Rong Shunji's girlfriend, Wei Caixia, is a young girl from a remote mountainous area with a junior high school education. She started working in Shanghai at a very young age.
A few days ago, Wei Caixia told her parents about their relationship, which immediately met with their opposition.
The other party's parents were not unreasonable people who insisted on breaking them up, so they demanded that the two of them get married within a limited time.
"What? You don't want to get married?" Chu Fang asked.
"Sigh!" Upon hearing this, Rong Shunji sighed, "Her family is asking for a dowry of 500,000 yuan."
He paused for a moment, then continued, "Wei Caixia has two younger brothers, and her parents favor boys over girls. I need to help her brothers."
Rong Shunji came from an ordinary family; his parents were working-class. He could have made that kind of money by draining his parents' blood, but he couldn't do that, so the two broke up.
After understanding the whole story, the group fell silent, especially Wen Xiangbing and Shao Liang, who were deeply moved.
Five hundred thousand is a huge sum of money for any family, let alone a recent college graduate.
A hint of disappointment appeared in Rong Shunji's eyes.
"Hey, it's no big deal." Chu Fang patted his friend on the shoulder. "It's just 500,000, I'll give it to you."
Rong Shunji rolled his eyes: "Then how about you give me 500 million?"
Chu Fang answered crisply, "Sure."
"..." Rong Shunji understood Chu Fang's strength, so he swallowed his complaints, sighed, and said softly, "Thank you, Fangzi. You can help me for a while, but you can't help me forever. I'm just an ordinary person. For me, 500,000 is a huge sum of money that I can only dream of."
I lent you 500,000 yuan, and I don't know when I can pay you back. Plus, with this 500,000 yuan debt, even if I marry Caixia, her life won't be easy living with me.
"Wow, you're quite devoted. Even at this point, you're still considering her quality of life," Wen Xiangbing teased. "Looks like you really like that girl."
A hint of disappointment appeared in Rong Shunji's eyes.
Chu Fang didn't continue the previous topic, but changed the subject, saying, "What is that girl, Wei Caixia, thinking?"
“She’s a simple and conservative girl who hates her parents’ behavior, but she also cares about them for giving birth to her and raising her. When I broke up with her, she cried and wouldn’t let go of me.” Rong Shunji said, while flipping through his phone to show the chat history between the two of them. “These are the messages she sent me.”
In the chat box, Wei Caixia sent a dense string of text, like a short essay, while Rong Shunji only replied with a few perfunctory "um," "ah," and "oh," and finally, he blocked and deleted his girlfriend.
The three of them craned their necks to look at the messages above. The most frequent message on the other end was "I'm sorry," which contained deep remorse.
"Yeah." Chu Fang glanced at it, then turned to look at his friend. "You're a true Sigma man, aren't you? You just blocked him."
"I don't have any money," Rong Shunji replied dejectedly. "If I had money, I would have been her devoted admirer too."
After finishing his story, Rong Shunji seemed to have lost the courage to speak, and started chugging beer bottle after bottle.
The other three exchanged glances and sighed deeply.
Of all things in the world, love is the most hurtful thing, but what hurts even more is having love but not having the ability to protect it.
The three of them didn't say much more, asked the boss for a few cases of beer, and drank with their old classmate until they were completely drunk.
Late at night, Rong Shunji passed out from drunkenness.
The three men helped Rong Shunji home. They shared a room, and Chu Fang and Wen Xiangbing didn't stay long. They told Shao Liang to take good care of Rong Shunji, and then left.
Leaving home and stepping out of the residential compound, Chu Fang shook his head, clearing his mind somewhat.
Chu Fang and Wen Xiangbing walked along the roadside.
"Fangzi, what do you think we should do about this?" Wen Xiangbing lit a cigarette and took a puff.
"To be honest, in my opinion, the biggest obstacle between them is money. Once the money issue is resolved, it will be very simple." Chu Fang put his hands in his pockets. "However, Rongzi is short of money but is unwilling to accept my money. I don't know what to do."
For Chu Fang, money was the least important thing, but for his friends it was the solid foundation of their lives.
Wen Xiangbing smiled and said, "If I were Rongzi, I wouldn't want to accept your money either."
She sighed, glanced at him, and said, "You're just too rich. Houses, cars, money—everything we ordinary people pursue is within your grasp. We've lost to you in terms of material things, but we don't want to lose to you in terms of spirit. If he accepts your money with a clear conscience, he'll never feel good about it for the rest of his life."
This is Rong Shunji's stubbornness.
Chu Fang was not surprised by this and said generously, "Then how about interest? Twenty percent interest per year."
“I’m reporting you for loan sharking.” Wen Xiangbing rolled his eyes, then slowly said, “First, Rongzi needs to consider whether he has the ability to repay your money; second, as he said, he has just graduated and is barely making ends meet in Shanghai, let alone with a girl by his side, life is very difficult.”
Chu Fang kicked a pebble on the roadside, feeling irritated: "What should we do? Are they really going to break up?"
Chu Fang could tell that Rong Shunji's face revealed his affection for his girlfriend, and that he genuinely wanted to be with that girl.
Wen Xiangbing took a drag of his cigarette, extinguished it, and threw it into the trash can: "Find some time to talk to that girl, after all, she's one of the people involved."
Upon hearing this, Chu Fang nodded.
The two then parted ways.
... ...
The following day, Chu Fang and Zhong Tingyue went to the studio together.
After hearing what happened last night, Zhong Tingyue put her arm around his shoulder and sighed softly, "I never thought that there would still be such a thing as valuing sons over daughters in this world, and treating daughters' marriages as a transaction. It's unbelievable."
The Chu people said, "There is nothing new under the sun."
At this point, he suddenly remembered an interesting topic, tilted his head and asked Zhong Tingyue, "Ms. Zhong, when we get married, your parents don't allow us to be together and demand a high dowry. What should you do? Let me make this clear first, I don't have any money, I can't come up with 500,000."
“You’re not even willing to pay 500,000, Mr. Chu, you don’t love me at all,” Zhong Tingyue said.
"You've fallen for money too, haven't you?"
“I can’t help it, I’m a gold digger,” Zhong Tingyue said with particular righteous indignation.
He paused, his expression becoming more serious, and pondered for a moment: "Let me state the conclusion first, it's impossible. My parents love money, but they earn it honestly. I don't have a younger brother, only a younger sister. Besides, I know exactly how much money you have in your pocket. You can't come up with that much money, so save yourself the trouble."
"I think I'll be the one preparing more dowry when we get married. By the way, why don't you just marry into my Zhong family?"
Zhong Tingyue really dared to dream... Chu Fang thought for a moment: "It's fine for me to marry into your family, but you can't hit or scold me, you're only allowed to love me, you have to pamper me, you can't lie to me, you have to keep every promise you make to me, and every word you say to me must be sincere..."
Zhong Tingyue rolled her eyes at him: "Mr. Chu, you've got some nerve, you really dare to think like that."
"Hehe..." Chu Fang waved his hand and said generously, "On our wedding day, I will give you a dowry of 500 million yuan."
"Come on, you probably produced those five hundred million yourself, didn't you?" Zhong Tingyue said with disdain.
“... ..."
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