Zhang Lu initially found the accounting exciting and was full of energy, but after calculating a little more than halfway through, she already felt the monotony.

She pouted at Cen Huaian, “Uncle is so sly; I’ll never help him with accounting again.”

Cen Huaian reached out to her, “You don’t want to do it for me, do you?”

Although the numbers were jumbled in his mind, it wasn’t difficult for Cen Huaian; relying on mental math, he quickly organized everything.

Zhang Lu shook her head and patted her forehead to keep herself focused, saying, “We agreed to do this together; I can’t let you do all the work.”

She looked down and continued calculating, while the electronic calculator next to her beeped with its mechanical sound.

Cen Huaian glanced at her and seriously focused on the ledger on his desk.

When Bangzi and the others had done their accounting, Chuxia had taught Cen Huaian how to use tables to make the numbers clearer.

So this time, while calculating for Jiang Zhida’s video store, he also organized the accounts using a table.

The ledger covered just the last month; although there were a few more stores, Cen Huaian and Zhang Lu didn’t take long to finish the calculations.

When they handed the ledger to Jiang Zhida, he raised an eyebrow in surprise, not expecting the two kids to finish the accounting so quickly.

“Where’s Weixian? Didn’t he do the calculations with you?”

Zhang Lu explained, “He had a lot of homework assigned by his mom. Since An An and I could finish it, we didn’t ask him for help.”

Jiang Zhida rubbed the heads of the two, “Let me take a look.”

Upon seeing the neatly organized ledger in front of him, Jiang Zhida’s eyes sparkled with admiration.

“Whose idea was this table? The data looks really good!”

Zhang Lu immediately took pride in Cen Huaian, “It was An An! Uncle, isn’t An An amazing?”

Jiang Zhida gave Cen Huai An a thumbs up, “Very impressive; he’s on par with the professional accountants I have under me.”

He looked down at the ledger, flipping through each page, and saw the marks made by Cen Huaian, clearly indicating where the numbers didn’t match and where there were issues.

Meanwhile, Cen Huaian and Zhang Lu were off to the side working on exercises, discussing problems from their math competition class.

This year, Zhang Lu also wanted to participate in the National High School Mathematics Competition, so she had been preparing all summer, practicing various types of problems.

After school started, she worked hard in her math competition class and wasn’t the careless person she used to be.

Her friends were surprised by her transformation, and Zhang Lu smiled as she told them, “It’s my senior year; I’m about to take the college entrance exam, so if I don’t work hard now, when will I?”

Zhang Lu didn’t aim to win the gold medal in the National Mathematics Olympiad; she only wanted extra points.

Just qualifying for the national competition would give her twenty extra points for a bronze medal.

Everyone knows what twenty extra points means for the college entrance exam; not a single high school student is unaware of that.

“This year, Tang Song is also aiming for the national competition, and the competition is already fierce in our school. It’s even tougher in the entire capital.”

Zhang Lu calculated the problems with great determination, saying, “I need to work even harder! I’m going to surpass them!”

Cen Huai An looked at Zhang Lu and seemed to see the blazing fire of her ambition behind her.

Studying alongside her, he would never be afraid of losing his own drive.

By the time Jiang Zhida finished reviewing all the ledgers, his eyes felt sore, while Cen Huai An and Zhang Lu had also done quite a few problems.

“You two did a great job on this ledger; it has shown me many problems currently existing in the video store.”

Jiang Zhida rubbed his eyes, feeling a bit tired, “Because I’ve been busy with Yunmengze, I’ve inevitably overlooked the management of the video store. I know they will do some shady things; as the saying goes, ‘water that is too clear has no fish.’ As long as it’s not excessive, I won’t say anything.”

He couldn’t suppress the anger inside him, gripping the ledger tightly until the veins on his hand bulged, forcing himself not to show his anger in front of the younger generation.

“But they actually think I’m a fool? I’ve wanted to investigate them for a long time. I didn’t expect An An to be so capable, identifying so many issues just from one ledger. Cousin, thank you; you’ve saved me a lot of trouble.”

“Cousin, I helped with the calculations too!” Zhang Lu said, looking at Jiang Zhida.

“Right, and Lu Lu too. So, what do you want as a reward?”

Cen Huai’an didn’t have many specific desires, but some semiconductor materials were hard to find in the country.

He said to Jiang Zhida, “Uncle, when you go to Yangcheng, could you help me find some? From foreigners.”

Jiang Zhida had dealt with foreigners plenty of times and found it no trouble, nodding in agreement. “That’s easy. What about Lu Lu?”

“I want the latest poster of Li Ming and his records!”

Zhang Lu had been busy studying lately and hadn’t had time to visit the audio-visual store to buy records from her favorite singer.

However, her little uncle bought them for her, and she cherished them, looking forward to enjoying them during her breaks.

This was even simpler for Jiang Zhida, who ran an audio-visual store.

He had all the popular singers’ tapes, records, and cassettes available in his shop.

“Just wait! I can get Lu Lu’s stuff for you tomorrow, but it’ll take a bit longer for An’an’s,” he said.

Cen Huai’an wasn’t in a hurry; their studies had become heavier, and while it wasn’t challenging for him, classes took up more time, leaving him less time for extracurricular reading.

Cen Huai’an and Zhang Lu stayed at Jiang Zhida’s place for the night.

They had asked for leave from their teachers and could return to school tomorrow for morning study.

Neither Cen Huai’an nor Zhang Lu knew how Jiang Zhida managed his store; after all, they were just kids, and he wouldn’t share those details with them.

The next day, Zhang Lu happily received what she wanted from Jiang Zhida and gave him a big hug in gratitude.

On Saturday afternoon, after school, Cen Huai’an talked to Chuxia and Cen Zhengnian about helping Jiang Zhida with the accounts of the audio-visual store.

Chuxia didn’t think much of it and casually asked, “Were there any problems with the accounts?”

“Yes,” Cen Huai’an replied, looking seriously at Chuxia and Cen Zhengnian. “And there are many issues; Uncle said he would resolve them.”

Since the audio-visual store didn’t have any shares from Chuxia, when Yunmengze was established, she had allowed Jiang Zhida to withdraw the shares from the audio-visual store for Yunmengze.

However, Chuxia had helped set up the audio-visual store, so she still had some emotional ties to it.

Hearing that there were issues with the accounts made her quite distressed.

After dinner, the problem lingered in Chuxia’s mind, making it hard for her to settle down.

She stood up and said, “I’m going to call Da Zi.”

Jiang Zhida answered the phone quickly.

“Da Zi, is the issue with the audio-visual store serious?”

It had been a few days since the account issues had surfaced, and Jiang Zhida had nearly resolved them.

While dismissing the dishonest manager and staff wasn’t difficult, finding new recruits would be more challenging.

After all, the store’s manager and employees had all been trained, and it wouldn’t be easy to find replacements right away.

Jiang Zhida didn’t mention these difficulties to Chuxia; the worst case would be to close the store for a month and reopen once they were trained.

Not every audio-visual store had problems; those that were running normally could continue operating.

“Don’t worry, sister-in-law; it’s not a big deal. I’ve got it all under control,” Jiang Zhida said.

He wasn’t wrong; greed was just one issue in business, and it was common everywhere.

Compared to more serious problems, this one wasn’t particularly tricky.

Chuxia could tell from Jiang Zhida’s voice that he was genuinely unconcerned about the matter, indicating that it was indeed manageable.

She felt relieved and told Jiang Zhida to reach out if he needed anything.

“Thank you, sister-in-law!” Jiang Zhida chuckled.

---

The math competition in Beijing was approaching, and Zhang Lu felt a rare sense of nervousness compared to her previous experiences.

She clung tightly to Cen Huai’an’s arm. “I heard the city competition questions were very difficult last year. Will they be hard again this year?”

Zhang Lu knew her own abilities; she was better at the basics, and if the questions leaned towards the difficult side, her advantage would diminish.

“Don’t be scared,” Cen Huai’an reassured her. “The competition questions have varying levels of difficulty; there will be both difficult and basic questions.”

Tang Song chimed in from the side, “Lu Lu, with your current math competition level, you’ll do just fine on this test.”

Other classmates felt similarly anxious, and upon hearing Cen Huai’an and Tang Song’s words, some began to relax like Zhang Lu, while others felt even more nervous, believing their math skills weren’t as good as hers.

This year’s questions weren’t as tough as last year’s, but they still posed a significant challenge, with difficult questions comparable to those from the previous year.

After receiving the exam paper, Cen Huai’an flipped through it as per his habit, scanning it thoroughly.

He felt assured for Zhang Lu.

The hardest question was one he had recently discussed with Zhang Lu, so she should be able to tackle it in this exam.

Cen Huai’an focused on writing the exam, and when he submitted it, the campus where the exam was held was still quiet; no other students had come out yet.

As soon as Teacher Jiang saw Cen Huai’an, he jogged over, his forehead glistening with sweat despite the late autumn weather.

“Why did you submit your paper early? Did you check it thoroughly?”

Teacher Jiang was overly anxious; after all, most of this year’s third-year competition students had been taught by him since their first year, and if they performed poorly, it would be a significant blow to him.

“Teacher, I checked it three times before coming out,” Cen Huai’an replied.

Teacher Jiang looked puzzled. “Was the exam that easy?”