. Their status was basically the same now, and neither had fully claimed him, so what was the point of fighting?

Couldn't they just get along harmoniously?

"Hmph!"

The two let out a cold snort at the same time, though they didn't continue arguing. However, one sat on Zhou Yuwen's left, and the other sat on his right. Neither was willing to yield an inch.

Zheng Yanyan acted a bit more clingy. Not long after sitting down, she tugged on Zhou Yuwen's arm and asked sweetly, "Darling, how do you pronounce this word?"

Zhou Yuwen had just finished answering Zheng Yanyan's question.

Su Qing was instantly displeased. Pointing at a question, she demanded, "Zhou Yuwen, I don't know how to do this problem. Teach me."