mesbooks Chapter 88 New Year Greetings
Chapter 88 New Year Greetings
"Mom, I brought you a gift."
Lin Mu took out a gold chain and a gold bracelet from his briefcase.
The mother smiled broadly, but declined, saying, "I'm already this old, what kind of image would I have wearing gold and silver?"
Lin Mu coaxed sweetly, "It's only when you're in your forties or fifties and wearing gold and silver that you have the presence; when you're young, you can't pull it off."
He paused, then turned to his father, "Dad, I also brought you a gift." As he spoke, he pulled out a Longines watch, which cost nearly ten thousand yuan.
The father calmly accepted the watch, examined it closely, and asked, "This watch is well-made; it must have been expensive."
"It's alright, only about ten thousand yuan, not as expensive as the one I gave my mom." Lin Mu added with a smile, "Mom, here's another piece of jade." Like Doraemon, he pulled out a jade bracelet from his pocket. This bracelet was quite valuable; Lin Mu had asked a trusted person to buy it for over twenty thousand yuan.
……
Time passed slowly. On New Year's Eve, the family sat around a hot pot, and the Spring Festival Gala was playing on TV.
This year's Spring Festival Gala was exceptionally exciting: the skits included "Not Short of Money" by Zhao Benshan and Xiao Shenyang, and Liu Qian's first appearance on the Spring Festival Gala stage, sparking a nationwide magic craze.
Watching the Spring Festival Gala, Lin Mu couldn't help but recall the fierce battles behind the scenes. Later, there was Alipay's "Collect Five Blessings" campaign and WeChat's red envelope campaign, which ambushed and seized the market. Going back further, in the early days of reform and opening up, major liquor brands soared to prominence by winning the Spring Festival Gala bid.
Lin Mu shook his head. He finally had a break, so he shouldn't think about work anymore.
Just then, the mother suddenly spoke up: "Son, is there a girl you like at work? When are you going to bring her home to meet me?"
Lin Mu sighed helplessly, still urging him to get married during the Lunar New Year: "It'll be soon, no rush."
"Don't talk about whether it's urgent or not, do you have it or not? Tell me the truth." The mother asked with bright eyes.
The father, unable to bear it any longer, stepped in to smooth things over: "Our son has his own ideas. Don't pressure him to get married. Children and grandchildren have their own destinies."
The mother glared at the father and lightly patted him: "I'm his mother, if I'm not worried, who is? Son, if you don't have any, I have plenty of good girls here."
Lin Mu was at his wit's end and quickly said, "Yes, yes, yes, I already have someone I like."
"Really? You must have a photo, right? What does it look like?" The mother was determined to play matchmaker.
Lin Mu had no choice but to think for a moment, then took out his iPhone, found Sheng Mingyue's photo, and handed it over: "Here, this is it."
"Huh? There really is one." The mother took the phone and looked at it, then exclaimed in surprise, "This girl is really pretty, but isn't she a little too old?"
"You only start to care for people when you're older," Lin Mu said.
"So when are you bringing her back?"
Lin Mu pleaded with a pained expression, "Mom, relationships in big cities don't happen that quickly. It's normal to break up and get back together after a few years. I'm only 24 this year, what's the rush?"
The mother complained, "Back in our day, a 24-year-old already had two children."
……
The second day of the Lunar New Year follows the first day of the Lunar New Year. According to local custom, people visit relatives and chat on this day.
Lin Mu prepared Hangzhou specialties, not Hangzhou vinegar fish, but carefully selected online snacks: bread from the Three Little Bees flagship store, Inner Mongolian beef jerky, buffalo milk with extra-delicious flavor, and various nuts.
He packed all these things into a big gift bag and went with his mother to his aunt's house, which was also his mother's older sister's house.
Lin Mu didn't quite understand the relationship between his mother and aunt: at first, the two inevitably compared themselves to each other, but as Lin Mu became more and more outstanding, his aunt gradually stopped caring, and his mother also lost the desire to show off.
My aunt's family was in a mess for various reasons, and my mother started to help them out.
At first, Lin Mu could see the reluctance in his aunt, but later he just felt relieved.
"Oh dear, just come in person, why bring a gift!" The mother and aunt argued about the gift, but in the end the aunt accepted it.
The aunt looked at Lin Mu and asked, "Hey, I heard from your mom that you're working at Alibaba now? How much do you earn in a year?"
Before Lin Mu could speak, his mother interjected, "He got a year-end bonus of 12 yuan this year alone!"
"12?" the aunt exclaimed. "That's incredible! After two years of work, that's enough to buy a shop in a small county town. Being good at studying means you'll have a bright future, unlike my child."
At this point, Auntie got angry, turned around and went into the bedroom, where she saw her cousin still playing computer games. Auntie was furious: "Have you finished your winter vacation homework? You're playing on the computer again! Don't stay up all night to finish it on the last day and then cry to me saying you don't have enough time."
My cousin didn't even look up: "Hey Mom, why are you getting so angry during the New Year? There's still time, I'll give you a miracle on the last day."
The aunt shook her head, looking helpless, and said to Lin Mu, "Hey, Lin Mu, you're good at studying, go and persuade your cousin."
Lin Mu smiled and changed the subject: "I loved to play when I was a kid too. Kids are all like that."
He knew perfectly well that his aunt had asked him to persuade his cousin, not that she really wanted him to teach him, but just to show her attitude.
Lin Mu remembered that his cousin later went to college, majored in computer science, and did quite well, earning over ten thousand yuan a month.
Don't believe what people online always say: a monthly salary of over 10,000 is everywhere, but an annual income of a million is not enough.
In reality, a monthly salary of over 10,000 yuan is already one in ten.
If I tell my cousin to study hard, that programming is a promising career path and that he can get a job at a big company after graduation, he definitely won't listen.
Lin Mu strolled into his cousin's bedroom. His cousin was playing a game on QQ Space, muttering, "Damn it, this piece of junk has reduced my worth to a dollar. I'll beat him up when school starts!"
Seeing his cousin enter, the younger cousin got the urge to perform and deliberately swore a few words. Lin Mu glanced at the screen; the interface was old and full of text. He couldn't recognize what game it was for a moment. In 2009, the internet wasn't very developed, but text-based games were quite popular.
"What are you playing?" Lin Mu asked.
"Friend trading, cousin, you've never played that before?"
Lin Mu suddenly realized that this was also a childhood memory. He then asked, "Is the 'parking space grabbing' game still available?"
"Yes, I'm playing the parking space grabbing game too."
"What about QQ Farm?" QQ Farm was the first national-level game on QQ Space, and later it spawned QQ Ranch, QQ Town, and others. Lin Mu still remembers that when the farm first came out, he would set an alarm to get up in the middle of the night every day to steal his friends' crops. During that time, many strangers added him as a friend just to steal his crops.
My cousin scratched his head, puzzled, and asked, "What is QQ Farm? Is it a mini-game on QQ Space?"
"Huh? It's not released yet?" Lin Mu had forgotten the specific release date of QQ Farm, but a thought suddenly struck him: was this an opportunity? Could he invest and exchange it for some stocks? Even if he couldn't invest, a partnership would be fine too.
A brilliant idea struck him: a collaboration between the Three Little Bees flagship store's star product, soft white bread, and the future QQ Farm. Once users reached a certain level and collected a sufficient number of advanced crops, they could redeem a free box of soft white bread.
Don't be fooled by the fact that it's being given away for free and seems like a losing proposition. QQ Farm is a national-level game, so even if it loses some money in the first few years, it's worth it to gain a national-level buzz and become a popular topic.
Moreover, it's not necessarily a loss. As long as the repurchase rate is high enough, and users who receive free products are converted into repeat customers, after a few cycles, not only can you break even, but you can also make a considerable profit.