The Boss's Scheme

"To get rid of the cockroaches, I need everyone out of the restaurant. It'll only take half an hour," Jiang Yiming said.

"Fine!"

The boss then asked the cooks and servers to leave the restaurant.

Only Sun Qin stayed behind to supervise with him.

"You two need to leave too," Jiang Yiming said.

The boss stared. "Even me?"

Jiang Yiming shook his head, and the boss could only lead Sun Qin out of the kitchen, disgruntled.

Taking advantage of the empty restaurant, he lowered his voice. "Xiao Qin, I only agreed to let a greenhorn like him come because of you. You must have some idea how I feel about you by now, right?"

As he spoke, he tried to slip an arm around her shoulders.

Sun Qin was baffled and quickly dodged him. "I don't know what you're talking about." Before she had even finished speaking, she ran outside.

The boss watched her graceful figure from behind, his face dark.

Jiang Yiming hadn't seen what happened outside. He was focused on controlling his Gu insects.

Not many cockroaches showed themselves during the day, making them harder to eliminate, but that wouldn't stop him.

First, he released a dozen or so Spider Gu to search the kitchen. The fine hairs on their legs were highly sensitive. As long as they touched the ground, they could sense the slightest movement within three chi.

Once they detected a cockroach, Jiang Yiming directed the centipedes to follow it.

Only to follow!

When cockroaches sensed danger, they desperately searched for cracks to squeeze into. Centipedes had flat bodies too, and they were also experts at slipping through cracks.

Although the level-three Centipede Gu were too large to fit through some of the smaller cracks, the level-two Centipede Gu had no such trouble and followed close behind.

The usual method of exterminating cockroaches involved a contagious poison. Once poisoned, the cockroaches would spread it to one another, wiping out the colony.

That poison was expensive, which was why extermination services charged so much.

Jiang Yiming had his Gu insects, so he didn't need poison. He could simply pursue the cockroaches back to their nests and wipe them out. It cost less and worked better.

That was his advantage!

About half an hour later, Centipede Gu began crawling out of the cracks one after another.

Their return meant the cockroaches had all been eliminated.

"Seems... pretty easy..."

There was nothing special about the cockroaches in the restaurant. So why had the boss been willing to pay a thousand yuan?

Jiang Yiming couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

He opened the kitchen door and found the boss already waiting outside.

"Done?" he asked with ill intent.

"Done," Jiang Yiming said with a nod.

"Then I won't see you out. I need to get back to work." With that, the boss told him to leave.

The restaurant did most of its business at noon and in the afternoon, so it really was time to get to work.

Jiang Yiming said nothing more and left.

Before he got home, the phone in his pants pocket rang. The moment he answered, a voice rattled off words like a machine gun.

"Are you the cockroach exterminator? Is it really one hundred and fifty?"

"Yes..."

After a brief exchange, the caller gave him an address and hung up.

Jiang Yiming hadn't expected a job to come in so quickly. He hurried to the address, and before he had finished at the customer's home, the next call came.

He hadn't expected business to be this good!

To save time, he gritted his teeth and spent over three hundred yuan on a bicycle. Nearly all the callers lived within three kilometers, so a bike was enough to get around.

For the next few hours, Jiang Yiming went from one home to another, so busy he didn't even have time to eat.

Not counting travel time, he could do three homes every two hours on average. That was four hundred and fifty yuan, or two hundred and twenty-five an hour!

He had never imagined money could be so easy to earn. Along the way, he stuffed a few steamed buns into his mouth and kept working until after ten at night.

Only when the calls stopped coming did he call it a day.

He climbed onto his bicycle, but when he pushed down on the pedals, his legs refused to obey and kept trembling.

"Sigh... This body is so weak. I've only ridden a little over thirty kilometers and climbed the stairs a dozen or so times, and my legs are already shaking."

He continued pedaling slowly.

"I wonder if the System Store sells anything that can strengthen my body?"

Remembering that he needed 1,000 grams of gold to open the store, he gave a self-mocking smile.

That would cost hundreds of thousands! Though he had earned over two thousand yuan today, he had also caught over a hundred more Gu insects.

Together with the Gu insects he already had, he now had over 200 spiders and more than 50 centipedes.

Their food alone would cost a great deal. He didn't know how much money he would have left.

Before he knew it, Jiang Yiming had ridden to the restaurant where Sun Qin worked.

The restaurant was closed, but the lights were still on inside.

He was about to ride past when he suddenly heard a shrill voice from within.

In a restaurant like this, the first floor was the shop, and the second floor was the living quarters.

"What's going on with these accounts? Why are they a thousand short?!"

"Honey, listen to me. Sun Qin brought someone over today..." the boss mumbled in explanation.

"Sun Qin?! That vixen again! What kind of dirty thoughts are you having this time?!"

"No, listen to me! I'm playing that kid..."

Outside, Jiang Yiming's interest was instantly piqued. He leaned his bicycle against something nearby and went over to listen.

"Honey, listen. That thousand yuan I spent will turn into two thousand and come right back to us. Look at this written agreement!"

The room fell silent.

After a moment, the boss's wife spoke. "This agreement says we only get compensation if cockroaches show up in the restaurant again within a week. But what if a week goes by and no cockroaches show up?"

"I keep telling you, you can't think around corners," the boss said smugly. "A week is enough time for several broods of cockroaches to breed. How could there not be any by then?"

"You mean..."

"That's right! Look what I've got!"

"What the hell is that? Ah!!" The boss's wife screamed, then cursed, "You deserve to have your head chopped off! How dare you scare me with a bag of cockroaches!"

"Heh heh, this bag of cockroaches is worth two thousand yuan!" the boss said with a laugh. "I've already given orders: for the next week, nobody in the restaurant is allowed to kill a cockroach! Once this bag breeds a few broods, I'll call that kid over to see!"

Hearing this, Jiang Yiming felt his whole worldview shatter.

He really hadn't expected anyone to be so devious! This time, he had thought too well of the boss.

"What do I do..."

As he pondered, inspiration suddenly struck. He turned and circled around to the back of the kitchen.

Sure enough, the boss was already in the kitchen. Through the exhaust fan, Jiang Yiming could see him dump a bag of cockroaches onto the floor.

"Little things, hurry and hide. Eat well and grow up fast..."

After watching the cockroaches crawl into the drain, the boss switched off the light and left.

Jiang Yiming smiled coldly in the darkness, then released ten level-two Centipede Gu!

"You stay in the drain and eat as many cockroaches as you find! And remember, try not to show yourselves!"

After giving the command in his mind, Jiang Yiming finally left, reassured.