Chapter 1 Force Me to Rebirth, Right

Wu City, inside an e-commerce park.

Cheng Zhu left a live streaming studio where a female anchor was promoting products, and returned to his office.

He plopped down into his chair, skilfully clamped a cigarette between his lips, then picked up a S.T. Dupont lighter that was on his desk.

With a flick of his thumb, Cheng Zhu flipped open the lighter's lid, producing a crisp "ding!"

This particular S.T. Dupont lighter had an official price of 13,200.

As he always said, he bought it just for the sound.

Inside the office, Cheng Zhu freely puffed out clouds of smoke, even resting his feet on the desk.

He picked up his phone, opened TikTok, and immediately saw one of his female anchors busily promoting products.

Cheng Zhu watched for half a minute and then casually swiped past it.

"I'm quite confident in Yiyi's business capabilities."

Yiyi was the top anchor in his company, whom he had personally mentored.

Just her alone brought him close to an eight-figure income annually.

That was certainly less than the top product promoters,

but it was more than enough to make Cheng Zhu's profits overflow.

Cheng Zhu treated her well too, in return, occasionally discussing billion-yuan projects with her in the suites of five-star hotels.

No choice, Chairman Cheng Zhu, and Yiyi knew her role early on.

The next TikTok he scrolled to was an interactive one.

On the image was written, "If you were given a chance to be reborn and return to the past, would you want it?"

This particular TikTok received over two thousand comments.

Out of boredom, Cheng Zhu opened it and saw as expected, the majority said they would.

Some wanted to mend a romance, others wanted to go back and make money, still others wished to focus on their studies... all kinds of desires.

Cheng Zhu, with a cigarette still in his mouth, typed a comment directly: "Not interested."

Then, he attached an image.

It was a screenshot of one of his bank account balances showing over six million.

As a successful young man with over six million in just one account, rebirth my ass!

Go back to a life of poverty and be a loser again?

Among this circle of friends, Cheng Zhu was recognized as the king of boastfulness, no one could out-brag him.

While boasting is a natural trait for most people, he truly excelled at it!

He lived more carefree than most, with a touch of unrestraint.

Unlike some of his friends who had to beat around the bush to show off.

His comment, unsurprisingly, stood out among thousands.

Soon he received several replies:

"Where did you find this internet pic, trying to pass it off as real?"

"Images with mosaics are treated as fake."

"If this was real life, and you had six million in one card, I'd call you boss, but here on TikTok, you fall short, buddy."

"Damn, got flexed on!"

"Delete it, I'll post a real one!"

"I have ten thousand of these types in my gallery!"

Cheng Zhu extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray and laughed indifferently, not bothering to reply to these comments.

As the light from the cigarette finally went out, he suddenly felt the world spinning around him.

The next moment, he completely lost consciousness.

...

...

"Cheng Zhu! Cheng Zhu!"

A female voice began to ring in his ears.

As his vision gradually returned, he saw a girl with chestnut-colored long hair, standing in front of him looking annoyed.

Cigarettes were also scattered on the ground.

The scene felt somewhat familiar to Cheng Zhu, but he couldn't quite remember at that moment.

Next to him and the girl stood two men and one woman.

One of the men even said to Cheng Zhu, "Cheng Zhu, are you putting on a show of melancholy here? Smoking is harmful to your health, plus you shouldn't have spoken to Li Xinyue like that."

The next moment, Cheng Zhu felt his brain swelling slightly, and memories that had become a bit blurry were now getting clearer—damn it, the dead memories are attacking me!

He remembered this was the summer of '14, right after high school graduation. He and the girl in front of him, named Li Xinyue, had affirmed their relationship, marking the first romance of his life.

This was their first big fight, and Li Xinyue had brought up breaking up.

During his adolescent years, Cheng Zhu, somewhat melancholic and non-mainstream, began to smoke out of heartbreak, somewhat intentionally for Li Xinyue to see.

It was similar to how some girls would get drunk and call their exes after a breakup, demonstrating their suffering.

Thinking back on his past, he realized this was how he took to smoking cigarettes, supposedly contributing to national defense in his own silly way.

The man who had just chastised Cheng Zhu was their class monitor, Li Rui.

A good student and from a wealthy family, his father drove a car that was labeled as a Mercedes S350 but was actually an S300 with a modified emblem.

Li Rui had always liked Li Xinyue, and their fathers seemed to be from the same village, having known each other since childhood.

What's the saying?

A celestial beauty cannot compare to a childhood friend.

Li Rui wasn't tall or particularly handsome, unlike Cheng Zhu who was 182 cm tall and had a roguish charm.

During this initial romance, Cheng Zhu found Li Rui the most annoying.

Under the guise of childhood friends, Li Rui would chat with Li Xinyue every day. Each time the couple argued, he would immediately comfort her, even inviting her for meals and movies, all under the flag of growing up together.

Whenever an opportunity arose, he would try his best to show how gentle and considerate he was, a true "nice guy".

Unfortunately, at this stage, Li Xinyue was still focused on looks, not yet transitioning towards materialism.

As the dead memories continued to assault Cheng Zhu, he remembered going back to make up with Li Xinyue, tails between his legs, after the fight.

Initially, the fight had started because she had been unreasonable, but as soon as she played the breakup card, Cheng Zhu would foolishly surrender.

Of course, in the end, they truly made up, and Li Rui ended up like a tool, having consoled Li Xinyue for three days, only to be sidelined with a "good brother" card.

In those days, acknowledging each other as brothers and sisters was still popular among students.

Just as Xu Song still sings in his song, "She is just my little sister~~"

At that moment, seeing Cheng Zhu still silent, Li Rui couldn't help but say again, "Cheng Zhu, it was wrong of you to start smoking, don't you see how upset Xinyue is?"

Standing to the side, another guy and girl spoke up; the guy, with dark skin and acne, said, "Brother Zhu, let's not take up smoking, it indeed harms our health."

Cheng Zhu glanced at the boy called Wang Anquan, his gaze softening slightly.

Wang Anquan's father was a firefighter. Sticking to the principle of "safety first," he had named his precious son accordingly.

He had been Cheng Zhu's high school desk-mate and was his best friend from those days.

The girl standing next to Wang Anquan was Chen Rongrong, Li Xinyue's best friend.

Unlike Li Rui, who used the smoking issue to bring Cheng Zhu down, Wang Anquan genuinely cared for him.

Cheng Zhu turned to look at Li Rui, scrutinizing this relentless monitor who was continually scheming to steal his girlfriend, and smirked:

"Do you know the saying, 'Nice guys finish after dogs'?"

What level are you to steal my girl?

In the pecking order of guys, warm guys rank even below the bootlickers.

Even if Li Xinyue and I don't make up this time, it's not your turn, you sheep in wolf's clothing.

However, at this time, the term "warm guy" seemed still to be a compliment.

Although Li Rui didn't fully grasp the underlying message in Cheng Zhu's words, anyone with half a brain would realize he was being insulted.

"Cheng Zhu, you... you..."

In front of Li Xinyue, he held back even from saying "you f***..." maintaining what he believed was a gentlemanly and nice guy image.

In the end, he could only slightly raise his voice and said, "What do you mean!?"

"What do I mean? Do you really need to ask?" Cheng Zhu raised his eyebrows slightly.

He grinned and said, "You know, I generally don't say things to embarrass people, but if I ever do..."

Cheng Zhu paused briefly, his smile broadening: "It means I really want to embarrass you."