Chapter 47: The Girl of the City of Song

This song carried a lingering mood—as if all the bitterness in one's heart had drifted away with the wind, vanishing beyond the horizon of sky and water to be seen never again—leaving a deeply unforgettable impression.

Zhou Luoyao's voice, surprisingly, lent the song an entirely different kind of bittersweet charm.

She held the microphone and beckoned to Lin Cheng.

With her long legs curled up on the sofa, she took advantage of the instrumental interlude to munch on potato chips, making crisp, gentle crunching sounds.

The scene was both playful and pleasing to the eye.

Knowing that Lin Cheng was watching her, Zhou Luoyao felt a mild sense of triumph.

Yet, this fellow's gaze seemed to be fixed on her legs...

Although Lin Cheng was an amusing companion, such a look still gave her a strange sensation.

With a trace of bashful annoyance, she gently shifted her legs further into the shadows.

"Come on, what are you going to sing?" Zhou Ye was busy selecting a song.

"How about 'Amani'?" Lin Cheng said loudly.

Zhou Ye actually liked this song, and he and Lin Cheng sang it with great enthusiasm.

Then Lin Cheng was heard singing:

Grandpa only has a chicken coop—
I want a knife and fork for my brother—
Suffering all the wrath of the heavens...

"Hahaha..." Zhou Luoyao laughed so hard she couldn't straighten her back.

Stealing my duck, selling it to President Wang, Wang Zhiyong;
And fearing that one day I might be knifed—oh, what a fine knife—

"Your brother got such a raw deal! Hahaha..." Zhou Ye stopped singing as well, slapping the sofa in fits of laughter.

After laughing for a moment, he decided to order some bottles of liquor and a fruit platter. Just as he reached the doorway,

suddenly, two girls rushed out from the opposite private room, almost crashing into each other.

The female manager at the door instantly changed her expression:

"What do you think you're doing? If you upset the guests, see if I don't deal with you two!"

Shouts and jeers echoed from inside the private room.

A tight top wrapped around one girl's alluring curves, while beneath her ultra-short skirt, a pair of fair legs dazzled under the lights.

Clutching the manager's arm, she pleaded tearfully:

"Sister, their hands are too rough, let's change rooms!"

Zhou Ye stared in a daze, leaving his own private room door wide open.

The girl in the tight top subconsciously glanced into Zhou Ye's room, caught sight of Lin Cheng, trembled slightly, wiped away her tears, and said:

"No need to change, let's just go back in!"

The female manager's expression softened instantly:

"Well, Mengmeng is sensible after all. Only by enduring the ultimate hardships can one rise above others. Go on in!"

For some reason, when she uttered the phrase "rise above others," it sounded faintly suggestive.

The other girl in the short skirt looked at her companion in astonishment: "You were the one who wanted to go in! Then you can serve him yourself!"

The two of them seemed to have swapped roles; the girl in the tight top suddenly became resolute and fearless, while the one in the short skirt cowered in resistance...

The door flew open, and a flushed man in his forties rushed out. "Daring to run? Look what I'll do to you!"

A burst of loud laughter erupted from the private room.

The scene in the opposite room did not escape Zheng Nange's notice.

Zhou Luoyao was also startled by this spectacle and hurriedly walked to the doorway to pull Zhou Ye back.

Some men came out of the opposite room to mediate, while others cast cold, sweeping glances at Zhou Luoyao, and then looked at the female manager.

That look seemed to say: Such a fine catch, and you didn't give her to them?

Seeing those blatantly predatory eyes fixed on Zhou Luoyao, Zheng Nange started to stand up.

"Smack!" The man struck the girl in the tight top across the face, then glared at the girl in the short skirt.

"Ah!" The girl in the short skirt hurriedly shielded her head.

As the man raised his hand again, a blur flashed before his eyes, and Lin Cheng stood right in front of him.

Zheng Nange wore a wry smile. This guy was going to meddle in other people's business again.

Why did Zheng Nange and the others choose this place?

Because the lighting and sound equipment were top-tier, of course!

In this day and age, Crown Prince Port in Guangdong Province and Cloud Paradise in Beijing were the ultimate symbols of luxury across all of Asia, and other developed regions were hardly inferior.

Lifting her head, the girl in the tight top saw Lin Cheng blocking her path, and tears spilled from her eyes:

"I'm sorry, I... I'm not leaving."

This girl was Lin Cheng's junior high school classmate, Guan Xiaomeng.

The moment she saw Lin Cheng also appearing in the luxurious private room at "Baodu," she deeply understood the stark disparities of fate and life.

Guan Xiaomeng's academic performance had been mediocre; she failed to enter senior high school, and her family didn't want her to attend a vocational school either.

A popular saying in Wuzhou went: Passing the senior high school entrance exam is harder than passing the college entrance exam!

Wuzhou's high school entrance examination had the highest difficulty level! Second only to the provincial capital Jianye, with a difficulty rating of five stars.

Streaming students out in massive batches right after junior high graduation was a brutal reality!

Someone like Lin Cheng, who was able to test into or be recommended to a four-star high school, had already defeated tens of thousands of peers all the way from primary school...

After graduation, Guan Xiaomeng drifted around doing odd jobs, and later, through an introduction, she had been working as a hostess selling liquor in karaoke bars (essentially a formal lounge hostess) for some time, though her family still knew nothing about it.

Today, the guest she was entertaining kept pinching and grabbing her... Guan Xiaomeng finally reached her breaking point and bolted out.

Although the middle-aged man who threw the punches was furious, seeing Lin Cheng step forward so aggressively and catching sight of the exquisitely pretty Zhou Luoyao, he assumed Lin Cheng must be the scion of some influential family. Thus, he said impatiently:

"You do your thing, I'll do mine! What the hell is your game?!"

This middle-aged man was undoubtedly someone of consequence, otherwise the female manager wouldn't have bothered guarding the door.

Desperate to avert a conflict, the female manager half-embraced and half-pushed Lin Cheng toward his own private room.

With Lin Cheng's physique as a second-level national athlete,

the female manager couldn't budge him at all.

The middle-aged man pointed at the female manager, "Is this your capability? What are your security guards even doing?"

Shrugging off the female manager clinging to him, Lin Cheng said word by word:

"This girl is only sixteen years old. Who gave you the right to hit her!"

Having seen plenty of storms, the female manager stared at Lin Cheng and said, "Everyone here is a guest having fun. This is none of your concern!"

Lin Cheng raised an eyebrow and smiled, "She is my concern!"

Lin Cheng wasn't heavily drunk. Having been reborn once, although he wanted to keep a low profile and remain steady, there were times when, without unleashing a bout of youthful madness, he truly feared burying the fiery passion of youth within him.

Guan Xiaomeng's heart trembled as she looked at this tall young man.

Back in school, whenever she and the other girls chattered excitedly about which boy was handsome, Zhuang Sijing would always remain nonchalant!

When pressed persistently, Zhuang Sijing would only retort, "Of course my deskmate is the most handsome!"

How wonderful those days were! Compared to the total loss of self-respect she felt now, it truly felt like a sea had turned into a mulberry field.

Startled by Lin Cheng's formidable aura, the female manager softened her tone slightly:

"Handsome, she... well, it's not what you think!"

Lin Cheng said coldly, "Do you take me for a three-year-old child?"

Losing her composure entirely, the female manager shrieked in a high-pitched voice:

"Every trade has its rules! Let me tell you, you are disrupting our normal business operations! You won't be able to handle the consequences!"

As she spoke, the female manager glanced toward the middle-aged man.

"Are you getting out of here or not? If you don't, I'll call our people!" another man in his thirties chimed in.

Noticing that trouble was brewing, a few men in the private room hurried out to mediate, while doors of neighboring rooms opened, revealing several onlookers eager to watch the spectacle.

Zheng Nange blocked the men who were eyeing Zhou Luoyao and asked, "You call this intentionally making trouble? Since when do you get to make the rules?"

At that moment, several security guards arrived. One of them, a heavy-set man, brandished an expandable baton, smashed the glass panel of Lin Cheng's private room, and sneered, "Hey... if this isn't making trouble, what is?"

With a light chuckle, Zheng Nange said, "You say we're making trouble, right? If we didn't actually cause some, we'd really be wronged by your accusations!"

Lifting the liquor bottle in his hand, Zheng Nange strode into the opposing luxurious private room.