David Brooks had a paternal aunt who married down the mountain, and besides her, there was also a second uncle, a proper college graduate who, after graduation, was assigned to the Xizhou Automobile Factory. By now, he should be considered a technical backbone of the factory.

Their family also had a lot of furniture made by Grandpa.

There was one thing in the original host’s memory: back then, he was still very young, and his second uncle was about to get married. Grandpa didn’t want to take a car, so he rode a bicycle, carrying a dining table and six chairs, and delivered them all the way to Xizhou City, more than two hundred li away.

“Zai Zai…”

Grandma greeted David Brooks with a beaming smile. It seemed that just seeing her tall eldest grandson was enough to fill her with joy. She grabbed David Brooks’s arm and said, “Last time your aunt came, she brought some cookies. They’re in the drawer—go help yourself!”

“I just ate, I’ll have some later!”

Eating her treats made her even happier, so she laughed and said, “Alright!” So David Brooks squatted down and watched for a couple of minutes, then got up to help, taking over for Grandma.

The grandparent and grandchild chatted idly as they worked.

“Your dad said that Henry Carter wants you to drive for him?”

“Yeah, I told my dad I’m not going.”

“Why not? Isn’t it good to drive for him? You’d earn a salary. He wouldn’t treat you badly.”

“It’s a bit demeaning.”

“Mm. Don’t be too stubborn. Boys should be self-reliant and care about their pride, but being too stubborn isn’t good either! And, don’t get into fights with people anymore. Look how much trouble you’ve caused your dad!”

“I know, Grandpa.”

He stayed at his grandparents’ house for over an hour. David Brooks didn’t mind, but he had things on his mind. As he worked, he kept thinking, and nearly hurt his hand, so Grandpa shooed him out.

So he wandered off at will, and before he knew it, he’d arrived at the family’s pond.

The Cao family, of course, were farmers, but in reality, they only had about two mu of paddy fields for growing rice.

There were another two or three mu of sloped land planted with orange trees, but oranges didn’t fetch much of a price. Sometimes the supply and marketing cooperative would buy some, sometimes not, so you had to take them to the market yourself. But in the southern part of Fuping County, it was all mountains, and on the slopes, people only grew three things: bamboo, tea trees, and oranges.

Obviously, none of them sold for much.

Things had gotten a bit better in the past couple of years. Fuping’s oranges were famous for being juicy and delicious, so buyers from other places started coming down the mountain to purchase in bulk. Picking from two mu of land could bring in three to five hundred yuan—a big income.

There were also over a dozen mu of bamboo forest—but that brought in even less.

Yesterday’s rain had been heavy, and the dirt road was muddy. David Brooks trudged along the edge of the pond, his mind still turning over the matter of stock subscription certificates. Without realizing it, he stood by the pond for over an hour, until his mother called to him from the doorway, and he suddenly realized it was already noon.

After lunch, he carefully took a fishing rod, dug up some earthworms by the roadside for bait, set up a small bamboo chair by the pond, and sat down to fish.

The pond was about two mu in size, cleared out every few years, with the mud dredged and the embankment repaired. It hadn’t been cleared for two years now, so there were definitely fish inside. But David Brooks’s mind wasn’t on fishing. Several times, by the time he realized something was wrong and hurried to pull up the rod, the fish had already slipped off the hook. Even so, he still caught a small white fish about a foot long, but after taking it off the hook, he tossed it back into the pond.

Should he do it or not?

He didn’t know.

Hard to say.

He couldn’t make up his mind.

Instinctively, he felt a bit timid.

Even though, in his past life and this one, deep down he always had some grand ambitions, always felt he just missed his chance, and if he’d had it, he’d be no worse than Jack Ma.

But when a real opportunity was right in front of him, he couldn’t help but feel a little scared.

After all, he knew very well he was just an ordinary person.

Even after transmigrating, even with foreknowledge of a chance to get rich, he was still just an ordinary person.

An ordinary mind, an ordinary heart.

Yet, that potential fortune—possibly tens of millions—kept stirring something inside him, making his heart surge uncontrollably, making him tell himself over and over: This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, a Red Hare among horses!

But… does he really dare to go that big?

If he just borrowed what he could from relatives and friends, a few tens of thousands, and made fifty times that, it would already be a lot!

Two or three million in these days was truly a huge sum!

A few apartments in the capital or Shanghai would be easy to buy, and with that, he could live comfortably for a lifetime, enjoying a happiness he never even dared to dream of in his previous life.

But if he really tried to get a shell company and went in with hundreds of thousands, if by some tiny chance it all went wrong, the consequences would be serious—he couldn’t cover it!

People, no matter what they do, should always look ahead and behind, and see things through from start to finish.

But… it just can’t go wrong!

No matter how he thought about it, there didn’t seem to be even the slightest chance of failure!

If he didn’t go big, didn’t max out the leverage, he’d really be unwilling!