Had the principal... lost it again?

Yu Sheng looked a little bewildered. "I don't know."

"There are a lot of people in the province. I don't know them, either."

Rule nine of Sin City: never be blindly confident before you have definite intelligence.

Rule nine of Sin City, subsection two: even with definite intelligence, don't be confident, or you'll get screwed over badly.

He couldn't take a job he wasn't sure he could do.

The principal was baffled, too.

In the scene he'd imagined, wasn't Yu Sheng supposed to start negotiating the price right away?

If the person who emerged from Sin City through its one annual slot couldn't even place in the top ten of a provincial student exam, Sin City should have fallen and been razed to the ground long ago.

"How about this? We'll use the top one hundred as the baseline."

"For every place you climb, I'll give you... give you..."

The principal agonized over it for a long time before gritting his teeth, as though he had finally made up his mind. "For every place you climb, I'll give you a hundred!"

"If you take first place, the bonus is ten thousand!"

The principal's eyes went red as he spoke, his teeth clenched as though this wasn't merely a plain, unadorned ten thousand, but his lost youth.

Even Yu Sheng seemed not to have expected that figure. He raised his head and gave the principal a somewhat bewildered look, hesitating briefly. "I think... I'll be going."

With that, he turned to leave.

"That's not a small amount!"

"It really isn't!"

"Don't go! Wait, just wait!"

With an agile burst of speed, the principal reached the door first, blocking it completely with his somewhat portly body.

"If the price isn't right, we can negotiate."

"Look, let me suggest something else."

The principal coughed twice. "I'll make a wager with the higher-ups at the Education Department. If Second High School gets a provincial ranking, they should allocate some resources. Then we split it thirty-seventy. How's that?"

Silence settled over the room.

Yu Sheng looked at the principal with a complicated expression. After giving it serious thought, he sat back down, picked up a pen and paper from the desk, and began writing nonstop. "Principal, I think we could improve your proposal like this..."

"Based on previous national exams, every school has the right to design its own uniform, correct?"

"You could ask the Education Department's higher-ups for written approval to redesign the uniforms because of the three schools merging."

"The Education Department would definitely agree to something like that."

"Then, our uniforms..."

Yu Sheng was usually a man of few words, quiet and withdrawn, and rarely even expressed much emotion.

But whenever money was involved, he seemed to become a different person, brimming with ideas and talking without pause.

"No one said we can't print words on the uniforms."

"The national exams are always a major focus of public attention. Even television stations conduct interviews."

"So as long as we print things like 'So-and-so General Store' or 'So-and-so Group' on the uniforms..."

"Especially if someone wearing that uniform gets a good ranking, or even makes the top ten, or becomes the provincial champion."

"And then wears that uniform to the college assessments, how much do you think..."

"Those people would be willing to pay?"

Yu Sheng wasn't speaking loudly, nor was he particularly excited. It was as though he were calmly recounting something.

But to the principal, his words thundered in his ears.

They set his blood pumping more than any impassioned speech could.

Scripture!

This was practically scripture!

Was this the Yu family's money-making bible?

And this plan had its own absolute competitive edge: it required a genius good enough to show off.

Otherwise, with just a single city, no matter how much hype you generated, you wouldn't make much.

So...

Even after Yu Sheng laid out the plan outright, the principal couldn't ditch him and strike out on his own.

For a moment, the principal looked at Yu Sheng as though he were a mountain of gold.

A walking mountain of gold.

"This could work."

"The director of Mobei City's Education Department is an old army buddy of mine."

"And it's not as though I don't know people at big companies."

"Besides, I won't make this a one-off deal. If the ranking goes up, they'll have to pay more."

"Don't worry. I'll get everything sorted out properly."

The principal spoke with complete confidence, pounding his chest hard.

Watching that somewhat familiar gesture, Yu Sheng's heart instinctively trembled. He couldn't help asking, "Principal, were you in the Reserve Corps?"

"Ah, yes."

"Why?"

The principal paused, asking in some bewilderment.

Two people unwittingly flashed through Yu Sheng's mind... two idiots.

For some inexplicable reason, he regretted it again.

In Yu Sheng's memory, the Reserve Corps seemed to come with a natural label bearing three enormous words.

'Not at all reliable.'

"Shall we... split it fifty-fifty?"

For some reason, the sight of Yu Sheng lost in thought gave the principal a bad feeling, and he cautiously tested the waters.

Yu Sheng gazed at the principal without saying a word.

"Sixty-forty!"

The principal gritted his teeth and made this momentous decision.

Yu Sheng still said nothing.

"Seventy-thirty! I can't take any less!"

"That's really my limit..."

"I'll have to call in a whole load of favors, and making new uniforms won't be cheap, either. Besides, this money won't be going into my own pocket."

"I'll add your name to the school's list of outstanding graduates, too!"

"That's an achievement! You can't measure it in money!"

The principal raised the stakes again.

Yu Sheng nodded lightly. "Mm."

Seeing Yu Sheng finally nod, the principal couldn't help letting out a long breath. "I'll print out a contract in a bit. We'll have it in black and white, and the deal will go smoothly."

"There's no need for a contract."

"I recorded it."

Yu Sheng took the hand he'd kept in his coat pocket out and waved his phone. With a shy air, he nodded politely to the principal, then turned and left.

The principal froze where he stood, as though struck by lightning.

If he hadn't been planning to use this money for school development, but to pocket it instead, did that mean...

Yu Sheng could report him at any time using that recording.

And get his own money back in the process...

But he soon put the matter out of his mind, took a calculator from a drawer, and kept punching in numbers. A long while passed.

The principal's piercing laughter could still be heard from his office.

It echoed endlessly down the quiet corridor.

Along with the words he kept repeating...

"I'm rich! I'm getting rich this time!"

For a while, every teacher who passed cast a slightly odd look at the principal's tightly shut office door.

Had the principal... lost it again?