At nine o’clock the next morning, the heavy brass lock on the Vacheron & Patek breakroom door clicked shut from the inside.
Store Manager Zhang Meili leaned her back against the frosted glass panel and waved a printed commission-waiver form in Su Wan’s face.
“Hand over that mystery buyer’s phone number and sign away ninety percent of your commission, Su Wan, or I’ll blacklist you from every luxury store in Jiangcheng!”
Manager Zhang’s bloodshot eyes bulged under thick concealer. She hadn’t slept a wink all night.
At eleven o’clock this morning, the regional audit team from Shanghai headquarters was arriving to inspect the boutique’s quarterly books. Over the past six months, Zhang Meili had swapped twelve genuine gold watch clasps with counterfeits and skimmed seven hundred thousand yuan from the VIP gift budget.
Her only hope of plugging that hole before noon was seizing Su Wan’s forty-five-thousand-yuan commission and extorting the contact info of the young buyer from last night.
Su Wan stood with her back against the steel employee lockers. Despite spending half the night helping Grandma Chen settle into the hospital VIP ward, her white blouse was neatly pressed, and the rose-gold Patek Philippe Calatrava gleamed on her wrist.
“I told you three times, Manager Zhang,” Su Wan said, clutching her sales binder. “Mr. Lin’s contact information is private. And that forty-five-thousand-yuan commission was credited directly by the sovereign terminal under corporate rules.”
“Corporate rules?” Manager Zhang let out a shrill laugh and rattled the brass padlock she had snapped onto the interior bolt. “In this store, I am the corporate rule! You’re a twenty-two-year-old probation girl whose father went bankrupt! If I write ‘suspected inventory theft’ on your file today, not even a street stall will hire you!”
She slammed a black pen onto the breakroom table.
“Sign the ninety-percent transfer waiver, take off that watch so I can log it as a display return, and write down his phone number!” Manager Zhang hissed. “Otherwise, you stay locked in this breakroom until the regional auditors leave!”
“That watch was paid for in full by Mr. Lin, and you have no right to lock me in here!” Su Wan reached for her phone to call security, but Manager Zhang lunged to snatch it.
Outside in the service corridor behind the showroom, sixty-two-year-old Old Wu stood beside his janitor cart.
Thanks to the warm cashmere scarf Lin Mo had bought him last night, the old janitor had arrived two hours early for his shift.
Half an hour ago, while sweeping behind Manager Zhang’s private office, Old Wu had watched Zhang shredding real invoices and stuffing twelve counterfeit watch boxes into a false ceiling panel.
Once Zhang left the office to trap Su Wan in the breakroom, Old Wu climbed onto his step-stool and photographed every forged ledger page with his phone. Then he texted the photos and his location straight to Lin Mo and the regional audit hotline.
Just as Old Wu raised his broom handle to pry the breakroom doorknob, brisk footsteps sounded down the service hallway.
Lin Mo walked around the corner.
After a full night of sleep nourished by Rank 1 Early Martial Benevolence Qi, Lin Mo looked completely refreshed. He wore a simple, clean white cotton shirt and dark slacks that fit his broadened shoulders cleanly.
Early that morning, Little Guo’er had woken up in the hospital VIP suite with rosy cheeks and a steady heartbeat. Before leaving the hospital, Lin Mo had Jiangcheng Sovereign Private Bank’s corporate concierge register a brand-new holding company with a hundred million yuan in paid-in capital: Taichu Benevolence Group.
Now, looking at Old Wu pointing anxiously at the locked breakroom door, Lin Mo’s [Pure-Heart Eye] saw right through the frosted glass.
Inside, Manager Zhang (Goodness: 18/100) had her hand raised to grab Su Wan’s (Goodness: 95/100) wrist.
“Step back a foot, Uncle Wu,” Lin Mo said gently, patting the old janitor’s shoulder. “Watch out for splinters.”
Old Wu stepped back and nodded eagerly.
Lin Mo didn’t waste a breath knocking.
He raised his right foot and drove his heel straight into the heavy brass lock assembly.
CRACK—BOOM!
Driven by Rank 1 Early Martial power, the solid oak breakroom door tore clean off its steel deadbolt and slammed open against the wall stopper. The brass padlock snapped in half and clattered across the floor.
Inside the breakroom, Manager Zhang shrieked in terror and stumbled backward into the water cooler, spilling cold water down the front of her blazer.
“Who kicked the door down?!” Manager Zhang screeched, wiping her chin before freezing at the sight of the tall young man in the doorway. “You?! The delivery boy from last night?!”
“Good morning, Miss Su,” Lin Mo said, stepping over the broken lock without sparing Manager Zhang a glance. “Little Guo’er woke up at seven and ate a full bowl of rice porridge. She asked me to thank Sister Su for picking up her grandma’s coins last night.”
Su Wan’s tense shoulders relaxed all at once. “She’s really awake and out of danger? Thank goodness! Mr. Lin, you shouldn’t have kicked the door—Manager Zhang will try to blame you for property damage!”
“Doors that trap honest employees are fire hazards,” Lin Mo said deadpan. “Strictly speaking, I just saved the boutique from a municipal safety fine.”
Manager Zhang’s face twisted from shock into greedy calculation.
Seeing Lin Mo in a plain white shirt with no designer logos, a wild suspicion flashed through Zhang Meili’s head. Last night’s card must have belonged to some rich boss who sent this errand boy to buy a watch!
“Ha! I knew it!” Manager Zhang pointed a manicured finger at Lin Mo’s chest. “You’re just a driver or an errand boy for a rich chairman, aren’t you?!”
“You used your boss’s card to show off in front of a salesgirl! Give me your real boss’s phone number right now, or I’ll report both of you for card fraud!”
Lin Mo looked at Manager Zhang as if she were a clown performing for free.
Eighteen points of moral integrity and zero points of intelligence, Lin Mo thought dryly. If I were someone’s driver, why would the Sovereign Bank register the card under my thumbprint?
Ignoring Zhang’s barking, Lin Mo reached into the leather folder under his arm and placed a gold-embossed employment contract on the breakroom table in front of Su Wan.
On the cover shone a newly stamped corporate seal: TAICHU BENEVOLENCE GROUP — OFFICE OF THE FOUNDING CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER.
“Miss Su,” Lin Mo said calmly, setting a black fountain pen beside the contract. “Watching you argue with an eighteen-point manager over a forty-five-thousand-yuan commission is a waste of your talent. Come work for me instead.”
Su Wan looked down at the cover, bewildered. “Work for you, Mr. Lin? In what position?”
“Founding CEO of Taichu Benevolence Group,” Lin Mo said, flipping the contract open to the compensation page. “First, an upfront annual base salary of five million yuan, wired to your personal account the minute you sign.”
Su Wan’s breath caught. “Five... five million yuan a year?!”
“Second,” Lin Mo continued evenly, “an executive onboarding package worth three million yuan. That includes an armored Mercedes-Maybach sedan with a driver, plus a full executive wardrobe and office allowance.”
He tapped the third clause at the bottom of the page.
“And third, I’m placing an initial twenty-million-yuan Taichu Charity & Benevolence Spend Budget under your signature authority. Your job as CEO is to audit every charity project, salary grant, and contract our company makes, ensuring every yuan goes strictly to honest, hardworking people.”
The breakroom went quiet except for the hum of the water cooler.
Su Wan stared at the printed numbers on the contract:
[Base Salary: ¥5,000,000.00/Year (Paid Upfront)]
[Executive Vehicle & Onboarding Package: ¥3,000,000.00]
[Initial CEO Benevolence Spend Budget: ¥20,000,000.00]
Her father’s old jewelry workshop had gone bankrupt three years ago after being cheated by a supplier from the Jiangnan Song Clan, leaving her family with one point two million yuan in debt. She had endured Manager Zhang’s insults every day just to pay the monthly interest.
Now Lin Mo was offering her five million yuan upfront in clean salary and a twenty-million-yuan benevolence budget!
Beside the water cooler, Manager Zhang burst into hysterical laughter.
“Five million yuan salary?! And a twenty-million-yuan budget?!” Manager Zhang slapped her thigh, laughing until tears came out of her eyes.
“Su Wan, are you really this gullible?! He printed a fake contract at a copy shop to trick you into quitting! If he has eight million yuan to hire a rookie salesgirl, I’ll eat that wooden door!”
“Mr. Lin,” Su Wan whispered, her voice trembling as she looked up into his dark eyes. “I only have two years of retail audit experience. Are you sure you trust me with eight million yuan in salary and a twenty-million-yuan budget?”
“Last night you risked a job you needed to protect a deaf janitor,” Lin Mo said simply. “And you brought hot tea to a stranger in the rain when you thought he didn’t have fifty yuan. In my company, a ninety-five-point heart is worth ten times more than an MBA.”
He pushed the fountain pen closer to her hand.
“Sign it, CEO Su,” Lin Mo said with a faint grin. “Strictly speaking, I have a lot of money that needs to be spent on good people very quickly, and I can’t do all the paperwork myself.”
A hot tear spilled down Su Wan’s cheek. She wiped it away, picked up the fountain pen, and signed Su Wan across the bottom of the contract, pressing her thumbprint into the red ink pad.
The instant her thumbprint touched the paper, Lin Mo tapped confirm on his Jiangcheng Sovereign Private Bank corporate app.
Ding!
Eight million yuan in upfront CEO salary and executive onboarding funds transferred immediately from Lin Mo’s vault!
Inside Lin Mo’s mind, the golden system ledger lit up:
[Ding! Core Executive Benevolent Onboarding Verified!]
[Host spent ¥8,000,000.00 RMB appointing Pure-Hearted Talent Su Wan (95/100) as Founding CEO of Taichu Benevolence Group (¥5,000,000 Upfront Salary + ¥3,000,000 Executive Sedan & Wardrobe Package)!]
[Triggering 100x Pure-Heart Cashback Multiplier!]
[+¥800,000,000.00 RMB (Eight Hundred Million Yuan, Tax-Cleared Sovereign Funds) deposited into Host's Personal Vault!]
[+80,000 Benevolence Merit Points (BMP) awarded!]
[Current Personal Liquid Vault Balance: ¥871,680,000.50 RMB!]
Ding-dong!
Su Wan’s phone chimed loudly on the table with an official SMS from the Bank of Jiangcheng:
[Your Account Ending 3312 has received an Instant Salary Wire from Taichu Benevolence Group: +¥5,000,000.00 RMB (Tax Paid). Executive Vehicle & Wardrobe Escrow Activated: ¥3,000,000.00 RMB.]
Manager Zhang craned her neck to look at Su Wan’s glowing screen.
When she counted the six zeroes after the five, her laughter died in her throat.
“Five... five million yuan cash?!” Manager Zhang’s legs shook so violently her high heels clicked against the floor. “A real bank wire?!”
Right then, Manager Zhang’s cell phone rang with a shrill tone.
She fumbled the phone out of her blazer pocket and answered in a panic. “Hello?! Regional Director Chen, the store is ready for your noon inspection—”
“Noon inspection?! Look outside your storefront, Zhang Meili!” Regional Director Chen’s voice thundered through the speaker. “Janitor Wu Laogen just sent headquarters thirty photos of your secret ledger and the twelve counterfeit watch clasps hidden in your office ceiling! Even worse, you dared to lock up Miss Su Wan—the Founding CEO of Sovereign VIP Chairman Lin Mo’s Taichu Group?!”
Manager Zhang’s face turned the color of sour milk. She spun around and saw deaf janitor Old Wu standing in the corridor, holding up his phone with a righteous nod.
“You are fired effective this second, Zhang Meili!” Director Chen roared over the line. “Your commissions and pension are frozen, and two economic-crime police officers are walking into the plaza right now to arrest you for embezzling seven hundred thousand yuan! Clerk Xiao Li is now Supervisor—make sure CEO Su Wan receives her forty-five-thousand-yuan commission plus a hundred-thousand-yuan apology bonus immediately!”
Honest clerk Xiao Li (Goodness: 83/100) hurried to the doorway and bowed respectfully to Lin Mo and Su Wan.
[Ding! Good People Network Updated: 12 Verified Beneficiaries & Allies!]
Manager Zhang dropped her phone. Her knees gave out, and she collapsed sideways onto the glass display case outside the breakroom, sobbing hysterically as her career and freedom vanished.
Lin Mo escorted his newly appointed CEO Su Wan out into the main watch showroom.
“How does it feel to be CEO, Miss Su?” Lin Mo asked lightly.
“Like I’m dreaming, Chairman Lin,” Su Wan said, her professional poise returning tenfold. “Though if you keep spending eight million yuan before ten in the morning, I’m going to need a bigger calculator.”
Before Lin Mo could reply, the boutique’s front glass doors swung wide open.
Heavy French perfume drifted across the showroom as ex-girlfriend Liu Yan (Goodness: 14/100) strutted inside in four-inch heels, clinging to the arm of Zhao Pharmaceutical heir Zhao Kai (Goodness: 9/100)!
“Kai, darling, look who’s standing by the counter in yesterday’s wet sneakers!” Liu Yan’s shrill voice rang out across the boutique as she spotted Lin Mo and Su Wan. “Lin Mo, did you really follow me here this morning to beg Su Wan for a floor-mopping job while Kai buys my two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-yuan watch?!”