Meanwhile, in the private banquet hall on the second floor, Shen Wenta stood up. Sui Ning lightly raised his glass to him, and the rims of their glasses clinked together, making a crisp, soft sound.
"To a successful partnership."
Shen Wenta didn't take a single sip. His fingertips rested against the base of the glass, and his lips maintained a perfectly curved smile, ensuring he didn't appear aloof.
Overall, this negotiation had indeed gone very smoothly.
Sui Ning possessed a complete technology industry chain. Both domestic and foreign markets lacked a channel to break through the bottlenecks. There were countless people wanting to do business with the Shen family, but it was rare to see someone like him who dared to slap a whole set of proposals on the table right off the bat.
A smart man with resources.
Shen Wenta assigned him a position in his mind: someone he could work with.
Businessmen valued nothing more than profit. As long as the profit aligned, everything else was up for discussion.
After reaching an agreement, the two casually chatted for a bit.
Sui Ning waved his hand, bringing his younger brother over to show Shen Wenta. "This is my little brother. His name is Sui An."
Shen Wenta took a look.
The boy was quite young and looked very obedient.
Shen Wenta inevitably thought of Shen Xun. When would his own younger brother be this well-behaved?
"He seems very obedient," he said lightly.
Sui Ning smiled. "He's alright. After all, I'm the older brother; he has to listen to me."
Touching upon the topic of family members, Sui Ning casually asked, "You have younger siblings in your family too, right?"
Generally, large families had many children.
Shen Wenta nodded. "I have two younger siblings."
"Immediate family?"
Shen Wenta nodded again.
Sui Ning smiled casually. "Could we meet up some other day? Your younger siblings and my brother should be around the same age. They could probably get along well."
Shen Wenta glanced at the boy named Sui An, his expression becoming visibly colder.
If it weren't for their cooperative relationship, Shen Wenta's expression would have been even more disdainful. He said bluntly, "My sister is still young. Male friends aren't very appropriate."
Sui Ning immediately understood.
He didn't get angry. With a good temper, he led his young brother away first. "Sorry about that, I was just making a joke."
Jokes aside, Sui Ning had no desire to get overly involved with the Shen family.
Cooperation was a win-win situation of mutual utilization, and it could conveniently ensure his own safety.
Going any further was out of the question; the Shen family was not an easy one to cozy up to.
Besides, Sui Ning already had someone he liked.
He had known Shen Yi for several years. In his free time, he liked to transfer huge sums of money to this little girl.
Shen Yi, on her part, accepted it all.
Every time she received the money, she would send a voice message in a very brisk tone, saying, "In the future, when you need something, you can redeem my help with this!"
A girl with a very strange personality.
Every time he listened to her voice messages, Sui Ning would flip his phone face down on the table and smile inexplicably.
When Sui An chatted with him about this topic on their way home, the boy seemed exceptionally unhappy:
"Brother, she's just a gold digger who specializes in scamming your money, don't you get it?"
"It's one thing to take the money, but she lies and deceives people all day long."
He was fourteen this year, his features somewhat resembling Sui Ning's, and his tone was very aggressive.
After their parents passed away, Sui An had been exposed to many places and knew a lot. Girls like this were just for playing around with; he couldn't figure out why his brother cared so much.
It wasn't like she would bring them any benefits.
Sui Ning cast a sidelong glance at him. "You should just go home and finish your homework early."
"Your tutor said you got several questions wrong today. I'm confiscating your phone when we get home."
What to do when a younger brother is disobedient?
Obviously—it's from playing on his phone too much.
Sui An: "..." Damn it.
He hated this.
"You're just bewitched by a woman," the boy accused faintly. "You're being scammed, don't you know?"
Sui Ning smacked him on the head, expressionless. "Shut up, I know what I'm doing."
"She doesn't scam anyone else, only me. That just proves I'm special." He wore a smile. "What do you know?"
"Arghhh!! And she knows better? She's only a little bit older than me."
"That's why I have to wait, wait for her to grow up," Sui Ning said.
Sui An: "..." Being hopelessly lovesick should be a crime!!
*
On the other side, as soon as Pei Wanyan led Shen Yi closer, several young girls who were gathered together chatting turned their heads simultaneously.
Everyone's gaze fell on Shen Yi for a moment before they uniformly raised their smiles.
"Wanyan, who is this..." A girl in a champagne-colored cocktail dress spoke first, her eyes curiously sweeping over Shen Yi. "Your friend?"
Pei Wanyan nodded.
Shen Yi sighed silently. The next second, she put on a smile and brought out an opening line that could never go wrong: "Good evening."
The girls immediately offered enthusiastic greetings, and then went back to chatting about their previous topics.
Shen Yi listened intently, keeping her eyes cast down and minding her own business.
She wasn't good at socializing either.
"Little Yi," Pei Wanyan smiled, naturally taking over the conversation, "we're planning to go to an art exhibition together recently. Do you want to come?"
Shen Yi's mind went blank for two seconds. "An art exhibition?"
"Yeah."
"I don't understand art."
This was true.
She absolutely lacked an eye for appreciating beauty.
Pei Wanyan, on the other hand, could understand it. Her family was a standard scholarly lineage, producing an endless stream of internationally renowned painters and writers.
But that didn't stop her from feeling that these things were too dry. Going to an art exhibition wasn't an aesthetic enjoyment for them; it was just a boring social arena.
"You don't understand paintings?" A girl next to her, bored and wanting to probe Shen Yi's background, smoothly threw out a question. "Then what do you usually do?"
Shen Yi recounted her boring daily routine: "Going to class, taking exams."
"If I don't do well on exams, my whole family will despise me when I go home. Then on weekends, I do missions. If I don't do them well, I get criticized by the team leader..."
"What missions?" the other party pressed, her tone carrying pure curiosity.
Shen Yi paused and said vaguely, "Just some transnational business, or some tasks within the circle."
"Wow, you're so young and already involved in your family's business?"
If Shen Yi wasn't lying, then they were genuinely a bit impressed and envious.
They all had companies in their families too, but most had to wait until adulthood before being allowed to touch the business. Being involved in transnational affairs at fifteen was truly rare.
"My family currently only lets me help out and manage things alongside others."
"You're amazing."
"Your outfit is really unexpected," a girl observed her layered pink puffy dress and couldn't help but laugh. "The invitation did say formal attire was required, didn't it?"
Shen Yi looked down at her dress. "I didn't know, and no one informed me." She had indeed been temporarily stuffed into this dress by Sophia this afternoon; she hadn't seen a single one of the Shen family's invitations.
Shen Yi looked a bit naive. She answered whatever they asked, without beating around the bush or playing word games.
After chatting for a round, these young ladies who were used to false pleasantries inevitably found it a bit boring to deal with such a straightforward girl.
They quickly went back to talking about their own daily lives and topics related to their own family businesses.
From haute couture to study tours, and then to the distribution methods of family funds.
Shen Yi listened in utter boredom.
Occasionally, they would remember her and ask, "What does your family do?"
