Chapter 16
Behind Mu Feiyi, several representatives from the Northern Chamber of Commerce exchanged bewildered glances.
They had just been eagerly pitching local pillar industries to Second Young Master Mu, hoping this wealthy young man would loosen his purse strings and invest in a new factory. So who was this youth that had suddenly appeared, acting so casually around him? Could he be a close friend of the Second Young Master?
“Who was that?” one of the businessmen asked, his sharp instincts kicking in.
“The young master of the Yu family,” the assistant replied. In truth, the assistant wasn’t entirely sure what kind of relationship this elusive Young Master Yu had with his chairman. However, glancing down at the heavy sack of sunflower seeds in his arms, he noted that his boss hadn’t gotten angry at having the bags shoved into his hands. In fact, Mu Feiyi almost seemed to want to snatch the boy’s treats for himself.
It seemed their chairman genuinely had a new friend.
“Oh, the Yu family? That Yu family?” The Chamber of Commerce members exchanged knowing looks, immediately associating the surname with the prominent corporate enterprise.
“Yes, that’s the one,” the assistant confirmed. He initially wanted to clarify that this particular young master didn’t actually involve himself in the company’s affairs, but deciding it wasn’t his place to gossip, he promptly shut his mouth.
Instead, he skillfully steered the conversation back to business, discussing the materials the representatives needed to prepare for their upcoming lunch meeting.
“Excellent, excellent! We’ll have everything ready,” the representatives agreed enthusiastically, breathing a collective sigh of relief. If the Mu Corporation was willing to invest in local development, it would be a massive win for them all.
Seizing the opportunity, one of the businessmen subtly nudged his colleague. “Go pay for Young Master Yu’s order,” he whispered.
“Right away.” As seasoned businessmen, they knew how to read the room. If Young Master Yu and Second Young Master Mu were this close, covering the boy’s bill was the perfect way to curry favor with both of them.
At noon, Yu Yuanzhou received a special delivery in his office, brought in personally on behalf of his nephew.
It was a furious, milk-tea-colored little hamster.
The secretary carefully and respectfully placed the pet cage onto his desk. “Your nephew asked me to bring him straight to you,” she explained with a helpless expression. “He made me promise repeatedly to handle this ‘Little Ancestor’ with the utmost care.”
“Alright, you can go now,” Yu Yuanzhou sighed. He looked at the fuming hamster inside the cage, who was sitting with his back turned, his tiny arms crossed over his round, chubby belly, and his ears pressed flat against his head in sheer rage. “Close the door on your way out, please. Hold all my calls for the next half hour.”
“Right away, sir.”
The moment the office door clicked shut, the little hamster pushed open the cage door with his paw, leaped onto a stack of important documents, and began squeaking furiously while waving his tiny fists. “Squeak, squeak, squeak!”
Yu Yuanzhou took a deep breath. “Little Yuan, turn back and speak human. Otherwise, I have no idea what you’re complaining about.”
“Ahhhhh!” The little hamster was absolutely livid.
Transforming with a frustrated huff, he grabbed his own ears and pulled them down. “Mu Feiyi is a bad guy! I just asked him to hold my peanuts and sunflower seeds for a second, and he actually took them! He took my peanuts!”
“I didn’t even get to eat a single one! I didn’t even get to taste them, and he just walked off with them!”
“He took three whole pounds of the little hamster’s buttery roasted peanuts! Three pounds! Three entire pounds!”
“He’s so mean! He actually steals food from a little hamster!”
The more he vented, the angrier and sadder he became. Overwhelmed by the injustice, he plopped down onto his uncle’s documents and sniffled pitifully. “How could he snatch my food? Those were my peanuts…”
To his uncle’s dismay, tears actually began to well up in the boy’s eyes.
“Uncle will buy you more, don’t cry, don’t cry.” Yu Yuanzhou’s head throbbed. He was truly at a loss for how to comfort the distraught child. “Be a good boy, stop crying.”
Privately, Yu Yuanzhou felt a flash of irritation toward Mu Feiyi. How could a grown man snatch a child’s peanuts? Seriously, if he wanted a snack, couldn’t he just buy his own?
“But how did you end up running into Mu Feiyi today?” Yu Yuanzhou asked, lowering his voice gently as he wiped a tear from the boy’s eye. “And how exactly did he steal your peanuts? Tell Uncle. Uncle will find a way to get back at him!”
The little hamster sniffled, still deeply aggrieved. “I went to the dried goods exhibition and bought a whole bunch of dried mushrooms.”
“Our Little Yuan is so smart. Buying dried mushrooms saves space and they last a long time,” Yu Yuanzhou praised, stroking the boy’s hair.
“Well, one of the shop owners sold out early, so he gave me a bag of peanuts and a bag of sunflower seeds as a bonus. But I wanted to go buy pine nuts and hazelnuts, and the two bags were so big they were in my way. I didn’t want to walk all the way back to the car to drop them off.” The little hamster looked up with watery eyes. “Just as I turned my head, I saw him standing there.”
Standing on his tiptoes, Little Yuan grabbed a tissue and sadly wiped his cheeks, which were still a bit dusty from bustling around the market all morning. “But after I finished shopping, he only had his assistant return the sunflower seeds to me. He kept the buttery peanuts for himself!”
“Oh, that is terrible,” Yu Yuanzhou clicked his tongue in wonder. He truly hadn’t expected the notoriously silent and reliable Mu Feiyi to secretly bully a kid. Returning only the sunflower seeds and keeping the peanuts? That had to be intentional.
“Alright, don’t be angry anymore. Our little hamster isn’t petty. Maybe he just really likes peanuts too? Just like you do. Why don’t you pretend that you generously shared your snacks with a good friend, okay?” Yu Yuanzhou hadn’t used this gentle, coaxing tone since his daughter Tianwei was four years old and starting kindergarten.
Feeling deeply wronged, the little hamster nodded with immense reluctance. “Fine, I’ll just pretend I shared them with him. Hmph! Anyway, he did have someone pay for the pine nuts and hazelnuts I bought later.”
“He paid for you again?” Yu Yuanzhou frowned, finding the situation increasingly strange.
First he snatches the boy’s peanuts, and then he pays for his shopping twice? Mu Feiyi was known for being exceptionally thorough in the business world, but Yu Yuanzhou’s impression of him was that of a cold, slightly arrogant, and ruthless executive. He absolutely wasn’t the type to do something so childish and petty.
Furthermore, Mu Feiyi shouldn’t even be familiar with this little hamster. Why would he repeatedly cover his bills? Even if the amounts were pocket change to the Second Young Master, it was completely out of character.
Unless…
Yu Yuanzhou’s mind involuntarily flashed back to his silly daughter’s frantic warning: “Dad! Mu Feiyi wants to sleep with little hamster!”
No, no, no, impossible. Mu Feiyi isn’t that kind of person. Yu Yuanzhou shook his head, forcing himself not to overthink it. He had known Mu Feiyi for years through the frequent collaborations between the Yu and Mu families. He knew the man’s character; he had zero interest in women, and…
Yu Yuanzhou paused. Right, he had never seen him show any interest in men either. What was he thinking? Tianwei’s wild imagination had led him astray!
“What else did our little hamster hoard this morning?” Yu Yuanzhou smoothly changed the subject, reaching out to gently poke the boy’s tummy. “And what delicious things did you eat behind Uncle’s back?”
“Pine… pine nuts.” He had eaten so many rich pine nuts that he felt like he was going to burst.
Shifting back into his hamster form, he shyly lowered his head, covering his face with his pink little paws. “They helped me buy all the pine nuts and hazelnuts, and they’ve already been delivered to the house.” The massive haul of dried mushrooms would be arriving shortly as well.
Tonight, he would be able to organize nearly twenty crates of dried mushrooms and two giant sacks of nuts into his spatial dimension. In addition, he had secured dried daylilies, red dates, roasted peanuts, sunflower seeds, large chestnuts, and two lively free-range hens that were supposedly perfect for making rich, nourishing soup.
When he returned home, he planned to release the chickens on the right side of the mountain inside the Kuntian Jade. While he was at it, he would check if his “Little Slave” had obediently sown the wheat seeds he had handed over yesterday. He didn’t actually care about harvesting the wheat; he simply wanted to gauge the soil nutrients and the accelerated growth speed within the magical space.
Seeing the sheer joy on the hamster’s face as he thought about hoarding food, Yu Yuanzhou couldn’t help but lean in and whisper a secret of his own.
“Even though I know the magical spaces in novels supposedly don’t need nutrients, I went ahead and bought some nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers anyway.” He pulled out a slip of paper and showed the address to the little hamster. “It’s at a port terminal in the eastern suburbs. Three shipping containers full of high-grade organic fertilizer.”
He explained, “A group of ambitious young entrepreneurs wanted to start a massive agricultural business, but they had a falling out and liquidated their assets at a steep discount.” In truth, the young men had bitten off more than they could chew, ordering three shipping containers at once and bankrupting themselves in the process.
“Come find me early tonight, and Uncle will take you for a drive to collect it all,” Yu Yuanzhou said, affectionately stroking the hamster’s head.
The little hamster nodded enthusiastically. Overflowing with joy, he rubbed his cheeks and pulled a tiny, pristine flower from his pouch, offering it to his uncle as a reward.
This morning’s harvest had been truly spectacular! Just thinking about adding four or five hundred pounds of dried mushrooms to his stash—not to mention tonight’s massive fertilizer haul—made him incredibly happy. When the apocalypse arrived, the little hamster would definitely not go hungry. Even if they only ate mushrooms, his uncle and sister would be well-fed for years!
“Alright, where is our next stop this afternoon?” Yu Yuanzhou chuckled, using his index finger to rub the hamster’s head back and forth. He rubbed him until the little creature squeaked in protest, but he simply couldn’t bear to stop.
Little Yuan’s beast form was so tiny, and his fur was incredibly silky and soft to the touch. If he could just pet the little hamster while reviewing his corporate documents, Yu Yuanzhou felt he could happily work all day without a single complaint.
“I found a wholesale beverage market in the suburbs. I’m going to head straight there to buy drinks,” the little hamster said, stroking his furry chin thoughtfully. “I originally planned to take some time at noon to buy a used box truck. Driving my SUV back and forth to haul cargo doesn’t seem very efficient.”
“You’re right about that,” Yu Yuanzhou agreed. “However, picking out a used truck and handling the title transfers takes too much time. I’ll just have someone from our marketing department lend you a company cargo van for the time being.”
“Mm-hmm!” The little hamster didn’t refuse. He affectionately rubbed his head against his uncle’s finger one last time before preparing to jump off the desk to go buy his drinks.
“I read online that the market deals in near-expired food and drinks,” the little hamster explained, having done his research on a local forum. “Lots of premium nuts are sold for twenty yuan a box instead of over a hundred, and large bottles of Coke are just one yuan each! Since time freezes in my space and things won’t expire, I plan to tell the vendors I’m opening a discount grocery store. That way, I can buy out their stock without looking suspicious.”
He had already crafted the perfect cover story on his way over.
Yu Yuanzhou opened his mouth, originally intending to say that their family had plenty of money and didn’t need to resort to near-expired goods. But seeing the boy budgeting so carefully, doing everything he could to stretch their funds and secure a comfortable life for them in the apocalypse… it deeply moved him. As an uncle, he realized the little fellow was trying desperately to grow up and rely on his own strength, doing his best to make up for the tragic regrets of his “previous life.”
“Alright. Then Uncle will walk you downstairs.” Yu Yuanzhou smiled softly. He bent down, picked up the little hamster, and placed him securely on his shoulder. “Ready to go?”
“Squeak, squeak, squeak!” The little hamster planted his feet firmly and waved his tiny paws in excitement, signaling he was ready for action!
This afternoon, he was buying out the beverage market. And tomorrow, the little hamster was going to meet up with Senior Qian Mingtian and raid the village!
