Chapter 105: You Little Brat, You Haven't Become the Male Protagonist of a Novel, Have You? (5)

Although he knew that what Yang Xiaofan had said was mere courtesy and that he would not really meet with them again, everyone got what they wanted, so no one kept pressing him. After a few polite exchanges and nods, they gradually drifted away.

Yang Xiaofan could finally let out a sigh of relief.
This whole succession of important visitors had plastered him with enough flattery to make any lesser man dizzy.

Yet it also brought him no small measure of pressure.
The pressure came from his fame.
It is as they say: people fear fame, and pigs fear being fattened.
From now on, his life was unlikely to remain peaceful for long.

There was no helping it—once the God-Making Project had begun, he was destined to become the brightest star on earth.
Even if he was not famous yet, he would be so eventually.
Otherwise, what was the point of even speaking of “making a god”?

As he was still thinking this, he felt a few cold, chilly stares at his back.
He turned and saw his father, his mother, and Nuanyu all watching him intently.

“Xiaofan, you have some nerve. You turned down thirty billion with such ease. Thirty whole billion! Enough for our family to spend across ten generations!”

Yang Xiaofan merely shrugged.
“Money is only outside the self; as long as it is enough, that is enough. Why insist on having so much?
And do you think capitalist money comes that easily? If you want their money, they want your life in return.
The day I agreed to them, they were bound to catch me at some weakness.”

Everyone thought for a moment, and he was right.
There is no free lunch in this world—you think you are making a profit from the capitalists, but in truth, they feed you only hay and keep squeezing out the milk.

Even so, Yang Senior still grumbled with resentment:
“I hoped to make some money for you by raising pigs. As it stands, even a billion pigs wouldn’t be enough for what you need to see.”

“Then stop raising pigs, then. It’s a lot of work. Better to take care of your health, enjoy an early-retirement life, and go traveling with your mother for a change.”

“Right, after your business is finished, I’ll take your mother on a road trip, maybe to the plateau, and let her see our motherland’s grand mountains and rivers.”

Yang Xiaofan nodded.
Yang Senior continued, “By the way, Xiaofan, as you’ve grown up, you’ve never once shown such extraordinary talent.
Art, Go—you’ve not even touched these things before, so how did you come by so much? Unless…”

“...Like those male leads in novels, you’ve unlocked some kind of golden finger?”

Yang Xiaofan froze.
What kind of mind is Dad running on? Did Sherlock Holmes still walk the earth? Has Conan somehow crossed dimensions?

“Dad, why would you say something like that?”

Before his father could answer, Mother cut in with mild impatience:
“He’s doing nothing all day, always surfing the net, watching that kind of stuff from morning till night. His head’s gone a little crooked from it. Can people even believe any of those things?”

Yang Senior, a little offended, shot back:
“What’s wrong with me? I watch pirated versions and never pay a cent.
You, on the other hand, watch Douyin every day.
How is that not wasting time and shirking proper work?”

“I watch Douyin for amusement. What you watch is a kind of obsession, affecting our daily life.
‘Return of the War God,’ ‘A Five-Year-Old Daughter in the Doghouse,’ ‘Xiaochen and Liuyunxuan’—you have them on your tongue all the time.
Your brain is getting muddled.”

“They’re written well, though.
The feelings are genuine, the prose is good, the story is compelling.
You have such ability—why don’t you write one for me to read?”

“Oh, come on. I’m not praising it just for your sake.
It’s because the author, Xiaomengliang, is a girl, so you follow her every day.
You’re shameless, a toad wanting to eat swan meat.”

Yang Senior’s face flushed red.
“On what basis do you defame someone’s purity?
I’m reading books, in a refined way.
How can something between literati be described so crudely?”

“I won’t bother with you. I’m off to wash pots and dishes.”

Xiaoyun, understanding her cue, followed her mother to wash the dishes.
Qin Nuanyu gave a light cough and went upstairs.

“Uncle, Xiaofan, you two keep chatting.
I’ll go upstairs and help Xiao Qing with her homework.”

Now only father and son remained.
To preserve face, Yang Senior still cursed under his breath.

“Look at your mother, for example. How can she be this lowly at my age? I’m not some old fool anymore.”

Yang Xiaofan rubbed his nose and coughed softly.
“Dad, it’s fine. I understand.”

Men are men, after all.
At eight they fancy an eighteen-year-old sister.
At eighteen they fancy a girl of eighteen.
At twenty-eight they fancy an eighteen-year-old “younger sister.”
At thirty-eight they still fancy an eighteen-year-old little girl.
At forty-eight, they still fancy an eighteen-year-old girl.

That is natural.
A man is born one-pointed, devoted only to girls who are eighteen.

Yang Senior could not fail to detect the sarcasm in his son’s words.
He shot him a sour glance.
“You don’t make jokes.
I’m not that kind of man.
If I were, you wouldn’t know how many brothers and sisters I’d have out there by now.”

Yang Xiaofan nodded; in this, he had to admit the point.
His father had been handsome in his youth, a famed handsome fellow across the neighboring towns and villages, admired by countless girls.
Even now, though he had aged, many older women still tossed him knowing glances.
If he truly wanted to act freely outside, it would be all too easy.
Is that not what love is?
Eat-eat...
Play-play...
Money-money...
Ah-ah-ah...

“Dad, I believe you.
Really. I wasn’t mocking you.”

Only then did Yang Senior nod.
After a pause, Yang Xiaofan spoke again:
“But authors aren’t free of hardship either.
They sit at the computer and type all day, exhausted like dogs, fingers throbbing, backs feeling broken, necks stiff.
Endlessly they toil for only a handful of words.
From now on, if you read, do it the proper way and subscribe.
It won’t cost much.”

“I understand.
It wasn’t that we had no money before—there was still a family to raise and three of you to feed, clothe, and send to school.
Now things are different.
You have money; we no longer lack anything.
I’ll go charge up some credits soon and tip her a bit, making up for the subscriptions I’ve free-ridden on for so many years.”

“As for your own secret, you needn’t tell me.
Everyone has his own secrets; even one’s family cannot know everything.
Still, your father has one request, so I need you to know it.”

Yang Xiaofan saw the seriousness in his father’s face and turned serious at once.
“Go ahead.”

“I know you’re powerful now.
You have abilities enough that many great figures follow your lead.
But remember this: you are a descendant of Yan and Huang.
You must never do anything that disgraces the nation.
If you do, even if you are my son, I will be the first to uphold righteousness over blood.”