Peninsula: The young master is poor and doesn't want to date.

Chapter 24 Sky Trial

"Oh, my dear Irene, what a coincidence."

Damn it.

You sent someone to kick down the door and tie him up, and you call that a coincidence?

Lee Woo-bin's thick skin must be as thick as the door of that Chevrolet Suburban.

Bae Joo-hyun didn't say anything.

She disliked Lee Woo-bin, especially his gaze.

Although it was the kind of look men give women, Li Zhengyi didn't make her feel disgusted.

Even though Li Zhengyi has a very sharp tongue.

But she could sense that Li Zheng wouldn't even touch her if she didn't agree.

And the way Lee Woo-bin looks at her.

That look wasn't one of appreciation; it was one of calculation.

He planned to take advantage of her after he got her.

Lee Jung-il stood beside her, hands in his pockets, looking up at Lee Woo-bin at the top of the gangway.

The letters "CU" on the convenience store uniforms stood out starkly in the night wind.

The two people are positioned one above and one below.

The difference in physical height is precisely their current status in this society.

One stood on the gangway of the Gulfstream, the other on the concrete ground.

But the way Li Zheng looked up at him wasn't from above.

It means to sized up.

If you see a drunk man walk into a convenience store, first assess whether he is capable of fighting.

Then he tilted his head and spoke in a voice that only those around him could hear.

"Judging by this situation, I can't treat you to instant noodles tonight."

Everyone boarded the plane.

The plane takes off.

After the climb, it enters a stable flight phase.

The interior of the Gulfstream G280 is even more extravagant than the exterior.

A cream-colored leather sofa, mahogany veneer, and a crystal wine cabinet filled with several bottles of whiskey whose names I don't know.

The warm yellow ambient lighting made the entire cabin feel like a VIP room in a high-end club.

A faint scent of sandalwood wafted to my nose.

Later, Li Zhengyi discovered that there were air freshener tablets stuffed into the air conditioner vent.

Are you crazy? Putting air freshener in the airplane's air conditioning?

Lee Woo-bin had already unbuckled his seatbelt and was sitting in the head seat.

He sat with his legs crossed, twirling a crystal champagne glass in his hand, looking as relaxed as if he hadn't been the one who had just kicked down the door and tied people up.

"Relax, don't be shy."

Li Zhengyi didn't stand on ceremony.

He unbuckled his seatbelt, relaxed into the sofa on the side, sank in, and let out a heartfelt sigh.

"Wow, this chair is softer than my bed."

"This is a Gulfstream G280, and the seat is handcrafted in Italy. It's probably two hundred times more expensive than your mattress in Kowloon Village."

"How much is two hundred times?"

"This set of chairs costs about 100 million Korean won."

Lee Jung-il whistled and turned to Bae Joo-hyun.

"Did you hear that? One hundred million won. If the two of us sit here, it's roughly fifty million won each. That's more than our convenience store's revenue for half a year."

Bae Joo-hyun didn't respond.

She sat next to Li Zhengyi, her coat wrapped tightly around her, her fingers gripping the collar, her face still showing signs of shock from the series of events that had just transpired.

They kicked down the door, tied him to the car, and took him to the airport.

Her life underwent a hard landing in the past hour, transforming her from a "female idol" to a "crime film heroine".

But she still noticed a strange word in Li Zhengyi's previous sentence.

"Our convenience store."

He said "we," not "I."

Is this person getting too caught up in the role?

Lee Woo-bin clearly noticed this detail as well.

He put down his champagne glass, his smile unchanged, but when his gaze shifted from Lee Jung-il to Bae Joo-hyun, the temperature dropped a few degrees.

"Irene, to be honest, I never really understood before. You're the prettiest female idol I've ever seen, with such a bright future, why did you choose someone else...?"

He paused, glancing at Li Zhengyi out of the corner of his eye.

"A convenience store clerk. The kind who got kicked out of his home. Do you know how much he earns a month at a convenience store? Two million won. Two million. He can't even afford that bottle of red wine I bought you for dinner last time."

The "last time I treated you to dinner" he mentioned was a month ago.

During that meal, Bae Joo-hyun barely touched her chopsticks, while Lee Woo-bin drank half a bottle of red wine and talked for two hours about his sports car, his own airplane, and his grand plans for CJ Group.

The only thing Bae Joo-hyun remembered that day was the look in his eyes when he said, "Female idols have a short shelf life, you need to find a backer as soon as possible."

It's disgusting.

Now she's been pushed into that position again.

This time, however, there was another person next to him who was also pressed onto the menu.

Bae Joo-hyun took a deep breath.

Then she did something she never expected.

She pulled her hand out of her coat pocket, reached out, and took Li Zhengyi's arm.

The movements were a bit stiff.

My fingers trembled slightly when they touched the sleeve of his work uniform, but once rolled up, they didn't loosen.

"Because I love him. Jung-il oppa and I are truly in love."

When Bae Joo-hyun said this, the tips of her ears turned as red as if they had just been scalded with boiling water.

But she kept her eyes fixed on Lee Woo-bin and managed to keep her voice steady.

"Please stop bothering me, Second Young Master."

The cabin wasn't quiet, but it was also very quiet.

Li Zheng turned his head to look at her.

The woman held his arm so tightly it seemed she was going to wrinkle the sleeve of his work clothes, but her nails didn't actually pinch him.

Wearing black stockings and a short skirt, she sat on a sofa worth 100 million won and told a chaebol heir whose net worth was hundreds of times that of her, "We are truly in love."

She probably practiced those lines in front of the mirror in the bathroom at least fifty or a hundred times.

But Lee Woo-bin didn't know about this layer.

All he knew was that the woman he had his eye on, in front of him, linked arms with his brother, whom he despised the most, and said, "We are truly in love."

And what's most amazing is that he couldn't refute it.

Because he saw the intimate photo of Bae Joo-hyun and Lee Jung-il with his own eyes.

The only real photo among that pile of fake photos.

In the middle of the night, a man and a woman, alone, sitting on the convenience store clerk's bed—what else could it be but true love?

Lee Woo-bin took a deep breath and placed the champagne glass on the table.

I stopped laughing.

"Alright. Since we've come this far..."

He held up one finger.

"First, you two break up. Now. Immediately."

Then a second one was erected.

"Secondly, Zheng Yi, kneel down and sincerely apologize. I'll let bygones be bygones for what happened before. Then I can consider going back to talk to the old man and getting you to come home. You won't return to your core position at CJ, but I'll give you a nominal position as a branch company director. From now on, stay quietly within the family and stop disgracing the Li family. Otherwise..."

"Otherwise, if you're working the night shift in Kowloon Village, getting robbed three times a day, having your shop vandalized by thugs, and being questioned by the police, how long do you think you can endure that kind of life?"

"I called you here today not to make things difficult for you. It's to make it clear to you that you don't deserve to stand with her."

"A convenience store clerk and a national goddess, do you think that's absurd?"

Bae Joo-hyun opened her mouth as if to say, "This is my own choice and has nothing to do with the conditions."

But before he could even speak, Li Zhengyi laughed.

It wasn't a cold laugh, nor was it a laugh born of extreme anger; it was just that kind of laugh.

Well, how should I put it?

The kind of laughter that makes your shoulders shake when you see a particularly silly segment on a variety show.

"No, second brother, everything you just said boils down to one thing. You think I'm not good enough for her because I don't have money, right?"

Li Zhengyi picked up the champagne and took a sip.

"Have you ever thought about why she would rather choose me, a convenience store clerk, than you, the second young master?"