stjorthotic Chapter 9: The Children's Parents' Gathering
Chapter 9: The Children's Parents' Gathering
This weekend, Lu Ming ordered several set meals and movie tickets in advance to send Rui Rui and the three boys out to play, while he prepared more than a dozen dishes at home.
My sister-in-law, Mei Qiuping, was the first to arrive, and she brought Xue Meiting from across the street with her.
As soon as she entered, Mei Qiuping looked Lu Ming up and down with some surprise, and laughed, "Daming, now you finally know to maintain your image, huh? You've lost over ten pounds recently, haven't you?"
"It's alright!"
Lu Ming smiled.
He trains intensely for two hours every day and also controls his food intake, and he gradually loses weight.
"That's great. I used to really like you. You're handsome and healthy," Mei Qiuping teased with a smile, and then casually patted Lu Ming's shoulder.
She is my sister-in-law.
You can do whatever you want!
Although she was the most beautiful girl in the Finance Department of Jiangnan University twenty years ago, she has such a good foundation and has been willing to spend money on skincare and cosmetic procedures over the years that she looks only around thirty years old. She is still fair-skinned, radiant, and charming.
She exudes the charm of a mature woman.
Her personality is perfectly suited to the financial world. After leaving the provincial commercial bank, she now manages a private equity fund worth tens of billions of yuan, and she herself is said to have a net worth of over 100 million yuan.
Of course, this money had nothing to do with her husband, Cheng Yong'an.
After taking a brief look around the house, Mei Qiuping introduced Lu Ming and Xue Meiting to each other.
It was only then that Lu Ming learned that the two middle-aged, beautiful women were classmates at Jiang University and had known each other since their student days.
Mei Yanping then jokingly added with a smile, "What a coincidence! You two are both very good friends of mine, and you're both divorced, one raising a daughter and the other a son, and you happen to live right across from each other."
After Xue Meiting realized that the introduction was for a blind date, she smiled politely and said, "You were the one who helped me find this new apartment."
The implication is that there was no coincidence; it was simply that Mui Yim-ping was too lazy to carefully search for suitable properties.
They just got together like that.
As a former campus belle of the Architecture Department at Jiangnan University and now the vice president of the Provincial Investment Group, she certainly wouldn't be interested in someone like Lu Ming.
After understanding the woman's subtext, Lu Ming smiled slightly, seemingly unconcerned.
He also looked down on a woman in her forties.
I'm almost menopausal!
After the three chatted casually for about ten minutes, Cheng Yong'an arrived with Lao Yang.
Today's dinner party is a gathering of the parents of four children.
Old Yang is Yang Yunhao's father, and he serves as the deputy director of the credit department at the Jiangbin branch of the provincial commercial bank.
Lu Ming, Xue Meiting, and Lao Yang didn't know each other before. After everyone sat down, the senior couple introduced them again.
In terms of age, Old Yang is the oldest, almost fifty years old.
Secondly, there is Cheng Yong'an, who is forty-four years old this year.
Mei Qiuping and Xue Meiting were both campus beauties at Jiangda University, one year younger than Cheng Yong'an. However, since Cheng Yong'an only started his bank internship after graduating with a master's degree, the two women actually started working earlier.
Lu Ming is the youngest, and he is exactly forty years old this year.
After having a glass or two of red wine and chatting for about ten minutes, everyone gradually became familiar with each other.
Only then did Mei Qiuping say to Lu Ming, "Daming, listen to your sister-in-law. Your ex-wife has already given up on herself. There's no need to get entangled with her. You might as well sell her the original house for 300,000 less."
That's so easy to say!
Lu Ming truly felt the gap between social classes.
Three hundred thousand!
Mei Qiuping continued her analysis slowly and methodically: "Your original house will be vacant for five years. If the annual rent is 40,000, that's a loss of 200,000."
If you had continued to rent President Lin's house for the past five years, the annual rent of 72,000 yuan would have resulted in a loss of 360,000 yuan.
Therefore, why don't you sell your original house to your ex-wife at a low price, and then use the money to buy Director Lin's house?
She truly lives up to her reputation as a female CEO in the financial industry, managing billions of dollars in funds at a private equity firm; she's very good at accounting.
At this moment, senior student Cheng Yong'an also agreed, saying, "Daming, when it comes to money, just listen to your sister-in-law's arrangements; you won't go wrong."
Given the current market conditions, President Lin's house won't sell for a very high price, but it cost over a million yuan to renovate back then.
"Let's get the bank to help us increase the mortgage valuation of the house to 1.8 million. That way, you'll have positive equity."
It's actually very important not to know the difference between positive and negative assets if you don't run a business.
After thinking about it carefully, Lu Ming felt that it was indeed possible to do it this way, mainly because he could withdraw ten grams of gold every day.
I can afford the mortgage perfectly well.
He said with some resentment, "I really don't want to let that woman get away with this. When Rui Rui was in the fourth grade of elementary school, I had already made up my mind to get a divorce, but the old man just wouldn't agree and ended up making things really difficult for me."
The trigger was Guo Haili's daily tantrums at home, insisting on changing houses and cars. Because of these things, she even abandoned Rui Rui on the street in the pouring rain.
This really infuriated Lu Ming.
As a result, his father jumped out to object again, forcing him to kneel down and apologize to Guo Haili's parents, otherwise he would sever his father-son relationship, and so on.
After a full six months of turmoil, Lu Ming was forced to buy a house and a car at the peak of the housing market. The various loans alone amounted to more than two million yuan, which almost crushed him.
Over the past five years, housing prices have been halved again.
Seeing that Lu Ming could no longer hold on, Guo Haili immediately jumped out and demanded a divorce, then left, frantically searching for a wealthy boss.
The old man also fell silent!
All of this was undoubtedly very clear to senior student Cheng Yong'an and his sister-in-law Mei Yanping.
After thinking for a moment, Cheng Yong'an gave Lu Ming another suggestion: "You continue to fight the lawsuit with your ex-wife, but secretly have your relatives come forward and sell the property on behalf of the Lu family at a discount of 300,000 yuan, saying it's compensation to your ex-wife."
Your ex-wife now feels she's found a powerful boss and is very confident that she'll take over, which will make it easy for you to lose even your house.
But if that boss, Mr. Huang, runs away, with her income of less than 50,000 a year, she simply can't support herself, let alone pay the mortgage. In the end, it's all for nothing.
As expected of the head of the bank's credit department, he was already used to these things and spoke them off the cuff.
Upon hearing this, Lu Ming finally nodded.
The atmosphere at the dinner table was already set.
Xue Meiting finally spoke up: "I will handle that Boss Huang's matter. His price is too low, so there must be a problem with the quality. I'll take this opportunity to test the waters and see just how deep the water is in the Provincial Investment Group."
She didn't give any guarantees.
The implication is that if Boss Huang's backer wasn't the top two leaders of the provincial investment group, but only a middle-level cadre below him taking care of her, she would have taken such drastic action.
"I'm very grateful that you're willing to help!" Lu Ming still appreciated it and raised his glass to her, then drank half of it himself.
Xue Meiting took a small sip and smiled, "Actually, I came here today to apologize to you. As a mother, I really don't want my son to be just a foil for Cheng Yuhang and Yang Yunhao."
"Oh, you've got it backwards, haven't you?"
Lu Ming was completely confused.
When tutoring the three boys, he mainly did some advanced math problems and analyzed complex issues, using his university background in mathematics to broaden their horizons.
In matters like this, Cheng Yuhang and Yang Yunhao are really just supporting characters.
He is clearly not keeping up with Gao He.
Xue Meiting sighed helplessly and explained, "Rui Rui's dad, I wasn't talking about her grades, but I just think your Rui Rui is so beautiful."
To say that my son doesn't have those teenage thoughts is nonsense. As a mother of a boy, I'm happy to see it happen.
But when I looked at Cheng Yuhang and Yang Yunhao's height and appearance, I knew my son was just there to make up the numbers.
"You're exaggerating. Gao He is a very focused child!"
Lu Ming cannot admit to this.
Otherwise, wouldn't that be tantamount to admitting that his daughter Rui Rui is raising fish, and that she's raising fish belonging to three top students!