Chapter 13 — Playing Poor with the Heiress

I stood there, watching her for a long two seconds.

“Fine.”

I walked away. Returning to my workspace, I opened my laptop and sent a brief reply to Zhang: “I accept.” Two words. By the afternoon, Ly Huong had heard the news that I was to become the acting head of the marketing department; he looked utterly stunned.

“Tran Du? You? Head of department?”

“Acting head.”

“Don’t you owe a hundred thousand?”

“A promotion does not prevent me from paying off my debts.”

“So, will you still be eating takeout boxes?”

“Yes.”

“Will you still be squeezing onto the subway?”

“Yes.”

“And will you still be treating me to dinner?”

“... I’ve never treated you before.”

“Well, now that you’re promoted, you can start!”

“Get lost.”

Ly Huong chuckled, draping an arm around my shoulder. “Brother Tran! Make sure you look after your brothers from now on!”

“Let go, I have work to do.”

When I left the office that evening, To Niem and I happened to walk out at the same time. The sunset had dyed the entire street a deep orange, and the shadows of the sycamore trees swayed across the sidewalk.

“That coffee you had today wasn’t bad,” she remarked.

“La Flor or Geisha?”

“Geisha. Your taste is improving.”

“I had some guidance.”

“Whose?”

“My father’s.”

Her footsteps faltered for a moment, then she let out a soft laugh. “Your father bothers himself with what kind of coffee you buy?”

“He bothers himself with many things. He even has an opinion on the color of the socks I wear.”

“And does he have an opinion on me?”

I tilted my head to look at her. She was looking back at me, too. The streetlights hadn’t flickered on yet, and in the fading light, her eyes caught shimmering, golden fragments of the dying day.

“He said...” I pulled my gaze away, looking toward the path ahead. “You might prefer Geisha.”

“He guessed correctly.”

“Yes.”

“Same time tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

We reached the intersection, where she went left and I went right.

“See you tomorrow,” she said.

“See you tomorrow.”

She walked a few paces, then suddenly turned back. “Tran Du.”

“Yes?”

“You’ve been playing poor for eight months now.”

“True.”

“Is it exhausting?”

I considered this for a moment. “I didn’t feel like it was, before.”

“And now?”

“Now... I feel like taking you out for a proper, decent meal.”

She stood three meters away, the sunset casting a warm glow over her profile.

“Then wait until the day you no longer have to pretend.”

“Fine.”

“Don’t go back on your word.”

“I won’t.”

She smiled, turned, and walked away. I stood still, watching her figure disappear into the shadows of the sycamore trees. I looked down at myself: a seventy-nine-yuan shirt from an online bazaar, cloth shoes bought from a sidewalk vendor, and pockets containing nothing but a subway card and a handful of loose change. I was a man with a net worth of tens of billions, yet I lived on a salary of five thousand a month. And I was walking alongside a girl who was also playing the role of someone impoverished. We had an agreement: wait until the day the charade ended to share a meal. That day was not far off. Only four months remained.

I climbed onto my electric scooter, which maxed out at thirty-five kilometers per hour, and merged into the evening rush. The wind rushed past my ears. I suddenly felt that these might be the months I had lived most like a genuine “human being” in all my twenty-five years. No longer the young master of the Tran family, nor the heir to the Shen Hui empire. Just Tran Du. An ordinary man with a five-thousand-yuan salary who could afford good coffee and rode a beat-up scooter. Beside me was a girl who knew the truth. That was enough. The rest of it—that could wait for another day.