Both your salary and your salary will be as you wish.

Chapter 18 That's called strategic attraction.

"What are you talking about? The computer itself isn't even turning on; it's malfunctioning!"

Wang Haowen tossed the string to the ground, and with a carefree, reckless spirit, picked her up and slammed her into the enormous Italian leather sofa that could swallow them both whole!

"Holy crap, this is amazing!" The soft sofa enveloped and bounced them up, and Wang Haowen felt so comfortable that he wanted to curse.

Zeng Jia felt as if she had sunk into a pile of freshly fluffed cotton in the dead of winter, so soft that it could melt her bones.

"Are you crazy?! What if someone sees us?!"

Zeng Jia hurriedly got up, but before she could even lift herself an inch, Wang Haowen pulled her back down with his large hand. "What's the rush? The nanny went to buy groceries and won't be back for at least an hour!"

The villa area is large, and to avoid disturbing the neighbors, the vegetable market and supermarket are located far away, making it impossible to walk back and forth; you have to drive.

Zeng Jia was still a little scared. "Don't mess around. What if someone catches you in the act? You should get up and stop lying there!"

"What's wrong with me taking a break here? What crime have I committed? We've worked like oxen and horses, day and night, and can't we enjoy some of the surplus value here?" Wang Haowen lay still, grumbling.

Zeng Jia also felt a pang of sadness.

I'm always on edge at the company. Yesterday, just because the coffee I made got a little cold, Zhang Zhishan cursed me so badly that his ancestors for eight generations couldn't have a moment's peace.

Is it easy to earn a little money through hard work?

Isn't it all for the bricks and tiles of the house?

She glanced at the Tiffany pillbox, so expensive it could buy half a toilet, and her reckless, self-destructive temper began to stir.

She pulled her toes up as well, curled up deep inside the sofa, staring at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling. She couldn't figure out how many of those light bulbs she could buy for her house.

"When do you think we'll be able to live in a house like this? Maybe in our next life?"

"What next life? This is ours now!" Wang Haowen grabbed the biggest, purplest cherry from the fruit plate and stuffed it into Zeng Jia's mouth. Then he got up from the sofa and headed toward the shiny bar counter filled with unidentifiable foreign liquors.

"What a pity, I have a grandson's party tonight..." Otherwise, he really wanted to open it and sneak a taste.

Wang Haowen looked curiously at the dazzling array of items in the cabinet, his gaze settling on a row of mineral water bottles printed with Arabic script.

The bottle was shaped like a drip tray and felt icy cold to the touch. He then noticed a thermostat in the bar cabinet; even a bottle of mineral water had such a sophisticated feature?

He picked up a bottle, opened it, and, mimicking the way people savor red wine in movies, poured it into a wine glass, swirled it around as if to look sophisticated, and then gulped down a big mouthful!

The water slid down his throat... thick, salty, and bitter, and he swallowed it with a stiff neck.

"Zeng Xiaojia, come here quickly, come and taste this celestial aura!"

Zeng Jia curiously leaned over and took a big gulp. A strange taste, spicy, salty, and mixed with stove ash, hit her head and made her tears stream down her face!

She punched Wang Haowen hard: "Cough cough cough... Wang Haowen, you son of a bitch! What... what is this junk? It tastes even stronger than the brine at the bottom of a salted vegetable jar!"

"Hahaha, this is the taste of the rich!" Wang Haowen, having successfully pulled off his mischievous act, laughed so hard he almost fell over. He pulled out his phone and scanned the bottle label. "Wow! It's called Ice Volcano Mineral Water, even more potent than Laoshan White Flower Snake Grass Water... Holy crap, this stuff costs 680 yuan a bottle, enough for the two of us to cook three lamb spine hot pot meals with extra dishes!"

Upon hearing the price, Zeng Jia felt a pang of heartache and exclaimed, "Six hundred and eighty? Is that gold?"

Undeterred, she took another big gulp, her expression contorted as if she had swallowed a live toad.

Ultimately, she was not fortunate enough to endure this high-class torment. She turned around and rushed into the kitchen, opened the high-end refrigerator that exuded "I am worth a lot of money," and precisely pulled out the most tacky and down-to-earth can of Fanta from a pile of colorful drinks.

As Zeng Jia drank, she let out a loud burp. Wasn't this much better than the 680? Out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly caught sight of Yu Li's shoe and hat room and hurried over. This shoe and hat room was only on the first floor and was at least twenty square meters.

LV, Chanel, Hermès... The ancestral brands in the SKP window are piled up like mountains here. Zeng Jia recognized several limited editions she had seen online at a glance. Among them, the Birkin 20 has increased in price by another million this year, putting the price of gold down to the ground.

She then noticed a GUCCI Dionysus bag she had long coveted in an old box in the corner. She had imagined carrying this bag with her "dusty blue" coat and looking incredibly stylish on the street.

What she looked up at was what Yu Li disliked. Although Zeng Jia felt uncomfortable, she still took out the bag and carried it on her body to compare it.

The bag is beautiful, and the person is nice too, but the only problem is the word "money".

She eventually put it back where it belonged. Even if Yu Li disliked it, she didn't deserve it. The ugly duckling had no right to covet swan meat. She hadn't even built her own pigeon coop yet; she needed bricks and mortar. She didn't know where to put such a fancy and beautiful thing in her hands.

Zeng Jia came out of the shoe and hat room and almost burst out laughing when she looked up. Wang Haowen was posing like a "domineering CEO" and taking a selfie with a cigar in his hand.

She then noticed that there wasn't just one cigar, but a whole cabinet full of them, and the brand was Cohiba, the one Shen Teng used to impersonate a big bad wolf in his movies.

Wang Haowen exhaled metallic, woody smoke, mimicking Maran Brando's style in "The Godfather," poking a cigar to his lips and snapping a few pictures with the front-facing camera.

"He's pretty handsome, he's got the looks." Zeng Jia really liked Wang Haowen's face; if he were any less attractive, Yu Li wouldn't have chosen him.

"Want to try a puff? Don't smoke too hard!" Wang Haowen brought the cigar to her lips. Zeng Jia didn't smoke, but she was curious, so she took a puff and immediately felt dizzy from the smoke!

"Cough cough cough..." Zeng Jia coughed for a long time, "What's that smell? It's a bit smelly, how come anyone likes it?"

Wang Haowen took a couple of puffs, looking somewhat intoxicated. "It's like you women buying luxury goods; you're after the prestige, not the quality."

Zeng Jia didn't care whether it was good or bad; she just dragged Wang Haowen to take all sorts of photos. Unfortunately, after taking so many, she didn't dare post them on WeChat Moments, and since there were only two of them in the family group chat, she didn't know where to show them off.

Wang Haowen suddenly felt quite bored, and without warning, he jumped onto the table and started singing "The Internationale" in his hoarse voice.

Zeng Jia was startled. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?! Someone will hear you!" After yelling, she realized that this was a detached house, and no matter how loudly she screamed, no neighbor would complain.

Wang Haowen didn't care about any of that. Not content with howling on the table, he jumped down, grabbed Zeng Jia, and started dancing. He slid, twirled, and let loose. Zeng Jia stumbled, almost knocking the Tiffany crystal medicine box off the shelf. Luckily, she reacted quickly, diving to catch it. If it had broken, her newly earned salary would have been gone!

Zeng Jia was so frightened that she lost interest, and Wang Haowen was so engrossed in his frenzy that he exhausted himself. The two of them, like fish with their bones removed, collapsed back into the expensive sofa, completely drained.

"Guess what... I was just thinking about?"

Wang Haowen's chest heaved like a bellows, beads of sweat slid down his angular chin, and his eyes were a little unfocused, carrying an indescribable feeling after his outburst.

Zeng Jia was too exhausted to speak, only managing a soft groan: "Huh?"

"I remember... my junior year... when we were ice skating at Houhai..." Wang Haowen's voice lowered, filled with the warmth of reminiscence, "You, a girl from Northeast China, were an amazing skater... and I, on the other hand, pretended I really couldn't skate. Every time I slipped, I'd fall right into your arms. Back then, saving up half a month's allowance to treat you to a bowl of braised pork at a roadside stall felt like a heavenly treat. Looking back now, it was fucking stupid, but... it was fucking good."

A warm current, like spring water released from a dam, unexpectedly warmed Zeng Jia's heart. She remembered how blue the sky was back then, as smooth as a mirror, where the thoughts of young boys and girls could not be hidden at all.

"You liar! I'm so naive and easily fooled by you!" she scolded, but the corners of her mouth unconsciously turned up.

"That's not called deception," Wang Haowen grinned, with a touch of childlike smugness. "That's called strategic attraction."

"Attractive? You're the only one who can get away with anything in Houhai!" Zeng Jia found him ridiculously silly. Actually, she had her eye on Wang Haowen back then, otherwise, would she have let him fall into her arms?!

Wang Haowen gripped her hand tightly, the force almost hurting. "Zeng Xiaojia, I'm telling you right now! I'll definitely earn enough for you to buy a house! We won't buy that cramped pigeon coop! We'll buy a bright and spacious place where our two kids can run around like crazy!"

Zeng Jia felt a sharp blow to her heart. "I just want to have a place with you, any size will do."

Wang Haowen pursed his lips, cupped her small face, and leaned in to touch her...

"drop--"

A crisp, short, emotionless electronic sound, like a poisoned icicle, pierced the newly created ambiance.

The two froze instantly, pushed each other away in terror, and stared blankly as the heavy, carved bronze door slid open silently.

A boy wearing an international high school uniform, carrying a limited-edition backpack, and sporting short, gray hair, stood lazily at the door, one hand in his pocket, chewing gum.

He glanced at the slightly messy living room, the fruit plate that had been chewed up in a mess, and the half-empty bottle of expensive mineral water on the table. Then, his gaze, like a nail, fixed on the two "intruders" on the sofa, who were in awkward positions and whose faces were still flushed.

Time snapped, and it froze solid.