Chapter 52: I still rely on my sister to protect me.

Qin Yun was utterly stupefied.

Qin Fei was also dumbfounded.

Lost, all lost—more than a million gone just like that? Didn’t he even think to set some aside?

Qin Hongfei, too, was looking at her cousin with a strange expression—reckless, truly reckless!

Now she finally understood why every time relatives mentioned Xia Shangxu, they would only shake their heads and sigh. People in this era valued living a steady life, rising with the sun for work and resting at sunset. In their minds, business always carried the risk of loss, so most shunned it altogether.

Not only did Xia Shangxu dive into business, he relished adventure, wanted a piece of everything, and in the eyes of his cautious relatives, he was a fool. With a million in hand, he could have lived comfortably—house, car, a lovely wife—yet he threw it all into the stock market and lost everything. No wonder his reputation had suffered.

But looking at it from another angle, Qin Hongfei thought Xia Shangxu was truly daring!

To make money and spend it in business was, in truth, nothing unusual—it was only a matter of whether one could stomach the risks and setbacks.

Qin Yun asked, astonished, “Cousin, you lost all the money—how did you survive after that?” Wasn’t he beaten half to death by his family?

Xia Shangxu replied nonchalantly that he had barely survived. “I made it thanks to my sister’s protection.”

After blowing through more than a million and winding up in debt, his parents thought he’d gone astray and gave him a brutal beating—tied him up and nearly beat him to death. Every relative in the family cursed and blamed him; only Qin’s mother stepped up to defend him, the sole person to speak on his behalf.

He had earned the money, and if it was spent, then so be it. It was only returning to square one—what of it?

Even so, Xia Shangxu was thrown out of the house. During that time, it was his cousin who supported him, helping him through the worst and allowing him to pay off his debts. Of course, Xia Shangxu was grateful, and after overcoming his difficulties, he continued to support Qin’s mother and her daughters. Otherwise, with all the Qin family’s debts, they would have been crushed long ago.

Because of all this, Xia Shangxu’s relationship with his family was fraught and tense.

If not for his close bond with his cousin, and knowing she would turn to him in times of need, he wouldn’t have come back at all. Thinking of Qin’s mother and the two cousins’ situation, he frowned as well. “One hundred and fifty thousand… I’ll see what I can do to help you scrape it together…” It would be tough, but he’d try.

“Didn’t you want to use that money for business?” Qin Hongfei asked. “If you lend it to us, how will you do business?”

“I was hesitating anyway,” Xia Shangxu replied lazily. “A friend of mine wants to get into home appliances—you know, TVs and such, but it takes a lot of capital. Renting a shop and buying stock would cost at least a few hundred thousand. My thought was to try some wholesale, but he wants to go big right away, so we’d need at least three hundred thousand up front.” The home appliance market was already fiercely competitive by now, and to him, it seemed reckless—trying to jump in without any experience. He only dared enter the taxi business before because he knew the ropes.

But he’d never dipped a toe into electronics. Sinking hundreds of thousands into it… Electronics weren’t as easy to resell as cars.

What would they do if they lost it all? Reckless fool, idiot.

He grumbled quietly to himself.

Meanwhile, Qin Hongfei’s eyes lit up. “Cousin, I have an idea. Why don’t we go into business together? What do you think about opening an internet café?”

Everyone at the table was dumbstruck.

An internet café?

She really dared to dream.

Shouben, oblivious to their conversation, burst out laughing at this, “Idiot, do you have any idea how much it costs to open an internet café?”

Xia Shangxu nodded in agreement. “That’s right, opening an internet café is expensive—computers cost way more than TVs, cousin!”

A single computer cost ten thousand. Outfitting a café with fifty machines would be five hundred thousand, right there.

And that’s just for the computers.

Computers were even harder to sell off than televisions—luxury items.

He had just finished cursing that reckless fool—now his cousin was getting swept up in the madness too.