Sweet slice-of-life love story: Wife, Let's love again
Chapter 318 - 311: You’re Famous

Chapter 318: Chapter 311: You’re Famous

Saturday.

It was just beginning to dawn, with only a glimmer of fish-belly white appearing in the east, when Qin Guanglin and He Fang were already in the car, embarking on their journey back to Luo City with a trunk half-full of books.

Every visit brought new progress, and he was already satisfied. He didn’t care that he hadn’t received the dowry list yet. As He Fang had said, the wedding wasn’t until next year, so why rush now.

Although he had just bought a house and didn’t have much money left, he’d find a way to gather enough for the bride price within the year, unless her father demanded an exorbitant dowry just to make things difficult for him.

"Do you think your dad will ask for a lot for the dowry?"

"How would I know."

"Take a guess."

"..."

He Fang had grown accustomed to his superstitious beliefs about fortune-telling and automatically blocked out anything related to ’calculating’, half-squinting her eyes as she leaned back in her seat to rest.

"Could it be as much as several hundreds of thousands? One hundred eighty-eight thousand? One hundred sixty-six thousand? It can’t possibly be as much as two hundred thousand, can it?"

Qin Guanglin estimated based on the rough amounts in Luo City. Although He City was a smaller place and couldn’t compare with Luo City, sometimes the smaller the place, the higher the demands. It wasn’t about the size of the city but more about estimating based on proximity.

"Is several hundreds of thousands a lot?"

"In some places, that’s considered a sky-high price... but for you, it doesn’t seem like a lot."

He Fang, holding back a laugh, looked outside and said, "Hmph, sycophant."

After a pause, she suddenly perked up, shifted her seat forward, and sat up straight, "Why do you guys call a car worth several hundreds of thousands a piece of junk, but the same amount for a dowry is suddenly exorbitant?"

Qin Guanglin was taken aback and instinctively replied, "Uh... isn’t it different?"

"How is it different?"

"The car, once bought, is your own..."

"A wife isn’t yours once you marry her?"

"..."

"Hmph, it’s just that a car has a clear price tag, and if you don’t pay, they won’t give it to you. A wife likes you, and because of that, you think you can save where you can, since you’re getting married anyway, right?"

"That’s not it, what you’re saying..."

Qin Guanglin was amused by her argument, "I never said it was a sky-high price, I only said it was in some places, and you’re definitely not one of them."

"Then how much would I be?" He Fang asked.

"It depends on how much I have."

"Really?"

"Definitely. If I had two hundred thousand, I’d give two hundred thousand. If I had a million, I’d give a million. If I had five million, I’d give five million."

Qin Guanglin boasted exaggeratedly, knowing full well he didn’t have it.

"So how much do you have now?"

"I have... several hundreds of thousands, I suppose." He continued to bluff; his actual financial situation was less than one hundred thousand.

But he’d get there with a few more months of salary.

He Fang nodded, "Then I’ll tell my dad, just several hundreds of thousands, not a penny more."

"Hey, wait, I remembered wrong, actually I’ve only got tens of thousands."

"Oh, hundreds of thousands, huh? I’ll just tell my dad it’s hundreds of thousands then."

"..."

...

Qin Guanglin had stayed at his future in-laws’ home for a week. He spent the first few days sleeping in the same room as her father, and although he squeezed into He Fang’s room for the last few, he didn’t dare overstep his bounds. They cuddled up and spent the night sleeping soundly.

Not yet thirty, Qin Guanglin was brimming with energy, just like a young calf. No matter how tough or exhausting it was, he could bounce back after just two days’ rest. Spending a consecutive seven days in He City, holding his fragrant, smooth-skinned girlfriend was truly torturous.

So, he dallied at home all day over the weekend, not even stepping out the door.

The next day.

The sky was crystal clear, stretching cloudlessly for miles.

A spirited Qin Guanglin left for work with his head held high and a confident stride, akin to a tiger that had just enjoyed a hearty meal, emanating an aura of boundless vigor.

"Wow, did you go chicken-stealing over the weekend?"

In the office, Chen Rui stood in stark contrast to him, looking sickly, with thick circles under his eyes resembling eyeshadow, his hair a tangled mess, and a faint stain rimming his collar—God knows how many days he had gone without changing his shirt.

"I haven’t been back for four days."

Despite the tiredness evident on Chen Rui’s face, his eyes shone with excitement, bloodshot as they were, as they fixed on Qin Guanglin, "You are... no, you’ve already become popular."

Watching the data spike over the past few days, he had thought several times about calling Qin Guanglin back. In the end, he had restrained himself each time, waiting to surprise him now.

"Oh."

Qin Guanglin had anticipated this, so he wasn’t too surprised; besides, it was a free release, just making money off the ads. Whether it got hot or not didn’t really impact him much at the moment. He simply responded and returned to his seat.

Hmm... the popularity of this comic should bring some traffic to his other works too. Thinking this, he felt a bit cheered.

Oh...?

Chen Rui was taken aback by his reaction, staring blankly as Qin Guanglin sat down and tidied up his desk and bag. After a moment, he spoke up again, "You, became popular."

Could it be that the kid didn’t hear him clearly?

"Mhm, didn’t you just say that a moment ago?" Qin Guanglin responded. Having been away for a week, his desk was quite messy. Chen Rui indeed had been frantic, even too lazy to tidy up after searching through his side for materials.

Chen Rui nearly choked with frustration.

Damn it!

You’re popular!

Why are you so calm, acting as if it’s not your business at all?!

"How popular?" Finally, Qin Guanglin asked, not leaving him in suspense. After stacking the papers neatly on his desk, he inquired.

Chen Rui perked up, "Come over here and see for yourself!"

"In a bit. I had an idea earlier while visiting my father-in-law’s place; I’ve been holding it in until now. I need to sketch it out right away."

Qin Guanglin was referring to the idea he had about the luxurious mahogany, hand-crafted, high-end, stylish custom chess set. He was thinking of using it for a fantasy spin-off series. He had jotted it down on paper when he got home that day, and almost forgot about it over the week. Only after digging out that sheet of paper did he remember again. Delayed by more than a week, he immediately wanted to get it drawn out to relieve the pressure.

While he felt better as he began to draw, Chen Rui turned even more agitated. He had been stewing over it for half a day, almost wanting to drag Qin Guanglin over and make him take a good look at the current stats.

If he had known, he wouldn’t have held back; he should have told him right away!

"Once you’re here, I’ll go back to rest. Running between two companies these past few days has nearly killed me. Handle some things for me."

Eventually, Chen Rui gave up on the idea of dragging him over, scratching his head as he stood up, greeted Qin Guanglin, and left the office disgruntledly to catch a cab downstairs.

He didn’t dare drive; after several consecutive days of overworking, spending the days drawing in one place, nights working on the platform, squeezing in a bit of sleep before dawn, then coming back to continue, and even his weekends were spent monitoring the iOS app development. He was truly at his limit.

Initially, in their rush to launch the platform, some things were not fully developed with the plan to gradually expand later. It was a good plan, but it couldn’t withstand Qin Guanglin’s comic suddenly going viral. Coupled with some malicious individuals targeting a new site, probably with some vindictive motive, they caused the website to crash several times during peak hours, driving him almost to a heart attack.

Being a boss is hard.

Qin Guanglin felt the same.

He loved drawing quietly, and now with Chen Rui gone, all the large and small matters piled up on the table of his honorary director. Just after the weekend, the Monday workload was even heavier than usual.

Amongst various distractions, a simple spin-off issue took an entire day to complete. Approaching the end of the workday, with just a few minutes to spare, he hastily sent it off to his assistant, asking Hu Li to scan and upload it onto the platform as an extra update.

Returning to find Chen Rui’s computer still on, he leaned over to help shut it down. Waking it from sleep mode, the screen showed the backend for his latest comic issue. The trending graphs made Qin Guanglin’s eyes widen.

He had underestimated the ’popularity’ Chen Rui spoke of; no wonder it had caused such excitement he didn’t return for four days.

It truly took off, huh.