Chapter 96: Purely Asking for Trouble
’The Super Delicious Popular Cooking System wasn’t just some dumb system that only issued missions. It was very considerate and quite intelligent.’
Shen Lu: "If there were fewer rules, it would be even more perfect."
[Without rules, there can be no order. The rules are to better encourage the Host’s progress~]
Shen Lu huffed, then at the end of the video, she heavily advertised the event for her grand opening the next day.
—The Crawfish Competition is waiting for you to join!
—100 Star Coins to eat the most delicious crawfish in the entire Imperial City!
—Come one, come all, don’t miss out! It’s a grand opening celebration! Miss it this time, and you’ll regret it for life!
Shen Lu cobbled together a bunch of slogans, deliberately making them sound corny and over-the-top.
After today’s video was successfully uploaded, Shen Lu went to check the stats on yesterday’s video.
Judging from the number of views and comments alone, she felt she was making good progress.
It was just that out of a hundred comments, very few were positive.
The few normal comments were torn to shreds by haters, making the customers who had eaten at Little Deer Cuisine too scared to comment freely.
After all, some people were incredibly arrogant, threatening to look up their IP addresses and show up at their homes to teach them a lesson.
People from the Upper City District were just that conceited, trampling all over the residents of the Lower City District as they pleased.
As soon as the latest video was released, plenty of trolls came swarming like sharks to blood.
—Is the owner of this Little Deer Cuisine account brain-dead or something? Posting these nonsensical videos every day and polluting the internet. Where are the admins? Get your asses out here and ban her account!
—This is so fake it’s hilarious. The current price for a single crawfish is 120 Star Coins. Ten thousand crawfish would be 1.2 million Star Coins. Tell me, who in the Lower City District can afford that?
—I have a relative in the seafood business. I asked him, and he said he hasn’t received a single order for more than 200 crawfish recently.
—But what if it’s real?
—If it’s real, then I’ll fucking call you Daddy, how about that?
—So fake. No exaggeration, even the most luxurious hotel in the Upper City District, the Wis Hotel, couldn’t possibly host an event like this. It’s not that they can’t afford it; it’s that you can’t buy that many crawfish.
—The poster above is spot on. You guys clearly have no idea how difficult crawfish farming is. Try using your brain when you go online.
...
In short, no one believed Shen Lu could pull off such an event, and they listed one plausible-sounding reason after another.
And it was true. Without the system’s help, she really couldn’t have done it.
But who could blame her for being a lucky goose?
Shen Lu personally left a comment—"If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to come to my shop tomorrow and expose the ’fraud’!"—then closed the page without a second glance. She let them stir up a fresh frenzy of hate over her reply.
Her hair wasn’t completely dry yet, but Shen Lu was already exhausted. She had to get up even earlier than usual tomorrow to handle some preparations before opening.
Flopping onto her soft bed, Shen Lu wriggled under the covers. Her Light Brain detected she was about to rest and switched to silent mode.
At the same time, messages from Bai Wanwan came flooding in, one after another like machine-gun fire.
She had been tied up with things all day, and just like Bai Lei, who was swamped with his own studies, she hadn’t had a chance to visit the Lower City District. It had been two days since either of them had eaten Shen Lu’s food.
That evening, while scrolling through videos at home, Bai Wanwan happened to come across the video Shen Lu had posted that day.
She shot up from her seat and pattered over to her younger brother’s room.
"Shen Lu is actually opening a shop!" Bai Wanwan was inexplicably angry. "She’s opening a shop and didn’t even tell me!"
Bai Lei couldn’t comprehend his sister’s train of thought. "I don’t think she was obligated to tell you?"
"I... I’m a regular customer, aren’t I?!"
"Well, you can still go eat at her shop now. Sis, what happened?" Bai Lei had been swamped with training classes recently and was so exhausted every day he didn’t have the energy to scroll through videos.
Bai Wanwan showed her brother the video she’d found. "Her new shop opens tomorrow, and she’s holding some kind of crawfish event. A lot of people are trashing her for it."
She couldn’t help but complain, "If she wants to open a shop, fine, but why make such a huge spectacle? Does that Xue Can really have that much pull? Ten thousand crawfish, where did they even get them?"
"Maybe it’s just a gimmick? Businesses always exaggerate when they do promotions, right?" Bai Lei casually scrolled through the comments below. "Besides, Shen Lu replied herself. She said anyone who doesn’t believe her can go and expose the ’fraud.’ Sis, should we go check it out tomorrow?"
"As if I’d..." Bai Wanwan started to refuse out of reflex, but after a moment’s thought, she changed her mind. "Fine, we’ll go look. That idiot Shen Lu. I want to see how she’s going to clean up this mess."
Bai Wanwan admitted that Shen Lu’s cooking was excellent, but that didn’t mean she could successfully pull off a crawfish competition.
’To be fair, some of the netizens’ comments were harsh, but they weren’t wrong. Right now, the total number of crawfish from all the farms in the Imperial City and its surrounding areas combined wasn’t even ten thousand.’
’Besides, Shen Lu was just opening a small eatery in the Lower City District, yet she was making a bigger scene than a luxury hotel in the Upper City District. Wasn’t she just asking for trouble?’
"It wouldn’t be so bad if she made a mess she couldn’t clean up," Bai Lei said with a cheeky grin. "We could play the heroes saving the damsel in distress. Make Shen Lu realize that cooperating with us is her best option. Then we’d never have to sneak into the Lower City District to buy food again. Wouldn’t that be great?"
"You know, you might have a point there?" It slowly dawned on Bai Wanwan. She clapped her brother firmly on the shoulder. "I’m counting on you tomorrow, then."
...
Meanwhile, Boss Cao, who had been lying in bed killing time by scrolling through short videos, suddenly shot upright.
His wife, Zhou Fang, who was beside him, jumped in fright. She grumbled unhappily, "It’s the middle of the night. Can’t you just be still?"
Boss Cao ignored his wife. He watched the video he’d stumbled upon two more times. Not only that, but he also clicked on the poster’s account and watched all their other videos.
"Son of a bitch," Boss Cao swore. "Is Liu Tianwang completely useless? He took all that money from me and promised he’d handle it, and this is what I get?!"
Zhou Fang sat up. "What on earth is going on?"
Boss Cao’s Light Brain was a defective, second-hand model with many malfunctioning features. He couldn’t share the video with Zhou Fang, so he had to explain it to her.
"That little bitch Shen Lu is opening a shop. Grand opening is tomorrow."
"How can that be? Didn’t we bribe Vice Director Liu from the Bureau of Industry and Commerce? He promised he wouldn’t issue Shen Lu a business license."
Boss Cao thought for a moment. "I’ll send Vice Director Liu a message and ask."
Despite his cursing, Boss Cao was cautious and respectful as he composed the message, afraid that a single wrong word might displease the official.
It wasn’t long before Vice Director Liu replied.
Liu Tianwang: This happened? I’m certain I gave the order to my subordinates. No one would dare defy my command.
Liu Tianwang: How about this? I’ll send some people over tomorrow to check out the situation. If she’s operating illegally, our Bureau of Industry and Commerce will definitely step in.
Boss Cao: Thank you for your trouble, Director Liu.
Boss Cao: [Red Packet]
Liu Tianwang: It’s my duty. All in a day’s work serving the people.
(Liu Tianwang has accepted your Red Packet.)