Chapter 20: Striking it Rich

  "I... have struck it rich!!! According to reason, a soul that has been around for over a decade should have seen its fair share of big things. In the next ten years, whether it's a massive earthquake or a huge scandal, Zhou Xiao already knew about these things long ago."

  However... Zhou Xiaoguo's luck over the past few days hasn't been great.

  At first, he only had thirty yuan on him. Later, he earned some money intermittently, but it was still not enough to cover his basic expenses for a month. Even the most essential things like food and shelter were barely guaranteed. As for clothes and travel, he couldn't bear to spend a single penny on them. It can be said that if there's an award for the person who suffered the most after crossing over, Zhou Xiao might not win first place, but making it into the top eight would be no problem at all.

  In these few short days, not to mention anything else, just his attitude towards work and money has undergone a huge transformation. The former Zhou Xiao was also a member of the lower class in society, but at least he had no worries about food and clothing, and had enough hobbies and interests, although these hobbies may not have been high-end, at least they did not involve a strong pursuit of wealth.

  After being a poor man in Tokyo for several days, Zhou Xiao's entire idea changed a lot. He wanted to make money, not because he liked money particularly, but his nature was still someone who didn't have a big concept of money. However, he really wanted to make money because he extremely hated the current life where even having enough food for the next day was a problem!

  With little money in hand and an increasing desire for it, how could Zhou Xiao not be excited to see the elegant woman with a ponytail give him almost all the money in her purse?

  "Thank you! Thank you everyone!" Zhou Xiao smiled politely at the generous audience around her, and when the horse-tailed woman put down the money, Zhou Xiao quickly stood up and said: "No, this is too much, you've given me too much."

  Polite and sincere behavior made many people around her feel good, although they didn't know that Zhou Xiao's heart was so happy it was about to bloom. They also definitely wouldn't know that when Zhou Xiao refused with her mouth, in her heart she was repeatedly muttering: "I'm just being polite, you won't take it seriously, right!? It's really just politeness! Wow, I see several 10,000-yuan bills! Is it really 10,000 yuan?! I've only seen that on TV before!"

  "No, this is what you deserve, the song sounds good and it's sung well too, I'm the one who should be embarrassed, because that's all I have to offer!" The woman said. Her voice was very soft, just like her plain appearance.

  "It's not as good as you said, thank you so much!" Zhou Xiao scratched his head and said with a embarrassed expression. As for refusing the other party? It's enough to say it once, saying more would make people think he really wanted to take back a few.

  "No, it's really good! I'm also a singer, and your song is truly amazing! It moved me!" the woman said.

  "Th... thank you! This money is a great help to me!" said Zhou Xiao.

  "It's me who should be thanking you!" the woman said.

  After another round of polite but insincere exchanges, the woman finally turned and left the subway station.

  Zhou Xiao also lost interest in continuing to sing here, or maybe he still had interest, but with the guitar case containing tens of thousands of yen, if he could continue to sing without changing his expression, then it would really be worth the money.

  After picking up her things, Zhou Xiao hastily walked out of the subway station.

  He stood at the subway station entrance for a full 30 seconds, hesitating. In the end, he gritted his teeth and stomped his foot, not hailing a taxi, but instead walking back home once again!

  What he didn't know was that more than an hour after he left the subway station, the ponytailed woman wearing sunglasses rushed back to where he had just been busking.

  "Huh? Gone! How did it just go?! Damn it! Stupid!" The woman said, stomping her foot in frustration.

  "Big sister, he's just a street performer, is he really as good as you say?" the man who came with the woman asked.

  "That's for sure! Do you doubt my musical taste? The little guy's singing isn't that great, and the arrangement is only so-so, but it can't hide the quality of the song! I think that song definitely won't be just a folk guitar song, if it were rearranged into punk rock, that would probably be its final form! Ah, what a pity, if we don't sign him, he might get snatched up by another company!" Actually, when the woman was saying these things, her tone and pitch were still very gentle, but perhaps because she was too familiar with the person next to her, so the content of her speech seemed quite direct.

  The woman still didn't give up, pulling the people around her to circle the subway station several times, asking several people, until she heard that "these days he comes every day, basically singing for one or two hours before leaving" and finally gave up, leaving Gaoyuan Temple Subway Station with three steps and two looks back.

  Zhou Xiao rushed back home and entered the room, then he sat down on the floor in a hurry, putting the guitar case on the ground. After taking a deep breath, Zhou Xiao solemnly opened the guitar case!

  These days, his most important production tool, the guitar, was thrown aside by him without saying a word. Zhou Xiao looked down at the guitar case, thinking that every time he went out to perform, he could only see one or two thousand yuan in the guitar case. There was even a day when, after two hours had passed, he only received 150 yuan, a number that couldn't even buy a bowl of the cheapest ramen noodles. Why did Zhou Xiao agree to work as a temporary worker at the TV station? It's because making money by singing is too unstable! He has had experiences where he earned 150 yuan for two hours, and also experiences where one song earned him tens of thousands of yuan!

  Looking at the guitar case filled with a small layer of yen, Zhou Xiao felt that he was as rich as the richest man in the world at this moment!

  "A million...!" The large sum of money in the guitar case stood out so strikingly.

  "Two... hundred thousand!" Another ten-thousand-yuan bill jumped out of the pile of money by Zhou Xiao.

  "Three... hundred thousand!" Zhou Xiao's hand was like a claw machine, and for the third time, she picked out a 100,000 yuan bill!

  "What a rich lady!" Zhou Xiao thought to himself. He saw clearly that the three 10,000-yuan bills were all given by the ponytailed woman. Although 30,000 yuan wasn't a lot of money, its purchasing power was not small either. The fact that she could give all this money to a stranger who had just sung one song was enough to prove that the woman was absolutely not poor!

  After thirty thousand, there was still a lot of loose change in the guitar case. Zhou Xiao counted it like a miser, arranging all the money neatly, and the final number made him laugh so hard he could hardly close his mouth!

  40,080 yen! Adding that to the money I earned from singing a few days ago, at least this month's rent is covered, and Zhou Xiao doesn't have to worry too much!

  "So happy......" Zhou Xiao pounced on the neatly arranged yen, this amount of money could only help him pay his rent, but earning so much in just one day still made him ecstatic.

  "If I could make this much money singing every day, I wouldn't want to look for another job." Zhou Xiao said somewhat dazedly.

  Of course, he just said that, after these days of selling songs, he has already earned a lot of money, and in his heart, having a stable short-term job is very important, as long as this way, he can have enough time to do other things until he becomes famous.

  "I also don't know how Uncle Inoue's work is going, and whether he can help me find a job too..." Zhou Xiao thought to herself as she lay on the tatami mat.

  "Dong------zha zha zha......" Just as he was lost in thought, a vague noise suddenly sounded above his head.

  "What?" Zhou Xiao was surprised.

  For the past few days, he had not given up on finding the owner of the little innerwear that helped him perform successfully. However, when he knocked on the doors of the residents upstairs, all the households were eventually ruled out as the owner of the little innerwear, except for one family living in the topmost room of Zhou Xiao's building.

  It wasn't that Zhou Xiao knew about the situation of this house, but rather that no one had returned to this house for several days, and he had never heard any sounds coming from above.

  "But today, has the master of this house finally returned?"

  Zhou Xiao looked at her own performance after washing and thought about the small underwear placed in the corner.

  "I've heard Japanese girls are very open-minded, could this be the start of a romantic encounter...?"