"Let\'s eat the cake then, shall we?"

"O—Okay, Jie…" Meng Bao followed my lead, and he served the cheesecakes on the plate. Meng Bao gave me the one with a bigger serving and said, "This one is for you, Jie. I know that you like cheesecake so much."

I saw the bigger slice and somehow felt a bit of warmth in my heart. At least, I knew that Meng Bao was still a good and attentive man, even though he was such an indecisive jerk who played with the hearts of three women at once.

I took the plate and started eating the cheesecake. I thought it\'d be just like another one that I ate almost every weekend, but nope.

The moment I ate it, I could feel such an amazing taste of sweetness and the aftertaste of sour and salt. As if the cheesecake had been methodically created to give such taste instead of regular cake.

I closed my eyes as I savour the cake, "Mmm! Meng Bao, this tastes amazing! Where did you buy this? This cheesecake is amazing!" I praised as I continued eating it..

Meng Bao smiled at me and shook his head, "It\'s not obtainable anywhere, Jie. I just asked my pâtissier to make you one, since you like cheesecake so much. I can always ask him to make more for you later, Jie."

"Pâtissier? What\'s that?" I tilted my head in confusion. Meng Bao mentioned that in French, and even if I translated it in English, I still didn\'t know what that is.

"Uhm… my personal chef to make pastries, dessert, et cetera," Meng Bao answered.

"You have your own pastry chef?"

"Ah! No—No! I mean, he\'s my friend! I\'m not that rich, hehe…"

I raised my eyebrows, then realized that I was the only one who knew that Meng Bao was actually my boss\' son. At first, I thought everything that Meng Bao said was just his fantasy of becoming a rich second generation. Many young people, especially young men around Meng Bao\'s age, always dreamed about becoming a rich second generation with nothing to worry about.

Until reality struck them, of course.

I thought Meng Bao was one of them until I found out about his true identity…

\'Should I give you one unit then?\' that was what Meng Bao said to me once as he visited… well… sneaked into my apartment, which resulted in him getting smashed with my ten kilos grocery and lost his consciousness.

\'Now that I think about it, back then, maybe Meng Bao was actually thinking of giving me this apartment since he\'s hella rich. But now that everything has turned into a mess, especially after so many mistakes I made. I cannot ask him to give me this apartment, can I?\'

\'Aish, Shi Ying, you really wasted a golden chance of owning an apartment!\' I cursed at myself for such missed chance. Bad luck really followed me in my life. It made me wonder if I had done something so evil in my past life or in my childhood.

\'Did I do something wrong back then? I think, other than scamming Mengmeng out of her money, I didn\'t do much.\'

…

\'Shit, how much money have I scammed out of Mengmeng again?\'

Yes, I\'ve scammed Mengmeng a lot of time when we were just kids. Mengmeng was very gullible but a crazy rich second generation. She has a lot of money given by her busy parents, but she never actually used it, as she also gets everything that she needs in her grandma\'s house.

So there was no need for her parents to give that much money in the first place. Though, Mengmeng said that the money was how her parents showed that they still cared about her. At least, they were giving what they had the most, money.

The little evil me think that Mengmeng never needs this much money, while I struggled so much with my family\'s debt.

My uncle was a gambling addict. It started when he was young when I was around seven years old. He started gambling to reduce the stress of his office work since he was actually educated, unlike my dad, who was the older sibling. Thus my late grandparents didn\'t have enough money to school their older son.

Thus, my dad became a small farmer who took care of my late grandpa\'s farm. In contrast, my uncle became the village administrator hired by the government after he finished his study.

My uncle was technically richer than my dad, and he was well respected in the village. He also married a beautiful woman and had a daughter, my little cousin, Shi Yanyue.

But it didn\'t seem to be enough for him, as he got bored and stressed about his job, he started gambling which soon turned into an addiction. He sold his house, his wife\'s jewellery and even drained the family\'s savings.

His wife soon left him, and my uncle returned to live with his elder brother, my dad, because he sold his house.

My dad thought it would be for a few months until my uncle got back on his feet.

Who would\'ve expected that he stole our money and pawned the farmland certificate? After he got caught, he ran away, leaving millions of yuan of debt and a farmland that they needed to take back. He also left poor little Yanyue to us, so that\'s one more mouth to feed.

That was why my dad had to work as a transporter for a few years from one village to another, and I, as the oldest child, always helped him every day after school.

And meeting Mengmeng was like a blessing in disguise for me because Mengmeng was cute and funny, so it lifted my tiredness whenever I met her.

And also, because she was rich as heck, hehe.

Mengmeng was oblivious. Being a sheltered princess for so long, she didn\'t know much about what\'s truly happening outside, including how much money needed to buy things. She didn\'t even know that a thousand yuan could be the livelihood of some families!

She even said to me once that she made lots of paper ship from 100 Yuan bill!

So, the little practical and evil inside me had been awakened when I saw Mengmeng was holding a 6000 Yuan like holding a bunch of toilet paper. She was holding it carelessly.

---

\'M—Mengmeng, how did you get so much money?\'

\'Ah, this?\' Mengmeng raised her hands to show the money she was holding. I gulped when I saw that staggering amount of money she was holding. That amount was enough for my family to live for months!

\'My dad sent me this yesterday. I don\'t know why did he send me so much money. I don\'t need it anyway…\' Mengmeng said. She pouted and sulked, \'I don\'t need this paper! All I need is for him and mum to come and play with me!\'

I realized that Mengmeng had a lot of money but was very lonely since nobody played with her. So the money-hungry version of me kept eyeing the money and said, \'Mengmeng, how about you give me that money, in exchange, I will accompany you often here.\'

\'Really?!\' Mengmeng\'s face brightened as she hurriedly shoved the money on my chest. \'Here, Jie! Batman-Jie promise Mengmeng to play often, okay? I will give you more as long as you play with me! I have the whole box filled with this useless thing! My dad always sent me so much that even my grandma only chuckled when I said I just wanted to burn it away!\'

…

\'Damn you rich people.\' I cursed in my heart.

---

After remembering how many times I had scammed Mengmeng out of her money, I finally realized that the bad karma turned into series of bad luck in my life. Mengmeng must be cursing me right now because she stupidly gave me so much money for nothing.

I glanced at Meng Bao and started imagining the impossible in my head,

\'What if Meng Bao is actually Mengmeng but had sex-change surgery, and he returned back to my life to avenge for all that I\'ve done to him back then. Bad luck really follows me everywhere if that\'s actually what happened.\'

\'I mean, surely, Mengmeng will recognize me immediately, right? I said to her that…

\'If we are actually a match made in heaven, connected by a red thread of fate, then Mengmeng will find me again even after years of not knowing. Because our heart is simply connected.\'

\'I mean… my attraction to Meng Bao is genuine…\'

\'Either he\'s Mengmeng after sex-change surgery, or Mengmeng and I are actually not a match. We\'re nothing more than just childhood friends bound by our situation.\'

…

\'Aish, thinking about hard stuff makes me dizzy for some reason.\'

I continued eating the absolutely delicious cheesecake as I pondered over that ridiculous idea over and over until Meng Bao suddenly called me,

"Ying Jie, why are you dazed? What are you thinking about?"