Although things had largely developed as Li Shunchen had expected, a small deviation in how they actually played out left him unsure whether to laugh or cry.
In Li Shunchen's original plan, Mei Mei, who always maximized her profits, would most likely step in herself and spar with him, cleverly exploiting a loophole to bypass the New Shadow Style's strict binding vow of secrecy.
But he had still underestimated the Black Bird Manipulation user's consummate "capitalist mindset." With perfect ease, Mei Mei took a large portion of his generous payment as her "brokerage fee," then turned around and used the rest to hire the still quite young Atsuya Kusakabe as Li Shunchen's "personal sparring partner."
Mei Mei's business logic was practically flawless. First, she had perfectly fulfilled Li Shunchen's commission to "see the New Shadow Style," without personally taking the initiative to "teach" him any of the school's secrets.
She had merely found Li Shunchen an opponent who would use nothing but the New Shadow Style in combat. This gave Kusakabe, as a hired sparring partner, absolute "legitimacy" in using the New Shadow Style to attack and defend during their bouts. Meanwhile, Li Shunchen would rely on his own talent to secretly "steal" the techniques through "observation in actual combat" while taking a beating, completely avoiding the school contract's punishment.
Yet even someone as shrewd as Mei Mei could never have known that this perfect arrangement, which she believed had earned her both a cut and a favor, had fit seamlessly into Li Shunchen's far more extensive plan from beginning to end.
Li Shunchen had lied to Mei Mei about Phantom Parade's actual capabilities.
In truth, his innate cursed technique, Phantom Parade, could directly replicate the New Shadow Style, just as he had initially been able to perfectly replicate Shoko