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Shi Bochuan's face twisted slightly. He wanted him to pinch more gently, but he didn't dare say a word.

[Holy shit, this design is seriously the limit of human imagination.]

[Shi Jihan! You may not be close to godhood, but you're already far from humanity!]

[This isn't abstract, bro. You've abstracted a damn spaceship.]

[Shi Corporation no longer cares about profits at all. It's completely immersed in its own art.]

Amid the flood of exclamations, someone posted: [Wait, why isn't it Mai Mai's Double Cheeseburger?]

But it wasn't over yet. Shi Jihan proved with his strength that AI could not replace humans.

At the very least, it couldn't replace him.

Next, everyone saw a little lobster twisting its way onto the stage in a disco dance, its springy shrimp tail bobbing to the music;

A model in an evening gown with an off-the-shoulder neckline pinched into dumpling-wrapper pleats, holding twin guns in her freeze-frame pose as she sprayed out a string of vinegar-bottle crystal chains;

The Sichuan hotpot qipao had been transformed into a cyber Chinese-chic style. An exoskeleton evolved from a nine-section grid wrapped around fabric woven from optical fibers, with red, orange, and blue neon flowing across it. The mooncake bag in the model's hand had been given a glitch-art treatment, and beneath the warped waveforms, mooncake patterns like ghostly scribbles could vaguely be seen.

Manchu! Han! Imperial! Feast!

The audience was directly beaten into cerebellar atrophy, then went wild taking photos and screenshots once they came back to their senses.

Ordinary absurdity was just absurdity.

But absurdity like this was art!

President Zhou Jingcheng's PR team barely even had to lift a finger before millions of netizens worked together to send the fashion show onto the trending lists.

#TheClothesDidntGoCrazyIGoCrazy

#ShiCorporationxElemeCollabShow

#AtePinHaoFanAtAFashionShow

#YouOnlyCareWhetherImWearingClothesButShiJihanCaresWhetherIHaveAnAppetite

The related topics shot upward like rockets, soaring straight to TOP 1 as their view counts doubled and doubled again.

[Ding! "Helped Shi Corporation secure a trending topic through improper means" completed. Mission reward: Malice Points +80.]

000 shouted excitedly: [Host, we've paid off our debt!]

Shi Jihan's heart raced, his hands trembled. [Wait for it, we've still got another wave of earnings coming!]

As the final model left the stage, the holographic projection slowly displayed a list of acknowledgments: "Thanks to Shi Bochuan for financial support; Shen Qinghuai, Yan Bo, and X Outsourcing for technical support."

Shen Qinghuai:!!!

It wasn't him! He didn't do anything!

Shi Jihan, you're not human!!

[Ding! Malice Points +9!]

Everyone in the venue looked over. Shen Qinghuai's thin skin burned scarlet, and despite all the eyes on him, he plunged headfirst into Shi Bochuan's arms to the right, refusing to lift his head even if it killed him.

Shi Bochuan also wanted to bury himself in someone's arms and play ostrich, but when he looked to the right, he found himself staring straight into the dark lens of a phone camera.

The hands holding it shifted slightly, revealing Zhou Jingcheng's smiling crescent eyes. Holding up his phone, he encouraged, "As the financial support consultant, say a few words. I'm recording."

Shi Bochuan broke down. "..."

Damn you, Zhou Jingcheng, you bastard%￥@idiot%&(%#!!!

[Ding! Malice Points +11!]

The smile on Zhou Jingcheng's lips deepened. His brows relaxed, and he was in an exceptionally good mood.

Having the secretary record it was nowhere near as satisfying as personally shoving the camera in their faces. He could even switch to a close-up.

The words on the holographic projection only flashed for a dozen seconds or so, but for the couple beneath the stage, Yan Bo, and the outsourcing team watching the livestream, it was a lifetime of sitting on scorching chairs.

When the words vanished, even Shi Bochuan, who usually showed little expression, let out a long sigh. Having experienced life's greatest highs and lows, he looked weathered beyond his years.

Zhou Jingcheng thought the time had been too short and was rather dissatisfied, but it was fine. At least his money hadn't gone to waste. Regretfully, he turned the camera toward the fading words to record one last shot.

Then his long, upturned phoenix eyes slowly, slowly widened to their fullest.

Right before his eyes, new words appeared on the screen: "Special thanks to chief consultant [Mr. Zhou Jingcheng] for participating in the clothing design for this event. Let's all give him a round of applause!"

The enlarged, bolded words "Zhou Jingcheng" occupied nearly half the screen. Accompanied by an endless shower of pink flower effects, they froze into the finale of the Carbohydrate Fantasia collection.

Zhou Jingcheng:???

Was this right?!

Shi Bochuan was no longer emo, and Shen Qinghuai stopped playing ostrich. The two turned toward Zhou Jingcheng in perfect unison, their gazes blazing.

So you were involved too!

Shi Bochuan ordered his secretary, "Record it. Now."

Listening to the grinding teeth beside him, Secretary Sun silently turned his face away, not daring to look at his boss. He felt the awkwardness of watching an acquaintance embarrass himself.

Zhou Jingcheng's jaw tightened, every word ground out from between his teeth. "Shi. Ji. Han!"

Was this how he treated his paying player?!

[Ding! Malice Points +23!]

The president who had first struck up a conversation with Zhou Jingcheng was silent for a long time before saying, "President Zhou's aesthetic sense truly is at the forefront of fashion."

[Huh? President Zhou? How are you involved in this too?]

[Did I wake up too violently? Wasn't our President Zhou supposed to be refined and elegant, someone who loved drinking red wine?]

[I thought the younger brother was already the peak, but President Zhou turned out to be the one who'd been hiding blue.]

[President Zhou, your design, um, uh... has a sort of chaotic beauty from the fifth dimension.]

#ShiJihanDestroyedEveryone became the final trending topic of the night.

While Zhou Jingcheng's company PR department worked overtime, they also got to feast on their own boss's gossip.

An employee asked, "Director, this is related to our boss. Should we take it down?"

The director glanced at it. "Whether we take it down or not... I think our boss is enjoying it too. He designed so many clothes for them."

When the fashion show ended and everyone moved to the inner venue, the livestream had barely been shut off when Shi Jihan sprang to his feet and ran.

He had just reached the corner and was about to rush out of the venue when someone grabbed him by the back of the neck, the neck of fate.

"Where are you running to? Hmm?"

That cool final note condensed into a thin thread, like it wanted to hang Shi Jihan right there.

He squeezed his eyes shut in fright, then cautiously opened a sliver and looked back, only to meet Zhou Jingcheng's cold eyes.

Shi Jihan:!

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

Shi Jihan immediately shut his eyes and turned back around. "What? How strange. Who's talking? I can't hear or see anything... Where's my Electronic Wooden Fish? I'm going home to tap it for a while."

He struggled a few times but couldn't break free.

Zhou Jingcheng laughed in fury, his words venomous. "Tap the Electronic Wooden Fish? Young Master Shi wants to ascend to the cyber Western Paradise, does he? Such a small wish—I can fulfill it for you very soon."

"That won't be necessary!" Shi Jihan's mouth fell open like a trash can that had been stepped on, then quickly closed in embarrassment. Slowly turning to face Zhou Jingcheng, he stretched out two fingers and secretly tugged at the hem of the man's suit jacket. "Well... there was a reason for it. Listen to my expla—explanation!"

Zhou Jingcheng felt the tug at his hem and paused slightly. Yet his anger still hadn't eased. Narrowing his phoenix eyes, he raked his gaze inch by inch over Shi Jihan's face. "Go on."

If you don't explain yourself properly, I'll throw you to Australia to box kangaroos and make you roommates with a handsome dark-skinned eight-legged guy.

That was the subtext Shi Jihan read.

His brain spun at top speed as he desperately searched his stomach for lines. "Bro, what was this show supposed to achieve? Disruptive innovation, empowerment through a new ecosystem, identifying business pain points, building two core levers from the underlying logic, benchmarking against competing products, forming differentiated solutions, breaking into the mainstream with a combination punch, opening up markets, and forging boldly ahead."

Zhou Jingcheng said, "Transfer me to a human agent."

Shi Jihan: .

So tiring. He was too hard to fool.

He said, "Open your phone and take a look at the trending lists. This overwhelming traffic has all poured into both our companies. How much money will we make when we monetize it?"

Zhou Jingcheng tugged at the corner of his lips. "Can you stop talking about traffic as if you're dumping out foot-washing water?"

Shi Jihan was out of options. Neither sweet talk nor hard persuasion worked, so he put a little more force into tugging Zhou Jingcheng's jacket hem and begged pitifully, "Bro, I was wrong. I really was... I misunderstood what you meant. I thought when you said no, you meant yes."

Zhou Jingcheng: ? So he had this kind of tsundere hobby?

He pulled that hand away and looked down at Shi Jihan with lowered dark eyes, his tone unreadable. "Shi Jihan, stop acting cute with me."

"? Don't falsely accuse me. I wasn't acting cute!" Shi Jihan defended himself.

"Who knows? When you say no, it means yes... Who's there?" Zhou Jingcheng immediately put what he had learned into practice, looking toward the corner halfway through his sentence.

Shi Jihan looked over too, then quietly took a step back while Zhou Jingcheng wasn't paying attention.

Secretary Sun emerged from the corner and stammered, "Sorry to interrupt... Boss, your phone. Madam is calling."

"My mom? What does she want with me?" Zhou Jingcheng released Shi Jihan and reached for his phone.

Unable to get through to her son, Madam Zhou had sent him a message instead.

[Son, I watched the livestream. Do you have time this weekend?]

[Mom will take you to the hospital. Your mental state scares me.]

Zhou Jingcheng: "..."

Instinctively, he turned to settle the score with the culprit, only to discover that the other man had already slipped several meters away and was sprinting toward the exit.

"Why are you running?!"

Shi Jihan's voice drifted back through the air. "If I don't run, am I supposed to wait for you to deal with me as a business pain point?"

Haha, Dianjia Bro, see you later!

-

Shi Jihan raced all the way back to the car and urged the driver, "Sir, hurry, hurry, hurry! Don't wait for those two!"

Watching the scenery streak backward outside the window, he tugged at the collar of his custom-made gown and fanned himself.

Phew~ That was close.

000 was still buzzing with excitement. [Host, have you calculated our Malice Points yet?]

Shi Jihan really hadn't. [How much do we have?]

[A full 92.34!!] 000 set off cyber fireworks for its host with a bang bang bang.

Shi Jihan shot upright. [That much?!]

[Yep, because you destroyed both the audience at the venue and the netizens at the same time. They were all random passersby, but there were a lot of them, so they contributed quite a bit too.]

...That didn't sound like a compliment.