Chapter 5

//Trigger warning: Fat shaming. Crude joke about religion.//

2 weeks. That was all it took to earn a little more than 300,000 yuan. While waiting for the money to come in, in order to sustain himself, Lan Lingxiao found a temporary part-time job as a night-shift janitor in a local gym that pays daily.

The profits were slow the first week and a half, but rapidly started to pick up towards the end of the second week. Lan Lingxiao purchased the patent for S*nic the hedgehog, F- rank advertising, and 10,000 cartridges. 1 week this time and he had a little above 2,000,000 yuan. So he purchased F+ rank advertising and 100k cartridges for 20k points.

After purchasing the 1M cartridges, it only took a few hours before Lan Lingxiao heard the notification of Xiao Si and opened the system window. He just so happened to be in a rental building office that he liked the most out of all the offices he had seen earlier in day.

Lan Lingxiao wanted to tour the different rental buildings before deciding the location of his start up company. When he had enough points to purchase it, he asked Xiao Si to notify him when he reached 200k yuan, but he never expected the cartridges to sell so quickly!

Lan Lingxiao glanced to the side at the estate agent that was in charge of touring him. He turned around and took his phone out to pretend to call someone.

"Xiao Si, Exchange CNY 200,000 and purchase the F+ Start-up for *that*. The location will be here."

[Ding! Transaction complete.]

Lan Lingxiao just so happened to face the glass window which reflected the expression of the female agent behind him. She had an ugly expression and discretely covered her nose.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious, Lan Lingxiao curved his back and tucked his arms deeper into himself. The past two weeks he had become more hygienic than he ever was before being reincarnated, but his current body was more difficult to keep smelling good.

He also spend the whole morning going around the city, so he understands that he could be quite smelly and was ashamed in front of the female agent.

"Riiing. Riiiing."

"Oh, excuse me sir." The female agent turned away and answered the call. Not a few seconds later, the call ended and she turned back around to face Lan Lingxiao.

"My apologies sir! But this office has now been rented out. We can no longer offer it to you. Please take care on your way out!"

. . .

Lan Lingxiao stared in silence as the female agent's smile became much brighter than before she answered the call.

For some reason, Lan Lingxiao couldn't bring himself to correct her that it was him who had just purchased the space. He tucked his phone back into his pocket and rubbed his hands on the cloth of his pants to soak up the sweat.

"A-ah. yes. Sorry for disturbing." Lan Lingxiao stuttered and bowed.

He supposes that since he doesn't really need to return here, he will no longer meet the agent again. Lan Lingxiao simply wanted a location that would be nice for his employees.

Maybe he should purchase an employee via the system to act as the CEO.

Making his way out and into the elevator, he opened the system window that had a lot of notification bells.

[Host. . .]

Lan Lingxiao felt the concern of Xiao Si and felt even more embarrassed, so he just pushed it to the back of his mind to forget about it.

[Ding! Congratulations on unlocking the Achievement: Entrepreneur. Please set up the office layout and furniture design via the digital map or set it to Randomize.]

"Copy the layout of a standard office design."

[Unlocked Body Cultivation Mantra lvl 0 (0/100)

Daily Quest: 3 sets of :

20 Bodyweight squats.

10 Push-ups.

10 Walking lunges (each leg).

10 Dumbbell rows (at least 2 kg).

15 Second Plank.

30 Jumping jacks

Reward:

+0.2 exp Immortal Body

+1 exp Body Cultivation Mantra

+0.01 Strength

+0.1 Charm]

[Unlocked Hidden Quest I: Sell 4M games. Reward: 20 Luck points]

[Unlocked Hidden Quest II: Sell 40M games. Reward: Stat point Gatcha x 10.]

[Unlocked Hidden Quest III: Expand your business to a different industry. Reward: ?]

It turns out that he unlocked 3 sub-quests! Not only that, but Luck and Charm were the rewards of the new daily quest! How lucky, I should start right away!

If he completes the daily quest for 100 days, he can upgrade the level of Body Cultivation Mantra to lvl 1, and increase his charm by 10! That's like an increase in IQ of 10 whole points, but in charm! His looks will still be stupid, but they would no longer be considered a disability!

In his excitement, Lan Lingxiao quickened his pace to the bus stop. The day was just about to end, but there was still around 20-30 minutes before the plethora of people get off work. Hence, the bus was not crowded and he was able to have a seat.

Surfing the internet on his phone. He failed to discover why his game had suddenly burst into popularity except perhaps 1 variable. The sales of the S*GA Genesis console have burst once more because they released an upgraded version of it!

Lan Lingxiao tried to think if maybe children's day was coming up or if alot of kids just had birthdays in May, when it hit him. Graduation season!

The parents and/or relatives must be buying gifts for their kids! And since it is parents buying video games, they probably wouldn't know what games are popular among children and just bought whatever was available. Because it is a present, they would not want to gift old or used games. Thus the new game with a lower price tag would definitely stick out if they are just purchasing a "tag along" game to go with the new console!

Lan Lingxiao definitely lucked out with this development! Though he can't help but feel that he is forgetting something. Oh well! It was probably not something important if he forgot it~

With a carefree manner, Lan Lingxiao threw that thought to the back of his mind and moved on.

Getting off the bus, he decided to head straight to the gym instead of home.

"Excuse me, I would like to buy 2 hours please with the employee discount!"

Taking his employee ID from his pocket as well as some cash, Lan Lingxiao handed it out towards the girl behind the reception desk.

"Oh, it's you."

The girl, Mei Ying if he remembers correctly, looked at him in surprise before leaning towards him secretly.

"Listen um-" Mei Ying took a glance at his ID before turning her gaze back onto him. "Lan Lingxiao. I was unable to tell you this before because you never came here as a customer. But the boss warned me not to let any of our um-... less fit employees use the gym during customer hours. She said it is to keep the image of the gym."

A dark and sour emotion came over Lan Lingxiao's heart which cause his chin and hands to tremble.

"A-ah. sorry." he muttered barely above a whisper.

"Ah no!" Mei Ying squeeked and vigorously shook her hands and head. "Please dont feel bad! You don't look bad at all. In fact you look very kind and nice but um-... You're just a little-"

"Oh n-no. Don't worry, I get it. Really. I won't blame you. Thank you for explaining it to me. I won't bother you anymore, please excuse me-!"

Lan Lingxiao bowed to express his gratitude and turned around to quickly leave.

"Wait!" Mei Ying raised her voice. It took a few seconds before Lan Lingxiao controlled the negative emotion in his chest and turned back towards her.

"Yes?" With a curious glance he looked up at her.

"The boss gives the opportunity for employees like you to use the gym after-hours as long as you clean up well afterwards. I haven't seen you around so you must be night-shift right? Just come in at your usual time."

"Ah!" Lan Lingxiao was the one who was surprised this time and his chest immediately felt lighter. "Yes. Thank you very much!"

Bowing to express his gratitude once more, Lan Lingxiao left the gym and headed back home. He will get a few hours of sleep before he comes back at 10pm!

It can't be helped that he would receive some social limitations with his body. Afterall, he is no longer in the 21st century. He was back in 1990. He's not so sure about other countries, but even back in 2023 there was still alot of body-shaming, sexuality-shaming, etc. in China. So society's reaction towards his body-type can't be helped.

The girl at the reception desk also did her best to be kind to him with the limitations of the expectations from her boss. So he didn't want to trouble her. Perhaps when he becomes super-rich, he can open his own line of gyms that cater towards all body types.

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Mini Theatre: (not part of main story)

Teacher K: Alright class. Since we are all graduating soon, our final art project will be to paint our families! During the graduation ceremony, you can gift them to your parents to thank them for everything our families have done for us so that we may graduate soon. Even if they are gifts, I will still seriously grade them and check on their progress everyday so don't be lazy!

Mi Bai: *looks down at the blank canvas and makes a professional sketch of the very first top he drew for his webtoon in his past life in all his tubby glory. Complete with wet stains between his pits and moobs.*

Teacher K: *walks by and glances at Mi Bai's drawing* *is slightly concerned but remembers that Mi Bai is in a normal orphanage and not a catholic one* *nods her head and continues walking*