Chapter 359: Chapter 283: Milk Tea Shop Grand Opening! Chapter 359: Chapter 283: Milk Tea Shop Grand Opening! “There are too many bootlickers in this world, and killing off a few batches of them in the process of achieving financial freedom is truly a great deed!”

“Now you understand, right, what is meant by ‘the noble causes often involve slaying the sycophants.'”
Cheng Zhu once again felt that he–deserved the grandeur of the Temple.

After washing up in the bathroom, he lay down on the bed at home.

Then, he picked up his phone and started chatting with Lin Lu and Shen Qingning.

Lin Lu was talking about trivial matters of life, sharing about her experiences doing voice acting for an animation that day.

“I was really amazing today! I even impressed myself with my exceptional performance.”

“Really? Let’s hear a line or two then.”

“No, no, I’m already lying in bed and not in the right state of mind.”

“I’m lying down too, but I’m in a great mood, so you better let me hear it!”

He picked up his phone and forced out a so-called ‘bubble voice,’ using a greasy voice that sounded like a vibrating throat, “Hey beautiful~are you there~~~”
As if his throat had a vibration mode.

Lin Lu, listening to the voice message, laughed so hard on her bed at home that she rolled around.

“What the–! That’s not what a bubble voice sounds like!” she protested amidst laughter.

In fact, Lin Lu wasn’t really audio-controlled. Some women get mesmerized by men with pleasant voices, but she wasn’t one of them.

Lin Lu had always found Cheng Zhu to be fun, but of course, there were times when she really couldn’t stand him!

On the other hand, Cheng Zhu and Shen Qingning were discussing serious matters about the milk tea shop.

Star City had made an exception by allowing his shop to have a small, separate entrance, and had agreed from the beginning that there would later be a penalty announcement regarding this matter.

The announcement would clarify that it was Youu Tea who had acted on its own, and it would state the fine imposed.

At the bottom of the announcement, it would also mention that future imitators would be punished even more severely and that the mall could unilaterally refuse to renew leases.

In short, the mall strictly prohibits such behavior!

That’s how society is; you might naively think that someone else is brazen enough to break rules secretly.

But in fact, agreements had already been made beforehand.

Such examples are not uncommon in real life.

Now, as Youu Tea is about to open, the paper walls that block the view of the shop will be torn down, revealing the small entrance, so the mall will publish the penalty announcement tomorrow for all the merchants to see.

“Being a connected person sure is awesome, huh?” Cheng Zhu shamelessly teased Shen Qingning.

Now that he and Ning Bao had kissed twice and “planted strawberries,” he no longer maintained a certain distance when chatting as he used to.

For him at this stage, it wasn’t about just reducing the distance anymore; he dared to engage in ambiguous conversations.

But things like confessions and talks about affirming relationships were definitely not something he would initiate.

There’s a saying that rings true: it’s impossible to hide when you like someone.

But if you like several people, you better keep it hidden!

…

…

The next day, as Cheng Zhu had predicted, the internet-famous school beauty Zhang Qiqi started contacting him.

This ‘utility person’ in Cheng Zhu’s eyes always seized the opportunity to flatter and took the initiative to help Cheng Zhu with some online promotion during such times.

Actually, Zhang Qiqi was feeling a bit regretful.

“I shouldn’t have helped connect Cheng Zhu and Zhu Youwei.”

“This seems to have diminished my advantage.”

Zhang Qiqi racked her brains but couldn’t understand why Ancient Mountain Culture’s Zhu Youwei valued Cheng Zhu so much and was willing to be on good terms with him.

But with Ancient Mountain Culture as a resource at hand, a small internet celebrity like Zhang Qiqi with hundreds of thousands of followers seemed insignificant.

Her own value seemed to have dropped quite a bit.

Little did she know that Cheng Zhu was never really interested in her, nor did he care for that small amount of internet traffic.

She thought she had lost points in his eyes since that day.

Little did she know she had actually scored points since that day.

The reason was simple; after meeting her, she had an additional identity–Yiyi’s close elder cousin.

Interesting how things suddenly became interesting!

But after thinking about it, he still told Zhang Qiqi, “This time, I’m not planning on doing some photo check-ins as promotions before the official opening. Let’s do it after the store is open.”

In his mind, the milk tea shop was different from the claw machine store.

The most important thing for the milk tea shop was the product itself, the milk tea sold.

He was willing to spend money on the decor to highlight his status and to showcase the unique style of his milk tea shop.

But the venue was only so big, destined not to accommodate many customers.

Check-in photos for internet celebrities were indeed a nice touch, but he wanted to focus on the milk tea itself at the beginning.

“Okay then, I’ll come to support on the first day open!” Zhang Qiqi responded.

“Then be prepared to queue,” Cheng Zhu said rather pretentiously as if convinced that his business would explode on the first day.

In fact, for the first few days after Youu Tea’s official opening, there will undoubtedly be a large crowd queuing up.

The reason was simple: Cheng Zhu had hired shills.

Yes, he had paid a group of people to queue up, to act as shills.

“Man, looking for this kind of professional shill team in 2014 really wasn’t easy,” Cheng Zhu had put in a lot of effort for this.

Unlike a few years later, whether it’s Hang City or Shanghai or Shen City… in any case, big cities usually have a lot of professional shill teams.

The number of people wanting to open internet-famous stores in big cities is simply too high.

Hiring people to queue up like this was considered a badass move in 2014, a cunning strategy, but just a few years later, it became a common practice.

Milk tea shops, dessert shops, bakeries… usually all do this.

“Moreover, it would spawn a bunch of scalpers,” Cheng Zhu thought this was the funniest part.

Scalpers, you know, could even make money twice over?

On one side, they queue up for businesses as shills, and on the other, they queue up for others to get numbers and buy things.

So sometimes the shill teams and scalper teams could be the same people.

This was also one of the business opportunities in the past few years.

Now in 2014, Cheng Zhu had put a lot of thought into finding a local gang in Hang City.

“Actually, it’s not hard to hire some people to queue up, isn’t recruiting them easy?”

“The key is whether they are professional enough and have enough occupational integrity and professionalism.”

Zhang Qiqi really did not like men who boasted, but isn’t it a natural talent for many men?

At this moment, seeing Cheng Zhu so confident that he would have explosive business on the first day with a long queue, she didn’t feel disdainful at all but even thought, “That kind of confidence is quite attractive.”

–“Hypocritical Green Tea”.

“Anyway, no matter how long the line, I’ll wait,” she told Cheng Zhu.

As they chatted, she also asked Cheng Zhu, “Junior, can you recommend a milk tea for me? I’ve looked at your shop’s milk tea menu, and I want to drink all of them.”

“I personally recommend you try the Green Grace Light Milk. It’s low in calories, delicious, and guilt-free,” he typed in reply.

Hmm, the tea base for this milk tea was green tea.

…

…

Time flew, and soon it was the day for Youu Tea’s official opening.

That day, the guys in Dorm 309 got up early, with the three foster sons constantly badgering Cheng Zhu to take them to the milk tea shop.

“Brother Zhu, don’t you have any grand opening ceremony planned for the first day?” Dong Dong asked.

“No need, we actually had a simple ceremony yesterday, and I gave each staff member a little red envelope,” Cheng Zhu waved off the suggestion.

It’s quite troublesome to organize ceremonies in the mall, and there are too many rules to break.

Moreover, for a milk tea shop, it officially starts business as soon as the mall opens.

Cheng Zhu joked in his mind, “My shop has got the lucky scratch cards that Baby Lu just gave me, that’s auspicious enough.”

Dong Dong looked at Cheng Zhu, utterly bewildered, “Brother Zhu, how come you don’t seem excited, anxious, or in a hurry at all?”

“What’s there to be excited, anxious, or in a hurry about?” Cheng Zhu frowned.

He said to his three roommates with a smile, “If someday I’m interviewed and they ask me what it felt like when my milk tea brand, worth billions, opened its first store, remember to testify for me–I was calm and collected.”

The three of them looked puzzled.

A milk tea shop, worth billions?

No, surely we don’t brag like this even among ourselves!

They used to think that Brother Zhu’s bragging was always vivid and undeniable, overpowering with his bravado.

But today seemed a bit over the top.

“Your act is a bit off today, Brother Zhu!” Dong Dong muttered in his heart, no longer daring to say it out loud.

The three roommates whispered among themselves, feeling this just proved Brother Zhu must be nervous and excited.

As the champion bragger of our Information Science Institute, when has he ever failed in his boasting?

Little did they know that this brag required time to validate.

Because it went beyond their shallow imagination and understanding.

Maybe years from now, when they recall the bravado he exuded today, they will feel a tingling in their scalp.

An hour later, they felt even more unnerved by Cheng Zhu’s strangeness.

You say he’s truly calm, but then, he messed up his brag.

You say he’s not calm, yet he really isn’t rushing to the store.

He’s actually not skipping classes, attending them with peace of mind!

We three all want to go, and he’s firmly holding us back from skipping classes.

“It’s so uncomfortable, we feel like three eunuchs.”

The emperor is unhurried while the eunuchs are anxious.

He inexplicably castrated our spirits.

Finally, class was over, and Liu Feng couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Brother Zhu, let’s go! Hurry and let’s take a look!”

Even the usually aloof and chubby Zheng Qingfeng broke his character, repeating twice, “Let’s go, let’s go!”

In the end, it was three eunuchs pushing their emperor out of the classroom.

Leaving behind a classroom full of fellow students talking.

“Why isn’t Cheng Zhu going to his store and actually coming to class?”

“Damn, is he really that into studying? He really hardly ever skips classes.”

“Damn, I feel somewhat ashamed!”

“No, if I skip classes to play games again this month, I’m a dog!”

In the Land Rover, Cheng Zhu drove his three eager foster sons to Star City.

He could sense Dong Dong and the others were genuinely worried about the milk tea shop’s business.

They had seen the posts on the school forum, and the comments below were not looking good; many people were complaining about the price.

Even though the customers in this upscale mall tend to be high-spenders, wouldn’t Starbucks be the first choice sitting right across?

The three sat in the car with their worried hearts.

“Hope the business inside Star City won’t be dismal when we arrive, right?”

…

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