ZS | Chapter 4

Zhuo Hang liked delicate things, liked building Lego when he was young, and after he grew up, liked collecting mechanical wristwatches.

In his whole life, he had received a total of two Green Water Ghosts, one from his father after the middle school entrance exam when he was 15, and one from Gu Zheng after the bidding when he was 25.

He wore one for 10 years, and one for a lifetime.

*

Zhuo Hang lifted the mad dog off himself, dragged his sore, weak legs, and went into the bathroom for a shower.

Most of the buttons on his shirt had fallen off, so he could not wear it, but Gu Zheng's T-shirt was neatly folded on the chair.

Why was he dirty while the mad dog was clean?

If he was going to be dirty, then everyone would be dirty.

Zhuo Hang grabbed the T-shirt and put it on.

The two of them were about the same build, both on the thin side, and the clothes hung loose on their bodies, so from their shape alone there was no difference, but their temperaments were very different.

A white T-shirt on Gu Zheng made him look like a sunny college guy, and on him it was a gloomy, damp ghost of a man.

When Gu Zheng woke up in a bit and had no clothes to wear, he would definitely make a fuss, but Zhuo Hang would already be gone before he woke up, so making a fuss would be useless.

If Gu Zheng acted up and changed his mind because he had no clothes to wear, what about participating in the bidding?

Zhuo Hang was not afraid.

Because he had left a backup plan beforehand.

He had recorded it.

Zhuo Hang changed his clothes and wanted to blow-dry his hair, but he was afraid of waking the mad dog and getting bitten a few more times, so he left the hotel with his hair still wet.

Before the Cayenne had even driven out of the city, he developed a fever as expected.

His body was very hot, and the hot air he breathed out blurred his eyelashes, so he could not even see the road clearly.

He definitely could not keep driving in this state.

Zhuo Hang navigated to the nearest pharmacy and bought fever medicine and anti-inflammatory medicine. After breakfast, seeing no sign that his body was improving, he found a small clinic nearby and got an IV drip.

The clinic bed was very hard, and it hurt to lie on it.

Zhuo Hang said his waist was bad and asked the nurse for a cushion, which he put under his butt. Watching the drops fall from the IV bottle, an intense drowsiness came over him, and he fell asleep deeply.

He did not know how long had passed when the nurse woke him. With no one watching over him, the infusion had finished and blood had backed up into the needle.

Zhuo Hang pressed his bruised hand and saw that the clinic had more and more patients, so he felt embarrassed to keep occupying the bed and limped out.

Why did he feel sicker after the drip?

Zhuo Hang touched his burning forehead and wanted to find a hotel nearby and rest for half a day. There were no hotels in the suburbs, and no inns, only hostels. Zhuo Hang took a hourly room, and when he got up again it was already evening.

The fever had gone down a little, his throat felt a little tight, and he took two more anti-inflammatory tablets.

After turning on airplane mode, the phone kept ringing nonstop, all messages from Cheng Zhi.

Night roads and highways were not easy to drive on, tomorrow was bid opening day, and his body had not recovered well today, so for those three reasons, Zhuo Hang decided to go home tomorrow.

「Ri Mu: Something came up, going back tomorrow」

Zhuo Hang ordered takeout, hoping the steaming noodles would drive away the cold in his body, but the merchant was too far from the suburbs, and by the time it arrived the noodles had already clumped together.

It was not good, even worse than what his mother made.

Zhuo Hang used the electric kettle to boil some water and soaked the noodles in it.

After he took one bite, the water quality in Beishi was not very good, and there was a strange taste.

In the end, he threw all the noodles away.

He was hungry and wanted hot noodles.

If he could not get takeout, then he would eat instant noodles.

Zhuo Hang went downstairs and bought a cup of noodles, then added a braised egg, ham, and zhacai, and only when he was boiling the water did he think of it: the water here could not be used to make noodles.

Was it really so hard to eat a bowl of hot noodles?

Zhuo Hang went downstairs again, bought three bottles of mineral water, and went upstairs to boil the water.

He finally ate steaming noodles.

For him, there was nothing that could not be done, it just depended on whether he wanted to do it.

From childhood to adulthood, he had always lived like this.

Zhuo Hang set an alarm for 9:00, note: bid opening, eat, go home.

Gu Zheng kept his promise and withdrew the bid, and a stone finally fell from Zhuo Hang's heart.

After breakfast, he passed by a supermarket and bought bread and milk for lunch, and also bought a cushion.

Everything was completed as expected. In another 10 days, the institution would release the funds. Once he had the money, he could apply for bankruptcy, and after that no one would come to collect debts.

While completing his goal, he could also take good care of himself.

When the Cayenne drove into the garage, it was exactly 17:30, the time for dinner at home. Zhuo Hang had wanted to go straight inside, but the debt-collecting big brother at the door stopped him.

"I was wondering why I guarded here for three days and still did not wait for anyone, so you went out to play." The big brother was holding half a shaobing in his hand, and crumbs flew everywhere as he spoke.

Zhuo Hang did not want to get tangled up with him, but he could not get around this roadblock.

The debt-collecting big brother smelled strongly of scallions, and his words were barbed, "You get home at this hour, getting ready to eat? Your food must be pretty good, huh, definitely better than a shaobing? I've been squatting here for so long, and the young master still won't treat me to a meal?"

"I am going home, don't stay here." Unlike the oily, slick Gu Zheng, Zhuo Hang's logic in conversation was stronger, suited to negotiation situations where reason could be talked through, and this blunt, straightforward way of speaking was clearly not suitable for a debt-collecting big brother who did not reason.

"The owner owes Zhongwei 3 billion, and has dragged it out for 3 years, dragged it until the boss cannot pay wages, and the employees are about to beg along the streets. But the owner is doing just fine, the madam gets a new Hermès model every few days, and the young master goes traveling around the world whenever he has nothing to do. People who owe money are all masters, masters have big hearts, maybe because they owe too much they forgot the creditor, and even when they have spare money they still do not pay it back."

Zhuo Hang retorted, "I did not go traveling. The Zhuo family also had no money."

"No money?" The big brother raised his eyebrows. "No money, and Cheng Zhi bought counterfeits? No money, then what are you wearing, and what are you wearing on your wrist?"

Professional debt collectors knew their goods. What Zhuo Hang was wearing was Gu Zheng's Chanel T-shirt, and what he wore on his wrist was the Rolex watch his father had given him.

If he dragged it to the end of the month, he could apply for bankruptcy, and the debt would not need to be repaid. He could first pay a little interest and let the creditor in front of him calm down for a few days.

Going into the house bare-chested would be impolite, and he could not give up the shirt.

Zhuo Hang took off the Green Water Ghost, opened the phone video recorder, and said, "If the Zhuo family still owes Zhongwei money at the beginning of next month, this watch will be given to Zhongwei Construction as interest on the debt."

"My eldest son is back, Mom missed you so much!" Cheng Zhi trotted to the entryway.

Zhuo Hang had only just taken off one shoe when he stepped barefoot on the floor and hugged his mother.

Zhuo Youzhi walked into the living room, nodded at his son, and said, "Come eat."

Zhuo Hang put on his slippers and sat on the carved redwood chair to eat.

The chair was very hard and uncomfortable, Cheng Zhi kept asking after him and fussing over him, and Zhuo Hang only wanted to finish this meal quickly.

Cheng Zhi chattered on and on, Zhuo Hang's butt hurt from sitting there, and he could only put down his bowl and chopsticks and say, "I'm full."

"It was one thing when you were abroad before, but now that you're back in the country you still keep running outside, and when you come home you're not even close to your mother, this child really..."

Zhuo Hang returned to his own room and shut his mother's unfinished complaints outside the door.

When he was little, he clung to his mother very much, wanted her to hold him when he slept, and if his mother left, he would get up and cause trouble.

Back then, his mother could only hold him and watch idol dramas on mute, and could not do anything else.

When he was in primary school, his classmates all brought fruit, Zhuo Hang liked eating pomegranates, and his mother peeled them for him every day and put them in jars.

In middle school, while boarding in another province, his mother always asked him whether he had worn enough clothes, and on cloudy and rainy days she would send him weather forecasts...

Zhuo Hang respected his mother, but sometimes he also got very angry.

Like now.

His wrist had already grown used to the weight of the Green Water Ghost, and with the Green Water Ghost gone, his wrist felt empty.

If his mother had not bought bags, the debt collectors would not have come to the door.

Why did he have to mortgage the Green Water Ghost, while the culprit could not mortgage Hermès?

Why could other overseas returnees enjoy preferential treatment when they came back to the country, while he had to deal with a pile of mess as soon as he returned?

Why did his parents both know that the debt-collecting big brother was guarding the door, but at dinner no one asked him how he had gotten back?

Because no one cared what he had gone through.

It did not matter, he was used to it.

He had always lived like this.

The Zhuo family's schedule was very regular, getting up at 6:30, finishing dinner at 17:30, and 19:00 was Zhuo Youzhi's time to practice calligraphy in the study.

Zhuo Hang lay on the bed for an hour, knocked on the study door at 19:15, and Zhuo Youzhi had just finished writing.

"Father."

"Mm." Zhuo Youzhi rolled up the xuan paper, did not even look up, and said, "Where did you go to play?"

"I bid on a grain tender worth one hundred million, and I won the bid."

"Why bid on a grain tender? To flip it for the spread?"

"No," Zhuo Hang said, "I want to apply for bankruptcy."

The exchange between father and son was like a subordinate reporting work to a superior, with not a single wasted word.

Zhuo Youzhi looked up, and with one glance knew what his son was thinking.

"You want me to apply for Zhuo Real Estate's bankruptcy and use the one hundred million you bid for to clear the debts?"

"Mm."

Zhuo Youzhi said, "That is impossible."

Unlike Gu Zheng's father, Gu Mingyu, Zhuo Youzhi had started from nothing, and was a typical traditional entrepreneur.

Zhuo Youzhi had worked on construction sites, sold clothes, driven large trucks... he had endured almost all the hardships of those born in the 1960s.

Thirty-six years ago, Zhuo Youzhi bought and merged storefronts and established the first private department store in Yucheng's core district.

Now the Zhuo family had five shopping centers in Yucheng, and the old Yucheng locals did not recognize the high-end malls built later, only Zhuo Department Store.

The Zhuo family's first mall was 10 years older than Zhuo Hang, so Zhuo Youzhi's glorious years had only been before 2000, and from the time he could remember it had been going downhill.

With the rise of e-commerce, the decline in commercial real estate sales was the general trend.

Entrepreneurs who had taken off on the wind had to know what to keep and what to give up, otherwise when the wind speed suddenly dropped, they would surely crash to the ground.

Zhuo Youzhi did not know how to give up.

Zhuo Real Estate spread across 20 provinces and built 32 stores. It was the result of Zhuo Youzhi's lifelong effort.

His life's work, how could it be easily abandoned?

So under the conditions of banks tightening loans, capital stopping injections, and suppliers being short of goods, Zhuo Youzhi borrowed money through abnormal means, continued to expand his business empire, and tried to rely on his own strength to endure the industry's winter.

The result was predictable.

"Why?"

Zhuo Hang thought his father still wanted to go his own way and remain stubborn and deluded even now.

"In bankruptcy liquidation, it is all assets, not just the registered capital. After the liquidation group clears the company's assets, it has to draft a liquidation plan and submit it to the shareholders' meeting for court confirmation." Zhuo Youzhi took a stack of documents from the drawer and explained, "The company is now going through restructuring procedures, and the assets have to be used separately to pay employee wages, taxes, and other items. Even if your one hundred million really went into the corporate account, it still could not be distributed in the restructuring."

Zhuo Hang was confused. "We are a limited liability company. Clearly we can go bankrupt, so why do we have to restructure?"

"Bankruptcy means insolvency. Although it can avoid responsibility, it also loses credit." Zhuo Youzhi was over fifty, yet his gaze was still sharp. "For an entrepreneur, the most important thing is credit."

"But if the enterprise restructuring still cannot pay back the debt, Father will have to go to prison. For the sake of credit, is it worth leaving a stain on your life?"

Zhuo Youzhi's eyes were deep. "To you, going to prison is a stain?"

Zhuo Hang nodded.

Zhuo Youzhi questioned him, "Since you know that, why did you still embezzle public funds and knowingly break the law?"

"It was only a temporary borrow, not embezzlement!" Zhuo Hang twisted the definition. "First pay in the money for bankruptcy, then after money comes in from the goods, replenish the public funds. I calculated it before, according to our daily gross profit, it would probably take three months..."

"The company's gross profit is declining, so repayment cannot be guaranteed within three months; and, if the amount of public funds embezzled exceeds one million yuan, criminal responsibility has to be pursued."

Zhuo Hang had not expected this, and could not speak.

"If you do not understand the law, then do not make trouble. While no one is pursuing it now, find a rival bidder or a direct client to take it over."

His father's few light words denied everything about him.

All these days of effort had been wasted, and no one had seen the sacrifices he had made for this family, let alone understood them. He could only continue living under his father's umbrella of protection.

Zhuo Hang's eyes were empty, and he was speechless.

Zhuo Youzhi said, "Luo Yonghao can even act in 'The True Repayment Saga,' so why can't I, Zhuo Youzhi? For me, losing credit is life's greatest stain."

An inexperienced young man could only see the surface and could not discern the essence of things.

He thought that once there was money the Zhuo family would go through bankruptcy procedures, that if he embezzled public funds and then made them up he would not be held criminally responsible, and that everything was only short one hundred million.

Obstinate and conceited.

He could only blame himself for being incompetent and brainless, for talking strategy on paper and never seeing the depth, for drawing water with a bamboo basket in the end and getting nothing.

*

Three days passed after the bid opening, and Zhuo Hang wanted to find a contractor and cash out the hot potato in his hands.

So he once again contacted the middleman who had mediated between him and Gu Zheng, Cheng Zhi's younger brother, his Uncle Cheng Shun. Just as the two of them were discussing who to toss this bid to, he received a message from Gu Zheng.

This was the first time in the six years since they had added each other as friends that Gu Zheng had sent him a message.

「G: 12 noon tomorrow, Wanda Starbucks, I’ll give you a present」

The attached picture was a brand-new second-generation Green Water Ghost.