Chapter 155: Oh, Cousin

Li Sishi naturally planned ahead to extract some exclusive solo fans from the CP fans: many of Chen Shi's fans are attracted to good looks, so she wanted to do something like "Your fans are very fine, so I'll mine in the next second" to first attack Chen Shi's CP fans with a beauty overload.

After the initial visual feast of Li Sishi's beauty planted a seed in everyone's hearts, the quality of her subsequent albums would gradually win over the discerning fans who were obsessed with her talent, and then slowly solidify into a uniquely devoted fanbase...

This autograph session, which felt like a dream in retrospect, came to a successful conclusion in a warm and harmonious atmosphere.

For the next month, Li Sishi asked Zhuang Menghua for leave, focusing on attending classes during the day and learning to drive with an instructor at night, hoping to resolve her driver's license issue during the holiday.

Because of her memories from her previous life, her driving instructor called her "very talented," and was very trusting and generous towards her. Occasionally, when she had a gig, he would take the time to go and maintain a certain level of exposure.

During Li Sishi's vacation, Madam Li took her measurements and planned to have several dresses custom-made for her beloved granddaughter in case of emergency.

In this port city, tradition and modernity coexist. Socialites, heiresses, and celebrities can wear both high-fashion brands and custom-made clothes at banquets and other occasions. As for Madam Li, she is the kind of old lady who prefers traditional custom-made clothes. So even though she has already ordered a lot of designer dresses for her beloved granddaughter as everyday formal wear, she still can't help but want to order some more traditional dresses such as handmade cheongsams to add some variety to her wardrobe.

As an artist, Li Sishi often has to wear formal dresses on many occasions, so she did not resist Madam Li's enthusiasm for dressing up her granddaughter. Madam Li was delighted and added several more orders for women's suits to her large order of handmade cheongsams and other women's formal dresses.

The owner of the fashion store that took the order also had a connection with Li Sishi – he was Rong Juezhang, who had been her music mentor during the Miss Hong Kong pageant.

As a legendary figure from the 1980s who was on par with Pei Yansang, Rong Juezhang has been retiring from the music scene. In recent years, in addition to occasionally choosing scripts to act in, he has also continued his previously interrupted university studies. Like his old friend who faded out of the entertainment industry and went to San Francisco to "retire" while writing songs and running a fashion design business, he has also opened a store that specializes in designing women's clothing while pursuing his artistic career.

To some extent, Rong Juezhang's actions can be seen as an indirect inheritance of his father's aspirations as the "King of Suits": to specialize in...

Rong's father, who made men's clothing, sent his son abroad to study in his early years so that his youngest son could open a women's clothing line after returning from his studies, monopolizing the high-end fashion and handmade custom-made circle in the port city.

Upon hearing that the order was placed for the legendary Miss Hong Kong, Lee Sze-sze, Rong Jue-zhang took it very seriously. When Lee Sze-sze went to the store with Madam Lee, he even took the time to visit the store several times to check on the situation. He also praised Lee Sze-sze for the two rose-themed dresses she wore during the previous anniversary celebration, saying that they were very well-designed and perfectly accentuated her beauty.

As they went back and forth, the two became more familiar with each other than their previous gentlemanly friendship. Rong Juezhang even joked with her, his junior, saying that if Li Sishi had time, she could come to his house to play mahjong.

"I'm preparing for my final exams right now, so I guess I won't have the chance for a while. Although I know it's just a polite way of saying it, people's relationships are like this: if you're too polite, you'll end up being impolite. It's a rare opportunity to expand my network, but I don't have the time. Li Sishi still feels a little regretful."

However, she is still young, and there is no need to rush into expanding her network. She should focus on her studies first, and other things can be done slowly when the opportunity arises.

Time flies. After finishing the last exam of the semester, Li Sishi walked out of the campus with a sense of relief, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

The family had sent a driver to wait nearby, ready to take Li Sishi back to the Li family mansion to rest as soon as she finished her exams.

While I was sitting in the car with my eyes closed, the cell phone in my bag suddenly rang.

Li Sishi casually picked up the phone and glanced at it; it was a call from Huang Qianyan, whom she hadn't contacted for a while.

Huang Qianyan spoke with Li Sishi for a while on the phone, and then got straight to the point, saying that her boyfriend was not feeling well today and she had to stay home to help take care of him, so she couldn't go to Rong Juezhang's card game. To avoid spoiling the fun, she planned to recommend Li Sishi as a substitute and asked Li Sishi if she was free and willing.

"No problem, I just finished my exam today and I don't have any schedules for tomorrow, so I can stay out a little later."

Unexpectedly, a new path opened up before her eyes, and Li Sishi naturally wouldn't refuse such a card game that allowed her to expand her network and connect with others.

Moreover, her mahjong skills were honed in her previous life in the circle of wealthy socialites in Hong Kong. Those socialites and wealthy women were used to gossiping and comparing themselves at the mahjong table. Li Sishi, with her background as a fallen heiress, initially found it difficult to fit in, so she secretly practiced her mahjong skills.

Ultimately, it was through her mahjong skills that she gradually won over this group of arrogant and wealthy socialites.

Tai joined this circle, which is even more straightforward and harsh than the entertainment industry, and more prone to praising the powerful and belittling the weak.

Both card games and dining tables are great places to connect and build relationships. Private card games held at home are even more "in-depth" than the karaoke parties Pei Yansang previously organized. Li Sishi had little time or opportunity to participate before, but now, thanks to Huang Qianyan's recommendation, she has once again successfully gotten on the fringes of the senior card game masters' circle.

After hanging up with Huang Qianyan, Pei Yansang called.

Pei Yansang was one of the card players tonight, and she warmly welcomed Li Sishi, a "newcomer" whom she liked but never had a chance to properly flirt with.

Actually, it wasn't just her; Rong Juezhang, who was lamenting Huang Qianyan's inability to come, was the happiest person at the game—it was a well-known fact in the mahjong circle that he was terrible at the game but addicted to it, yet he always thought he was just unlucky...

Now that he could get a newbie tonight who didn't seem to know how to play, he was really eager to get started: "Playing mahjong is great! It can refresh the mind, exercise the body, expand social networks, and foster relationships. Young people these days should play more mahjong!"

For example, Tang Jingwen, who used to dislike playing mahjong but is now a big fan, was "brought out" by Rong Juezhang during their collaboration—of course, like master, like apprentice, and Tang Jingwen is also a typical player who is bad at playing but has a big addiction...

Then, Pei Yansang, who was both extremely bad at mahjong and liked to cheat when she lost, both made it into the top three of the "least favorite person to play mahjong with" list in private...

Li Sishi had never witnessed these three superstars cheating at the card table before, so she naturally didn't want to miss this opportunity.

When Li Sishi got home, it was still early. She walked into the living room and immediately saw Old Madam Li talking to another old woman with a slightly worried look on her face.

Li Sishi politely greeted the sofa, and Madam Li immediately introduced her to the old woman next to her: "Yu Miao, this is my granddaughter Sishi!"

Upon learning that the elderly woman in front of her, who looked to be about the same age as Madam Li, was actually Madam Li's distant niece and her distant cousin, Li Sishi sweetly called the elderly woman "Aunt" to show her affection.

Madam Li came from a prominent old family in Guangcheng. In those days, such families were so large and prosperous that it was not uncommon for two people of similar age to be separated by one or two generations.

What Li Sishi never expected was that this old woman was not only her cousin, but also...

She has another identity: Rong Juezhang's biological mother. In other words, according to Madam Li's calculations, Rong Juezhang, who is going to play mahjong with Li Sishi tonight, should actually be called her cousin.

The port city is really too small. Relatives are often intertwined. You may have known a friend for a long time, and then suddenly decide to check the family tree and discover that you are related to him. This kind of situation is quite common among the younger generation who no longer pay much attention to the concept of clan.

Although Rong Juezhang was a distant relative, more than seven generations removed, practically just a nominal "cousin," when it came to establishing kinship, no distinction was made between close and distant relatives; anyone with even a slight connection was considered a close brother or sister...

Knowing that Li Sishi was going to her youngest son's card game that night and that she didn't get along well with him, Rong's mother asked Li Sishi to help her by bringing a gift box containing nourishing medicine on her way.

It was clear that this distant cousin actually cared about the child, but she was too traditional to express it openly. So Li Sishi didn't refuse Rong's mother's request, taking it as an opportunity for the mother and son to show their concern for each other.

After seeing the people off, Li Jinhao and Zhou Jiaxian returned home together. Zhou Jiaxian, the mother, had recently been working as her husband's secretary at a law firm. The two of them lived and worked together day and night, and everyone around them envied their deep affection.

They don't usually come back this early, but tonight Li Sishi is able to come back early because she finished her exam.

That's why I decided to finish work early and come home to have dinner with my precious daughter.

The family of four was having a happy dinner. As the source of the contradictions at the bottom and top of the family's food chain, Li Sishi was inevitably forced to eat by all three of them at the same time...

After having dinner and resting for a while, Li Sishi told her family that she was going out to play.

Arriving at the address Pei Yansang gave me on time and ringing the doorbell at the agreed time, I immediately received a response from the person inside: "Coming right away!"

"Welcome, welcome!" Rong Juezhang opened the door and saw that Li Sishi was carrying two gift boxes. He raised an eyebrow slightly. "So polite? You even bring gifts to my house?"

“This was given to you by my grandma, and this was given to you by your mom to help bring…” Li Sishi succinctly explained the hidden relationship between the two, which surprised Rong Juezhang a little.

Although I was a little unhappy that my mother had just returned from abroad without informing me, considering that we don't really communicate well and that she had specially sent me a gift box... well, let's just keep things on the surface.

OK.

"Hey, what are you guys doing standing over there at the door? Hurry up and start the game!" Pei Yansang, who was already sitting at the mahjong table, looked at the mahjong tiles on the table and was about to grab them with both hands.

"Wait for me to come over before shuffling the cards!" Rong Juezhang hurriedly turned around and called out, then quickly beckoned Li Sishi over.

Even though there are now mahjong tables that can automatically shuffle and stack the tiles, Rong Juezhang's family still uses a traditional, ordinary mahjong table. It's said that everyone loves the mysterious feel of shuffling the tiles, and the crisp, clattering sound when shuffling is simply mesmerizing...

Li Sishi glanced at her mahjong partners: Hmm, apart from Sister Yuan who really likes playing mahjong and is indeed good at it, the other two kings and queens... are not worth worrying about at all.

"Has Ah May ever played mahjong before?" Pei Yansang asked casually while shuffling the tiles.

"Yes, I've played, but not much." Li Sishi, the youngest member of the group, answered very obediently.

"You're not allowed to bully my 'cousin'!" Rong Juezhang, hiding his inner smugness, said in a seemingly gentlemanly manner.

"You're so kind, you're almost forty years old and you still have the nerve to call a girl under ten 'cousin'..." Pei Yansang and her old friends usually communicate by teasing each other.

Most importantly, even when she was picking at the mahjong tiles at the mahjong table, she could hear the two people talking at the door.

Although Pei Yansang was somewhat surprised that the two were actually distant cousins, she was more worried about Rong Juezhang's feelings—after all, Rong Juezhang was the youngest child in the family, and his biological mother had no time or mood to take care of him in his early years, so his relationship with Rong's mother was actually very weak.

The relationship between this mother and son was only slightly better than that of her family... So Pei Yansang, whose family situation was not much better, could naturally sense Rong Juezhang's feelings and quickly found an opportunity to change the subject at the beginning.

"Sigh, you can't be envious." Rong Juezhang, having drawn the East Wind in this rare round and becoming the first dealer, was even more convinced that his cheap cousin Li Sishi was bringing him good fortune.

His tone of voice also became much lighter.

Li Sishi, who was joining the circle for the first time, did not intend to show off. She kept track of the cards and carefully observed the situation. After a round of hard work, she subtly gave the other three players a winning hand each.

"Oh dear, they say the casino is lucky with new players. May's luck isn't so good tonight!" As soon as she sat down, she won a hand. The other three people at the table were secretly delighted, but they only expressed their pity for Li Sishi on the surface.

Li Sishi smiled but remained silent: They weren't betting large sums, so she could afford to lose and didn't mind getting off to a good start, treating it as losing money to gain publicity.

The reason why these three mahjong masters played such low stakes, even worse than some ordinary people in the Liaojie mahjong parlor, is because Rong Juezhang, a guy with a serious addiction to mahjong, gets so upset that he can't sleep if he loses more than a thousand...

Everyone doted on him, so they let him gamble with whatever stakes he asked for. Of course, everyone generally approved of this kind of playful gambling. While they could afford to gamble big, it was easy to hurt feelings if they did.

However, Rong Juezhang's card skills were really not good. Li Sishi fed him a few cards later, but he still couldn't seize the opportunity. After playing all night, he only managed to win a few pitifully small hands...

In contrast, Pei Yansang and Sister Yuan, thanks to Li Sishi's "secret efforts," have won all sorts of hands, including pure suit, mixed suit, and all sorts of other hands. They are beaming with joy and keep praising Li Sishi for being cute and smart.

After playing for so long

Even shrewd people like them could see that Li Sishi was deliberately holding back, but the feeling of winning was just too good. Even knowing there was some trickery involved, they couldn't bear to give up this smooth and satisfying feeling...

Rong Juezhang was so frustrated by his lack of a beard that he would occasionally abandon his composure and glare at people everywhere.

After hitting three red tiles and three white tiles in this hand, he finally triumphed: "The red and white tiles landed! I'm going to get rich!"

"You think you can become the top three?!" Pei Yansang couldn't help but glance at him with disdain at his smugness.

After several more draws, Rong Juezhang, who had gotten nothing, finally couldn't help but wink at Li Sishi: "Oh dear, I haven't won in ages..."

His eyes were so pitiful, he was practically begging for a direct confession.

"Sigh, who told me to run into a 'big shot'..." Li Sishi received a look and sighed with a double meaning, then broke one of the two "Fortune" cards in her hand and threw it away.

Rong Juezhang was overjoyed and immediately pushed his tiles to win: "Although I can't make a Big Three Dragons, a Small Three Dragons is not bad either. My hand is the best tonight!"

"You actually gave him a small three-yuan bet..." Although Li Sishi would cover the losses of the other two players if she threw a bet, Pei Yansang was quite unhappy to see that she had actually given Rong Juezhang a small three-yuan bet, and he hadn't won any big hands yet.

"I'm not worried about scarcity, I'm worried about inequality." From then on, Pei Yansang focused all her firepower on Rong Juezhang, and even as they were about to play the final round, she managed to prevent him from winning again.

.

On the contrary, because of the mutual harm between the two and Li Sishi's deliberate letting her win, Sister Yuan won several hands and even won two more by self-draw, making her so happy that she couldn't stop smiling.

Seeing Pei Yansang's ruthless tactics, Rong Juezhang suggested that everyone play bigger in this final round, doubling the stakes and then throwing out a 50,000 bet: "Come on, MayMay, give me a small three-yuan bet, and I, your cousin, will give you one too!"

"You can set off the firecrackers yourself, I'm not paying you!" Unlike Rong Juezhang, who had a bad memory and poor skills, Pei Yansang, who had already sensed something was wrong, immediately slammed her hand on the table and started yelling.

"I'll cover it, I'll cover it. Do you think I can't afford to cover it?" Rong Juezhang peeked at the cards on the table again, feeling no pressure at all.

Even Sister Yuan couldn't help but advise him: "Rongzai, don't exaggerate so much, or you won't be able to sleep later."

Li Sishi glanced at her incredibly lucky hand, then looked at Pei Yansang and Sister Yuan's expectant yet troubled eyes, and gently shook her head: "This, this is really quite embarrassing..."

"Go ahead, it's fine, I don't mind at all." Rong Juezhang, who thought Li Sishi was just a typical girl, remained calm and waved his hand generously.

His cousin won a hand of small three dragons for him, so what if he won a hand of pure one suit for his cousin?

As long as it's not that rascal Pei Yansang who wins!

"Alright then, if you don't mind, I'll go for it—I was originally planning to wait for a self-draw..." Li Sishi took his 50,000 tile with one hand and pushed her own tile with the other, "Nine in a row, I'm waiting for your 50,000!"

Looking at the neat row of ten-thousands, Pei Yansang and Sister Yuan exchanged a glance: Just as expected...

This is the first time they've ever had such good cards!

They had initially thought that Li Sishi had a high number of points in her all-one suit, but as they played, they realized something was wrong and started to think that she had an even higher number of points in her all-word suit. Then, after realizing something, they both felt terrible.

Meanwhile, Rong Juezhang, whose skills were terrible, was completely oblivious. So they secretly joined forces and gave him a push, letting him take on all the work – after all, Li Sishi was his cousin, so they were family!

It has to be said that Li Sishi's act of pretending to be weak while actually being strong was really too good. She wiped out all the money she had earned that night and even owed Rong Juezhang a lot. He was probably in a daze for several minutes before he finally came to his senses, clutching his chest and howling with a pained expression.

"yourself"

"It's none of our business if you want to wrap it up!" Seeing his expression, Pei Yansang shouted at him loudly and fiercely, then quickly led her people away. "Ah May, hurry up and leave, or you won't be able to sleep tonight—he's definitely going to drag you out all night to settle accounts!"

Originally thinking he could bully the new pork tonight, Rong Juezhang ended up being outmaneuvered and defeated. After howling at home for a while, he finally couldn't help but call someone to "complain".

"Hey bro, do you even know what time it is in San Francisco? I was writing songs until 3 a.m. last night before I finally got to sleep!" Just as I was taking a nap, I was suddenly woken up by a barrage of calls. The person on the other end of the line was unusually irritable.

Rong Juezhang gave a brief, dry-voiced account of tonight's card game, which made the person on the other end of the phone unable to suppress their anger and instead turn into a suppressed laugh: "And then what? You bet on someone else's hand with a raised hand of all-suit honors?"

Even if they increased the stakes, there's no need for this much screaming, right?

"I fired a nine-in-a-row!" Thinking of the earth-shattering loss he had just suffered, Rong Juezhang didn't care whether his words had any strange or ambiguous meaning. He was so overwhelmed with grief that he almost cried.

"...That's great, you'll have a house full of children and grandchildren without even getting married." I never expected my old friend to be so audacious as to dare to make such a bold statement about such a high-profile celebrity. After saying this, the person on the other end of the phone quickly hung up and collapsed onto the bed, bursting into laughter.

Being teased by his old friend like that, and even having the call abruptly ended, Rong Juezhang, given their long-standing friendship and tacit understanding, could certainly guess what his friend was going to do after hanging up so quickly...

So Rong Juezhang, who was so angry that his mouth almost twisted into a crooked shape, couldn't suppress his resentment even after washing up and lying back in bed. He couldn't help but bite the blanket a few more times to vent his anger...

He tossed and turned for a long time before finally drifting off to sleep. Perhaps it was a case of "thinking about something during the day and dreaming about it at night," but in his half-awake state, he suddenly had a very strange dream—

In his dream, this very modern-day non-marriage advocate suddenly encountered a clichéd plot from an old Cantonese film.

He was forced by his family to be paired with a cousin... What's worse, this cousin is none other than Li Sishi, who left him with a huge trauma tonight!

Before he could even react, the wedding banquet was over and he was immediately taken to the scene where his wife was waiting to give birth!

"Congratulations, young master! Congratulations on the birth of nine babies! You've got nine stars bringing you good fortune!" The midwives cheerfully brought over the swaddled babies. He groggily peered closer and took a look...

Each of the nine swaddling clothes contained a giant mahjong tile, representing the numbers from one to nine thousand, all gathered together!

Upon seeing this group of real debt collectors, Rong Juezhang couldn't catch his breath and his vision went black on the spot.

After a moment of darkness, his vision cleared again. Startled awake from this absurd yet terrifying nightmare, Rong Juezhang looked around in a daze at the modern home decor and the warm midday sun. Still shaken, he patted his chest and exclaimed, "Damn, that scared me to death!"