Damn it, I'm surrounded by childhood sweethearts-Chapter 390 - 284. Can’t let others have my brother!_2

"Ones tens hundreds thousands... tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, Xu Qingfan, how did you get so many fans?" Xia Xiaoxiao said incredulously after counting on her fingers.

Xu Qingfan blinked his eyes. He had considered that sports bettors could be crazy, but he had not anticipated them going to such extremes.

Clearly, even Xu Qingfan had underestimated the impact of those few Weibo posts. Keep in mind that it was still 2010, and entertainment gossip was scarce. His brain-dead move of betting a million on Switzerland’s victory had already gone viral, and now that he had actually won, how could people not go wild?

Although the money Xu Qingfan won wouldn’t be shared with them, the World Cup wasn’t over yet. As long as the ’soccer genius’ continued to speak up, they were set on following his lead!

Worried that the webpage might crash and hang again soon, Xu Qingfan didn’t check the comments right away. Instead, he opened a text document on his desktop and copied and pasted the thousand-word article he had prepared ahead of time.

The gist of the article was that he, ’Affectionate Bro’, was just an ordinary football fan who loved the game. The only reason he had spent a million on Switzerland’s victory was because netizens didn’t believe him, and he had, in a fit of pique, wanted to prove himself.

Now that the results were out, ’Affectionate Bro’ deserved the title of the universe’s number one soccer expert. And he would not take a penny of the ten million he won; instead, he would entrust Good Taste Takeout to establish a charity fund to build 100 Hope Schools in impoverished mountain areas, giving every left-behind child the chance to leave the mountains and witness the beautiful vastness of the motherland!

Finally, he manually tagged Good Taste Takeout, confirmed there were no errors, and clicked send.

"Alright, time for bed," Xu Qingfan said, clapping his hands after sorting all of this out. It was almost half past midnight, and he felt a sense of relief as if he had fulfilled his duty and could now fade into obscurity.

Xia Xiaoxiao wasn’t listening, though; she was just giddily staring at her phone.

Xu Qingfan leaned over to see what she was looking at and noticed that the girl was scrolling through the comments section of his million-yuan lottery Weibo post.

The comments were almost exclusively "I’m the fool, not the soccer expert," with a few calling him ’Dad’. There were not many calling him ’hubby’, however.

In 2010, girls were still quite reserved; they wouldn’t casually shout on the internet, "Hubby, I want to bear your monkeys," or "Great god, please support me."

If it were a few years later, his private messages would already be flooded with risqué photos by now.

"These people really have no shame. They were all cursing you earlier, and now they’re shouting ’Dad’." Despite Xia Xiaoxiao’s usual teasing of him, she wouldn’t stand for anyone speaking half a bad word against her ’stinky dog’.

"It’s the internet, normal stuff. Who knows whether it’s a person or a dog on the other side," Xu Qingfan said, recalling the comments he had seen in Zhang Chunxue’s office that day. He really wanted to find that comment and challenge the commenter, asking if they knew now who was the person and who was the dog.

But he wasn’t idle enough to be so bothered. "Go back to sleep. Look how late it is. A girl running to my bedroom in the middle of the night, what if I’m taken advantage of!"

After hearing the second half of his sentence, Xia Xiaoxiao’s eyes widened in shock. She clenched her fist and gave him a punch, "Shameless! What disadvantage have you suffered? It’s clearly me who’s at a loss!"

[You’ve taken advantage of me twice already, you dead pervert, you stinky lecher!]

"How can I not be at a disadvantage? Boys need to protect themselves when they’re out and about. What do you want to do? Don’t come any closer!" Xu Qingfan acted out the part fully, covering his chest as though he were about to be violated, and retreated towards the head of the bed.

"Pfft—Idiot!" Xia Xiaoxiao held back her laughter, gave him a glare, and then got up to leave.

"By the way, aren’t you too excited about winning all that money to sleep?" She suddenly turned her head to ask him before leaving the room.

Xu Qingfan tilted his head, "A lot of money? Doesn’t seem like much to me, I think it’s okay?"

Xia Xiaoxiao: ...

Updat𝓮d fr𝙤m ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com.

"Good night."

"You too, good night. Sleep early and don’t stay up late playing games."

"Hmph—"

After Xia Xiaoxiao left, Xu Qingfan kicked off his slippers and lay down on the bed. If nothing out of the ordinary happened, Aunt Zhang would have already uploaded the press release to Weibo. After letting the situation ferment for another day, by tomorrow night, he could start funneling traffic to Good Taste Takeout.

Moreover, he hadn’t expected the Weibo post to be this effective. "Maybe I could collaborate with Weibo’s official team?" he mused aloud in his room.

He felt that he shouldn’t let Sina Weibo benefit from this surging traffic so easily. If Sina Weibo didn’t collaborate, he could simply work with its competitor, Tencent Weibo, to see if that would make them anxious!

But the specifics of running the business still needed Aunt Zhang’s touch, he could only be a Zhao Kuo, a mere armchair strategist.

"Auntie, Auntie, the best in the world!"

Xu Qingfan read the slogan again, he unlocked his phone and checked the time, it was 12:30 a.m. on the 17th.

It has been 26 hours, 30 minutes and 8 seconds since he last saw Aunt Zhang, he missed her.

...

The night passed without incident.

The next day, Zhang Chunxue’s Maybach was parked in front of Lianhua Courtyard early in the morning. After picking up Xu Qingfan, they hurried away.

"Auntie, am I awesome or what?" The first thing Xu Qingfan said after boarding the car was to praise himself, his proud head held high, mimicking Wang Youcheng’s gesture from the TV show "Shining Sword."

Zhang Chunxue’s eyebrows furrowed slightly as she raised her hand and knocked on his head, "Yiyi, tell him how awesome his brother is... and don’t use such vulgar vocabulary!"

"Yiyi is here too?" Xu Qingfan turned around and noticed that Zhang Yiyi was sitting in the back seat of the Maybach, "Why didn’t Wanning come with you?"

"Wanning went back to the countryside with Uncle and Auntie." Zhang Yiyi’s smile was as light as ever, she didn’t seem the slightest bit upset that her brother was concerned about Wanning first and foremost.

"Oh, I see, they were supposed to go back these days." Xu Qingfan nodded, not dwelling on the matter further.

Last year, Lin Wanning’s grandfather passed away, and according to local customs, it was time to return and pay homage in the second year.

"So, how awesome am I... right?" Seeing Zhang Chunxue raising her right hand again, Xu Qingfan quickly changed his choice of words.

Zhang Chunxue switched from hitting to rubbing his head and said with a chuckle, "Now I know our Xiao Fan is something else. Just this morning, several people have been looking for me, wanting to do a feature interview with you. Are you interested?"

"Will it be of any benefit to our company?"

Zhang Chunxue withdrew her hand and pondered, "Maybe a little, but not much. The current traffic is already sizable. When we get out of the car, Auntie will reward you with a kiss."

"Perfect timing, I’ve also learned how to give head massages, I’ll give you one later," he said, not forgetting the young girl behind him, "and I’ll give Yiyi one too."

"Thank you, brother!"

"I appreciate the thought, Auntie doesn’t care how you knew Switzerland would win, but just this once. After all, these things boil down to gambling, which isn’t bad, but the premise is you must accurately know your chances of winning," Zhang Chunxue said, resting her hand on his head again, teaching him.

From Zhang Chunxue’s perspective, manipulation of matches by betting companies is common, soccer betting is inherently unfair, just a ruse to fool onlookers into giving their attention. But because of the marketing plan that Xu Qingfan proposed, which was quite good, even if they lost the bet, they would still gain some traffic from the spectacle of fools, thus it wasn’t a losing deal.

Xu Qingfan really wanted to say he was a hundred percent confident, but he couldn’t explain it to her, so he just nodded and replied, "Understood, Auntie, just this once!"

Zhang Chunxue was pleased with his response, there wasn’t a hint of a child’s eagerness to prove himself, he very much had the composure she herself had when she was young.

[I’m such a good teacher!]

Zhang Yiyi sat quietly in the backseat, listening to her brother chat with her mother. Somehow, she felt that the three of them in the car were like a warm and affectionate family.

A gentle and well-behaved sister, a clever and lively brother, and a loving and tolerant mother, they were indeed a happy and warm family of three!

Zhang Yiyi had wanted to sit in the back to be close to her brother, but she was quite content with the current arrangement too. She could watch her mother and brother talk from behind, Yiyi was a girl easily contented after all!

[I must not let anyone else have my brother!] In order to protect this warmth, the young girl solemnly vowed in her heart.

Moon Ticket Extra: (2/5)