Chapter 727 487: Brilliant Youth

The days passed, one by one.

Chen Yuan spent the entire day in Linzhou, working from morning till night with almost no rest. He even had his lunch in the office. Pei had brought him a meal from the cafeteria after seeing he was too busy to go down himself.

Too many things had piled up. He had his work, but he also had a personal life, and when weighing the two, his approaching engagement was obviously more important.

In truth, he felt an immense sense of guilt for every day he took off. His own father had entrusted him with such an important position; he felt he shouldn't be so hands-off.

Even though the experienced seniors and juniors in the northern region kept everything running in perfect order, he still had to hold down the fort in the office often to cast his deciding vote on major resolutions.

Reform was imminent.

This was a microcosm of all the problems piling up within the Jiang Group. Reform might change everything, but it would also inevitably throw the relatively stable status quo into turmoil. No single person could bear the consequences alone.

The struggle between the old guard and the new blood grew increasingly intense. Both sides rallied support for their chosen leaders, doing everything they could to build them up, hoping they would take the dominant role in future major resolutions.

It was the same in every major region.

The northern region, where Chen Yuan was based, was known for having a majority of traditionalists. Yet even there, reform proposals emerged one after another. That was to say nothing of the central and southern regions, where the new blood was dominant.

After signing the last document, Chen Yuan let out a long sigh of relief. He quickly stood up, placed the document in a folder, and handed it to Pei Youwen.

"That's pretty much everything. You can make the call on the remaining minor documents. I'm at my limit. If I don't leave now, I'm going to get an earful from my family."

"But you're already here, and there's an important meeting tonight," Pei Youwen said, confused.

"You attend in my place. Nothing is more important than what's happening tomorrow. I have to make a trip to Kyoto, so I'm leaving everything here completely in your hands for a while."

Hearing this, Pei Youwen paused for a moment before it dawned on him.

"You're going to get engaged?"

"That's right," Chen Yuan said, unable to hide his joy.

"In that case, congratulations on the engagement, Boss. I guess you'll be under your fiancée's thumb from now on."

"Having someone to keep me in line is a blessing. I'm more than happy to get married young," Chen Yuan said with uncharacteristic shamelessness.

He grabbed his jacket and rushed out of the office.

...

「In the blink of an eye.」

It was now Monday, around nine in the morning.

The sun was exceptionally bright that day.

The sky was a clear, deep blue, with hardly a cloud to be seen. Warm sunlight spilled down, illuminating the body of a black Mercedes-Benz and making the paint shimmer with a soft luster.

The weather perfectly matched Chen Yuan's mood.

He felt a happiness that came from the bottom of his heart. 'I wish time could just pause right now,' he thought. 'I wish it would slow down, just so this blissful moment doesn't slip through my fingers.'

One family, one car, heading toward the airport at a steady speed.

He was in the driver's seat.

His father was in the passenger seat, enjoying the scenery outside the window. In the back were the three women he loved most in his life.

Liu He was sandwiched in the middle, flanked by the two sisters. They were chatting and laughing, talking about Chen Yuan's childhood.

As he listened to these embarrassing stories from his childhood, he would occasionally chime in whenever a detail wasn't quite right, insisting he wasn't that lame as a kid.

The smile hadn't left Chen Yuan's lips for a second since they'd left the sanatorium.

"I know Chen Yuan really liked that older girl who lived next door when he was a kid," Jiangg Yao teased. "The last time he mentioned her, he looked so nostalgic. And ever since they met in Sanya, she's apparently been sending him holiday greetings and birthday gifts."

Faced with her future daughter-in-law's probing remark, Liu He hurriedly tried to smooth things over.

"That's not true. Kids don't understand things like 'liking' someone; they were just playmates, at most. You have no idea how terrible Yuan was to her back then. She gave him birthday gifts for several years, but he only reciprocated once. And that only happened because she came crying to me to complain!"

"Really? He was that clueless back then, too?"

"Ah, but speaking of which, he has given the two of you gifts, hasn't he?"

"He has, yes."

"So you see, it's not that the boy is thoughtless, it just depends on who it's for. At the end of the day, he's just very straightforward. He's only willing to put in the effort for the girls he truly likes."

Chen Yuan didn't deny this, merely rubbing his nose.

'It wasn't that I was a complete blockhead as a kid. Even the dumbest little boy knew to give a girl a gift for her birthday.'

'But how much allowance did Liu He even give me back then? It was never enough. There were toys I had to buy, illustrated novels I had to collect every issue of, and going to the arcade with my friends cost money too... Before I knew it, my pockets were always empty.'

'So, before Rou's birthday, I'd take what little money I had, buy a chocolate bar or a lollipop, and shove it into her hands, passing it off as a gift.'

'Who knew Rou wouldn't get the message... A lollipop might have only been fifty cents, but it's the thought that counts, right...?'

'I guess she never imagined a birthday gift could be so lame.'

This cringey memory remained buried deep in Chen Yuan's heart. He would never tell anyone about it, and with his two wives sitting right there, he certainly wasn't about to bring it up and ask for trouble.

'Back then, after Rou tattled, Liu He told me to go buy a real gift. I just bluntly told her I had no money, so she gave me fifty yuan. I was living large for a while after that. I bought a Beetle-themed MP3 player and still had over half the money left. Then I treated my friends to spicy gluten strips until we were stuffed.'

'Thinking about it now... what a childish, yet nostalgic, childhood... It's gone and never coming back.'

Fortunately, he was also very happy in the present.