Chapter 8

The system ignored Cheng Lang's excuses and continued to warn him, [Character setting OOC! Character setting OOC! Please follow the script exactly when delivering your lines!]

Cheng Lang said patiently, "Do you know what it means to seek common ground while setting aside differences? When I do things, I only care about the result. As long as the outcome is right, that proves there's nothing wrong with my methods. Don't nitpick the details too much. That's the only way we can work together happily, right?"

The system felt that something was off.

"And," Cheng Lang said casually, "don't keep watching me twenty-four hours a day. Don't you have any hobbies? Watch movies, listen to gossip. Missions take so long, and the world is so big—you could go around and see more of it. It's not like I'd report you."

No mission executor had ever spoken to the system like this. The system was instantly stunned.

After changing clothes and washing up, Cheng Lang dragged Shen Huaiyu off to breakfast.

On the way to the cafeteria, Shen Huaiyu quietly thanked Cheng Lang.

"What's there to thank me for? I was just bored and praising myself." Cheng Lang looked at Shen Huaiyu and teased him with a smile. "I'm actually very vain. I especially like hearing people compliment me. If you really want to thank me, just praise me more whenever you can. Getting sincere compliments from someone as handsome as you would feel especially great."

Shen Huaiyu chuckled. He envied Cheng Lang's optimistic outlook.

"I should learn from you," Shen Huaiyu said sincerely.

Cheng Lang clicked his tongue. "You really should learn a thing or two from me about dealing with people. You can't be too shy in life. Having skin that's too thin won't do you any good."

Cheng Lang summed up Shen Huaiyu's tragedy. At its root, the young man was too thin-skinned, too proud, had too high a moral bottom line, and was too inexperienced and easily deceived. And everyone around him was the sort of person who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted, people with no moral bottom line at all—

Cheng Lang remembered that in the original novel, Lu Chengxuan had spared no effort in tearing down Shen Huaiyu's confidence in order to keep him by his side. He used money to reduce everything Shen Huaiyu loved and excelled at to utter worthlessness. In the end, he had manipulated a cultured young man skilled in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting into completely denying himself.

Cheng Lang could say responsibly that Shen Huaiyu's eventual suicide in the original novel was entirely because he could no longer find a direction in life, nor could he find the value of his own existence. So the urgent task was for Cheng Lang to give Shen Huaiyu something to anchor his spirit to, to make him understand just how outstanding he was. And that excellence had to be measurable in money.

As Cheng Lang spoke with Shen Huaiyu, he thought about what other ways there were to make money. Counting the tip the blue-haired guy had given him for drinks last night and the alcohol commissions he had earned these past few days, the savings in Cheng Lang's bank card still did not exceed two hundred thousand. He had never been this poor in any of his lives.

"These days, nothing matters more than getting money in hand," Cheng Lang remarked. On the other side of the corridor, the chatter of two girls suddenly drifted into his ears.

"...Did you hear? That milk tea shop across from the school is closing down. What a shame—I really liked their decor."

"You mean Forest Style across from the school? Good riddance. The decor was about the only decent thing. Their milk tea was ridiculously expensive and tasted awful, too."

Cheng Lang's heart stirred. He turned to the two girls talking and asked, "...Are you talking about the milk tea shop directly across from the school gate, the one decorated all green?"

Cheng Lang was not someone who liked milk tea. The only reason he remembered that shop was because its dominant color scheme was too eye-catching—because of his mission, Cheng Lang was somewhat sensitive to that color.

"Are you talking to us?" The two girls exchanged looks and asked, flattered and surprised.

"Of course." Cheng Lang smiled. "You don't mind me butting in, do you?"

Cheng Lang explained, "I wasn't eavesdropping. It's just that you two beauties have such crisp voices. The wind carried them right into my ears."

"We never said you were eavesdropping." Cheng Lang's words delighted the two female students. One of them, who wore a ponytail, said, "We just didn't expect Cheng Lang, the universally acknowledged campus heartthrob among the freshmen, to speak to two ordinary girls like us."

"How could you be ordinary girls?" Cheng Lang said with a serious expression. "For all we know, you two might be my lucky charms."

"Hm?" The two girls did not understand and looked at Cheng Lang in confusion.

"I want to start a small business to earn tuition money," Cheng Lang said solemnly. "I was worrying about how to go about it when I heard you say that the milk tea shop across from the school was closing. I wanted to ask what was going on with it. If possible, I'd like to take over the shop."

The two girls immediately understood. As a scheming and vicious cannon fodder character, Cheng Lang had never hidden the fact that he was an orphan. He even often used that experience to win people's sympathy and build himself an image of being strong, independent, optimistic, and cheerful. So although school had only recently started, everyone already knew that Cheng Lang was an orphan. Naturally, the two girls had heard about it too. Their hearts softened with sympathy, and they eagerly began telling Cheng Lang everything they knew.

"The owner of that milk tea shop is a senior from our school who already graduated. She used to work at a foreign company, but then she got into an argument with her boss. In a fit of anger, she fired her boss and came to open a milk tea shop across from the school."

"The place belongs to her. Before it became a milk tea shop, it was a mala tang restaurant. The food was so delicious. Then the country opened up the two-child policy, and the mala tang owner's wife got pregnant with their second child. The owner was so happy that he stopped doing business altogether and took his wife and child back to their hometown. The senior took the place back, and since she had nothing else to do, she saw how popular milk tea had become lately and simply opened a milk tea shop."

"...She spent nearly a million just on the renovations. But her milk tea tasted truly awful, and she charged a fortune for it." On top of that, the milk tea shop owner had an absolutely terrible temper. When people said her milk tea was bad, she got upset.