The Young man in Online Romance (14): 

Zhou Qinghao’s single “thanks” made Zhou Lin feel like he had punched a wad of cotton.

What he hated most was Zhou Qinghao’s attitude of never taking anything to heart.

Why was Zhou Qinghao’s life so charmed?

Even though his second uncle and aunt weren’t very accomplished, they doted on him endlessly.

Zhou Qinghao had everything Zhou Lin longed for, so he could afford to be indifferent about everything.

Seething, Zhou Lin returned to his office and pulled out Tiandi’s photo again.

Seeing the man in the picture finally made him feel better.

On the other side, after Zhou Qinghao arrived at his office, he opened his phone and transferred one million yuan to Tiandi through a payment app.

Although Tiandi had said he didn’t want money, he had given Zhou the Dragon Bloodline and Dragon Scale set, so Zhou couldn’t just accept without showing some gesture in return.

At that moment, Gu Juntian was working and had no idea Zhou had just transferred him money.

He was thinking about starting a company.

But soon, he put that thought aside.

President Wang contacted him again.

Gu chatted with President Wang.

He had a good impression of Wang—after all, the man was his financial backer.

Forget starting a company for now. Better to keep building up startup capital first. Worst case, he could just tell Zhou Qinghao later that he’d sold the company.

Yes, that was actually a good idea!

Thinking so, Gu took a moment to send Qingtian Bairi a message.

He did have ways to contact Qingtian Bairi outside the game, though they rarely chatted that way before.

After the progress they’d made in their relationship last night, Gu figured he should take every chance to nurture things further.

He wanted to think of some sweet words to send, but after a long time with nothing coming to mind, he simply started another topic: “Aqing, I just closed a big deal these last two days—made ten million!”

Zhou was chatting with Work-Fill when he saw a message pop up on another chat program he had open on his computer.

Opening it, he saw Tiandi claiming he’d made ten million.

Money wasn’t that easy to earn—did Tiandi really think a bit of smooth talking could make him rich?

Still, willing to humor him, Zhou replied, “Great Emperor, you’re amazing!”

“I’ll be even more amazing!” Gu sent back.

Then, seeing President Wang’s reply, he went back to chatting with him.

Earning money while sweet-talking his lover—life was pretty great.

At the same time, Zhou also found himself thinking—chatting with his lover during breaks from work was actually pretty relaxing.

After a busy day, at 6 p.m., Gu logged into the game and instantly spotted Qingtian Bairi.

They had chatted a lot during the day and agreed to meet online after dinner. Zhou showed up right on time.

“Aqing, where should we go today? Want to head back to that new map?” Gu asked. The place had few people, nice scenery, and monsters to fight—perfect for a date.

“Sure,” Zhou agreed without hesitation.

They headed off to the secret realm again.

Watching them leave, members of the Heavenly Demon Pavilion were envious: “The Great Emperor is way too generous. Giving the Dragon Bloodline to Qingtian Bairi was one thing, but also the Dragon Scale set?”

“He spent a lot to complete that set, and then just handed it over. Tsk tsk!”

“Well, he’s a rich second generation! He used to tip Little Lamb over ten million in total. Compared to that, what he’s spent on Qingtian Bairi is nothing.”

“Some people are just born already standing at the finish line.”

…

The Heavenly Demon Pavilion members were practically green with envy over Tiandi and Qingtian Bairi.

Little Lamb, having been scolded the day before, was playing today on a small alt account.

That alt was in Heavenly Demon Pavilion, so he saw the chat log and couldn’t help a cold laugh.

Tiandi was no rich second generation at all!

In the previous life, without meeting Zhou Qinghao, Tiandi could only swindle money here and there.

He never conned any big sums—just small amounts, the largest being only a few thousand yuan.

And the people who gave him money were all in-game friends who had benefited from him before, so they didn’t report him or press charges.

But with all his in-game gear-selling and borrowing, transfers revealed some personal info—like his real name: Gu Juntian.

From there, people dug up more—he never finished middle school and had spent years at home just playing games.

His parents had some savings, and when they died unexpectedly, he received compensation. That was why he could spend freely in games.

But the total left by his parents was only about ten million.

He had long since spent it all, and now he was burning through Zhou Qinghao’s money.

Still, now wasn’t the time to expose him.

Zhou Lin had said—the higher you let someone climb, the harder they fall.

To that end, Zhou Lin had even spent money to hype up Tiandi and Qingtian Bairi’s romance on the Cultivation game forum, making sure everyone knew they were in love.

According to him, after a period of buildup, they could then reveal both of their identities.

Zhou Qinghao noticed the activity.

The popularity of his relationship with Tiandi on the Cultivation forum was excessive—suspiciously so—and people kept bringing it up. Clearly something was off, so he had it investigated.

He also had Little Lamb looked into after the strange things he’d said earlier.

The investigation revealed that Little Lamb and Zhou Lin were connected. All this scheming was likely aimed at using his online romance to undermine him—so that his grandfather and the board would choose Zhou Lin as the Zhou family successor.

Zhou: “…”

Zhou Lin’s thinking really was unique.

A corporation like the Zhou Group wouldn’t change its successor just because of a romantic scandal.

If he were caught cheating, sure, that could cost him the position. But dating someone online?

Most importantly, this was an online romance—if things blew up, he could always claim someone else had been playing his account.

The people in the company might not believe it, but outsiders would.

For now, the only question in Zhou’s mind was—did Tiandi know about this?

If Tiandi were involved, that would be mildly troublesome, since he had the transfer records from Zhou.

But even that wouldn’t do lasting damage.

Big companies had been duped before—there was one that had unknowingly advertised a hot sauce brand in-game without getting paid a cent. People laughed at them, but they also felt sympathy.

It was all about how the story was spun.

Gu, unaware of all this, was actually in high spirits when he saw how many people were “shipping” him and Qingtian Bairi.

He was even happier about something else—after a month in this world, his weight was finally down to 170 pounds!

He’d lost twenty pounds in a month.

Most of it was water weight, so losing more would be harder—five pounds a month would be good progress from here.

Still, it was a great start.

And now that he was slimmer, he was starting to look more like his game character.

He’d probably never be that handsome, but for a first meeting, he could use makeup.

Later… well, Qingtian Bairi was a lovestruck romantic. With enough sweet talk, he probably wouldn’t care about a few flaws in appearance.

In his good mood, Gu opened his payment app by chance.

He hardly ever checked it, and now saw that over the past month, Qingtian Bairi had transferred him three million.

His account balance was huge.

Gu: “…” This app was a menace! Since transfers didn’t require acceptance, he hadn’t even known Zhou had sent him money.

And Zhou—how could he be so reckless as to just hand over that much?

What should he do now? Send it back?

When Gu first arrived in this world, he’d been eager to repay Zhou, but after falling for him, he wasn’t in a rush.

He had planned to save more and return it with interest, claiming he’d invested Zhou’s money and made a good profit.

But now, before he could repay anything, Zhou had given him even more.

He had to return it! But the account he inherited from the original owner had a transfer limit—he couldn’t send out such a large sum at once.

As he was thinking this, President Wang contacted him again.

For the past half month, they had been in daily contact. Wang was warm and kept suggesting an in-person meeting.

Gu didn’t mind meeting offline—given their growing business, it was only a matter of time—but he wanted to slim down a bit more first.

The original owner had always claimed his game character was based on his real appearance, so he couldn’t risk being exposed.

Not long ago, Gu had given Wang a particularly valuable piece of technology.

Now, Wang was here to discuss price—he was willing to pay thirty million for it, with the condition that Gu provide guidance if problems arose later.

Seeing that number, Gu’s heart skipped.

After taxes, there would still be over twenty million left… Couldn’t he just use that to repay Qingtian Bairi?

Thinking so, Gu asked, “President Wang, can I change the receiving account? And, uh, also change the recipient’s name?”

Otherwise, why not just have Wang send the money directly to Zhou?

He could say that Qida Technology had paid him for helping them solve some problems.

That would even help maintain his cover story.

Zhou, chatting with Gu while glancing at the two government-appointed people near him, replied, “Of course you can.”