155: Chapter 155 Blancpain Fifty Fathoms

Wuhou Shrine (Temple of the Han Emperor Zhaolie), which originated in 223 AD when the Huiling Mausoleum of Liu Bei was built, is the only shrine in China where a monarch and his subjects are worshipped together. It is the most renowned memorial site for Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei, and the heroes of Shu Han, and also the most influential museum of Three Kingdoms relics in the country.

With Jinli located right next to it, a vast entertainment and dining circle has gradually formed, centered around these two locations.

Sure enough, as soon as he got off the car, waves of appetizing aromas kept drilling into his nose, teasing the gluttonous worm in his stomach and making his mouth water incessantly.

In just a few moments, Chen Sheng had a skewer of grilled giant squid in one hand and a cup of iced freshly squeezed watermelon juice in the other, taking a bite of squid and a sip of juice—it was absolutely delightful.

While strolling around, Chen Sheng arrived at the second-hand goods street. The crowd suddenly thinned out, as most people were indifferent to second-hand items. Deep inside, there were only a few people, and looking around, only three stalls remained.

The first stall sold copper coins, ingots, bronze mirrors, and the like. The craftsmanship and the artificial aging were so poor that even he, a complete novice, could tell at a glance that they had been "unearthed" just last week.

No wonder it was placed in the innermost part.

If the stall were moved any further out, the income probably wouldn't even cover the stall fee.

The second stall sold some dilapidated wooden products, such as jewelry boxes. The patterns on them were quite nice, but they looked filthy, with a suspicious air of being intentionally dirtied.

The owner of the third stall was dozing off. There was everything on the stall: old, blackened pipes, teacups covered in tea stains, bronze trinkets with verdigris, vintage pocket watches...

Chen Sheng looked around carefully but couldn't make head or tail of anything. However, in one corner of the stall, there was a cardboard box filled with a pile of old watches, and next to the box stood a sign that read: "50 yuan each."

Clearly, the target provided by the Intelligence System was right here.

Chen Sheng crouched beside the cardboard box and rummaged through the pile of old watches with his hands. Because he had specifically memorized the logo of the blancpain fifty fathoms, he quickly found the target item.

First, he gripped the blancpain fifty fathoms in his hand, then he picked out a Shanghai brand watch and a Sea-Gull brand watch from the pile.

The latter two were old domestic brands that Chen Sheng recognized.

After picking out the three watches, Chen Sheng called out to the owner, "Hey! Boss, here comes some business."

The owner, who was originally dozing in a daze, opened his eyes halfway and took a look. Seeing that the watches in Chen Sheng's hand were all broken, he pointed vaguely toward the QR code with little interest. "Fifty each, no bargaining, scan the code over there."

"Alright then~" Chen Sheng had originally intended to haggle down to one hundred, but seeing the owner's attitude, he extinguished the idea of bargaining and took out his phone to scan and pay 150 yuan directly.

When the speaker announced the payment receipt, the owner, who had been squinting, immediately opened his eyes wide, his entire face beaming with smiles. He quickly stood up, cupped his hands to Chen Sheng, and said, "This boss, I have many good things on my stall. Are you interested in taking another look?"

Chen Sheng waved his hand, "Forget it, I'll take a look another day when I have time."

Leaving these words behind, he ignored the owner's enthusiastic attempts to keep him and walked quickly toward the exit. "Heh, you ignored me before, now you're feeling the boomerang, aren't you!"

After leaving the second-hand goods street, Chen Sheng had no interest in continuing to tour Wuhou Shrine. He returned directly to his car, searched for a professional watch repair shop, and headed straight there according to the address.

Although the Intelligence System estimated the market price of the blancpain fifty fathoms at 10,000 yuan, if he didn't know its value and just looked at its appearance now, to be honest, if this blancpain fifty fathoms were thrown on the ground, he might not even bend over to pick it up even if he walked past it twice.

It was just too dilapidated.

Not to mention that half of the matching leather strap was missing, even the remaining half was severely peeling. Furthermore, the watch case had many scratches, and some of the scratches even showed signs of rust.

Most importantly, the watch was no longer running.

Arriving at the repair shop, Chen Sheng handed the blancpain fifty fathoms to the person in charge, asking them to help repair it and reattach a watch strap that would suit it.

After communicating, setting a time, and paying, it was already noon. Since he had only half-filled his stomach at Wuhou Shrine and wasn't very hungry, he found a nearby Crossing-the-Bridge Rice Noodle shop to solve his lunch problem.

After lunch, in the afternoon, Chen Sheng went to two universities and found a reliable agency in a nearby commercial street, asking them to help keep an eye out for good quality shops in the vicinity.

After visiting the two universities, it was close to the end of the workday. Chen Sheng hurried to "A Small Shop Here" to reconcile today's accounts with Mei Xue, finally completing his schedule for the day.

Time arrived at the 15th, and the Intelligence System officially entered a thirty-day upgrade period. Honestly, without the daily intelligence tasks, Chen Sheng felt that his time had suddenly become abundant.

In the morning, he would take An Xiaonuan to the company, then go to "A Small Shop Here" to gain an in-depth understanding of the shop's operations. In the afternoon, he would arrange visits to two other universities he hadn't gone to yet, find local agents to keep an eye on shops for rent, or receive calls from agents and go with them to inspect the shops on-site.

In the evening, if there was enough time, he would pick up An Xiaonuan and go home together. If not, he would ask An Xiaonuan to order dishes in advance, and then go to the grocery market to buy the ingredients according to the menu.

At night, he continued to pay for videos of eccentric passengers in the part-time ride-hailing driver group.

However, eccentric passengers were, after all, in the minority, so Chen Sheng gradually reduced the video update frequency from once a day to once every three days.

He was definitely going to continue operating the account. Although the follower growth rate had slowed down due to the slower video updates, it had already reached 130,000.

Without a strong background of his own, holding a self-media account with a huge number of followers was, in itself, a kind of background.

Speaking of this, one has to mention the Xiangyun gold necklace from Zhou Dongdong Jewelry Store, the actual material of which did not match the advertisement.

At first, even when Chen Sheng directly entrusted a lawyer to go and negotiate the compensation, the response from Zhou Dongdong was very vague. They neither said they wouldn't compensate nor said they would, only saying that they couldn't make the decision and needed to report it to the headquarters, and that they would contact him as soon as they received a reply from the headquarters.

It wasn't until Chen Sheng provided his lawyer with a screenshot of his account with 130,000 followers and had the lawyer pass on a message to Zhou Dongdong: "I also know many friends in the self-media circle, and I believe they wouldn't want news of Zhou Dongdong's fraud to suddenly explode online."

It was precisely because of this assist that Zhou Dongdong, who had dragged on the issue for a week without resolving it, completed the entire process of "compensating three times the value for a fake item" within the next three days.

The principal of 30,000 yuan plus the 120,000 yuan compensation, totaling 150,000 yuan, was transferred into Chen Sheng's designated account that same day.

Therefore, Chen Sheng would not only not abandon the account in his hands, but he had even thought about hiring one or two professionals to be responsible for the content and operation of the account if he was too busy to find the time later on.

Just like that, time flashed by to September.

In September, the "mythical beasts" returned to their cages; for the vast majority of parents, today was a joyous occasion, and similarly for Chen Sheng, his smile never faded today.

No way around it! Good news followed one after another.

First, the second "A Small Shop Here," located near Shu City University, officially entered its half-month renovation period today.

Then, he finalized the third shop, which was located near the Shu Music Academy.

Then, after ten days of careful distribution, he finally sold the 20 De Hua autographed creative T-shirts in his possession at a price of 6,666 yuan each.

You read that right, the price of each T-shirt was 6,666 yuan.

Originally, he only wanted to sell them for 3,000 yuan, but De Hua was just too supportive. When asking for an autograph, he had kept one piece, and as it turned out, De Hua wore this T-shirt directly on a show and even highlighted the T-shirt he was wearing during the show, expressing that he felt the enthusiasm of the fans in Shu City.

It was precisely because of this that the T-shirts, originally planned to be sold for 3,000 each, only doubled in price after the show's endorsement and the endorsement of the man himself, De Hua. Chen Sheng felt he was very conscientious... no, too conscientious.

There was another piece of news that wasn't quite "good news" but still counted: Chen Sheng completed the settlement of gold futures in his financial account.

As for the profit? Let's just say that with an investment of 230,000 yuan, the final profit was not even as good as flipping T-shirts.

However, he didn't mind. After all, although the return didn't compare to the others, the profit earned was enough for him to pay for the renovations of the two "A Small Shop Here" locations, and there was even surplus money to renovate the first "A Small Shop Here."

The first "A Small Shop Here" was taken over directly from the previous owner, and both the shop's decoration and the placement of goods were arranged according to the owner's personal preferences. But now that he wanted to turn "A Small Shop Here" into a chain model, he needed unified decoration, a unified sign, and even unified uniforms.