CH004

The country's economy had just gained traction and was still struggling to gain an advantage against the rest of the world.

One could say that the results of the previous 30 years of Industrialization were just starting to bear fruit and the people had yet to truly gain from it.

That was why, even someone as rich as An Xing'er and Fatty Tang were also going to public schools. There had yet to be a major difference between the rich and the poor. In short, the country was still confused, and therein lay countless opportunities.

The real change only started being felt in the late 2010s and Lu Fan was going to exploit these 'changes'.

The other reason he needed to think about ways of making money was that Bitcoins were going to hit the market soon. If he remembered correctly, the first transaction was in August 2010. And that date just aligned perfectly with his holiday.

At that time, he was too absorbed in cramming for entrance exams that he paid Fatty Tang no heed when he tried to pull him to buy a couple of bitcoins.

Now that he thought about it, maybe he was right to refuse.

Fatty Tang was evilly rich. At least his family was.

His father mainly dealt with metals and he was basically in charge of 60% of the metal dealings in the province.

It was all complicated, but what Lu Fan was sure was that even if the Metal Business failed, his mother's real estate would still feed him for decades.

He, on the other hand, had to tread carefully, cautious of everything not to fail his mother's expectations. It was not easy being a single mother in this era.

"It's decided, I will scam these two for the start-up capital."

Many of the ideas that would fit with this time required some solid capital. He could hardly find anything that required skill alone like in the 2020s. There were also no AIs to exploit like in the 2030s.

He could only think of a couple of ideas that were feasible during this period.

As for borrowing directly to buy Bitcoins, that was unrealistic. What was he going to say? People were not stupid.

Someone like An Xing'er would not refuse him, but after that, there was basically no chance of getting together.

Leaving the fact that her identity as a rich lady was still up in the air, just thinking about going to her to borrow money made him despise himself, let alone her.

As for Fatty Tang, he was just unreliable and impatient.

The Bitcoin idea he had back then was just something he did for fun at the time. He never expected it to be his long-term investment venture.

They were only a couple of yuan anyway, so why not? But if Lu Fan really took the matter seriously and looked for him to invest in this 'new thing', Lu Fan was sure that it would backfire.

It might even make Fatty Wang rethink his decision.

What he needed to do now was find a way to make An Xing'er willing to listen to him obediently, and for Fatty Wang to trust his business acumen.

And Lu Fan already had a couple of ideas that could work, now, he just had to plan carefully and see what would work and at what time.

…

Lu Fan looked at the time and was shocked by how much time passed just pondering on these airy things.

He hurriedly changed into more casual clothes and headed to the Kitchen to start preparing dinner.

His mother worked all day and hardly had any time to care for what she ate.

If Lu Fan did not go out of his way to make proper meals for her, he was sure that she would only eat hotpot for all three meals. And that was assuming she even remembered to.

While hotpot was okay, it was unrealistic and unhealthy to have it for every meal every day.

Looking through the ingredients left in the fridge, Lu Fan settled for a simple shredded sweet and sour pork.

It was a rather easy dish to prepare and quite fast.

He started with prepping the rice and the [Cooking +5] tag popped up. He was getting the hang of how this cheat of his worked.

Washing rice was not enough to warrant a +5 attribute, but he still had the memories and it was not his first time cooking.

He was even a little expectant that the attribute would go up as he continued cooking, but he did not have that much luxury.

Cooking was one of the tasks that each step determined the overall result of the dish. It was unrealistic to wait for the attributes to catch up to his true level. He might as well just level up directly.

Thinking up to here, Lu Fan directly started adding attributes to the [cooking] and it stopped when the attributes hit +100. The tag directly went to the top and became a talent but its color remained white.

This change shocked Lu Fan but he did not have time to ponder on it because something more amazing was happening.

He could feel a change happening to him as memories and experiences of cooking appeared in his mind and it seemed like it was not just his memories that changed.

He could feel his arm muscles tense and become denser. You could think that he had been flipping woks for hundreds of years if you'd not known better.

The kitchen became more familiar and he felt very comfortable there. But that also made him frown every now and then.

Things that he had previously never noticed became glaring to him. Something like the ventilation or even the position of the fridge and the sink. They were all wrong.

Feeling his emotions going out of control, Lu Fan closed his eyes to settle himself. This was not a professional kitchen, and even if it was, it was not anyone's fault that things were like this.

This was a rented house to begin with. It was better to make do with this for now until he could change it.

Settling his thoughts, Lu Fan went back to making lunch. He made a little extra for the part-time workers. There was no other way around it. He was sure that the dish would cause a fight otherwise.