5: Chapter 5: 1.45 Million Yuan Slaps the Green Tea Girl in the Face! The Little Secretary Completely Falls for Her.

Lin Yuan steered with one hand.

"5 PM tonight, you pick the location."

Sent. Screen locked.

He tossed his phone into the storage compartment.

He turned his head and glanced at the passenger seat.

Su Xiaonuan was curled up in the seat like a cat just rescued from the rain, her hands tightly twisted together.

At the top of her thigh, there was a tear in her black stockings.

It was blindingly white.

The edges were still stained with undried blood.

Lin Yuan frowned slightly.

The apocalypse was coming soon.

When it arrived, brute force would be the only passport.

But before the storm truly broke, appearance was still the most useful facade.

His people could be afraid. They could be weak. But they could not look shabby.

"Vroom—" The george patton took off abruptly, forcibly cutting into traffic.

Behind them, the sound of screeching brakes and honking horns erupted instantly.

Twenty minutes later. Jiangcheng MixC Mall, underground parking garage.

Su Xiaonuan stared blankly as Lin Yuan pulled out the car keys, still not quite having regained her senses.

"Get out."

"Ah… o-okay, Mr. Lin."

She shivered and hurriedly unbuckled her seatbelt.

When getting out, she instinctively tugged at the torn stockings at the top of her thigh, trying to cover it.

As a result, the more she pulled, the bigger the tear became. It looked even more pathetic.

Lin Yuan didn't wait for her and walked straight toward the elevator.

Su Xiaonuan didn't dare to delay; she lowered her head and trotted to keep up.

The atrium on the first floor of MixC Mall was brightly lit, almost blindingly so.

The scent of luxury perfume mixed with the aroma of coffee was blown everywhere by the air conditioning.

In his previous life, this place had been the "mass grave" at the beginning of the zombie outbreak in Jiangcheng.

Countless people were blocked in front of the revolving doors, crying and pushing to get out, only to be torn apart layer by layer by the zombie horde.

But now, the revolving doors were still turning slowly.

Internet celebrity girls wearing crop tops and high heels walked past Lin Yuan holding bubble tea.

Ordinary people would just think goddesses were everywhere.

But in front of Lin Yuan, system notifications flashed by rapidly.

[Target attractiveness detected < 85]... One after another.

With this aesthetic, the system had effectively sentenced ninety percent of the plastic surgery faces in the mall to death.

Lin Yuan was expressionless as he swiped away a few backup candidates in his mind.

[Meat Tank Queen] [Sumo Princess]. He would rather have nothing than settle for less.

He took Su Xiaonuan and walked straight toward the Chanel counter.

A blast of cold air hit them.

The sales clerk caught sight of the tear in Su Xiaonuan's stockings at a glance. Her smile faltered for less than a second before immediately returning to standard.

She had been in this business for eight years and had seen too many eccentricities of the rich. This scene didn't even count as an appetizer.

But the gazes of several socialites nearby had already drifted over.

Su Xiaonuan's face flushed red from being stared at, and she wished she could shrink into a crack in the floor.

She lowered her head and backed away bit by bit.

Lin Yuan checked his phone. There was still over an hour left before the banquet with Su Muxue.

He raised his hand and pointed to the wall of new autumn arrivals behind the counter. "Pick something."

After saying this, he looked down at the supply data on his phone.

Su Xiaonuan saw the string of "0s" on the price tag. As soon as her fingers touched the fabric, she recoiled as if burned.

"Mr. Lin… this is too expensive. How about—there's a Uniqlo up ahead, I can go there…"

Lin Yuan didn't even look up. He pulled a pure black metal card from his trench coat pocket and placed it on the counter.

Clack. The sound wasn't loud. But the sales clerk's hand, reaching for a hanger, stopped instantly.

She recognized this card. It had been specifically highlighted in the headquarters' internal training manual. When a cardholder enters the store, do not ask about the budget. If you ask, you are fired.

The professional smile on the sales clerk's face instantly switched to the highest grade. She bowed slightly, her tone softening by three degrees.

"Sir, what style do you need?"

Lin Yuan said indifferently, "From the inside out, change her into a complete set that fits her best. She doesn't know how to pick, so you do it."

The clerk immediately looked at Su Xiaonuan. Petite, fair, timid, with a hint of panic in her eyes. For this kind of temperament, the worst thing is to overdo it. The cleaner it is, the more lethal it becomes.

The clerk quickly pulled down a set of dogwood-pink small suit, paired with a white silk inner layer, and tore open a package of unopened luxury black stockings.

"Miss, please come this way."

Su Xiaonuan looked timidly at Lin Yuan. Lin Yuan was looking down and had no intention of explaining at all.

How could she dare to say anything more? She grabbed the clothes and trotted into the fitting room.

Ten minutes later. The fitting room door opened. The boutique seemed to have been hit with a mute button.

Even Lin Yuan's gaze paused on Su Xiaonuan for a moment.

The dogwood-pink suit cinched in to show an extremely slim waist. Brand new black stockings wrapped around her straight legs.

A clean bandage was stuck on her knee, which instead gave her a touch of pitiable charm.

A timid expression paired with an exquisite professional outfit. When purity reaches the extreme, it turns into another kind of lethality.

Su Xiaonuan looked at herself in the mirror, her fingertips trembling.

She had never imagined that she could stand under the lights like this. Not with her head bowed. Not being despised. But looking as decent as a different person.

Just then, a shrill laugh came from outside. "Yo, Su Xiaonuan? I thought I was seeing things."

A woman wearing heavy makeup walked in, swaying her waist, with a bald fat man on her arm.

The woman took off her sunglasses, her gaze scanning from Su Xiaonuan's new clothes all the way to her toes. Her smile was sour and venomous.

"What's wrong with your leg? Scraped it? You're wearing stockings with a scrape? If you get them dirty, you can't return them, you know."

"You were cheap back in college, how are you still degrading yourself after graduation?"

"This is Chanel, you must be in the wrong place. There's a Uniqlo around the corner, that place suits you."

Su Xiaonuan's body stiffened abruptly. Zhao Ya. Her class monitor for four years in college.

She was also the one who loved tearing up her part-time job resumes in public and stealing her scholarship spots.

Zhao Ya used to always say that Su Xiaonuan, with her poverty-stricken life, was meant to crawl in the mud forever.

But now, Su Xiaonuan was wearing an outfit she herself couldn't bear to buy, and standing beside her was a man younger, more handsome, and with a stronger aura than her own sugar daddy.

Zhao Ya's gaze was pinned on Su Xiaonuan's waistline, then swept across Lin Yuan's face. Finally, it landed back on the bald fat man beside her.

The strap of the bag in her hand was gripped until it deformed. Why? Why could this soft pushover turn things around?

Zhao Ya reached out to grab Su Xiaonuan's collar. "This material, tsk tsk tsk. Take it off, I want to try this set on!"

The sales clerk immediately stepped forward. Her smile was still there, but her tone was noticeably firmer. "I'm sorry, Miss, this set already belongs to this customer—"

"I told you to strip it off!" Zhao Ya raised her voice. "My brother is a VIP at MixC Mall; he spent 200,000 here last month! The kind that can park in VIP spots, do you understand?"

As she spoke, she used force, making a move to drag Su Xiaonuan over.

Su Xiaonuan instinctively protected the clothes, her face deathly pale, a hint of tears in her voice. "Um… please don't pull, I'll go take it off, is that okay?"

The next second. A large palm pressed onto her shoulder. Steady, powerful. Lin Yuan pulled her behind him.

He didn't look at Zhao Ya. On his phone screen, data on bulk commodity trading was still scrolling.

But this indifference was seen as weakness in the eyes of the fat wealthy businessman.

The fat businessman squinted, his gaze circling Su Xiaonuan's black-stocking-clad legs. He casually threw out a gold bank card.

"Little girl, what future is there in hanging out with this pretty boy? Come over and have a meal with brother. Whatever you want, brother will buy it for you."

As he spoke, he pinched Zhao Ya's butt, smiling greasily.

The sales clerk looked down at the gold card. Then she looked at the black metal card on the counter. Her expression became very subtle. It was like seeing someone try to use a bronze sword to challenge a nuclear bomb.

Lin Yuan finally spoke. "Charge it." His voice was devoid of emotion. "She'll wear this set out. Pack up everything else that fits her size; I'll come to pick them up in two days."

The sales clerk immediately picked up the black card. "Very well, sir." The POS machine read the card. Beep— The receipt paper came spitting out, one sheet after another.

The clerk looked at the amount, her voice even brighter than before. "The total is 1,457,000 yuan. Sir, here is your card."

The air went instantly silent. The smile on the fat businessman's face froze first. Then it faded away bit by bit. 1.45 million? Just like that?

Zhao Ya still hadn't realized something was wrong, and she screeched, "Brother, why are you spacing out? This poor wretch must have used a fake card, hurry up and make them—"

The fat businessman didn't let her finish. His brain went buzz. Because he saw Lin Yuan's face.

Half an hour ago, the Jiangcheng businessmen group chat had exploded. The video of the main entrance of the Xinghui Group building being forcibly rammed by an off-road vehicle had been forwarded over a hundred times.

The man in the video, standing in the center of the ruins smoking coldly, wasn't that the man right in front of him?

The chairman had even issued a special red-text warning: [No one in Jiangcheng must provoke Lin Yuan.] [Whoever provokes him, get out of the Jiangcheng business circle yourself.]

Sweat soaked through the fat businessman's shirt instantly. And yet, he had turned around and delivered his face to be slapped.

"Brother! Say something!" Zhao Ya was still screaming. SMACK!! A slap was delivered.

Zhao Ya shrieked, flying sideways and knocking over the perfume counter. Glass shattered all over the floor. She covered her face, eyes full of disbelief. "You… you hit me?"

"Shut up!" The fat businessman's flesh was shaking all over. "You idiot! Do you want to get me killed?!"

After saying this, he didn't care about the broken glass on the floor and bowed ninety degrees directly to Lin Yuan. "Mr. Lin, I'm sorry! I didn't know it was you! This b*tch has a foul mouth, she deserves to be hit! I'll take her and leave immediately, get out immediately!"

His voice trembled, and he didn't even dare to lift his head. Zhao Ya was stunned by the slap.

She wanted to curse, but as soon as she opened her mouth, the fat businessman grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out like a dead dog.

"Move! Do you think I've lived too long?!" Zhao Ya had lost one of her high heels, her face covered in blood as she was dragged out of the boutique. The woman who had been so arrogant just moments ago couldn't even curse a complete sentence now.

The boutique quieted down again. The clerk lowered her head to organize the receipts, even her breathing becoming light.

Su Xiaonuan stood behind Lin Yuan, looking at the broken glass on the floor, then at the man's tall, cold, and rigid back. Her chest felt sour.

From college until now, she had been stepped on by Zhao Ya too many times. Every time, she could only endure it. Because she had no money, no backing, and no one to speak a word for her.

But today. Lin Yuan didn't even scold a word. He just swiped a card. Zhao Ya was slapped away by the very backer she thought she had. This was power. This was the feeling of being protected behind someone.

[Ding! Target Su Xiaonuan (Attractiveness 87), Favorability +3%! Current Favorability: 38%!]

Lin Yuan took back the black card and shook his trench coat sleeve. "If you're changed, let's get to work."

Su Xiaonuan's legs stiffened suddenly. Her pretty face flushed red, and she instinctively bowed, speaking as if reporting for work: "Yes! Mr. Lin! If the Meat Processing Plant matter is botched, I… I will offer myself to you on the spot!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Su Xiaonuan froze in place. The air was silent for two seconds. Her face turned red to the roots of her ears in a flash. It was over. Why did it sound so similar to what Zhao Ya was doing…