"Zhou Wang, is this a hotel or a palace? How come the window looks so much like the mansions in period dramas?"
In the shaky phone screen, Zhao Guihua, who had no idea she was using the "death angle" to video chat with Zhou Wang, stared in surprise at the background behind him.
"Hotel... This is Beidou, after all, so of course I had to stay somewhere with character. That’s why I chose a room styled like a courtyard house to experience something different."
Zhou Wang sipped the sweet, freshly ground soy milk, then stood up to give his mom a brief overview of the suite.
"Wow, you sure enjoy yourself. This hotel isn’t cheap, right?"
"Not that expensive, just a few thousand bucks..."
"You brat, a few thousand and you call that cheap?"
Zhao Guihua couldn’t help but criticize Zhou Wang’s spending habits, "Mom knows you’re making money now, but you still have to be frugal where you can. You could stay in a good hotel for five or six hundred, but you have to go all out like this..."
Zhou Wang was slightly resigned about this, thinking to himself, if I told you this room actually costs around 130,000 or 140,000 a night, you’d probably jump up in shock...
There’s no helping it. Honestly, even with Zhao Guihua and Zhou Dajun’s experiences, they knew their son was a billionaire, but they really had no clear concept of what that truly meant.
They still clung to the old beliefs many from their generation held... like "money is saved" and "if you have money, you should save it quickly," and so on.
Even though Zhou Wang gave Zhao Guihua a bank card with five million on it, he knew his mom probably hadn’t touched the money much, or maybe she’d been persuaded by a bank clerk into some kind of low-interest fixed deposit...
Zhou Wang had anticipated this, so when his parents returned to the country a while back, he secretly transferred 200,000 to Zhou Dajun. Although his dad wasn’t much of a spender either, he was at least a bit more generous than Zhao Guihua.
"Look at you, everyone else is spending Mid-Autumn Festival with their families, and here you are, going off to Beidou alone without coming home to visit..."
Since it was a special holiday, his mom’s resentment toward Zhou Wang being away from home was greater than usual, and all Zhou Wang could do was listen.
He realized a man can really mature quickly. In the past, when his mom nagged like this, he might have retorted—
"Holidays? Those are for ordinary folks, your son is wealthy, so every day is a holiday..."
But now, he would just listen patiently, acknowledge his mistakes, and then promise to find time to come home soon.
Because criticism from Huaxia-style parents always had unexpressed love behind it, didn’t it?
Because of sufficient funds, the home renovation progressed rapidly, and Zhou Wang took a quick look to find the whole place had truly transformed. Even though Zhao Guihua kept muttering about not knowing how to use this or that, from her expression, she was clearly very satisfied with the "new home"...
Zhou Dajun wasn’t home. According to Zhao Guihua, he’d gone fishing at a reservoir with Jiang Qingkui’s father, Jiang Jiaxing, which led Zhao Guihua to bring up that topic again.
"Now you have a girlfriend, and you’re still unclear with your Sister Qingkui, how are you going to explain this to your Uncle Jiang... Hey, Zhou Wang, is there someone on your bed?"
"Huh? What person, you saw it wrong..."
"Is it Su Ranran? Come on, let mom say hi to her..."
"Hey, mom, my signal’s not good over here, what did you say... Ha, I can’t hear you clearly, whatever, I’ll hang up first, go ahead and eat..."
Zhou Wang held the phone further away, babbling nonsense, then hung up the video call in his mom’s continuous scolding of "you brat."
He let out a slight sigh of relief, set down the soy milk, and walked back to the bed.
Sure enough, the senior had woken up at some point and was staring at Zhou Wang with serene yet bright eyes.
Her slightly sleepy but beautiful face softened her cool demeanor, adding a touch of humanity, making Zhou Wang really fall for Jiang Mo at that moment.
"Awake? Did you sleep well?"
Zhou Wang stroked her face and asked with a smile.
It wasn’t the next morning, but midday on the third day.
That meant Zhou Wang and the senior had stayed in the room for a whole day and two nights since the night before last.
This experience was something Zhou Wang had never had before, and he had to admit, it was quite marvelous...
Two people, in a relatively closed environment, hardly needing to wear clothes or worry about anything, just existing in the most relaxed, primal state...
They hadn’t been doing shy things the whole time—people’s energy is finite after all... Jiang Mo was hard to say, but at least Zhou Wang felt this way.
Copying couldn’t last forever, and eventually, it didn’t feel as intense, becoming instead a mental satisfaction of possession.
Most of the time, they watched a movie together, scrolled through TikTok, or when Zhou Wang needed to handle something, he’d make calls, while Jiang Mo entertained herself reading books or drawing.
Neither Jiang Qingkui nor Yun Rou and Yun Lan interrupted them, only bringing food and drinks in when Zhou Wang asked.
When Zhou Wang thought back on it, he found it somewhat distracting...
Could this be, in some way, akin to the feeling of "home"?
Damn, I can’t start thinking like this, I’m only in my twenties, how am I already getting into such random thoughts.
Help me up, I want to keep living it up for another ten... no, twenty years!