“Lin Mo, you’re still wearing yesterday’s sneakers—did you come here to beg Su Wan for a toilet-scrubbing job?”
Liu Yan’s voice cut across the polished marble showroom of the Vacheron & Patek Prestige Watch Boutique. She tossed her freshly curled hair over her shoulder and clung tighter to Zhao Kai’s bespoke suit sleeve.
Her painted eyes swept over Lin Mo’s plain white cotton shirt and canvas sneakers with open disdain. After dumping him in the rain outside the plaza last night, seeing him standing beside the watch counter this morning made her feel superior all over again.
Beside her, twenty-four-year-old Zhao Kai adjusted his sunglasses and flashed a lazy, condescending smirk. Between two fingers, he twirled a silver-plated VIP card stamped with the Grand Golden-Plume Plaza logo.
“Don’t be so harsh on your ex-boyfriend, Yan-yan,” Zhao Kai chuckled loudly so the passing shoppers in the atrium could hear. “His boss at the delivery station kept his wages yesterday. Maybe if he sweeps up the broken glass around Manager Zhang’s counter cleanly, Miss Su will tip him fifty yuan for lunch.”
Behind the central counter, Supervisor Xiao Li (Goodness: 83/100) and two junior clerks exchanged stunned glances.
None of them dared interrupt before Chairman Lin spoke. Still, Xiao Li marveled at how anyone could be blind enough to insult a man who had wired eight million yuan in cash five minutes ago.
Su Wan (Goodness: 95/100) stood straight beside Lin Mo, holding her leather CEO portfolio. The rose-gold Patek Philippe Calatrava on her wrist caught the chandelier light as she looked coldly at the couple.
“Miss Liu, Mr. Zhao,” Su Wan said in a crisp, level voice. “Mr. Lin is the Chairman of Taichu Benevolence Group, and I have just resigned from this boutique to serve as his Chief Executive Officer. He doesn’t scrub floors—he buys buildings.”
Liu Yan froze for half a second, then burst into a shrill, grating laugh.
“Chairman of Taichu what? And he made you his CEO?” Liu Yan pointed at Su Wan’s uniform blouse and laughed until her shoulders shook.
“Su Wan, did rainwater get into both of your brains last night? Yesterday he only had forty-eight yuan and fifty fen in his WeChat wallet! If he’s a chairman, then I’m the Queen of England!”
Zhao Kai stepped up to the central glass showcase and slapped his silver card onto the velvet pad.
“Enough talk with broke dreamers,” Zhao Kai said arrogantly to Supervisor Xiao Li. “My second uncle is Vice-President Zhao of Grand Golden-Plume Plaza. This silver VIP card gives me a five percent family discount at every luxury store on the first floor. Bring out that two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-yuan Vacheron Constantin ladies’ diamond watch in the window—I’m buying it for Yan-yan right now!”
Liu Yan lifted her chin like a proud peacock, turning back to glare at Lin Mo.
“Did you hear that, Lin Mo?” Liu Yan gloated. “Two hundred and eighty thousand yuan! With Kai’s silver VIP card, he gets fourteen thousand yuan off instantly—more than three months of your delivery pay! Since you’re pretending to be a big-shot chairman today, why don’t you swipe your card and buy this watch for me if you still want me back?”
Lin Mo looked at the murky red [Goodness: 14/100] badge floating above Liu Yan’s head, then at the even darker [Goodness: 9/100] tag over Zhao Kai.
She really thinks I came here to win her back, Lin Mo thought dryly. And Zhao Kai is bragging about a five percent discount card that saves fourteen thousand yuan. Let’s see how loud the System POS machine gets when a fourteen-point gold-digger touches it.
Keeping his face completely deadpan, Lin Mo reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the matte emerald-green [Benevolence Charity Card].
He set the green card down beside the boutique’s newly linked sovereign wireless POS terminal on the glass counter.
“You want me to pay for your two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-yuan watch, Liu Yan?” Lin Mo asked calmly.
Liu Yan smirked, crossing her arms. “What, are you scared your card will bounce in front of everyone?”
“Not at all,” Lin Mo said mildly, tapping the biometric fingerprint glass on the System-linked POS reader. “This green card is bound to the Taichu Pure-Heart Charity Trust. I already authorized the terminal. It automatically pays for any luxury gift on the spot—as long as the recipient has a decent, honest heart.”
He slid the terminal six inches across the glass counter toward Liu Yan.
“Go ahead,” Lin Mo said. “Press your right thumb on the scanner, Liu Yan. If the terminal verifies you’re a good person, the two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-yuan watch is yours for free, and I won’t even ask for my umbrella back.”
Zhao Kai snorted in disdain. “A charity card that checks if someone has a good heart? What kind of fake street-stall magic trick is that?”
Liu Yan’s eyes, however, lit up with instant, shameless greed.
She didn’t believe in any “morality scanner” for a second. In her mind, Lin Mo had probably taken out a high-interest online loan out of desperation to impress her. This “thumbprint verification” was surely just a face-saving excuse to hand her a luxury watch so she would reconsider dumping him!
Once the payment goes through, I’ll take the watch, sell it for two hundred and fifty thousand cash, and still stay with Kai! Liu Yan calculated gleefully.
“You said it yourself in front of all these witnesses, Lin Mo!” Liu Yan said quickly, afraid he would take the card back. “No begging for the watch back after it clears!”
She reached across the counter and slammed her manicured right thumb flat onto the biometric sensor of the POS terminal.
For half a heartbeat, the glass screen stayed dark.
Then the terminal’s internal processor locked onto Liu Yan’s [Goodness: 14/100] aura.
BZZZT—WEE-WOO! WEE-WOO! WEE-WOO!
A blinding crimson strobe light erupted from the top of the POS machine. Its built-in speaker blasted a 110-decibel anti-fraud siren that echoed across the entire ground-floor atrium of Grand Golden-Plume Plaza!
Outside in the main concourse, over sixty wealthy shoppers, boutique clerks, and mall security guards froze and spun toward the Vacheron & Patek entrance.
Before Liu Yan could yank her thumb back, the terminal’s voice-broadcast module projected a booming electronic announcement across the showroom:
[BZZZT! CHARITY TRANSACTION DECLINED!]
[RECIPIENT IDENTIFIED: LIU YAN (AGE 22).]
[BIOMETRIC MORAL INTEGRITY SCORE: 14/100 — EXTREME SUB-STANDARD!]
[DIAGNOSTIC TAGS: HABITUAL GOLD-DIGGER, UNGRATEFUL BACKSTABBER, KICKED STRAY DOGS IN COLLEGE, STOLE ROOMMATE'S COSMETICS, DUMPED BOYFRIEND OF THREE YEARS OVER A RAINY UMBRELLA!]
[MINIMUM SCORE REQUIRED FOR TAICHU BENEVOLENCE CARD: 80/100!]
[SYSTEM VERDICT: ZERO CHARITY ELIGIBILITY! PLEASE REMOVE YOUR GREEDY THUMB FROM THE GLASS!]
The high-speed thermal printer spat out a three-foot-long bright red rejection slip stamped with a giant black `[14/100 — REJECTED]` watermark. It fluttered straight onto the floor at Liu Yan’s high heels.
The entire boutique showroom went dead silent for two seconds.
Then the crowd of sixty shoppers gathered outside the glass entrance burst into roaring laughter, with dozens of smartphones rising to film the flashing red screen!
“Fourteen out of a hundred?!” a rich matron in a mink shawl laughed, pointing her phone camera at Liu Yan. “Look at the screen—it even exposed her for stealing her roommate’s cosmetics and dumping her boyfriend!”
“And she actually tried to swipe her ex-boyfriend’s charity card while holding another man’s arm!” a young businessman beside the door chuckled as he live-streamed the scene. “No wonder the machine screamed like a police car!”
Liu Yan’s face turned from chalk-white to beet-red, then to the color of an overripe eggplant.
“Turn it off! Turn that broken machine off!” Liu Yan shrieked, lunging forward to cover the POS speaker with both hands while tears of rage smeared her mascara. “It’s fake! Who stole cosmetics?! Lin Mo, you hacked this machine to slander me!”
“I didn’t touch the keyboard, Liu Yan,” Lin Mo said deadpan, picking up his green card and blowing a speck of dust off its edge. “Your thumbprint did all the talking. Honestly, fourteen points is higher than I expected. I had you pegged at twelve.”
Beside her, Zhao Kai felt dozens of mocking cameras swing toward his face. His cheeks burned as hot as firecrackers.
“A cheap prank speaker!” Zhao Kai snarled, slamming his hand on the glass counter to cover up the embarrassment. “Anyone can program a Bluetooth speaker to play a recording! You don’t have two hundred and eighty thousand yuan on that card at all—you set up that alarm because you’re dead broke!”
“You think the alarm went off because my card is empty?” Lin Mo asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course it’s empty!” Liu Yan screamed, clinging to that excuse. “If you actually had money, why would the payment decline?! You’re still a pathetic drafter with forty-eight yuan!”
Lin Mo sighed softly and turned to Supervisor Xiao Li (Goodness: 83/100) and CEO Su Wan (Goodness: 95/100).
“Supervisor Xiao Li,” Lin Mo asked calmly. “How many watches are currently left in this boutique’s showcases and vault?”
Xiao Li stood at attention, his heart racing with excitement as he checked the master inventory tablet. “Reporting to Chairman Lin! Excluding the Patek Philippe Miss Su is wearing, we have thirty-eight luxury timepieces in the showcases and vault—including that two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-yuan ladies’ diamond piece. With a full-store bulk settlement, headquarters authorizes an exact round price of twelve million yuan!”
“Twelve million yuan for thirty-eight watches,” Lin Mo nodded thoughtfully.
He looked out the boutique window toward the service corridor. Deaf janitor Old Wu (Goodness: 89/100) stood there with Uncle Wang (Goodness: 86/100) and eleven other honest mall sanitation workers (Goodness: 82–86/100) who had come inside to return the empty wonton trays from last night.
“Uncle Wu and Uncle Wang’s sanitation crew always have to check the wall clocks in the rain to see when their shifts end,” Lin Mo said with a straight face. “That’s terrible for workplace efficiency. CEO Su, Supervisor Xiao Li—ring up all thirty-eight watches in the store right now. They’re official shift-timekeeping gear for Uncle Wu, Uncle Wang, Supervisor Xiao Li, and every worker here with an eighty-plus score.”
Zhao Kai let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Twelve million yuan?! For street sweepers and janitors to check the time?! Keep bragging, Lin Mo! If you swipe twelve million yuan right now, I’ll kneel down and call you Grandfather!”
Without a word, Lin Mo pulled his black-gold [Personal 100x Vault Card] from his pocket and tapped it against Supervisor Xiao Li’s master clearing terminal.
Beep—DING-DING-DING!
This time, there was no red strobe.
A dazzling emerald-and-gold banner flashed across the boutique’s eighty-inch wall screen as the Bank of Jiangcheng Sovereign Clearing House verified the payment in real time:
[SOVEREIGN BULK TRANSACTION APPROVED!]
[BUYER: TAICHU BENEVOLENCE GROUP (CHAIRMAN LIN MO)]
[ITEMS PURCHASED: FULL BOUTIQUE INVENTORY (38 LUXURY TIMEPIECES, INCLUDING VACHERON CONSTANTIN LADIES' DIAMOND REF. 81590)]
[AMOUNT PAID IN FULL: ¥12,000,000.00 RMB (TWELVE MILLION YUAN CASH)]
[STORE COMMISSION CREDITED TO SUPERVISOR XIAO LI & HONEST STAFF POOL: ¥1,200,000.00 RMB!]
At that exact instant, the golden ledger inside Lin Mo’s mind erupted like a tsunami of liquid gold:
[Ding! Mass Benevolent Equipment Grant Verified!]
[Host spent ¥12,000,000.00 RMB on 38 luxury watches for 15 Qualified Targets: Old Wu (89), Uncle Wang (86), Xiao Li (83), and 12 Honest Workers (82–86)!]
[Triggering 100x Pure-Heart Cashback Multiplier!]
[+¥1,200,000,000.00 RMB (One Billion Two Hundred Million Yuan, Tax-Cleared Sovereign Funds) deposited into Host's Personal Vault!]
[+1,200,000 Benevolence Merit Points (BMP) awarded!]
[Current Personal Liquid Vault Balance: ¥2,059,680,000.50 RMB!]
[Good People Network Updated: 25 Verified Beneficiaries & Allies!]
Two billion yuan!
In less than fourteen hours since Liu Yan had splashed him in the rain over forty-eight yuan, his personal liquid vault had crossed the two-billion-yuan mark!
In the middle of the showroom, Supervisor Xiao Li and the two junior honest clerks (Goodness: 84/100) bowed deeply with tears of joy in their eyes over their one-point-two-million-yuan commission pool. They swiftly packed the thirty-eight mahogany watch boxes onto two velvet-lined delivery carts.
Lin Mo picked up the exact two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-yuan Vacheron Constantin diamond watch that Liu Yan had been begging for ten seconds ago.
He walked past a petrified Liu Yan without glancing at her and handed the velvet box to a fifty-year-old female restroom cleaner (Goodness: 85/100) standing beside Old Wu.
“Auntie Zhang, your wrist watch lost its crystal last month,” Lin Mo said warmly. “This one is waterproof to thirty meters. It won’t fog up when you wash the sinks.”
“Aiya, Chairman Lin, how can I wear a two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-yuan diamond watch to mop floors?!” Auntie Zhang gasped, her rough hands trembling.
“Wear it proudly,” Lin Mo said deadpan. “If anyone complains, tell them it’s standard Taichu sanitation gear.”
Behind him, Liu Yan stood frozen as if struck by lightning.
Her trembling fingers pulled out her smartphone calculator. She typed 12,000,000 plus the 450,000 watch on Su Wan’s wrist, and her breath came in ragged, choking gasps.
Twelve million yuan in a single swipe! Liu Yan’s mind spun in horror. He wasn’t broke at all! Last night when I dumped him outside the plaza for Kai’s Porsche, he was hiding tens of millions of yuan—and I threw it all away over an umbrella?!
Beside her, Zhao Kai’s face twisted into a mask of livid purple humiliation. In the doorway, sixty shoppers laughed at his five-percent discount card and shouted, “Hey Young Master Zhao, aren’t you going to kneel and call him Grandfather?!”
“You wait right here, Lin Mo!” Zhao Kai spat, backing toward the doorway as he whipped out his phone and dialed a number in a venomous fury. “You used stolen money to rig this store’s terminal and humiliate my Zhao family! I’m calling my second uncle—Mall Vice-President Zhao—right now! He’s bringing twenty plaza security guards to lock this boutique down and confiscate every single watch box!”
Lin Mo didn’t even blink at Zhao Kai’s threat. He pushed one of the mahogany watch carts toward the service elevator himself alongside Old Wu.
“CEO Su, wait here and draw up a purchase offer for this entire shopping mall,” Lin Mo said calmly over his shoulder. “While Zhao Kai’s uncle walks down from his office, I’m taking twelve watch boxes down to the underground loading dock for the morning sanitation crew. I just got a distress ping that someone is swinging a baton down there.”