23: News broke that Liu Yunshang's questioning gaze
Chen Kai carried the shopping bags out of the supermarket and placed the two bags of items he had bought into the trunk of the Panamera.
It was only then that he suddenly realized Liu Yunshang was eyeing him with curious eyes.
"Sister Liu, why are you looking at me like that?"
"It's nothing, just a bit curious. Why did you ask me to sign up for a membership card and accumulate points?"
"You only get one point for every yuan spent, and it takes one hundred yuan to offset one yuan. It's not really useful. Little brother, you didn't ask me to open a membership just for that reason, did you?"
Liu Yunshang curiously looked the man in front of her up and down.
She increasingly felt that Chen Kai was not as simple as he appeared on the surface, and she even suspected that he might have some special channel to receive inside information in advance.
Or perhaps he was an antique expert with an extremely keen sense of smell, possessing excellent judgment not only in antiques but also in various types of games of chance.
"There's no particular reason. I just feel that Pan Dongdong store is currently exploding in popularity on the internet, and the membership card might appreciate in value later on."
"I'm just the type of person who likes to research things that are about to go viral on the internet when I have free time. Sister Liu, don't take it too seriously."
Chen Kai made up an excuse; he couldn't possibly tell anyone else about the system.
"Oh~ I see. Then little brother, your judgment is pretty impressive."
Liu Yunshang pursed her lips, sat in the driver's seat, and beckoned to Chen Kai through the car window.
Chen Kai was stunned. A bit confused, he closed the trunk and walked toward the driver's side.
Standing next to the driver's side door, Chen Kai puzzledly leaned his upper body into the car window, his hands resting on the frameless door.
The next moment, Chen Kai saw Liu Yunshang smile slightly, cup his cheeks with both hands, and bring her flaming red lips closer to his.
Two minutes later, Chen Kai wiped his mouth and sat back in the passenger seat.
It was a little sweet, cold, and refreshing.
"Are you settled in? You worked hard last night, so Sister will cook a meal personally today to reward you."
Liu Yunshang curled her lips into a smile, stepped on the gas, and sped off toward Qingshan Residential Complex as if flying just above the ground.
Back home, the two of them each carried a plastic bag. Liu Yunshang took off her black battle robe, mysteriously carried the shopping bag into the room for a moment, and only after changing her clothes did she bring the shopping bag back into the kitchen.
Something was clearly missing from the bag.
"Then thank you for your hard work, Sister Liu. I won't help out."
Chen Kai smiled sheepishly; the food he cooked could only be described as edible.
"Mhm, rest then, little brother. You won't be able to rest later, so take a break while you can."
Liu Yunshang gave a mysterious smile and turned to enter the kitchen.
Chen Kai was confused, a circle of question marks appearing over his head. What kind of chores would he have to do later?
He simply took out his phone and started scrolling through TikTok. He hadn't even scrolled past two videos before the news at the top of the trending list caught his attention.
[#Jiangnan City Pan Dongdong Headquarters automatic checkout counter malfunctioned; points earned for every yuan spent can offset one hundred yuan! Technical staff are currently repairing it. Preliminary estimates suggest losses as high as tens of millions!]
Chen Kai checked the time; it was only 1:10. It stopped already?
Since it was exposed, that meant it was already being repaired. It was a good thing he went early, otherwise, he might have truly missed out on these hundreds of thousands.
However, this deadline for the tens of millions in subsidies was nearly half an hour earlier than the intel suggested.
Could it be the butterfly effect caused by him going to fleece the system?
Whatever, as long as the money arrives, it's fine.
He glanced at the comment section of the TikTok video. There were sarcastic remarks, wails from those who went too late, and some who were smugly pleased with themselves.
[Hehe, I checked out right at 12:10. I only spent a little over eighty yuan and got eight thousand in cash deductions for free. So awesome!]
[Soaking up the good luck, pass it on, pass it on!]
[Holy crap, I was clearly planning to go tomorrow. I lost out! I lost ten thousand yuan! Especially seeing the guy above showing off—this is even more painful than killing me!]
[As everyone knows... seeing a stranger score a bargain, especially one that everyone could have scored, is no different than seeing your good buddy buy a Land Rover.]
[What are you showing off for? Based on the foot traffic at Pan Dongdong, they lost at least ten million this time. The Pan Dongdong Group's annual net income is only three hundred million. Losing so much at once, they'll definitely say an intern messed up the data. The right of final interpretation belongs to their group; they might just send you off with some vouchers.]
[Agree with the guy above. Don't get cocky. Just wait and see if your points card gets wiped or not.]
Chen Kai smiled helplessly; jealousy really does make people look ugly.
Just as he was about to scroll to the next TikTok, another video was pushed to the top of the trending list.
He clicked on it and saw that it was the chairman of the Pan Dongdong mall urgently stepping out to handle PR.
"Preliminary estimates indicate that this loss reached ten million, but since the abnormal points were caused by our issue, our board of directors has decided that the cash deductions from the excess points issued due to this system vulnerability will not be clawed back and will remain permanently valid!"
After watching the video, Chen Kai curiously clicked into the comment section.
This time, there were no sarcastic remarks or snide comments. Instead, it was filled with envy; you could smell the sourness through the screen.
[So regretful. Why did I go two hours late?]
[Who's telling me about it! I live right next to the Pan Dongdong mall, a five-minute walk away. I usually go buy groceries at noon, but today I just had to play one more game. Sigh!]
[Plus one. Just because I played one extra round of mahjong, the automatic checkout counters were already under maintenance when I went to pay. Only after asking around did I realize what kind of welfare I missed out on...]
Chen Kai smiled silently, put down his phone, and thought of that fat woman with the fleshy face.
She's probably regretting it to death after seeing this news, right?
Elsewhere, in a dilapidated Rental House, a square-shaped woman sat on the edge of the bed eating a donut.
She was scrolling through her phone while complaining to the woman who had originally brought her child and consciously lined up at the end of the queue.
"Can you hurry up with cleaning the room? It's so inefficient."
"Holy crap?! I just scrolled past a piece of news. The Pan Dongdong mall just had a malfunction; all points are being refunded at a hundred times the value. You can get one hundred yuan in points deductions for spending one yuan.
Holy crap! It shouldn't be the one we went to, right?"
The plain-looking woman holding the broom, who had been working diligently, froze. She also took out her phone to check, her expression clearly becoming excited.
"It seems like it is! I have two million extra points in my membership card! That can offset twenty thousand!"
"Really? Then for the one hundred and fifty I spent, wouldn't that mean I can offset fifteen thousand? I'm rich, I'm rich! Hahaha!"
The woman with the fleshy face excitedly opened the exclusive membership points app.
The next moment, she was dumbfounded. Why did she only have 156 extra points? One yuan and fifty-six cents?
She went back to TikTok to check. The malfunction happened at 12:00, and her transaction record was at... 11:58...
The woman slapped herself hard in the face on the spot.
"Holy crap!!! Why the hell did I have to cut in line?"