"What line of work are you in, Brother Chu?"
The women were still showering and changing into their swimsuits. The four men had cast their lines and were waiting for a bite, chatting casually as they waited. It was Liu Junfeng who posed the question to Lin Chu.
"I'm in a small business. You could call it the finance industry, I guess,"
Lin Chu said with a smile.
'"Brushing money"... does that count as finance?'
'It should.'
"Then we're in the same business."
Liu Junfeng replied, then added casually, "I used to work at CICC. I quit just before the New Year. I was so exhausted I couldn't take it anymore."
Huh?
Lin Chu was instantly impressed. He'd certainly heard of CICC. That company, where the average monthly salary was nearly 100,000 yuan, was an absolute titan of the finance industry.
'And me... saying I'm in finance is just me trying to make myself sound better. Hell, I'm basically just in the loan business!'
"A real big shot, I see."
Lin Chu said with a laugh, offering a polite compliment.
'That's how it is between guys. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.'
"What big shot? I was just a wage slave. The pay was good, that's all. But now I really want to do something else. I've already picked out a new track. I'll start by being my own boss for a bit. Whether I make money or not is secondary. At least I won't be getting chewed out by someone every day."
Liu Junfeng said humbly, though there was a good deal of truth to his words. 'How could you be a salaried worker and not get chewed out?'
Even if you made it to VP, you'd still get reamed out by the CEO.
That's just the food chain.
Hearing him say this, Lin Chu felt that this guy was worth getting to know. At least he wasn't pretentious; he seemed pretty genuine.
"What track are you looking at, Brother Feng?"
Lin Chu asked nonchalantly.
"A club for eating, drinking, and having fun."
"Yachts, luxury cars, off-roading, road trips, fishing, skiing, mountain climbing, surfing, diving, parties with young models, overseas trips…"
Liu Junfeng listed them off in one breath. With every word he said, Lin Chu's eyes lit up a little more.
'This is perfect!'
"So it's really just about pure fun?"
"Uh-huh. What else? Consumer spending in the country right now is at two extremes. The big shots have money—tons of it they can't spend—while the middle and lower classes are broke, working themselves to the bone without a penny to spare. You have to cater to the wealthy. I've already secured a place, a racetrack outside the city. That'll be our home base. Brother Chu, you're welcome to come check it out anytime."
Lin Chu nodded. "I'll definitely have to go!"
Lu Ming chimed in with a laugh, "That place is a blast. A man's paradise. You go once and you'll never forget it."
Liao Zhibin laughed. "Damn, you make it sound so epic. Are we talking 'freshwater' fish?"
All four men couldn't help but laugh.
...
After a bit more chatting, the four women emerged from the cabin.
It seemed women had a special talent for getting familiar with each other quickly, at least on the surface.
Lin Chu glanced back and was, for a moment, completely stunned.
An Qingning was wearing a white bikini. To pull off that color, you either needed tanned, wheat-colored skin, or skin that was even fairer than the fabric itself.
She was the latter.
Her skin was fairer than frost and snow. Her figure was soft and slightly curvy, yet her stomach was perfectly flat, with faintly defined abs. And her chest... was as vast as the ocean.
All four women came out together, but a primal instinct made Lin Chu's eyes lock onto her alone. It was as if the other three had turned invisible.
It took him nearly half a minute to come back to his senses.
'That body is truly out of this world.'
As for the other three...
Xiaolu had the body of a supermodel—a stick-thin girl, not much to say there.
The other two were also beautiful, but they were still a notch below An Qingning.
One in yellow, one in blue.
"Wow, you guys are quick. You've already caught a fish?"
the girl in the blue swimsuit said with a smile.
"Of course. If you want to eat fresh seafood and abalone, you have to catch it yourself, right?"
Liu Junfeng said with a grin.
The three men couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Lin Chu thought to himself, 'Unreal. This style of cracking dirty jokes right off the bat... he really is a veteran of the finance world.'
The girl clearly got the joke in a second. She shot him a playful glare. "Let me put some sunscreen on you before you get a sunburn and start peeling."
"No need for sunscreen, that's too stimulating. Just a little oil will do."
"I have some in my bag."
Liu Junfeng continued with his raunchy jokes.
"You're so annoying! I'll go get it for you. Coconut oil it is, then…"
She grumbled, slipping on her flip-flops and heading into the cabin to get the stuff.
...
「A short while later.」
She came back out with four bottles of coconut oil and handed one to each of the men.
Seeing this, Lin Chu praised him silently.
'An old pro is an old pro. Clearly, the whole routine for these yacht trips has been polished to perfection.'
'And so the ice-breaking begins.'
'I get the feeling the girls they brought are the type they haven't slept with yet, but who like them a lot—the kind that are just one final push away from being conquered.'
'A high-end activity like this, combined with the almost total seclusion, the sea breeze, the sun, the beach, the bikinis... that's basically all it takes to seal the deal.'
'Truly, great minds think alike.'
'I was thinking the same thing.'
'That's why I didn't bring Bai Fangfei, but An Qingning instead.'
At this moment, An Qingning hesitated slightly. But seeing the other three girls starting to rub coconut oil on their respective men, she overcame her reservations and walked over to Lin Chu.
"Let me put it on for you."
She squeezed out a generous amount of coconut oil and began rubbing it gently on Lin Chu's back. She was a little shy at first, but her movements gradually became more practiced.
"AWOOOO..."
"Harder!"
"Work me over!"
Liu Junfeng suddenly howled, his voice so flamboyantly sultry that the others were dying of laughter.
He really was a clown.
But the atmosphere grew more and more cheerful, and that faint, reserved, and unfamiliar tension instantly vanished.
Lin Chu: ...
'Incredible!'
'Just as you'd expect from someone who went to college abroad. Forget his academic achievements; his skills in picking up girls and organizing parties were definitely maxed out.'
"Hold on, I think I'd better lie on my stomach,"
Lin Chu said suddenly. He wasn't trying to be funny—his 'primordial power' was about to burst forth.
An Qingning instinctively glanced at him, her face turning slightly red.
The three other men burst out laughing, then started teasing him relentlessly.
"Brother Chu's got some serious firepower!"
"Explosive!"
"Someone, get this man an iron chastity belt!"
...
Lin Chu: ...
...
The yacht came to a stop in a calm, deserted stretch of open sea.
All sorts of recreational equipment were brought out.
A sound system for a dance party.
Alcohol.
A water slide.
A banana boat.
Jet skis.
People even jumped straight into the sea from the third deck, sending up huge splashes of water.
They savored that momentary thrill of the seawater slapping hard against their butts.
Soon, everyone was having the time of their lives.
Lin Chu rode a jet ski with An Qingning holding on tightly behind him. She shrieked with every violent sway, completely forgetting everything as she reveled in the joy of being out on the sea.
She had never experienced this kind of fun before.
Every day, she was confined by her office cubicle, her rented apartment, the subway, her performance metrics, her maxed-out credit cards, the monthly rent, and the ever-present financial pressure from who knows where.
But now, this felt like an incredibly beautiful and brilliant dream breaking through her ordinary life.
...
...