259: Far ahead

"Let me see where those two gold bars are hidden."

After the truck driver left, Ye Su picked up the metal detector he had bought previously and began scanning the sofa from every angle.

After symbolically confirming that the three cushions and the backrest were fine, Ye Su turned his target to the sofa frame.

Beep, beep, beep—

As a result, the sofa frame was full of metal springs and such, so the metal detector kept beeping incessantly no matter where he scanned.

With no other choice, Ye Su had to give up on the metal detector and honestly figure out a way to take the sofa apart.

He wanted to just take a knife and cut the entire surface of the sofa open, but he felt it was a pity to ruin a perfectly good sofa like that.

Just as he was hesitating, Ye Su suddenly caught sight of something: in the row of copper nails securing the leather under the sofa backrest, the position of a few in the middle didn't look right.

It looked like they had been pried out before, shifted slightly, and then nailed back in.

"Could the gold bars be hidden right here?"

No sooner said than done, Ye Su brought over the toolbox and took out a pry bar and a hammer.

He chose one of the copper nails that was out of place, pried it up a bit, then used the other end of the hammer to catch the nail and pulled it out with force.

Ye Su did the same for the remaining copper nails and quickly removed the entire row.

As the copper nails were removed, a gap appeared between the leather and the padding underneath, just enough for Ye Su to reach his hand inside.

He first pulled back the leather and peered inside, but all he could see was a pile of stuffing.

Worried about rusty nails or metal shards inside, Ye Su didn't dare to blindly reach in and rummage around. He had to pick up the pry bar and hammer again to remove a few more copper nails from the side.

Estimating that the gap was now large enough, Ye Su pulled the leather back hard and carefully extended his hand into the sofa, inch by inch.

"Hmm! There's something here!"

He had only reached in about a palm's depth when Ye Su felt his fingers poke something hard.

Relying on his nimble fingers, he struggled slightly to push the stuffing aside a bit. Then, using his index and middle fingers, he clamped onto the hard object he had felt and pulled it out with force.

As Ye Su's fingers left the sofa, a gold bar wrapped in a certificate was pulled out from inside.

After spreading out the certificate, Ye Su saw the "Construction Bank" mark on the gold bar and the 200g weight marked below.

"That means there is another gold bar inside."

Ye Su reached his hand back into the sofa, slowly feeling around to the left and right. Finally, on the left side of the gap, he felt another hard object with a familiar texture and pulled out the second gold bar.

[Ding!]

The second gold bar had just been taken out, and before Ye Su even had time to open the certificate, the system screen popped up first.

[Congratulations to the Host for successfully retrieving the gold bars from the sofa; you have successfully given the [Working Cat] a raise!]

"Comfortable. From now on, I'll have an income of 25,200 every workday!"

"If I can manage to get another [hidden easter egg] one day and give the [Working Cat] another raise, I could have an income of a million or so a month without doing anything at all!"

Having just given the raise, and before even waiting for the [Working Cat] to go to work in two days, Ye Su was already planning on giving the [Working Cat] another raise.

"Let's sell these two gold bars first, so tonight's [Gambling for Fun] can have some stakes."

But just as Ye Su opened his phone, intending to schedule the precious metal recycling service at the Construction Bank, he discovered that today was a holiday, and the bank had suspended that service.

"I'll just have to leave them for now and sell them in a couple of days."

Since he had the Construction Bank gold bar certificates, it was obviously more convenient to have the Construction Bank handle the recycling. Ye Su was too lazy to look for other jewelry stores to recycle them, so he opened the safe and put the gold bars inside.

Only then did Ye Su notice that the beads on the [Ruyi Abacus] had reset to the 200,000 limit.

"How annoying. I have to figure out how to spend this 200,000 again this month."

After a bit of humble-bragging and admiring the wealth in his safe for a while, Ye Su locked the safe back up with satisfaction.

"It's a pity to throw this sofa away. I'll just nail it back together and take it to the shop. It'll be good to have a place for customers to sit, or for Jin Le to lie down on during her lunch break."

[Ding!]

Ye Su picked up the hammer and was just about to nail the copper nails back in when the system screen popped up once again.

[Congratulations to the Host for generating over 800,000 in profit from the [sunscreen clothing] intelligence; you have received the eighth [Physique] reward. Do you wish to claim it?]

"The final [Physique] reward has arrived too!"

He had just claimed the 7th [Physique] reward for the [sunscreen clothing] yesterday; he didn't expect that after only one day, so many orders would confirm receipt.

"Could these people all be timing their receipt for the 1st today, just so they can wait until next month to pay off their Huabei?"

Ye Su had done this before, so he was not unfamiliar with it.

"Claim the 1 point [Physique] reward."

[Claimed successfully!]

"Ah—"

Another familiar warm current surged through his entire body, making Ye Su feel incredibly comfortable, and he let out a blissful moan.

[The Host's current [Physique] attribute is 69 points, rated as—Strong and Robust!]

"It's already reached 69 points in [Physique]!"

Looking at this number, Ye Su couldn't be more satisfied.

Before the system helped him improve his [Physique] attribute, his attribute points were only around 50.

Ye Su asked himself, and his body back then was already considered quite good.

It wasn't him boasting; after all, his reputation was there, and both Chen Xinyi and Qin Manyun could prove it.

This also proved that the [Physique] attribute of an ordinary person should be around 40 points.

His [Physique] had now reached 69 points; if nothing went wrong, he was already far ahead of the vast majority of people in the world.

"I'll work harder and strive to break the [Physique] attribute through to 70 points soon, then 80, 90, and finally break into three digits!"

Ye Su estimated that by then, even if he went to run a marathon without any professional training, he could rely purely on his stats to crush those black athletes who specialize in winning marathon prize money.

"Sigh, woman, you're going to have to suffer again."

After mourning for Chen Xinyi for 3 seconds, Ye Su picked up the hammer, ready to nail the copper nails back in.

Buzz, buzz—

Just then, the phone on the coffee table vibrated again.

After unlocking it and opening the message, Ye Su found that it was his older brother, Ye Xin, looking for him.

[Big Bro: The batch of sunscreen clothing we brought in last month has pretty much sold out.]

[Big Bro: There are a few hundred pieces of leftover stock with broken sizes left. I'll keep them listed in the shop for now; if they sell, they sell. If they don't, I'll find a clothing store around here and sell them off at a low price.]

[OK]

[You handle these as you see fit.]

[Big Bro: I'll handle the remaining stock. I'll transfer the final 280,000 in payment to you in a bit.]

With those few hundred pieces of leftover stock, Ye Xin wouldn't lose much money by selling them off at a low price, so Ye Su didn't haggle with him over such small change.

[Just transfer 180,000 to me. Give the remaining 100,000 to Mom and Dad.]