Sweet slice-of-life love story: Wife, Let's love again
Chapter 179 - 176: Give It a Try

Chapter 179: Chapter 176: Give It a Try

Before the week ended, Friday arrived once more.

Every time Friday comes around, everybody in the office is always especially excited, gathering in small groups to discuss their plans for the weekend.

Qin Guanglin checked the time, put aside his paintbrush, and started packing up, thinking about what he would do after work.

He planned to spill a cup of water on his bed and then go to He Fang’s place to stay over, acting as if he had every right.

For the sake of his own happy life, he had to resort to some tricks—even though this method seemed rather foolish, and He Fang could probably see right through his plan, but as long as it worked, right?

Plus, after this incident, the next time he wanted to stay over, He Fang might agree outright to avoid repeating this silly method.

This was being clever by playing dumb.

Today, Sun Wen didn’t rush out at the end of work like before. After packing up, he came over to Qin Guanglin who was tidying up his desk and said, tossing his head toward the office door, "How about we go grab some dinner and have a few drinks later?"

"Is there something up?"

Qin Guanglin didn’t rush to agree nor did he rush to refuse, simply asking as he continued packing.

"Figured you have too much time on your hands, might as well help you waste some."

"I’d believe that if Xiao Yu said it, but you..."

"Hey, can’t emulate his style." Sun Wen shook his head with a chuckle, stopped joking, waved to a colleague who was leaving, and then said, "Actually, there is something I want to talk to you about."

"Then let’s go," Qin Guanglin said as he finished tidying his desk and stood up.

He could vaguely guess what Sun Wen wanted to talk about. He had anticipated that Sun Wen would eventually want to discuss it, just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.

As they walked out, he took out his phone to inform both Qin’s Mom and He Fang.

"Now I can’t even go out to eat without reporting to two people, sigh."

"Stop showing off, Mr. Social Butterfly."

Following Sun Wen’s suggestion, they drove to Shao’s Home-Cooked Restaurant near Luo City University.

Whether intentional or not, Sun Wen chose this particular place, with its old but not dirty tables, spotty walls, and Uncle Shao, who was neither clearly fat nor burly, all bringing back familiar memories from their four years in college.

"It still feels good to eat here."

Sun Wen ordered the food, pushed the menu to Qin Guanglin, then turned to fetch four bottles of beer from the fridge, grabbed two in each hand, popped open two bottles with two bangs, and took a huge gulp himself, exhaling deeply, "Let’s not drink too much, just two bottles each."

"Slow down, don’t finish your two bottles before our food even arrives." Qin Guanglin took a cup, poured a drink, and took a small sip.

As Sun Wen didn’t start talking business, he didn’t press, casually eating the peanuts Uncle Shao had provided, "It’s better to drink from a glass, drinking from the bottle goes down too quickly."

"Only women drink from glasses."

"Yeah, right, keep that bias and you’ll get a punch."

"I can barely handle one woman... Yeah, I definitely couldn’t."

Sun Wen flexed his fist, there was a cracking sound from his fingers, and he relaxed his hand, pulled out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, took a long drag, looked up, and slowly exhaled a plume of smoke, "Women..."

He sighed, leaned back in his chair, and nudged his chin toward Qin Guanglin, "I’ve met a relationship guru."

"Isn’t that me?" Qin Guanglin was still boasting about being a relationship guru.

"You’re a relationship guru my ass." Sun Wen snorted, leaned in closer, and said, "I met someone who really knows her stuff. I’ve been using her tips on Yueyue for the past few days and it’s actually working. Now when I call Yueyue, she picks up, and if I ask her out to eat, she’ll come. I think a reconciliation isn’t far off."

"So you’ve been busy with that lately."

Qin Guanglin was speechless; the guy really hadn’t given up, "What’s the use of getting back together? Won’t you just break up again?"

"That won’t happen. I’m not the same person I was before."

"Then who are you?"

"I’m Sun Wen 2.0, an upgraded version, a super transformative version."

"More like super weird version."

"Just you wait and see."

Sun Wen took another swig of his beer, fell silent for a moment, hesitated as he looked at Qin Guanglin, then glanced toward the kitchen doors, "Uncle Shao is a bit slow with the food today."

"It’s because you ordered all the tough dishes," Qin Guanglin laughed.

As soon as the voice dropped, Uncle Shao walked out from behind the curtain with a plate of braised pork ribs and set it down on the table, "There’s a lot of meat on the ribs today, eat up."

"Okay, thank you, Uncle Shao."

Watching Uncle Shao return to the kitchen to continue his work, Sun Wen picked up a rib and took a couple of bites, nodding approvingly, "It still has the old flavor, I really love this."

"All right, the dishes are served, and you said you had something to discuss? Spit it out already, why are you still beating around the bush?" Qin Guanglin saw him stalling, all chatter but no substance, and felt somewhat helpless.

"Sigh..."

Sun Wen sighed and after sucking his teeth, he finally spoke, "I need money."

"How much? I’ll lend you some."

"Haha, if I needed to borrow, I would have asked by now, would I need to be like this?" Sun Wen shook his head and laughed, "Emergency help is not poverty aid, I’m not short of money for now, I’m just plain poor."

"Then I can’t help you." Qin Guanglin joined in the laughter, "I’m poor too, and I don’t know how to become rich."

"I know." Sun Wen said.

Qin Guanglin looked at him silently, waiting for him to continue.

Sun Wen pondered for a moment, put down the rib he was holding and lit a cigarette, "Today... actually, I wanted to talk to you about this."

"What’s that?"

"You’re smart, you might have already guessed." Sun Wen pointed at him with the hand holding the cigarette, his thick eyebrows slightly furrowing together, showing a bit of helplessness. After a brief silence, he then continued, "Do you think the current company is good?"

"At least I don’t see anything bad." Qin Guanglin nodded honestly, and asked back, "What do you think?"

"I think it’s not bad, but..." Sun Wen tapped his fingers on the table, paused and then continued, "Don’t you think it could be better?"

"Oh?"

"Have you looked into studios?" he asked Qin Guanglin.

"This isn’t a studio?"

"No." Sun Wen shook his head, "You could say it’s a studio, you could also say it’s a company, or you could say it’s neither—too big for a studio, too small for a company."

"What are you trying to say?" Qin Guanglin was confused, unaware of what he was implying.

"To start a studio is simple, three or five people, rent a large single room or one-bedroom apartment in any residential area, and you can produce works—at most a thousand in rent, plus some equipment, it doesn’t need much budget. You register a company, and using the company’s name, you can save a lot on taxes. That’s what a normal studio is."

"Our current studio, just the rent is a big expense, plus all the other miscellaneous things, the costs are higher than a typical company... Most importantly, Chen Rui only thinks about making hand-drawn masterpieces, keeping a lot of people, the production is terribly low..."

Qin Guanglin quietly listened while eating peanuts, already understanding his thoughts.

"If we use computer graphics, use those templates to mass-produce the popular mainstream violent plots, take the route of high traffic, even if the sales are not as high as those masterpieces he makes, but in terms of quantity, we could earn much more, and the costs would be lower—I’ve looked into it for a long time, his path is not viable."

Sun Wen looked at Qin Guanglin seriously, "Otherwise, we wouldn’t still be just a team of a dozen people, and growing so slowly. He thinks too highly, completely unaware of market trends, only wanting to do what he wishes; he won’t make it."

"And then?" Qin Guanglin asked.

"We can do it ourselves."

"Taking half the company with us?"

"Yes, they were originally people I brought in." Sun Wen nodded emphatically, "Just the two of us won’t be enough, let them handle everything outside of drawing."

Qin Guanglin sighed, "Is this a good idea?"

"..."

"Your idea isn’t wrong, but this method... is it okay?"

Sun Wen was silent for a moment, picked up a bottle of alcohol and took a sip, "I guessed you would say that, that’s why I didn’t tell you."

"But if we don’t do this, what other way do I have? Where can I find a bunch of people willing to follow me?"

"What’s good or not good, what principles or non-principles, none of that matters. Chen Rui doesn’t care about money, but we do. I don’t want the luxury of high-end office buildings, don’t want to dress up daily to go to towers for work, don’t want to sit in comfortable executive chairs. I’d rather that he convert all that into money for me, I wouldn’t mind drawing from a doghouse."

Struggling to keep his emotions in check as he spoke, Sun Wen took a deep drag of his cigarette, threw the butt onto the ground and stamped it out, and then looked up at Qin Guanglin.

"Lin, we’ve got to give it a shot."