It was already dusk, and twilight was approaching. The golden crow slowly submerged under the mists of the Western Hills painted the entire city of Yanjing an orange-red color. Neighbors who are getting off work in the evening ride bicycles and electric motorcycles through the narrow alleys. The originally pitch-black rooms were now lit up with lights. The goose-yellow light shone through the windows of every household along with the sound of commercials on TV. Woks and iron spoons clanged against each other, the sizzling sound of cooking wafted out from the kitchen, and the fragrant smell of fireworks immediately filled the alley.

In the small courtyard of the orphanage, a group of children were having fun running around. The nurse stood at the door of the main room and called everyone to eat. Tao Mu's nose was very sensitive and he could tell that today's dinner was Chinese cabbage stewed with potatoes and fried saury.

There are too many children in the orphanage and the funding is too tight. Even though Dean Tao tried every means to supplement the children's nutrition, their daily meals were still mostly cabbage, tofu, radishes and potatoes. There would be a big meal every weekend - basically buying a whole chicken and stewing potatoes, or buying a few bones and stewing sauerkraut, or buying a few fish and stewing tofu. With so many children plus the orphanage's caregivers eating together, you can imagine how much meat each person gets. And the taste of the big pot rice...it’s better not to talk about it.

Anyway, Tao Mu doesn't like to eat. He had been greedy since he was a child. He could sneak out of the orphanage for a bite to eat and run to a small restaurant across the street, where he met an old man who was particularly kind to him.

Now, the old grandfather is old, and perhaps he suffered a lot of grievances in the past, and he can't make up for it himself, so he needs Tao Mu, a junior, to stand up and support him. Even for the food that he had already eaten for so many years, Tao Mu couldn't pretend that he didn't know anything.

"President Tao," After dinner, Tao Mu kept sticking to President Tao and went into the office: "Just tell me. What happened to our old man in the past? And who is that Yao bastard?"

Dean Tao sighed: "I'm not sure either—"

"Impossible! You two have been neighbors for so many years." Tao Mu really didn't believe it at all. He walked behind Dean Tao and massaged her shoulders attentively: "Dean, please tell me. I really want to know. But I can't ask the old man in person. Today I asked a little bit, and before I finished speaking, he got angry with me. I had no choice but to come to you."

Dean Tao sighed again: "It's been so many years since the incident happened. Even if we know about it, what can we do?"

"After all, the old man is our old man. If he is really bullied by others, I have to avenge him!" Tao Mu said seriously.

"Revenge?" Dean Tao shook his head subconsciously, and said with a sigh: "Sure enough, it's something a child would say. He has a big family and a big business, how can you take revenge--"

"Dean, you really do know." Tao Mu's eyes flickered slightly. He walked around to Dean Tao, half squatted down, looked up at Dean Tao, and said sincerely, "Just tell me. Just like you said, if the old man was really wronged, and there is such a big enemy, I, as the old man's junior, should know it."

Dean Tao remained silent. She knew Tao Mu's temper. If Tao Mu knew the truth, he would never let those people go. But Dean Tao was really worried that if he told the truth, it would implicate Tao Mu. After all, with the other party's current family background, it is really not someone that ordinary people can afford to provoke.

But if I don’t say it... Old Man Song has had a very hard life over the years. He should seek justice for himself and for the lives of so many people in the Song family.

Dean Tao felt that even if Tao Mu couldn't do anything now, when he became a big star and met more powerful people, he could at least make this matter public and let everyone know about the evil deeds committed by Yao.

"Dean Tao? Dean Tao?" Tao Mu urged gently: "I promise, I just want to know what happened to the old man back then. No matter what the truth is, I won't act rashly if I'm not sure."

In Dean Tao's eyes, her Xiao Mu is just eighteen years old this year. He is at the age where he is young, incompetent and tries very hard to disguise himself as an adult.

But somehow, the Tao Mu in front of him made Dean Tao feel mature and restrained, which his peers did not have, as if what he said was true. He really wouldn't act rashly because of a momentary impulse.

Dean Tao struggled for a long time, still unsure whether he should tell Tao Mu about those past events. Finally, he sighed silently: "Let me think about it."

"Don't." Tao Mu knew the importance of striking while the iron was hot. Given Dean Tao's personality, it would take him forever to think about this: "Just tell me. I promise I won't do anything rash."

After living two lives, Tao Mu's character has always been the same. Once he makes a decision, he will never turn back even if he hits a wall. Moreover, he is well aware of various technical means of pestering, and knows how to choose different words to target the weaknesses of different people.

In the end, Dean Tao was worn out by Tao Mu and had to tell him everything that happened back then.

"…People of our age still remember Song Ji, which was opened on Gulou Street. This Song Ji was opened by the Song family. The ancestor of the Song family was an imperial chef in the palace. Later, when the Qing Dynasty fell, the ancestor of the Song family bought a store on Gulou Street and started doing business. The Song family has only one descendant, and by the time of Old Man Song, he was the only one. His father, Song Liansheng, had two apprentices at the time. The eldest apprentice was Yao Sheng'an, and the second apprentice was Wang Yipin. Taking apprentices in those days was different from now. The emphasis was on once a teacher, always a father. Everyone lived together, and the apprentices had to take care of the master in his old age. Of course, the apprentice who was valued by the master could also take over the master's business."

"At that time, Song Ji was still head chef of Old Man Song's father. The Song family had an ancestral recipe book. Yao Shengan wanted this recipe book at that time, but Old Man Song's father felt that Yao Shengan's cooking skills were not up to par yet, so he was not going to pass the recipe book to his eldest apprentice. He wanted to pass it to his son instead."

"Yao Shengan probably felt unconvinced, so he left Song's and set up his own business. Later, during a special period, Yao Shengan reported his master. Song's was closed down. The Song family's ancestral recipes were also taken away. Mr. Song and Old Man Song were dragged to the street every day to be criticized. Mr. Song couldn't stand it and hanged himself in the middle of the night. Old Man Song was sent to a farm for reform. He had only been married for a few years at that time. His son had just learned to walk. The pillar of the family was gone overnight, leaving only one... The eldest was the youngest, and his wife couldn't stand the hardship, so she remarried. She threw the child to Old Lady Song. The child had no one to discipline him since he was young. When he was a teenager, he hung out with some rogue hooligans on the street every day. Later, he was shot during a crackdown. Old Lady Song couldn't stand it anymore, so she went crazy. She ran around the street like a madman every day, calling her grandson's name, "Old Man Song", "Old Master Song", and one day she fell into the lotus pond in Houhai and drowned. Even the body was collected by the neighbors..."

"When Old Man Song came back from the farm, his home was gone, and so were the people. The government did return the Song family's ancestral home and all those things. But what was the use? The people were gone."

Dean Tao sighed deeply, saying, "There were too many such regrets in that era."

Tao Mu had no expression on his face. After a while, Youyou asked, "Is Yao Shengan the founder of Shengan Group?"

Dean Tao nodded. "You know it too. Back then, Yao Sheng'an betrayed his teacher and ancestors, and was scolded by his neighbors. He couldn't stay in Yanjing anymore, so he ran to Shanghai. Later, he founded the Sheng'an Group. He is now rich and powerful. I heard that he is also a famous philanthropist."

Tao Mu lowered his eyes: "He also has a grandson named Yao Wenxiao."

Dean Tao shook his head: "I don't know about that."

Dean Tao looked at Tao Mu curiously: "How did you know?"

Of course I know.

Tao Mu looked indifferent and quietly clenched his fists. The Shen family and the Yao family are both in Shanghai. They have similar family backgrounds and equal status, so naturally they have friendships. Yao Wenxiao is Shen Yu's childhood sweetheart and also one of Shen Yu's admirers. The Star Media he founded was the main force of Heitaomu at that time.

Tao Mu really didn't expect that he had dealt with Yao Wenxiao so many times in his previous life. I didn't know that the two families had such a connection a long time ago.

In his new life, Tao Mu originally wanted to try his best to avoid those people and things in Shanghai and live his own life steadily. But now it seems that there are some bad karmas that can never be avoided. Since they are destined to exist in this world, they must fight fiercely. Until you die and there is no escape.

When Tao Mu said goodbye and came out of Dean Tao's office, it was already completely dark.

Feng Yuan squatted in the corridor outside the office. Hearing the creak of the office door, he immediately stood up: "Mu, Brother Mu, I'll take you out."

He held a flashlight in his hand and looked at Tao Mu eagerly.

Tao Mu smiled slightly and reached out to touch Feng Yuan's withered hair. In fact, Feng Yuan is only a few months younger than Tao Mu. But I don't know why, he was born dark and thin, and looked like a child of about fifteen or sixteen years old. In the words of Da Mao and Xiao Pang, all the time they fed him big pork elbows and fried chicken legs for so many years was in vain.

But this dark, thin kid who couldn't even speak clearly was the person Tao Mu trusted the most in his previous life. This life is no exception.

"Xiao Yuan."

In the pitch-black alley, Feng Yuan walked in front holding a flashlight to illuminate the way for his brother Mu. Hearing Tao Mu calling him, the child turned around quickly: "Mu, Brother Mu?"

"I want to do something. I need someone to help me." Tao Mu looked up at the cloudy sky and suddenly said, "I don't trust others, and I don't want to trouble Brother Yao and Brother Xiao Qi. Come and help me."

Feng Yuan's eyes lit up and he nodded vigorously: "Okay!"

Hearing Feng Yuan's straightforward answer, Tao Mu's lips curled up in a gentle arc. He turned his head and looked at Feng Yuan, his dark eyes brighter than the cold stars in the night: "Xiao Yuan, I won't let anything happen to you this time."

Feng Yuan blinked and looked at his brother Mu. Although he didn't know what his brother Mu was talking about, he nodded affirmatively: "Yeah."

With a bitter and resentful mood, Tao Mu rushed back to the dormitory before the curfew. I was blinded by the sanitary napkins flying all over the room.

"What's going on?" Tao Mu looked at his three roommates who were sitting on the chairs, bending over and stuffing sanitary napkins into their shoes with a look of shock on their faces: "What are you doing?"

"Uh... According to reliable information, it is very comfortable to put sanitary napkins in your shoes during military training." Du Kang waved the pink angel in his hand: "You come too."

Tao Mu's face turned black: "I don't want it!"

Hearing Tao Mu's firm and resolute refusal. Du Kang sighed and shook his head: "Brother, I find that you have a serious idol image. But today's event is a collective activity for our 301 dormitory. You should put aside your idol image first. In life, we still have to learn to be humble."

What a bullshit! Could you please not put such high-end, elegant and meaningful words in this context? I really feel sorry for the phrase "He Guang Tong Chen"!

Tao Mu laughed. He would rather be a loner than do such a thing. He also feels that his persistence has nothing to do with being an idol.

"This child won't listen to me no matter what I say!" Du Kang held the pink little angel in his hands and said in the tone of an old mother lamenting that her naughty boy was very ignorant, then turned his head to look at Wen Bao and Chu Suian. The three roommates exchanged glances for a while, then suddenly stood up and rushed in front of Tao Mu. One hugged Tao Mu from behind, and the other two lifted Tao Mu's legs and were about to take off his shoes.

"If you don't accept my toast, then you'll have to drink the wine for punishment, kid. Since you refuse to obey, don't blame us for forcing you into prostitution!" Wen Bao said in the tone of an opera singer, smiling sinisterly and moving his fingers to grab Tao Mu's skateboard shoes.

"Hey, don't go too far!" Tao Mu struggled, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and watched his shoes being taken off by his two roommates in a tough manner. Chu Suian, our future Chu the Great Emperor, stuffed two sanitary napkins into her without saying a word, with an attitude that brooked no rejection.

"Du Kang, you really don't want any face at all!" Tao Mu was almost powerless to complain: "And the rest of you, you are all going to be big stars and movie stars in the future. It's not good to leave such a black history for yourself, right?"

"So this is the secret that must not be leaked to anyone in our 301 dormitory." Wen Bao smiled like a cat that stole a mouse, winking at Tao Mu: "In order to prevent traitors from appearing inside, everyone must be consistent in their actions. The handle must be held by each other. This is the safest way to keep it secret. Do you understand?"

"What do I know?" Tao Mu laughed out loud in anger: "Du Kang, look at what bad idea you came up with!"

"What does it have to do with me?" Du Kang retorted innocently, "It was Chu Suian who proposed it, right?"

What? ? ? ? ?

Tao Mu looked at Chu, a star with a look of surprise. He had feminine features and a melancholy temperament, and his every move was very gentle and refined. He was also praised by the media in later generations as "the most literary man in the Chinese entertainment industry." Did he just have cigarettes stuck in his ears? Didn't understand?

Chu Suian pursed his lips shyly and explained very embarrassedly: "I also heard it from my classmates."

Tao Mu: "..." Damn! ! ! It's really you! ! ! ! !

I didn't expect that the handsome Emperor Chu is the one hiding among the people! This is too disillusioning!

Tao Mu looked at Chu Suian with a collapsed face. This guy is more than just a repressed and shy person! This is simply showing off!

Tao Mu sat down at the table in a trance, opened his "Introduction to Programming", turned on his laptop, climbed over the wall to enter a very famous international interactive learning platform, and prepared to learn two chapters of C language to calm his nerves.

"What's this?" Three big heads crowded in front of the computer screen, looking at the screen full of incomprehensible English codes and the "Introduction to Programming" spread out on the table. They raised their eyebrows and asked, "Tao Mu, are you reading the heavenly book?"

"Why don't you tell me that I'm reading scriptures!" Tao Mu said angrily: "Let me make it clear first, even if you fill all my shoes with that thing, I won't wear it!"

"Um???!!!"

The three roommates looked at each other, squinting their eyes and rubbing their chins. Wen Bao even rubbed his hands in a mean way. The three of them smiled sinisterly and approached Tao Mu: "Little brother, we know that you have a serious idol burden."

When Wen Bao said this, he also emphasized the word "very": "However!"

Wen Bao's words were sonorous, and he looked at Tao Mu with a piercing look, as if he was determined to win: "Once you enter the door of my East Factory, it's not up to you. Today, you have to obey whether you want to or not! You have to obey whether you want to or not!"

Wen Bao said this, waving his hand and reciting the classic Peking Opera old male line: "Young men, start the torture ah ah ah ah ah ah——"

"Hey!" Chu Suian and Du Kang received the order at the same time, and two pairs of evil hands reached out to Tao Mu's armpits.

"Ah!" Tao Mu curled himself up into a ball to resist the clutches of his roommates. But I'm alone and weak, and it's useless.

In the end, Mr. Tao, the future Golden Crow Film Emperor and traffic superstar, had to succumb to the tyranny of his roommate. Agree to go along with the crowd.

"Hey, no, there's no military training tomorrow!" After a commotion, Tao Mu came back to his senses slowly: "I agreed to take uncle and aunt to visit Yanjing City. Why are you in such a hurry?"

"Yeah!" After hearing Tao Mu's words, the other three also reacted. Looked at each other.

"Yes, the military training will be held the day after tomorrow! Who came up with this idea?"

"Chu Suian!" Seeing everyone looking at him, Du Kang pointed out the culprit without hesitation: "It was Ya who suggested that we go to the supermarket downstairs to buy sanitary napkins."

"I just listened to the advice given to me by my senior." Chu Suian also hurriedly explained: "I didn't say I had to do it right away."

Who is that!

Du Kang and Chu Suian looked at Wen Bao with wide eyes. It was obvious that this kid started unpacking his shoes as soon as he returned to the dormitory. Why are you putting the blame on others now?

"Me?" Wen Bao was bad enough. He pointed at himself with his backhand and pretended to be innocent with his eyes wide open.

Tao Mu finally realized that these three guys were bad guys! There is not a single good person!

"Hey, Tao Mu, are you programming?" After a while, everyone was tired. They sat down at their respective tables. Wen Bao tilted his head and looked at Tao Mu, very curious: "You know this?"

"I only know a little." Tao Mu smiled modestly: "At best, I can make a website, repair a computer or something."

"Yes, I think the skill of being able to repair computers is extremely important. Especially for celebrities." Du Kang suddenly remembered a piece of gossip, and looked at everyone with a beaming face, with an expression of "you should know": "It's that Xiangcheng celebrity, a handsome guy. If it weren't for the computer repair, there would be so many photos, right... Hey, have you all seen them?"

Boys aged eighteen or nineteen are in the puberty period when male hormones are surging. When we get together, we always talk about the same few topics. Sports, celebrities, girls...Sure enough, before long, Du Kang forcibly turned the topic of the conversation to girls. He said with certainty: "I think that the most handsome boy in the class of 2008 of Beijing Film Academy must be our Mu'er. As for the school belle, I don't know who will be the most beautiful girl. Hey, when you reported today, did you see any particularly beautiful girls?"

"There are so many pretty girls! I'm almost dazzled." Wen Bao immediately echoed, "I also really want to know how stunningly beautiful the girls from Beijing Film Academy are to stand out among so many beautiful girls."

"Want to know?" Tao Mu, who was typing code, raised his eyebrows and tapped the laptop screen with his fingers, letting his knuckles and the LCD screen make a crisp sound: "It's not difficult. As long as you can provide more photos of girls."

The three males in the dormitory looked at each other, and then looked at Tao Mu in confusion.

Under the white incandescent light, Tao Mu smiled meaningfully.

He knows some programming. This is mainly because of the investment environment in China in the past life. Any project that makes a little money and has some development potential cannot avoid the Internet. Before he was reborn, the Internet plus finance was almost synonymous with making money.

As an unqualified graduate of finance, Tao Mu was only familiar with financial investment after he left the entertainment industry in his previous life. But if you don't understand something about investment, it's like throwing your money down the drain. So at the beginning, Tao Mu invested in projects related to the entertainment industry. For example, live streaming websites, game platforms, video websites and so on. Later, I gradually came into contact with group buying websites and social software.

In order to understand in more detail what he was investing in, what the operating model and profit model were, and where the development team was spending money, Tao Mu taught himself programming at that time - mainly to communicate more smoothly with the entrepreneurial team. So that you won’t be defrauded of your investment by others.

Of course, Tao Mu had no talent for IT programming. After two or three years of self-study, he was at best a second-rate programmer. You can tinker with a website, a mobile app, or something like that, and it's no problem to make a love program or something romantic. It is not possible to study it further. It's incomparable to those gifted and talented masters. Of course, there is no need for comparison.

But he never expected that after his rebirth, this skill would become the capital for him to survive.

Tao Mu was thinking that with the end of the Olympics, he had already invested all his money from gambling in the international oil futures market. According to historical data, international oil prices will drop to 32.4M gold per barrel by the end of December. A drop of more than 75% means that if Tao Mu shorts oil futures at this time, he will make at least dozens of times the profit by the end of the year.

By then, his profits in the futures market will be enough to support the development of his website.

Tao Mu stared at the computer screen with deep eyes, gazing affectionately at the source code of the half-coded website.

What happened to Old Man Song was like a wake-up call, which directly woke up Tao Mu after his rebirth. He could finally put aside those unrealistic fantasies. Try to make yourself stronger.

Only in this way can he ensure that he will no longer be bullied; only when he is strong can he have the energy to protect the people he cares about most.

After living his life again, Tao Mu thought that he had passed the stage of compromising with the most unsustainable reality at the most helpless age. There are some people and some things that cannot be compromised and there is no need to compromise.

If you avoid it, it's just because you can't do anything about it. Then wait until the day when he grows strong enough, strong enough to break Shen Yu's pigtail halo and break the plot curse, and then he will make a comeback.

Tao Mu held the mouse tightly without making a sound, staring at the computer screen with burning eyes. The three roommates looked at each other in surprise when they saw his determined attitude.

——Then, without Tao Mu knowing it, these bastard roommates had quietly given Tao Mu a nickname of "a technical pervert with a serious idol burden".