"Yurina..."
Lin Qiye murmured the name.
"Hey! Why did you suddenly climb down?" Jinian walked to the window and asked in confusion.
Lin Qiye stood before the club's entrance in silence for a long time, then looked up and said, "I'm going out for a bit..."
Then he turned and ran off in a certain direction.
Seeing Lin Qiye leave for no apparent reason, a string of question marks seemed to float above Jinian's head. She shrugged and sat back down on the leather sofa.
Suddenly, her gaze fell upon the enormous black screen hanging at the very top of the club's main hall, directly opposite the private room. White lettering outlined name after name across its surface, and behind every name were varying numbers of glittering crystals, radiating dreamlike brilliance beneath the blue-violet lights.
"Kondo Kento, zero crystals... Nagura Yota, one crystal..." Jinian read out the names engraved on the screen one by one, from bottom to top. "What are those?"
"It's the ranking for Japan's entire host industry," the host in blue explained. "When this club was first built, the family head gathered all the famous host clubs across Japan and held this ranking competition. One crystal represents a customer tipping one hundred thousand yen. In the end, the rankings of popular hosts are determined by the number of crystals.
"Unfortunately, just as this event got underway, the world descended into chaos. All the other host clubs went bankrupt and shut down, leaving only us still on the leaderboard."
Jinian's gaze swept across the massive screen. Behind most of the names was nothing at all—not a single crystal. Only a handful had a few scattered crystals beside them.
Jinian smacked her lips. "Your business is really dead, huh?"
"At a time like this, who would come spend money