Chapter 1: A Three-Month Bet

Yao Jia didn’t sleep well last night, all because she was fuming with anger.

Her creative flow for her illustrations was blocked, so she picked up her phone to play a racing mobile game, KartRider, to relieve some stress. She joined a race room hosted by a local gaming friend, intending to play a couple of team races. Unexpectedly, she encountered an annoying player.

She ended up locked in a grudge match with that guy for most of the night, battling so intensely that her fingers still hurt.

The guy was on the opposing team, with the ID Xinghen, and according to his profile, he was a local. Initially, Yao Jia didn’t pay him any mind because he was just a bronze-level player, driving a seven-day trial car given out of system pity.

Everyone else in the room was a high-ranking player, and someone suggested, “Why don’t we have a high-level match next?”

Yao Jia casually chimed in, “Sounds good.”

The host agreed, saying they’d start after the current race. He then told Xinghen, “Sorry, buddy, but we’ll need you to leave after this round so we can start a high-level match.”

The game began, and the racers entered the track. Yao Jia found herself next to Xinghen.

What happened next was beyond Yao Jia’s expectations. Unfortunately, she ended up next to Xinghen, and this low-tier bronze player decided to target the nearest high-level player, which was her.

This guy was especially good at blocking and bumping into others during drifts. Several times, Yao Jia was either blocked or knocked off course. The most infuriating part was that after he bumped her, he would accelerate smoothly without any delay. Because of his interference, Yao Jia’s team lost several times.

After winning, this guy even taunted Yao Jia: “High-level racer, you’re not great at cornering, are you? Why do you keep bumping into me? Less collision, more love!”

This was classic villain behavior, accusing her when he was the one at fault!

Yao Jia was livid and wanted to add Xinghen as a friend just to give this unsporting player a piece of her mind.

But Xinghen never accepted her friend request.

His refusal only fueled Yao Jia’s rebellious spirit. The more he refused, the more determined she was to add him.

Finally, Xinghen used the chat bubble in the race room to taunt her: “If you can beat me, I’ll accept your friend request.”

Yao Jia replied, “If you’ve got the guts, stop bumping into people!”

Xinghen agreed.

Everyone else cleared the room for their showdown, leaving only her and Xinghen.

The game started, and once on the track, Yao Jia sped ahead.

She led for the first lap, but in the second lap’s latter half, Xinghen, driving his trial car, suddenly shot forward with seemingly endless acceleration, and Yao Jia couldn’t catch up.

As they neared the finish line, Xinghen did something even more infuriating.

He turned his car around and drove backward toward the finish line. Just as he was about to cross, he stopped, waiting for her. When she was about to catch up, he released the brake and smoothly crossed the finish line, securing victory just a second ahead of her.

His maneuver was as slick as it was infuriating.

Yao Jia was almost humiliated to the point of fainting.

She spent the rest of the night locked in a grudge match with Xinghen, racing on nearly every map, but she never managed to beat him.

Finally, Xinghen messaged her in the room: “Why don’t you become my apprentice? If you do, I might consider accepting your friend request.”

Yao Jia replied, “With my high-level status, if I become an apprentice to a bronze player like you, wouldn’t I lose face?”

He responded, “But with your high-level status, if you become an apprentice to a bronze player like me, wouldn’t I gain face?”

Yao Jia was nearly driven to madness.

She steadied herself, took a deep breath, and negotiated terms for adding him as a friend: “If I become your apprentice, what’s in it for me?”

After a long pause, as if he was thinking, he replied, “How about this: if you become my apprentice, I’ll give you a chance. You can ask me to treat you to a lavish meal anytime, anywhere, regardless of the cost.”

Yao Jia chuckled coldly, gripping her phone.

Does he think he’s Warren Buffett, making such a big deal out of a meal?

Determined not to lose her momentum, Yao Jia replied, “Fine, I’ll become your apprentice, and you add me as a friend. To celebrate you having the honor of accepting a high-level apprentice like me, I’ll give you a chance too. You can ask me to treat you to a lavish meal anytime, anywhere, regardless of the cost.”

After a string of “hahaha,” he accepted her friend request.

Seeing Xinghen now on her friend list, Yao Jia triumphantly tossed her phone onto the bed. “I knew I’d add you eventually!”

Then she went to sleep.

She had long forgotten her initial reason for wanting to add Xinghen as a friend was to give him a piece of her mind.

※※※

When she opened her eyes, it was already noon. The weather was beautiful, with the sun hanging in the sky like a soft-boiled egg yolk, making the sky look delicious.

Lying in bed, Yao Jia felt hungrier the more she looked at the sun outside.

She struggled to sit up, rubbing her fingers as she tried to wake up.

Two months had passed since her college graduation, and she and her parents had a disagreement about her career path.

She wanted to pursue design, but her hot-tempered father, Yao Bingkun, Chairman of Kunyu Electric, insisted she join the company.

So, for the past two months, she had been staying at home, drawing and playing KartRider, staying up late and waking up late, using idleness as a form of passive resistance to fight for a chance to pursue her true passion.

She was betting that her father, with his high standards and pride, would eventually grow tired of supporting her idle lifestyle and give in first.

Her stomach’s growl was getting louder and louder. After freshening up, Yao Jia left her room. The housekeeper was napping, and Yao Jia didn’t have the heart to wake her to ask for a meal.

Clutching her stomach, she recalled a short video she had watched a couple of days ago. It featured a local food blogger who passionately recommended a trendy fried chicken shop. The blogger emerged from the crowd, holding freshly fried chicken wings, tears streaming down his face as he shouted at the camera, “Promise me, boys and girls, come and eat here tomorrow, okay? It’s so delicious it’ll make you cry!”

Yao Jia decided she would go to that trendy fried chicken shop.

※※※

In the office of Xingbei Technology, the aroma of fried chicken from the shop downstairs wafted in through the windows.

Meng Xingzhe, one of the company owners, was working on math competition problems but couldn’t stand it any longer. He threw down his pen and ordered his childhood friend and co-owner, Bei Luonan, to close the window. He had slept poorly the night before, and his temper was unusually short today.

“How can anyone live like this with such a strong smell? It’s blocking my train of thought.”

Bei Luonan also put down his pen.

“I’ve finished the problems. How about you?”

“…”

Meng Xingzhe was still stuck on a minor problem.

Bei Luonan beamed with delight. “I won the bet, so you have to go undercover at Kunyu Electric!”

It didn’t matter whether he had intentionally opened the window to distract Meng Xingzhe; he had won the bet regardless.

※※※

A few years ago, Meng Xingzhe and Bei Luonan co-founded Xingbei Technology, focusing on designing and developing innovative functional home appliances. Their products were trendy and advanced, supposedly appealing to young people. Yet, they couldn’t outsell Kunyu Electric’s traditional appliances in either the middle-aged or young markets.

This baffled both Meng Xingzhe and Bei Luonan. They couldn’t figure out what made Kunyu Electric superior or where their own shortcomings lay.

To solve this mystery, these two unconventional thinkers made a bet: whoever lost would infiltrate Kunyu Electric as an undercover agent to gather insights and identify their company’s issues. If the undercover agent blew their cover within three months, they would have to transfer their shares to the other for free.

When they registered the company, both were busy, so Meng Xingzhe’s mother was listed as the legal representative, and their shares were held by their mothers. They never got around to changing this, so their names weren’t visible in the company’s public records.

They usually focused on product design and survival, avoiding media interviews and leaving public relations and marketing to department heads. This low public profile meant either of them could go undercover relatively safely.

When they made the bet, both were fiercely provoking each other:

“Are you afraid to bet?”

“Whoever’s afraid is a coward! Are you scared to go if you lose?”

“Whoever’s scared is a scoundrel!”

After locking horns, they decided the terms for who would go undercover: a competition on math problems.

Before the competition, Meng Xingzhe was confident. “I almost entered Mensa at four, and you dare to bet on math with me? You must be crazy!”

Then he lost. He blamed his failure partly on the distracting smell of fried chicken and partly on a peculiar player he encountered in a game the night before, who insisted on adding him as a friend but then didn’t speak for ages, wasting his precious eight hours of sleep. It drove him mad.

With the undercover candidate decided, Bei Luonan forced Meng Xingzhe to study Kunyu Electric’s job postings. Currently, only the Customer Service Department was hiring.

Bei Luonan encouraged Meng Xingzhe, “Start in Customer Service, and transfer to Operations or Tech when you get the chance.” He also used the bet and the threat of losing shares to pressure Meng Xingzhe into reluctantly submitting a resume to Kunyu Electric’s Customer Service Department under Bei Luonan’s watchful eye.

“Do you know how hard it is to downplay your excellence on a resume?” Meng Xingzhe lamented while working on his resume. “If I listed my real experiences and achievements, I’m afraid they’d hire me as Chairman.”

To this, Bei Luonan scoffed, “You can’t go a day without showing off, can you?”

After his retort, Bei Luonan handed Meng Xingzhe a suit, saying, “I had the receptionist buy this off Taobao for your interview.”

Meng Xingzhe shook out the suit with disdain and indignation.

“I’m so stunningly handsome and distinguished, and you want me to wear this no-name brand to an interview?!”

Bei Luonan retorted, “So what, my friend? Are you going to wear Armani or a bespoke suit to a customer service interview? Are you looking for trouble?”

He urged Meng Xingzhe to try on the suit for size.

“If it doesn’t fit, we can exchange it.”

Reluctantly, Meng Xingzhe put on the suit. His tall, slender frame made the plain, even somewhat ugly suit look high-end.

Turning left and right in front of the mirror, Meng Xingzhe clicked his tongue.

“What can I say? How do I look good in everything?”

Bei Luonan continued to mock him, “Shut up before I puke from your boasting.”

As the smell of fried chicken grew stronger, Bei Luonan went to the window and leaned out to look downstairs.

Downstairs, next to their product showroom, was a trendy fried chicken shop. The place was always bustling with people, and the long lines made him sigh in frustration.

Originally, they had deliberately set up their company next to this popular fried chicken shop, with the first floor serving as a product showroom and the upper floors as office space. They hoped to attract some of the chicken shop’s customers to their showroom.

After all, those who love fried chicken are generally young people, and besides being young, they are also open to new and innovative things. While waiting in line for their chicken, a slight turn of their heads would reveal a creative and functional home appliance showroom next door. Once inside, they might discover yogurt makers, heated lunch boxes, facial steamers, humidifiers, rice cookers… all products with surprisingly unique functions.

Unfortunately, their calculations were off. For some reason, these young fried chicken customers showed no interest in the showroom’s products and rarely felt the urge to take any home.

So, what exactly was wrong with the products?

“Forget it, you’re about to go find the answer anyway, so don’t worry about it. Come on, I’ll treat you to some fried chicken!” Bei Luonan said grandly, waving his hand.

Meng Xingzhe’s handsome face was full of disdain. “With teeth raised on sea cucumbers and abalone, you expect me to eat fried chicken with you? Who are you insulting?”

Bei Luonan retorted, “Have you not been insulted enough by fried chicken already?”

Meng Xingzhe, still disdainful, said flamboyantly, “Wait for me while I change my clothes.”

“You know, if you don’t dress well, you’ll just blend into the crowd,” Bei Luonan teased him.

Meng Xingzhe angrily shot back, “Nonsense! How about we make a bet? Even if I go downstairs in this off-brand suit, someone will still ask for my WeChat. Believe it?”

※※※※※※

Meng Xingzhe went downstairs in his off-brand online-purchased suit. As Bei Luonan queued at the fried chicken shop, he saw Meng Xingzhe standing in front of their showroom’s sign. He wasn’t trying to show off, but his tall figure, handsome features, and slightly pursed lips created a natural blend of restraint and allure, radiating from his demeanor.

Sure enough, two young girls blushed and approached him.

“Hi there, could we add you on WeChat?” one of the girls asked.

Meng Xingzhe’s lips parted slightly as he apologized and gave a heart-wrenching reason.

“I don’t have a phone.”

The girls, a bit disappointed, walked away.

Meng Xingzhe looked proudly at Bei Luonan, who was still in line for fried chicken, his gaze silently saying: See, I told you.

Bei Luonan couldn’t be bothered to respond and glanced elsewhere. Then his gaze froze.

Meng Xingzhe followed Bei Luonan’s gaze, curious about what had caught his attention so intensely.

He saw a girl with a ponytail staring directly… at him.

The girl was fresh and pretty, with fair skin like a delicate porcelain doll. Her eyes were bright and innocent, with a hint of stubbornness. Despite her good looks, Meng Xingzhe decided he would still turn her down.

Yet, after a while, the girl didn’t approach him; she just stood there, staring more and more… disdainfully?

Meng Xingzhe frowned.

By the time Bei Luonan had finished buying the fried chicken, the girl still hadn’t come over to ask for WeChat.

Feeling uneasy under her gaze, Meng Xingzhe decided to walk over to her. Bei Luonan followed, eager for some entertainment.

As he got closer, Meng Xingzhe was surprised to find that the girl wasn’t looking at him but at the company’s logo above the showroom behind him.

Meng Xingzhe frowned.

Bei Luonan spoke first, asking the girl, “Hey there, you’ve been standing here for a while. Is there something you need help with?”

Yao Jia shifted her gaze, looking at Bei Luonan and then at Meng Xingzhe.

To her surprise, two extremely handsome guys had approached her. Especially the one in the back, despite wearing a suit that was a knockoff many times over, still deserved the term ‘unparalleled beauty.’ The saying ‘clothes make the man’ seemed reversed with him; it was more like ‘the man makes the clothes.’

She asked them, “Are you from in there?” pointing to the showroom behind them.

Meng Xingzhe and Bei Luonan both shook their heads in unison, wanting to hide their identities to hear what the girl had to say.

“Oh, then I can say this freely,” Yao Jia said with a face full of disdain. “I don’t need anything. I was just stopped in my tracks by how ugly that logo behind you is. I really want to help fix it for the public good.”

Meng Xingzhe’s face, usually described as ‘unparalleled beauty,’ turned as dark as a beautiful black swamp.

The company logo was something he had personally designed after a week of studying simple sketches.