Chapter 92 - 91: Strictly Investigate Li Beixing!

Chapter 92: Chapter 91: Strictly Investigate Li Beixing!

Not to mention there was a reward for eating.

[Good boy! You have successfully completed the eating task. Rewarded with 0.1 kg of strength. Current strength: 42.3 kg.]

This strength growth rate was much better than his height growth. Absolutely delightful!

On the other side, watching Chen Jingle leave, Li Beixing felt a bit down. However, looking at the calligraphy and painting in her hands, she figured she should first finish the favor he had asked of her. She drove to Huang Huanwen’s home.

"Uncle Huang!"

"If it isn’t Beixing. What brings you here this time?" Huang Huanwen asked with a chuckle. He was sitting under the tree outside his door, enjoying the cool breeze as usual.

Li Beixing giggled. "You guessed right. This time, I’m here to help an elder with a piece of calligraphy. I’ll have to trouble you to mount it again." She handed over the items in her hands.

"Let me take a look," Huang Huanwen said, taking them. He looked surprised. "Why is there a painting too?"

"Yes, it’s a little different this time."

"Is it also the work of that little friend of yours? Hmm, it’s really well-painted. Quite interesting." Having dealt with calligraphy and paintings for years, Huang Huanwen could naturally tell the style and quality, and he couldn’t help but be amazed. He thought to himself that the artist must be a master of both calligraphy and painting!

However, the real surprise was yet to come.

"Whoa, the speed of improvement in this calligraphy is a bit frightening."

How long had it been since Li Beixing brought over those two previous pieces? He could clearly feel from this new work that the artist’s brushwork intent was much stronger. He wondered if the artist had taken some sort of miracle drug.

Li Beixing agreed, "Right? Even I find it exaggerated. Maybe it’s just pure talent."

"Playing with this definitely relies on talent. So many geniuses can only touch the threshold." Huang Huanwen sighed softly and smiled. "Alright, leave it to me. Come pick it up in a couple of days as usual."

"Thank you!" Li Beixing smiled so widely her eyes curved into crescents.

Huang Huanwen waved his hand. "It’s a small matter. I’m free right now anyway." He had only busied himself with two or three things his whole life, and that was enough for him.

"I’ll be going then!"

"Mhm, drive safe."

However, before Li Beixing’s car could get very far, her phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID, she saw it was Zhou Manlin. She hastily pulled over to the side of the road.

As soon as the call connected, the person on the other end immediately launched a fierce preemptive strike. "Li Beixing, what’s going on with you? You went out for milk tea without calling me?!"

Li Beixing felt a bit helpless. "How was I supposed to know which store you were busy at? Besides, it’s just a cup of milk tea. Did I really need to call you over specifically for that?"

"Please! Today is Saturday. Bosses are people too, and we need rest. You came to my shop for milk tea and I wasn’t the first person you thought of. Could it be that you were doing something shady and didn’t want me to know?" Zhou Manlin asked in a mocking tone.

Li Beixing laughed out of sheer exasperation. "Are you crazy? What do I have to hide?"

"Then tell me, who is that handsome guy?"

Li Beixing was instantly left speechless. She felt a twinge of guilt but stubbornly shot back, "Just a friend from the calligraphy circle. I just asked him to help me write two pieces of calligraphy. What’s the problem?"

"Is that so? Why did it seem to me that when he left, you were staring after him like a wife waiting for her husband’s return? Don’t tell me it’s unrequited love? Oh my god!" Zhou Manlin shuddered as if she was getting goosebumps.

"How do you..." Li Beixing gritted her teeth in anger. "Do the employees at your store all love to gossip so much?"

Zhou Manlin cackled with glee. "Hey, don’t blame my employees. I came over and checked the store’s surveillance footage myself. Why, is there a problem?"

"You’re such a creep!"

"That’s right, that’s exactly the kind of person I am, MWAHAHA..."

"Alright, alright, enough nonsense. I’m driving. I’m parked illegally right now and I’m going to get a ticket. Let’s talk later." Li Beixing hurriedly hung up the phone, made a "leaving immediately" gesture to the traffic cop outside the window, and restarted the car.

In everyone’s life, there are always a few close friends worth keeping around as they grow up. For Li Beixing, Zhou Manlin was definitely one of them.

Miss Zhou possessed a very strong, leading-lady type of personality. In the past, Li Beixing had been the one protected by her. They had been classmates since middle school, but they only truly became good friends after high school. Later, because her grades weren’t great, Zhou Manlin transferred to the art class and eventually got into Guangmei, while Li Beixing went to Huashi. Fortunately, both were located in the university town, so they could still hang out together.

After graduation, the domestic milk tea market was in a fierce and chaotic battle among various brands. Zhou Manlin saw a business opportunity. Before those big brands could penetrate down to smaller cities, she returned to Jiangbei and started her own personal brand called 1234. Within a year, she opened five branches, all of which successfully survived.

This was actually quite impressive. How high could the profit margin of a well-run milk tea shop be? Let’s put it this way: using Snow King as an example, the total initial franchise fee in non-tier-one or non-tier-two cities was around 300,000 yuan. As long as the location wasn’t too terrible, one could break even in seven to eight months, and the rest was pure profit. Other brands might be slightly less lucrative, but the gross profit in this industry was generally around sixty percent.

One could easily imagine how much money Zhou Manlin’s five stores made combined. She was also the first among Li Beixing’s many friends to achieve financial freedom solely through her own abilities.

The reason her five stores managed to survive the bloodbath against numerous external brands was partly due to her real ingredients and cost-effectiveness, and partly because Zhou Manlin herself studied art. She was willing to put effort into the design, making the cups’ appearance highly appealing to young students’ aesthetics. She might not be able to beat brands like Chagee, but it was more than enough to crush local, small-scale milk tea shops. A person’s success relied heavily on their own capabilities, apart from the progression of the times and industry trends. Li Beixing truly felt that Zhou Manlin was incredible.

When Li Beixing returned to the milk tea shop from earlier, sure enough, she saw Zhou Manlin sitting right at the entrance with her legs crossed. However, Li Beixing didn’t stop the car. Instead, she smiled and waved through the window, then stepped on the gas and sped right past.

Zhou Manlin, who had been ready to stand up and greet her, was momentarily stunned before she started stomping her feet in anger.

Looking at Zhou Manlin’s reaction in the rearview mirror, Li Beixing let out a rare, uncharacteristic burst of loud laughter. She thought it was hilarious.

As for what to do if Zhou Manlin got angry? She could just coax her a little on WeChat.

At this very moment, Zhou Manlin had already pulled out her phone and started typing out an essay, bombarding Li Beixing’s inbox like crazy. Of course, she was much more interested in that guy. He looked quite handsome on the surveillance camera, but she just didn’t know what was going on between the two of them. Judging from their behavior in the video, it didn’t seem like they were in that sort of relationship. She had said all those things earlier just to trick Li Beixing into spilling the beans, but it seemed she hadn’t gotten any useful information.

Tsk.

"This must be strictly investigated!"

Waking up from his afternoon nap, Chen Jingle felt a rare urge to sleep in. His mind felt a bit empty, and although he knew what work he had to do in the afternoon, he felt somewhat resistant to it. In the end, he only managed to numbly drag himself out of bed under the system’s urging.

It was actually nothing major, just intermittent laziness, which was completely normal. Even though the system constantly provided rewards and guidance, that was an external driving force. If his internal driving force—his own mindset—couldn’t keep up, he would end up getting half the result with twice the effort.

Upon noticing this change, Chen Jingle immediately made a decision to alter his afternoon study plan. He swapped out Logic of Politics, which he had originally intended to continue reading, for Selected Works. This was his go-to magic weapon for mental recharging, and it never failed him.

Chen Qiyun came over again. She was obediently doing her homework as usual. However, because she kept thinking about what delicious food there would be later in the afternoon, her efficiency was rather low. After an hour, she had barely finished one exam paper.

She felt a little guilty.

However, Chen Jingle didn’t say anything. She could just do as much as she could. People’s conditions fluctuated; it was impossible to always maintain an eternally positive and motivated state. That would be a god, not a human. He couldn’t even manage to stay constantly diligent himself, so he shouldn’t criticize others for not being hardworking enough. Otherwise, it would be a double standard!

Under normal circumstances, as long as one could do their own part well, it was considered a success. If, beyond their duties, they could do what was within their power to add icing on the cake, then that was more than enough.

The next hour was spent explaining the questions Chen Qiyun had gotten wrong or didn’t understand. Perhaps due to being in the wrong state of mind, it felt like time passed rather quickly today. Dinner was also quite casual, and he sent Chen Qiyun away right after they finished eating.

This state continued until nine o’clock in the evening.

Suddenly, a commotion could be heard coming from outside.