After My Rebirth Chapter 29: Copycat 

Chapter 29: Copycat 

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

 

Ma Chi made a call to get someone to come tow the vehicles.

It was too late to rent new ones now. The trip to the farm would have to be postponed until tomorrow.

With the restaurant running low on ingredients, Li Sinian headed back out again today to collect vegetables from the villagers.

Everyone already knew he was buying produce now, so there was no need for Aunt Zheng to tag along. He just went door to door by himself.

As usual, he visited ten households. Once the restaurant helpers came to pick up the collected vegetables, instead of heading home right away to rest, Li Sinian took a different turn—straight toward Wang Zedong’s house.

Wang Zedong hadn’t stepped outside all day. He hadn’t even gone to check on his precious vegetable garden. He’d just been nervously holed up in his house, curtains drawn tight in broad daylight like he was terrified someone might know he had a guilty conscience.

When the doorbell rang, Wang Zedong was in the middle of eating. The sudden sound startled him so badly that the chicken drumstick in his hand hit the floor.

His wife kicked him. “What, your mouth is broken now? Can’t even eat properly?”

Wang Zedong said nothing, just stared tensely at the door.

Two minutes later, the doorbell rang again.

His wife got up to answer it, but Wang Zedong quickly called out, “Wait!”

She was already irritated with him—he’d been twitchy and useless all day, hadn’t done a thing around the house, and now he was even stopping her from answering the door.

“What is wrong with you? You’ve been sulking at home doing nothing! Haven’t checked the fields, haven’t helped with anything, and you can’t even eat like a normal person! And now I’m not allowed to open the damn door? If you don’t want to live like this anymore, just say so!”

Wang Zedong shrank back at the yelling. At that moment, the doorbell rang a third time.

His wife didn’t even look at him this time. She strode out to the courtyard and opened the door.

Wang Zedong opened his mouth like he wanted to stop her, but in the end, didn’t dare say a word.

Now he sat slumped on a little stool by the coffee table, looking like a miserable lump. A bowl the size of his face sat in front of him, filled with meat, and he stared down at it with a mix of resentment and anxiety—like a scolded dog, pitiful and pathetic.

That was the scene Li Sinian walked in on.

Years of good upbringing kept him from laughing, though the corner of his mouth twitched.

Wang Zedong’s wife quickly greeted Li Sinian and invited him to sit, pouring him a cup of tea.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught her husband’s look—like he’d seen a ghost—and rolled her eyes.

Li Sinian took a slow sip of tea, waiting until Wang Zedong looked like he was about to explode, then finally spoke.

“Mr. Wang, do you mind if we talk in private?”

Those words were like a pin to a balloon. Whatever thoughts Wang Zedong had—about throwing Li Sinian out or yelling at him—deflated instantly.

Before he could even react, his wife stood up first.

“Oh, Mr. Li, you and my husband have business to discuss? I’ll give you some privacy, then. Ah—please excuse the mess, we usually eat at the coffee table, and there are leftovers everywhere. I hope it’s not too unsightly.”

Li Sinian smiled. “Not at all.”

She disappeared into the bedroom, leaving only Li Sinian and Wang Zedong in the living room.

It was quiet—awkwardly so. The scent of food still lingered in the air, adding a strange tension to the silence.

Li Sinian broke it first. “Mr. Wang, I heard you grow leafy greens? Must bring in more money than grain, huh?”

“It’s… alright,” Wang Zedong muttered.

Li Sinian gave a small smile. “Where do you usually sell your produce? Supermarkets?”

“A few supermarkets, and some farmers’ markets too.”

Li Sinian nodded. “Ah, I see.”

Wang Zedong narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious.”

Staring at the young man’s half-smile across the table, Wang Zedong suddenly felt a fire spark in his chest.

It was this guy. It was bad enough he’d come here to steal business—but now he had the nerve to taunt him, too?

Unbelievable. Unforgivable! Tomorrow, he swore, he’d go take the damn tires off that rental van himself!

Li Sinian noticed the subtle shift in Wang Zedong’s expression and decided not to play around anymore. He cleared his throat.

“Mr. Wang, do you know which markets my family’s farm supplies produce to?”

Wang Zedong snorted. “No.”

“We only supply our own restaurant.” Li Sinian pulled out his phone, opened a business registry site, and slid it across the table.

“You can take a look. That’s our company. The farm only delivers produce to our chain restaurants. We don’t do any outside sales.”

The phone screen displayed basic information about Li Sinian’s company—a restaurant chain business.

Wang Zedong picked up the phone and studied it carefully. In the shareholder and investment table, Li Sinian’s name appeared in the last row—he was one of the partners.

“I’m sure everyone in the village knows I run a restaurant,” Li Sinian explained at the right moment. “The business has been going well, so my friends and I decided to open a chain together.”

“We’ve always used vegetables grown right here in the village. They taste different from what you get outside. I want my restaurant to keep that same flavor, which means I need a large supply of the same kind of produce we usually grow for ourselves.”

His meaning couldn’t have been clearer, so he stopped there.

Wang Zedong, while not the brightest, wasn’t entirely oblivious either. He was, after all, considered one of the more well-off villagers. He quickly picked up on what Li Sinian was implying.

Even if Li Sinian had a farm larger than his and state-of-the-art greenhouses, he posed no threat to Wang Zedong’s business—because Li Sinian didn’t sell his vegetables outside the restaurant.

Wang Zedong let out a long breath of relief. At the same time, he felt deeply embarrassed.

On one hand, he was relieved because it meant he wouldn’t be facing strong competition after all. But on the other hand, he felt humiliated—he’d gone and slashed someone’s tires over a misunderstanding and treated the guy like some kind of business rival…

It occurred to him that Li Sinian must’ve known who was behind the flat tires this morning—otherwise, why would he bother coming over just to clarify where the farm’s supply was going?

God, he wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.

Li Sinian took note of his shifting expression as he retrieved his phone from the table.

“Well, now that Mr. Wang understands where I’m coming from, I think I’ve accomplished what I came here for. Please, enjoy your meal. I won’t keep you.”

Li Sinian stood up to leave.

“Wait!” Wang Zedong stood up hurriedly.

Li Sinian turned back to look at him. “Yes, Mr. Wang?”

Wang Zedong scratched at his shiny bald head, looking a little sheepish. “You were heading to the farm with your people this morning, right? But your car broke down?”

“I’ve got a spare vehicle sitting at home. Why don’t you use mine tomorrow?”

Li Sinian raised an eyebrow. Wang Zedong gave a couple of awkward chuckles.

They held each other’s gaze for three seconds before Li Sinian suddenly smiled. “Then thank you, Mr. Wang.”

Wang Zedong gave a goofy grin. “No, no, no thanks needed—just doing my part.”

After leaving Wang Zedong’s house, Li Sinian glanced down at the car keys in his hand and couldn’t help but chuckle.

Even when trying to do something petty, kindhearted people never managed to be truly mean.

He thought of his father.

Funny, really—his own father had shown him less kindness than this near-stranger.

A stranger who had misunderstood him and caused trouble still knew how to apologize and make up for it. His father, meanwhile, only ever took and never gave.

Li Sinian returned home with the keys and called Ma Chi, letting him know they wouldn’t need to rent a vehicle anymore. He also messaged the workers: they’d gather again at 6:30 a.m. by the village gate.

With that, the farm’s operations officially began.

The farmland was split into two sections—one for vegetables with short growth cycles, and the other for long-cycle crops. The short-term produce would supply the current restaurant operations, while the long-term crops would mature just in time for the chain’s official launch.

On top of that, Jiang Rongxuan bought a large pasture near the farm and began raising pigs, cows, sheep, and chickens—most of them adopted as young animals from the village.

Over the following days, more and more villagers signed work contracts. Once the farm was fully staffed, the rest were assigned to the pasture.

The restaurant’s ingredient sourcing problem was finally solved.

Li Sinian used the previous food rationing period to heavily promote their honey-based drinks. By the time the rationing system ended, the drinks already had a solid reputation and were added to food delivery platforms.

The restaurant’s physical location and environment weren’t exactly ideal, but once delivery was launched, sales skyrocketed.

The small restaurant kept running smoothly, and preparations for the chain advanced steadily. About six months passed like that, and finally, everything was ready.

After the Spring Festival, all 58 locations of the restaurant chain opened simultaneously in malls across Suzhou.

Li Sinian didn’t attend in person, but according to Ma Chi, every single store had a long line at the door on opening day—even at nine in the evening, the crowds hadn’t thinned.

With the Suzhou launch a success, Ma Chi immediately began planning expansion into other cities.

Meanwhile, bottled versions of the restaurant’s drinks—like honey passionfruit, lemon honey tea, and honey pomelo tea—hit shelves nationwide.

The bottled drinks tasted exactly the same as the freshly made ones served in-store, which meant they had relatively short shelf lives. But that only added to their popularity.

In fact, the restaurant’s honey drink line became the number-one best-selling beverage of the year, outperforming even drinks from brands that had spent a fortune sponsoring talent shows.

At first, Old Chen had been reluctant to lease out his beekeeping operation. But when he saw how well the bottled drinks were selling, he finally realized that the small hive in his backyard just wasn’t going to cut it.

He had no choice but to bite the bullet—leasing a large bee farm and hiring more workers to help manage the hives.

More bees meant more honey, and with that came a dramatic increase in income.

As his account balance grew, Old Chen no longer fretted over the cost of the lease. These days, he was all smiles—as if he’d never been the one to pinch pennies in the first place.

The restaurant chain no longer needed Li Sinian’s direct involvement. His daily work mostly involved training chefs in the studio and experimenting in the kitchen—doing what he loved: inventing new dishes.

Now that the business was in full swing, his recipes became exclusive intellectual property, which meant he could no longer post detailed cooking tutorials on C-Station. So, his videos returned to their original format—satisfying, relaxing food content meant purely for enjoyment.

He kept posting videos purely to give back to his fans.

He didn’t accept sponsorships, didn’t join in on competitions, and had the most chill attitude of any influencer out there.

And yet—ironically—it was exactly that attitude that landed him in the middle of a plagiarism scandal.

His signature dish—spicy pork trotters glazed with red yeast rice—was accused of being a copycat of a “restaurant’s” so-called innovation.