Chapter 130: An Old Friend Arrives

Could this be considered discovering Katerina's little secrets?
She loves to sing, yet she is always out of tune.
She loves to go shopping at the mall, but she always wanders alone.
She loves playing children's games, yet it is only to win some trivial little prizes.

They arrived home one after the other. No sooner had Chang Yu stepped inside than a knock sounded at the door. It was almost certainly Katerina. Thinking this, Chang Yu did not hesitate and quickly opened the door. Sure enough, Katerina was standing there, holding the small prizes she had just won at the mall.

"I brought some fun little things for Yangyang," Katerina said, shaking the items in her hand to show him.

Glancing at the small toys and dolls in her hands, Chang Yu smiled with tacit understanding, carefully avoiding any questions about where they came from. "Well, thank you so much! Come to think of it, I haven't really bought Yangyang many toys."

"Now that I think about it, aren't these the kinds of things children love most?"

"Come on in and sit for a while." As he took the small trinkets from Katerina, Chang Yu welcomed her into the house.

"Yangyang!" Chang Yu called out to the boy, who was watching television with great interest. "Look who's here! It's Auntie Katerina!"

As soon as he heard it was Katerina, Yangyang shuddered, his small face turning pale with fright. Whenever he saw Katerina, his mind would involuntarily conjure a scene: Katerina holding a kitchen knife in one hand and pressing down on a cleaned Poria cocos root with the other, her cold, sinister gaze fixed on him, ready to slice him into pieces at any moment.

"H-hello, Auntie!" In his extreme terror, Yangyang subconsciously blurted out the title that girls hate the most.

"Call me Big Sister," Katerina corrected him with a serious expression, trying to salvage her wounded pride. Like most women, Katerina did not like being called "Auntie."

"Calling her 'Big Sister' would mess up the generation gap," Chang Yu intervened to smooth things over.

"But I'm not that old," Katerina retorted, looking somewhat displeased.

In truth, Chang Yu was intentionally guiding Yangyang to call Katerina "Auntie." Even though he knew how much of a psychological blow it was for a young, beautiful girl to be called "Auntie" by a child, he already viewed Katerina as his future wife. If the boy called her "Big Sister," wouldn't that make him a generation younger than her?

Chang Yu deliberately avoided dwelling on the topic and handed the small gifts to Yangyang. "These toys are from Katerina. Aren't you going to thank her?"

"Thank you, Auntie Katerina!" Looking at the various gadgets in Chang Yu's hands, Yangyang's large eyes brightened with a joyful smile.

Katerina: !!!

She was completely stunned, as if she had taken ten thousand points of critical damage, and her body couldn't help but tremble. To have a five-year-old boy look at her with such innocent eyes and say "Hello, Auntie"—even someone as composed as Katerina could not accept this cruel reality. Yet, looking into Yangyang's pure, wide eyes, she couldn't even bring herself to be angry.

"Forget it," Katerina waved her hand helplessly. "Call me whatever you like. Anyway, I'm not that young anymore; I suppose I do deserve the title of 'Auntie.'"

Just as Chang Yu was secretly laughing at Katerina's frustration, a knock echoed at his door again. "Huh? Who could that be?" Chang Yu was surprised. He didn't know many people in H City, and visitors were few and far between. It was as if people thought he had nothing but time on his hands.

When Chang Yu opened the door and saw who was standing there, he was truly astonished.

"Zhao Dasheng, Boss Zhao?" Chang Yu recognized the bald man standing at his doorstep and blurted out his name.

The bald man stood outside wearing a high-end suit, clutching a briefcase, his hair curled into a fluffy perm, a small cigarette dangling from his lips—he carried the distinct aura of an old-school tycoon. He hadn't brought his heavily made-up mistress this time; he was alone.

The moment he saw Chang Yu, Zhao Dasheng lunged forward, grabbed Chang Yu's hand, and wept, "Benefactor! Oh, Benefactor! I have finally found you!"

Chang Yu: ???

"If it hadn't been for you saving me that day, I would have long since perished in the vast river, lost my life!" Zhao Dasheng frowned, his face a mask of sorrow as he poured out his grievances. "It was you, Benefactor, who gave me a second life. It would be no exaggeration to call you my second parent!"

"Get to the point. Why are you here?" Chang Yu asked bluntly. He had never liked Zhao Dasheng. If Katerina hadn't been standing right there, he would have shown him the door long ago. *What’s this?* he thought. *Back when I hadn't made a name for myself, weren't you acting arrogant, Zhao Dasheng? Didn't you call me a lunatic? Now that you realize I'm someone to be reckoned with, you're buttering me up?*

"I came today mainly to express my gratitude for saving my life." Today, Zhao Dasheng seemed like a different person, speaking with a gentle tone, completely lacking the arrogance he had shown before. He could afford to be arrogant toward ordinary people, but was Chang Yu ordinary? An ordinary person who could casually toss a two-hundred-pound lifeboat over ten meters away?

"Benefactor, I know you might not like me, but can we go inside to talk?" Seeing the hostility in Chang Yu's eyes, Zhao Dasheng offered a humble smile.

One doesn't hit a smiling face. Zhao Dasheng was, after all, a local power player. Since he had lowered himself enough, it would be improper for Chang Yu to remain unyielding. Besides, even if he didn't like the man, there was no need to be on bad terms. Zhao Dasheng held significant influence in H City, and having him as an acquaintance could be useful.

With a stern face, Chang Yu invited him inside. As they sat on the sofa, Zhao Dasheng began to recount his experience from that day: "Actually, I was on a tour boat in the middle of the river giving an interview. Who would have thought that a perfectly fine boat would just flip like that? If I had known that would be the outcome, I never would have accepted that interview."

"So, you were the one being interviewed that day," Chang Yu realized. "I saw people on both banks waving at you and thought some big celebrity had arrived!"

In this day and age, celebrities had immense influence. Whenever they traveled, fans would rush to the scene, clogging entire streets. The scene Chang Yu had witnessed by the river was nothing compared to that.

Zhao Dasheng looked embarrassed. "You might have noticed that there were an unusually high number of tourists by the river that day. Usually, there aren't that many. Benefactor, I won't lie to you—those were all people I paid to act as extras to boost my profile. I'm a public figure, after all; I wanted the interview to be a lively affair to save face... so I had my people hire a group of extras to stand by the river and cheer for me."

"Pfft!" Yangyang, who was drinking water, sprayed it out upon hearing this, leaving Zhao Dasheng feeling quite awkward.

"Haha, you're a funny guy," Yangyang said with the blunt honesty of a child. "You hired extras to create an atmosphere for an interview? We actually thought a big star had come!"

"Yangyang, why are you being so brutally honest?" Chang Yu glared at the laughing boy on the sofa, though he struggled to suppress a smile himself.

Come to think of it, Zhao Dasheng was an interesting character. It wasn't so much that he was pretentious; it was that he was obsessed with saving face.

Zhao Dasheng considered his words carefully. "I won't lie to you, Benefactor—the immense strength you displayed that day remains vivid in my mind even now. Those lifeboats must have weighed at least two hundred pounds, yet you didn't even blink, didn't even catch your breath, and tossed them ten meters out into the water. I admit, my initial judgment was wrong. You truly possess supernatural abilities; you are a master hidden among the commoners. It was my own ignorance and lack of fortune that kept me from listening to a man of your stature. I offended you back then, and I hope you won't take it to heart. I beg you to forgive me. To show my sincerity, I invite you to be my personal bodyguard. I'll pay you fifty thousand—no, one hundred and fifty thousand a month!"

One hundred and fifty thousand a month. That was a tempting salary. Given Chang Yu's current lifestyle, that was a massive sum, especially as a monthly income. Back then, he had gone to great lengths to try and get a job with Zhao Dasheng for a mere five-thousand-yuan salary. Even now, his job at the Disaster Management Bureau only paid a base salary of five thousand.

Truth be told, that pay was decent for the younger generation in H City. After all, the city was notorious for its low wages and high cost of living—a true meat grinder for the working class. But for Chang Yu, the Bureau's salary was far from enough. After deducting Yangyang's three-thousand-yuan tuition, he was left with only two thousand. That barely kept two people fed, and that was only because the Bureau provided housing and a car. So, when a salary thirty times his current income was placed before him, how could he not be tempted?

Thinking this, Zhao Dasheng suddenly seemed much more pleasant—perhaps even a little... cute?

Chang Yu glanced at Katerina, intending to take the offer and accept our national entrepreneur Comrade Zhao Dasheng’s enthusiastic recruitment. But to his dismay, a single, light sentence from Katerina made his heart go cold.

She said, "I'm sorry, but Chang Yu cannot accept your offer. Because Chang Yu is currently serving in a secret state agency and is a talent highly valued by the organization."

"Katerina!" Chang Yu was anxious. He couldn't help it; having a golden opportunity cut short like that was hard for anyone to swallow.

"Chang Yu, don't forget, you are a civil servant now." Katerina gave him a casual look, and Chang Yu felt immense pressure. "This job as Zhao Dasheng's personal bodyguard pays well, but the working hours conflict with our duties. You cannot hold two jobs at once, and if you fail to attend to your work here, it means you have unilaterally breached the contract you signed."

"This..."

Recalling the thick stack of contracts he had signed and the consequences of breaking them, Chang Yu wisely shut his mouth. There was no helping it; the Bureau had too many rules. One wrong move, and he could literally be facing a firing squad!