Wang Defa chewed on the crispy fried thousand-foot mushroom as he raised his chopsticks and said:
"Boss Qin, to tell you the truth, I've been thinking about this for ages."
"Huh? For ages? Has someone mentioned customized privileges to you before?"
"No. How could they? I'm just a lousy internet cafe owner acting as a front. What privileges could I have?"
Wang Defa seemed to be recalling something.
"My family was poor, so I dropped out early and took A Zhong and A You with me to scrape by on the streets. But during the few years I did spend in school, there was one story in our textbook that always stuck with me."
"It was called 'The Seven-Colored Flower.' Did you study it, boss?"
"'The Seven-Colored Flower'? That sounds vaguely familiar..."
"It was about a little girl who happened to get a flower with seven petals. If she plucked off a petal and made a wish, it would come true right away."
"Oh, now I remember."
"That little girl made a whole bunch of useless wishes. Only the last one was any good. I'm telling you, when we studied that story, I was so mad..."
"Why?"
"Think about it-it could grant any wish! Tsk, tsk, tsk. When I saw all those ridiculous wishes she made, like getting back the doughnuts a dog had eaten or fixing a vase she'd accidentally broken, my chest got tight. I was still in elementary school, and that was the first time I learned what it meant to have your blood pressure shoot through the roof!"
"Back then, I thought, if I had a Seven-Colored Flower like that, I'd pluck off a petal, and my first wish would be for three more Seven-Colored Flowers! Then I could make even more wishes, couldn't I?"
"Why