“Without us senior managers, your mall will be an empty shell by noon, you delivery-boy upstart!”
Inside the bright marble atrium of Grand Golden-Plume Luxury Plaza, thirty-eight-year-old Hermès Store Manager Liu (Goodness: 16/100) stood at the foot of the central escalator with her arms crossed tightly over her tailored tweed blazer.
Flanking her in a semicircle were eleven other senior boutique directors (Goodness: 12–19/100) from the plaza’s flagship leather, jewelry, and couture stores. Every single one of them had spent the past three years funneling under-the-table kickbacks to ousted Vice-President Zhao.
Outside the glass entrance, a soaked VP Zhao, Zhao Kai, and Liu Yan pressed their faces against the rain-streaked window. They waited gleefully to watch the newly crowned mall owner panic and beg the twelve veteran managers to stay.
“Let’s make one thing clear, Mr. Lin,” Manager Liu said, lifting her chin with haughty disdain as hundreds of shoppers and mall employees watched from the surrounding balconies. “You may have bought the building’s property deed from Hong Kong, but luxury retail runs on personal relationships and VIP client lists!”
Manager Liu tapped her designer heels against the marble tile. “The twelve of us control sixty percent of the high-end sales in this plaza. Reinstate Vice-President Zhao immediately, cancel your ridiculous employee audit, and raise our management profit-share by twenty percent! Otherwise, all twelve of us will walk out right now and take our VIP clients to the Zhao family’s shopping center across town!”
Several of the other corrupt boutique directors nodded arrogantly, waving their golden store keys in the air.
“That’s right! Try running a Hermès or Cartier flagship with rookie salesgirls and street janitors!”
“Within three days, European regional headquarters will pull their brand licenses from your plaza!”
“Apologize to Manager Liu and Vice-President Zhao before noon, or we lock the vault rooms and walk!”
Twelve corrupt managers with Goodness scores under twenty volunteering to vacate their posts at the same time, Lin Mo thought, looking at the glowing red numbers above their heads with deadpan satisfaction. If they stayed, I wouldn’t be able to spend a single yuan of Benevolence funds through their stores. They really are considerate.
Lin Mo didn’t even bother raising his voice. He turned slightly toward CEO Su Wan (Goodness: 95/100) and deaf janitor Old Wu (Goodness: 89/100), who was standing quietly beside a brass trash receptacle with his worn leather notebook in hand.
“CEO Su, Uncle Wu,” Lin Mo said calmly. “Read out what you found in the third-floor administration vault twenty minutes ago.”
Old Wu stepped forward and opened his meticulous handwritten logbook. For fourteen months, Manager Liu and the other store directors had treated him like invisible furniture. All the while, Old Wu had quietly recorded every late-night courier box of counterfeit accessories entering the twelve managers’ back offices after hours.
Su Wan tapped her tablet, projecting twelve high-resolution forensic audit spreadsheets and regional brand-compliance notices onto the giant thirty-foot LED screen above the atrium fountain!
“Over the past fourteen months,” Su Wan’s clear, professional voice rang out across the entire mall, “Manager Liu of the Hermès Flagship and the eleven boutique directors standing beside her have cheated their own brands. They systematically swapped thirty-two percent of their stores’ genuine European packaging and VIP gift allocations with grey-market counterfeits!”
Su Wan scrolled to the bank transfer logs on the big screen. “Together, they split twenty-four million yuan in illicit kickbacks with former Vice-President Zhao!”
Manager Liu’s arrogant sneer vanished as if slapped off her face. “W-What?! How did you get our back-office serial numbers?! Old Wu is a deaf mute who sweeps the hallway—how could he read our shipping manifests?!”
“He’s deaf, not blind, and unlike you, he has an eighty-nine-point conscience,” Lin Mo said coolly. “Ten minutes ago, CEO Su forwarded Uncle Wu’s serial-number logs to all twelve European regional brand headquarters. None of you are staging a walkout strike—because all twelve of you have already been summarily fired and blacklisted by your own brands for commercial fraud.”
As if on cue, twelve smartphones buzzed simultaneously in the hands of Manager Liu and her cohorts.
On every screen flashed an official termination and criminal-restitution notice from their Shanghai and Hong Kong regional brand headquarters. At the same time, four uniformed officers from the Municipal Economic Crimes Investigation Team stepped through the side corridor with steel handcuffs!
“No! My ten years of seniority—my annual bonus!” Manager Liu shrieked. Her legs wobbled as she saw twelve honest, long-bullied senior salesgirls (Goodness: 83–91/100) step forward from the store entrances wearing brand-new golden Boutique Store Director badges.
Standing at the front of the twelve promoted women was twenty-six-year-old Lin Hui—known to the staff as Xiao Hui (Goodness: 90/100). For four years, she had done all of Manager Liu’s inventory work at the Hermès Flagship while having her commissions stolen and her sick mother’s leave requests denied.
“Starting this minute,” Lin Mo announced to the cheering atrium, “Xiao Hui and these eleven honest senior sales specialists are promoted to full Boutique Store Directors! All twelve passed the eighty-point Taichu Morality Audit, and they will receive triple their previous base salary with 100% transparent commission distribution!”
“Thank you, Chairman Lin! Thank you, CEO Su!” Xiao Hui (Goodness: 90/100) and the eleven new directors bowed with reddened eyes as the four hundred honest mall workers applauded thunderously.
Being dragged toward the side exit by the compliance officers, a humiliated Manager Liu twisted her neck back toward Lin Mo and Xiao Hui. Her face was contorted with elitist spite.
“Promote a bunch of poverty-stricken salesgirls all you want, Lin Mo!” Manager Liu spat venomously, pointing toward the gleaming glass facade of the Hermès flagship showroom. “Our VIP clients only deal with me! Without my socialite circle, who is going to buy the sixty genuine leather totes and Birkin bags sitting in that showroom—your cafeteria dishwashers and street sweepers?! I’ll lose my one-point-five-million-yuan sales bonus, and your store will go bankrupt before dinner!”
Lin Mo paused. He glanced from Manager Liu’s contorted face to the Hermès showroom. Then he looked toward the side corridor, where sixty-eight-year-old Grandma Chen (Goodness: 98/100) had just arrived from the hospital. Beside her stood Auntie Zhang (Goodness: 85/100) and fifty-eight honest mall cafeteria aunties and floor cleaners (Goodness: 83–94/100) who had come to thank him for their welfare grants.
“Strictly speaking, Manager Liu, you finally had a constructive business idea,” Lin Mo said deadpan.
He turned to newly promoted Store Director Xiao Hui (Goodness: 90/100) and pulled out his matte emerald-green [Benevolence Charity Card].
“Director Xiao Hui,” Lin Mo said, strolling straight into the Hermès flagship showroom and waving Grandma Chen and the fifty-nine honest cafeteria aunties and cleaners inside. “How much for all sixty genuine Hermès leather totes, garden-party bags, and Birkin handbags currently on the shelves?”
Xiao Hui’s breath caught as she checked the inventory tablet. “Chairman Lin, there are sixty genuine French calfskin and epsom-leather bags in stock today. The total retail price is exactly fifteen million yuan (`¥15,000,000.00`)—and under our brand rules, the store director receives a ten percent commission of one million five hundred thousand yuan!”
“Wrap all sixty of them without the ribbons,” Lin Mo said, tapping his green [Benevolence Charity Card] against Xiao Hui’s POS terminal. “Grandma Chen and our fifty-nine cafeteria and sanitation aunties need durable, waterproof leather bags to carry fresh turnips, soup thermoses, and clean mop heads.”
Beep—DING!
The fifteen-million-yuan payment cleared in half a second!
Inside Lin Mo’s mind, the golden ledger chimed with a crisp, exhilarating roar:
[Ding! Pure-Heart Worker Dignity & Luxury Utility Expenditure Verified!]
[Host spent ¥15,000,000.00 RMB through Director Lin Hui (90/100) on 60 genuine Hermès leather bags as work totes for Grandma Chen (98/100) and 59 Honest Cafeteria & Sanitation Workers (83–94/100)!]
[Triggering 100x Pure-Heart Cashback Multiplier!]
[+¥1,500,000,000.00 RMB (One Billion Five Hundred Million Yuan, Tax-Cleared Sovereign Funds) deposited into Host's Personal Vault!]
[+1,500,000 Benevolence Merit Points (BMP) awarded!]
[Current Personal Liquid Vault Balance: ¥16,587,680,000.50 RMB (Sixteen Billion Five Hundred and Eighty-Seven Million Six Hundred and Eighty Thousand Yuan)!]
[Good People Network Expanded: 525 Verified Beneficiaries & Allies (+12 Honest Boutique Directors & 48 Newly Verified Cafeteria/Sanitation Workers)!]
Across the showroom, Lin Mo picked up a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-yuan flame-orange Hermès Togo-leather tote with gold hardware. He placed its rolled leather handles straight into Grandma Chen’s (Goodness: 98/100) warm, flour-dusted hands.
“Try the strap, Grandma Chen,” Lin Mo said with a gentle smile. “French saddle stitching holds up well against twenty pounds of winter radish and fresh river shrimp.”
“Good heavens, Little Mo!” Grandma Chen gasped, cradling the supple orange leather bag as if it were a newborn baby. Around her, fifty-nine cafeteria aunties and cleaners (Goodness: 83–94/100) received their own quarter-million-yuan Hermès bags from Xiao Hui and Su Wan. “This bag costs more than a house in my old village! How can I put muddy turnips and ginger roots inside it?!”
“A bag is made to carry things for good people, Grandma Chen,” Lin Mo said matter-of-factly. “If a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-yuan piece of cowhide can’t hold a turnip without crying, then the cow died in vain.”
Auntie Zhang (Goodness: 85/100)—already wearing her two-hundred-eighty-thousand-yuan Vacheron Constantin diamond watch from the morning—tucked two clean microfiber dust cloths and a thermos of wolfberry tea into her new sapphire-blue Hermès Birkin. She beamed from ear to ear.
“Chairman Lin is right, Sister Chen!” Auntie Zhang laughed happily as hundreds of shoppers outside filmed the legendary scene of sixty cafeteria and sanitation aunties slinging genuine Hermès bags over their work aprons. “The leather is nice and thick! It won’t leak a drop when we go to the morning vegetable market!”
“Look at the stitching on my emerald tote!” another cafeteria cook (Goodness: 88/100) cheered, wiping tears of pride from her eyes. “My daughter’s mother-in-law used to look down on me for working in a kitchen—wait until she sees me carrying a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-yuan French bag to buy groceries!”
At the showroom doorway, Store Director Xiao Hui (Goodness: 90/100) stared at the [Commission Credited: +¥1,500,000.00 RMB] notification on her staff tablet. She bowed ninety degrees to Lin Mo in tears of gratitude, knowing her mother’s medical bills and mortgage were completely paid off in a single morning.
Ten feet away in the corridor, ex-Manager Liu stared at the fifteen-million-yuan receipt and the ¥1,500,000 commission she had just thrown away with her own mouth. At that exact moment, a cafeteria auntie stuffed three heads of green bok choy into a limited-edition Birkin bag.
“My... my one-point-five-million-yuan bonus... bok choy in a Birkin...”
Manager Liu’s eyes rolled back, and she collapsed flat onto the marble floor in a dead faint!
Outside the glass doors, Liu Yan (Goodness: 14/100) clawed at the window in hysterical envy. Even the auntie who swept the mall corridor now wore a Patek or Vacheron watch and carried a genuine Hermès bag, while she stood soaking wet in a muddy puddle!
Just as Grandma Chen was carefully placing Little Guo’er’s insulated medicine pouch into her new orange Hermès bag, the old woman’s inexpensive feature phone rang loudly in her apron pocket.
Grandma Chen answered it, and within three seconds, the warm color drained from her wrinkled face.
“What?! Old Diao, you promised to give me until tonight to move my things!” Grandma Chen cried out. Her voice trembled with distress over the harsh, cursing roar of her slum landlord on the other end of the line:
“Listen up, old woman Chen! The mahjong parlor boss just paid me triple rent in cash for your damp basement in Old North Alley! I already threw your rusted shrimp-wonton cart toward the gutter!”
“Pay me a ten-thousand-yuan ‘cleaning fee’ in twenty minutes, or I’m dumping your dead husband’s ancestral soup pot and your sick granddaughter’s clothes straight into the open sewer!”
Grandma Chen’s hands shook so badly she nearly dropped her phone. “Little Mo... my old husband’s copper soup pot and Little Guo’er’s winter quilt are still in that alley!”
Lin Mo’s warm smile vanished instantly, replaced by a calm, bone-chilling glint in his eyes.
“Commander Tie Niu,” Lin Mo said quietly, resting a steady hand on Grandma Chen’s shoulder. “Bring all thirty-eight brothers of the Righteous Iron Guard and pull our ten-car Rolls-Royce executive convoy around to the front gate. It’s time to help Grandma Chen move out of Old North Alley—and teach her slumlord what a real cleaning fee looks like.”