If, at the beginning of the night, Chen Ting was only pretending to be drunk, she was genuinely drunk by the end—and so was he.

After showering, they finished the two bottles of red wine Chen Ting treasured. When they woke up, they were in the same bed, under the same blanket. Crucially, they were both naked. Did anyone really need to spell out what had happened?

Drinking really leads to trouble! Yi Anguo thought.

He had always been on guard around Chen Ting. He knew she wasn't like other girls—she was the precious daughter of the Chen corporate empire, not someone to be trifled with or taken lightly. Fearing the responsibility, Yi Anguo had always kept his distance from her.

But now, it seems I've finally fallen into her trap. She got her way. So what should I do next? Marry her?

Yi Anguo was clearly unwilling. If he had been, they would have married a long time ago; there would have been no need to delay until now.

Just as Yi Anguo was pondering how to handle the situation, Chen Ting woke up, and their eyes met.

"You're awake!" Yi Anguo said with a smile, greeting Chen Ting, who was still lying in his arms.

"Brother Landlord! You're not mad at me, are you?" Chen Ting asked, her voice once again coquettishly sweet.

"What's the use of being angry with you now? What's done is done, and it can't be changed. It's no use crying over spilled milk," Yi Anguo said with a bitter smile.

"Hehe! As long as you're not angry, it's all good. I'll take responsibility for you," Chen Ting chuckled, relieved to see that he wasn't mad at her.

"Alright. Then how do you plan to take responsibility for me?" Yi Anguo asked.

"How about I marry you and have a bunch of kids for you?" Chen Ting suggested after a moment of thought.

"That's your idea of taking responsibility for me!" Yi Anguo said in frustration.

"Chen Ting, there's something I have to tell you. Hu Jing is pregnant, so I can't agree to marry you at this time," Yi Anguo said with the utmost seriousness.

Chen Ting was stunned to hear this; she truly hadn't known.

"I know you don't want to get married and don't want to hurt the women in your life. I've thought it through, and I've realized that marriage is just a formality. If your heart isn't with me, if you don't love me, then what's the point of getting married?" Chen Ting reasoned with frankness. "If you hold me in your heart, if you see me as your woman and your lover, then it's the same whether we're married or not."

"However, while marriage isn't important, I must have a child. That is very important to me."

"You wanting a child isn't an issue. In the future, it doesn't matter if the child stays with you or with me. It's not like we can't afford to raise them!" Yi Anguo's mood brightened upon hearing Chen Ting drop her demand for marriage, and he spoke with a smile. "How about I give you a child right now?"

Just as Yi Anguo was about to roll on top of her, Chen Ting cried out in pain.

"How about we wait until next time? After you've had a chance to recover," Yi Anguo said, not wanting to be hasty.

"It's fine! I can bear it. I hear it's easier to get pregnant the first time," Chen Ting insisted, not wanting to let the opportunity pass.

「...」

In the blink of an eye, it was the Spring Festival again. Yi Haiyang's family all went home for the celebration. Third Sister and her family went home this year as well. Her brother-in-law's parents were still alive, and since the family hadn't visited the previous year, it would have been improper not to go this time. Their daughter, Yi Anguo's eldest niece Fu Huanhuan, would of course be going back with them.

In the end, the ones who stayed behind were Hu Jing and Ding Jing, along with Ding Jing's daughter. They were joined by Li Sisi and her two sisters.

Luckily, the Spring Festival holiday was at most half a month long, and it passed in a flash.

Chuan Yu Restaurant's New Year's Eve dinner special was quickly booked solid, proving the business was booming.

Li Sisi was already planning to open a new branch. She wanted to turn Chuan Yu Restaurant into a franchise brand for Sichuan and Chongqing cuisine. Yi Anguo certainly had no objections. He had always allowed his women to develop freely, and if they needed financial support, all they had to do was ask. He never subscribed to the idea that one should be wary of a woman growing her own wings and flying away. Even if one of them truly wanted to leave him, he wouldn't stand in her way. After all, if he couldn't meet her needs and give her marriage, what right did he have to stop her from seeking her own happiness?

Fortunately, so far, nothing of the sort had happened.

After a year of development, the number of Anjing Convenience Store franchises had grown to sixty-six, and all of them had reached their expected profit targets. There were also nine directly-operated Anjing stores. These were generally larger than the average franchise, with the smallest having a business area of over one hundred square meters. In fact, a larger footprint was very advantageous for a convenience store; a larger business area meant better business and higher daily sales. However, for a larger store, location was crucial. Otherwise, a bigger space simply became a bigger burden. Some locations have a fixed customer base; if you increase the store size, the rent goes up, but sales don't increase accordingly. In such places, thirty to forty square meters was about right. By reducing the store's footprint without affecting sales, expenses were cut, and profits remained relatively high.

Location was key for any franchise convenience store. Anjing Trading Company had a professional team to help prospective franchisees with site selection, ensuring they could earn a sufficient profit after opening. The philosophy was to make every new franchise a success, not to develop franchises without principles just to collect the fees. If you bring on ten franchisees and less than half of them survive, your brand's value will be lost. When you try to expand in the future, no one will trust you. After all, if they see your branded stores closing down one after another, who would be willing to invest? Therefore, it was better to grow slowly and ensure that every new franchise was a viable one. To protect the interests of the franchisees, there could never be two Anjing Convenience Stores right next to each other in the same area.

The Anjing Convenience Store franchise model was becoming more and more mature. For 2006, Hu Jing's development plan was to establish over three hundred stores, striving to achieve the goal of adding one new franchise store per day.

After the New Year, the third Guohui Fresh Supermarket was also set to open. Meanwhile, Third Sister, who ran her own fruit shop, was also following a chain store model. Her third fruit shop had already opened ahead of the fresh supermarket. Not only that, but she had also bought two apartments, each over one hundred square meters, as she was planning to have a second child and wanted a home for each of them.

After the New Year, an electronic computer technology company called An Country was quietly registered. The company had just been established when it received ten million US dollars in venture capital.

Building an e-commerce website wasn't particularly difficult; many internet technicians had the skills. The hard part was surviving. Yi Anguo named his online retail platform the Anjing Online Supermarket. The name was chosen to create a complementary relationship with the brick-and-mortar Anjing Convenience Stores. The goal was for people to think of the Anjing Online Supermarket whenever they saw an Anjing Convenience Store, and vice versa.

At the same time, while planning the warehouse and logistics centers, Yi Anguo figured he might as well set up physical, offline Anjing Supermarket stores too, since it wouldn't interfere with anything. The concept of a building serving as both a distribution hub and a warehouse supermarket was a good one, killing two birds with one stone.

However, since building his own warehouses and distribution centers required a large investment, progress would not be quick. Yi Anguo wasn't in a hurry; good things take time. Before the website could officially launch, there was still a lot of work to be done, such as site testing and advertising.

But Yi Anguo always felt like he had forgotten something, though for the moment, he couldn't recall what it was.

The memory was finally jogged when a computer programmer, rushing in for an interview, complained about his bad luck. He'd been pickpocketed on the crowded bus.

That's when Yi Anguo suddenly remembered. The payment system. He had actually forgotten about the payment system!

The most critical element of an online supermarket was its payment system. Why had Taobao struggled in the beginning? It was because they didn't have their own payment system. Netizens didn't trust the merchants, fearing they would pay but never receive their goods. The merchants didn't trust the customers either, fearing they would receive the goods but refuse to pay. Everyone distrusted each other. That was why they had been forced to create their own proprietary payment system.

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