Jin shut up and concentrated on clearing his plate of roasted chicken rice. Despite this being an easy (and very yummy) task, it felt a little too wasteful to finish it hastily.
The aroma of the rice was soaked with the smell of chicken broth, and a tinge of ginger gave it a distinctive flavour which led to a mouthwatering reaction. The taste was not overbearing, and each bite was complemented with the roasted chicken meat bursting in his mouth. While the taste of food would plateau after a while, this particular dish did not.
Infused with a bit of Penguin Queen’s chi cooking in it, each bite maintains its tastiness. (And this was Lynn’s leftover cooking for the penguins, which showed that she had improved a long way!) It was neither too oily nor too salty, and one bite led to another and another.
Unfortunately, Yun insisted that they did not have the time to wait around for Jin to enjoy a second serving. As soon as he was done eating, she requested the System to open a portal and hurried Jin once more. Meanwhile, Lynn told them to go ahead first as she still owed Grandma Yuan a cup of brew roasted tea and she needed to make sure she had all the tea brewing items in her storage ring before coming to meet her.
“See you later,” Yun said as she got impatient and started to drag Jin into the portal and they reached Grandma Yuan’s Demon Exorcist Office. It was just as eerily quiet and empty as one would expect at the start of the new year… except for one particular room from which they heard furious typing.
The door was partially closed, and the lights to that particular office room were off. Yun did not hesitate to walk straight towards while dragging Jin with her. (She literally did not let him off the collar at all! Jin merely resigned to his fate being dragged by Yun.)
When the door opened wide, and Jin recognised the one typing furiously was none other than Claire. The woman in question was yawning away as she nodded her head as an acknowledgement to the two’s presence.
“Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year to you too,” Yun replied as she searched the side of the walls to locate the light switches. Claire plunged her head into the table as the lights turned on, but thanks to the illumination Jin could see that she was merely hiding within the desk cushion that she was holding on.
“Dim the lights if you want them to be on!” Claire complained as her head was stuck into the cushion, like an ostrich hiding its head in the ground. Seeing that the System’s Assistant was refusing to comply, Jin sighed a little and turned the switch knobs so it would not be too glaring for their Sub System Intern.
“Thanks…” Claire said as she slowly reared her head upwards and started sending Yun some angry stares.
“It’s your fault to work in the dark, girl.” Yun merely snickered not admitting to any wrong. Both of them sat down opposite of Claire’s desk. “Do you have what I want?” Yun questioned once more, and there was no reply for a moment but just typing.
The silence ensued for the next minute, and Jin was already contemplating whether he should interfere in this bout of awkwardness. Then suddenly, a loud ping was heard, and more electrical noises ensued. At this point, Jin listened to the fax machine behind him starting to work overtime, printing several documents at once.
“There you go, it’s right at the fax machine. Take them out yourselves.” Claire answered still grumpy, but she finally heaved out a large sigh and rubbed her sore shoulders, hoping that the pain could be alleviated for the moment.
“Great, all the documents seem to be in order.” Yun took a quick glance at the documents and nodded her head. “Is Grandma Yuan at home?”
“She hasn’t left the house, but she should be taking a nap. After that raid against the Loopa Ooofpa, she’s been taking more naps than usual in a week.” Claire informed them. A nap sounded like a wonderful thing in her tired mind, and she would not mind going for one herself. She reached out to her System’s phone, but before she could unlock it, there was a ‘thud’ sound at the left of her desk. Her nose started to tingle, and her body automatically turned to the other side of the desk.
It was a cup of Blue Mountain Coffee, extra thick with two cubes of sugar at the side of the saucer and a mini condiment holder of raw honey beside it. Her body instantly ached for its consumption, but Claire knew this was her reward for getting it done.
“Your favourite, right?” Yun asked, even though she knew the answer already. As the System’s assistant, she knew what Claire liked based on her consistent orders via the Sub System.
“Surely, this can’t be my only reward.” Claire grumbled, yet her expression changed immediately after the first sip of it. “I had done a shit load of work, even sacrificing my sleep for this.”
“This is just for you to not fall asleep. If Jin is ok with it, I would be happy to promote you to no longer being just the System Intern.” Yun nodded her head, and Claire’s eyes were swift as a hawk’s when they glared at Jin as if he was a rabbit. He was utterly confused since he did not know what she had done to deserve the System’s acknowledgement. As if on cue, the System began to reveal that she finally completed the finances and budgeting for all the major projects that were ongoing.
Not only that, she had secured significant finances from an anonymous investment source that was willing to fund their projects.
“What? And you just accepted without learning who that investor was? Isn’t that a little too shady a deal?” Jin questioned, wondering if it would compromise them.
“It’s actually a ‘partner’ that I found when I was playing the Black Stock Market. He messaged me and queried why I was fighting so aggressively through the stocks. Oh, by the way, he was referring to my excessive flipping. I managed millions with the click of a button, but the preparation to do that was enormous.” Claire explained with a tired smile.
“He was impressed by the choices I made, although he also disagreed with others. The latter should be obvious after all those were his shadow companies’ stock. He was keeping them low and quiet since they were considered spoilt and useless, yet due to my investment flip, he unknowingly earned a bunch of money too.”
“So he honestly wanted to know how you flip them? Or did he want to learn from you?” Jin asked, and Claire lazily shook her head when she continued to stir her coffee.
“He acknowledged that as my trade secret when I refused to reveal even though he offered a generous sum of money. It was his local currency but converted into dungeon dollars; it should easily be half a billion. He thought it would be a shame to just let me go, so he decided to invest in me instead. According to the System, the person can only be described as a major player, so I did not want to refuse his new offer. So technically, this investment source is half of the allowance he’s giving me. Meanwhile, the other half will be used in investing.” Claire smiled weakly once more, but there was happiness in her eyes.
“So, what Claire had been furiously typing was the budget write up for the System’s consideration. It was initially done earlier this afternoon, but when I told her that Jin had won the Tiger’s territories, she slammed her desk hard.” Yun pointed at the table and showed Jin the indentation on both sides of the table. Luckily the table did not break under pressure and the System informed Jin that the table was made from pretty high grade wood.
“Now that we have Yang Rong and Yang Hui’s industrial territories, it will significantly lift the burden of our own industries by a whole lot! You might not have known this, but the Tiger Brothers’ territory was home to a lot of refining and raw materials industries. With this acquisition, it’s very easy for us to gain a reliable source of natural resources. Refined ones too!” Claire said with a higher pitch tone, indicating she was excited for the future of Jin’s cities.
(In the meantime, Jin was simply stunned with the amount of money he now has in his possession.)
