Chapter 18 The Domineering CEO

Qingran's reluctance to ask many questions made the man relax a little.

After watching his lover go into the bathroom, he carried his things into the bedroom, squatted down in front of the bedside table, and moved the bottled and boxed items from the plastic bag into the drawer.

As I got up, I caught a glimpse of the ornaments on the counter out of the corner of my eye, reached out and played with them for a moment before leaving the room.

In the living room, Qingran had just come out of the bathroom.

After washing his face, he felt more awake. His fair face was wet, which made his lips look even redder.

Yan Chen lowered his head and briefly exchanged a kiss with his lover.

The system, which was locked back in shortly after being released from the dark room: ...

Please don't cross the line!

No, it can't just sit here and wait to die. The male protagonist has already bought all the tools needed for the crime. It must remind its host to learn how to refuse!

The system waited anxiously for a while.

Fortunately, this "short time" was short, only about ten minutes, and given the male lead Yan Chen's abilities, it was impossible for anything substantial to happen.

When I came out, sure enough, the two of them were harmoniously sitting at the table eating lychees.

One was only responsible for peeling, and the other was only responsible for eating; their breathing was calm, and their clothes were neat.

"Wang Lei and his girlfriend are coming," Qingran said, eating a lychee, the large, plump lychee making one side of her cheek bulge out.

Yan Chen caught the fruit pit his lover spat out with a plate, and upon hearing this, asked him for confirmation: "Tonight?" His brow furrowed imperceptibly; it was almost dinnertime...

Qingran's next words confirmed his guess.

"Yeah, they said they were having a get-together and even volunteered to be the chef for dinner."

Yan Chen knew perfectly well that his cooking was subpar. He also didn't want his tired girlfriend to have to work so hard after a long day.

Since the other party was willing to cook, he had no objection.

Nodding, he said, "I'll check later to see if we need any more kitchen utensils." He then fed his lover a peeled lychee.

"I'm not eating it." Qingran turned his head away in refusal, his porcelain-white cheeks visible behind the snow-white fruit flesh.

Yan Chen thought of a phrase: "cheeks like freshly picked lychees." But he felt that the skin in front of him was even more delicate than the flesh of a lychee.

He opened his mouth and ate the peeled lychee.

Qingran tilted her head to look at him.

The man paused for a moment, then stirred his tongue.

As a result, a sharp line on his profile subtly protruded, instantly breaking the aloofness he exuded.

A smile immediately appeared on Qingran's face as she watched him quietly.

Like a thorny flower, she stretched out her branches to encircle the man's neck, gently biting the lychee pit in his mouth through her thin cheek flesh, slowly sucking and licking it.

The slight pain turned into a tingling sensation, and Yan Chen felt his scalp tingling and his throat dry.

"Knock knock knock".

A knock came at the door.

The person who had been entwining him like vines, making it hard for him to breathe, let go and stepped back. Yan Chen immediately turned his back and said in a hoarse voice, "I'm going to wash my hands."

The man's figure disappeared behind the bathroom door. Qingran licked her lips, turned around, and went to the entrance to open the door.

The system spoke at the opportune moment.

It was locked in a small dark room twice in just half an hour. If we don't speak up now, it might be too late!

[Host, our villain role-playing mission does not include sacrificing oneself; you can refuse the male lead's unreasonable demands!]

Qingran stopped gripping the doorknob: [An unreasonable request?]

The system stammered: "[...It's just that...the task content doesn't include this item.]"

Actually, Zero Zero doesn't really care who its host sleeps with, as long as that person isn't the male lead.

As everyone knows, the heart of a pure-love male protagonist lies where his innocence lies.

It's really afraid that the male lead will lose his virginity, which will cause the romantic relationship to fall apart and the plot to stop!

What did Yan Chen do to make the system so alert? The system had never warned him so urgently before...

With a faint thought in her mind, Qingran pressed down the doorknob and opened the door.

The conversation with the system happened in an instant. Wang Lei outside the door didn't notice anything amiss. As soon as the door opened, he squeezed in carrying large and small bags of groceries.

"Do you have all the pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils? If not, I'll go out again."

Behind him was Li Yanmei, who was carrying fruit. After politely greeting Qingran, Li Yanmei asked, "Did I disturb you?"

She asked her boyfriend to reschedule the dinner, but he insisted that there was no better day than today, without considering how tiring it was for others to move.

Qingran: "No." She stepped aside to let the two in.

After quickly changing his shoes, Wang Lei rushed into the kitchen, carefully checked all the kitchen utensils, and nodded in satisfaction.

Although there aren't many varieties, there's everything you need, enough to make a hearty dinner.

"Oh right, where's the other person?"

Qingran: "The bathroom."

As soon as he finished speaking, Yan Chen, having calmed down, came out of the bathroom, walked to the kitchen door, and asked Wang Lei, "What's missing?"

Wearing an apron, Wang Lei replied, "We have everything we need, except for preparing the ingredients. I bought some mushrooms, how about we have a whole mushroom feast tonight?"

Mushrooms are delicious, but they are quite troublesome to prepare.

Foods covered in mud cannot be directly soaked in water to wash, as it will affect the taste. You can only use a knife to cut off the dirty parts first, and then rinse them with water.

The kitchen was small, so the four of them cleaned the mushrooms on the dining table in the living room, chatting as they did so.

Wang Lei complained that the purchase price of mushrooms was much lower than the retail price, saying, "There's a 100% price difference even locally, but the price would be at least three or four times higher if they were transported outside, right?"

Even if he only triples his earnings, he'd still make three or four thousand a day!

And sometimes it's not just that; for example, truffles and matsutake mushrooms, which are priced extremely high, can be sold for ten times their original price when transported out.

Upon hearing this, Li Yanmei said, "Since the price difference is so large, why don't we also do acquisitions?"

Wang Lei was intrigued.

Yes, they can buy mushrooms just like others. The only difficulty is finding buyers in the early stages, but once they establish this channel, they can just sit back and collect money!

He looked expectantly at the other two.

Qingran only said three words: "Unrealistic."

Wang Lei asked, puzzled, "What's unrealistic about it?"

Yan Chen explained, "If my observation is correct, the Feixian market is currently divided into three factions, and each faction employs a number of thugs."

These forces will not stand idly by if they discover anyone trying to take a bite out of the mushroom harvest.

This is not the China of ten years from now, where internet surveillance is ubiquitous and society is harmonious and stable.

In the early 2000s, China's public security was still very chaotic. Robbery gangs could be seen everywhere on the streets, and bloody street fights happened frequently.

Given this overall social environment, the competitive landscape in the business world is naturally no less intense. Hiring people to spread rumors and cause trouble is considered mild; the ruthless ones dare to directly hire people to commit murder, arson, and poisoning...

Wang Lei and Li Yanmei weren't delicate flowers raised in a greenhouse; how could they not understand what the thugs meant? They immediately hissed in fear.

Yan Chen: "However, even setting aside acquisitions, simply transporting the goods to other places to increase the selling price is feasible."

"How can it be feasible?" Wang Lei leaned forward, his interest piqued. After asking, he quickly told Yan Chen to wait a moment: "Let me cook the dishes so we can eat and talk."

An hour later, the four of them sat down at the dinner table again.

There were a total of six dishes and one soup on the table, including braised dishes and cold dishes that Qingran bought downstairs.

The remaining dishes, such as stir-fried mixed mushrooms, pan-fried Boletus edulis, stir-fried beef with porcini mushrooms, cold chicken salad with matsutake mushrooms, and mushroom and chicken soup, are Wang Lei's specialties.

Qingran glanced at the blue jasmine on the table.

Having cultivated to his level, he could easily identify some basic poisons in nature, and clearly knew that Boletus luridus was poisonous when it was picked.

He was a little curious about what the first person who discovered that cooked Boletus luridus was not poisonous was thinking.

"Pick up your chopsticks and try my cooking," Wang Lei called out, especially gesturing to Qing Ran. "Give me your feedback after you've tasted it."

They actually questioned his cooking skills!

Qingran picked up a piece of the green tea with her chopsticks, tasted it, and gave an objective evaluation: "It's ready to open a shop."

Wang Lei chuckled smugly, then remembered his business and pulled his chair forward a bit to ask Yan Chen, "By the way, what exactly did you mean by 'feasible'?"

Li Yanmei gave her boyfriend an elbow, speechless. She understood perfectly: "It means you should just take them to other places to sell."

Yan Chen nodded.

In fact, he had already considered this point.

With Qingran around, they are very efficient at picking mushrooms.

Other full-time mushroom pickers might harvest a few kilograms a day at most, but they harvest dozens of kilograms almost every day, and they don't lose money when they transport them to other places.

Yan Chen hadn't brought it up before because, while it wasn't a loss, it wasn't cost-effective for him.

The round-trip time, the vehicles used for delivery, fuel costs, and so on are all issues that must be considered.

Their foundation is too weak. If it weren't for the limitations, registering a company to process mushroom by-products and selling them online would actually be a good option.

Once the company is on the right track, we can then seize the offline market and continue developing high-end product lines...

Overthinking is pointless.

Yan Chen: "We can rent a car from a dealership, but who will drive it?"

He does know how to drive, but he doesn't have a driver's license, so he probably left it at the scene of the accident.

If no one knows how to drive, hiring a driver is another expense.

“…I will.” Li Yanmei silently raised her hand.

Yan Chen: "Do you have a driver's license?"

Li Yanmei: "Yes, I took the exam during my university summer vacation."

Yan Chen mentally checked the box next to the driver item for the investigation: "Are there any cities in the province with relatively high GDP rankings around Feixian County?"

Wang Lei also silently raised his hand: "...What is GDP?"

Yan Chen: "You can simply understand it as the level of economic development."

Wang Lei: "That must be the provincial capital! If you take the expressway from Lanxian next door and there is no traffic jam, you can get to the provincial capital in just over an hour."

Lan County is next to Fei County, Yan Chen remembered.

He pondered for a moment and said, "Don't sell the mushrooms tomorrow. I'll take them to the provincial capital to test the waters."

Li Yanmei knew they would be picking mushrooms during the day, and since they had finished looking for a place to stay and had nothing to do, she said, "You can leave the car rental to me."

The three of them ate and talked, and by the time they reached a conclusion, they had almost finished their dinner.

Qingran wasn't interested in doing business and barely spoke during the conversation, not even raising an eyebrow when she heard the words "Lan County".

If nothing unexpected happens, Su Yu is currently in Lan County and will not leave until she finds Yan Chen.

He asked the system: "[Did the original storyline include a scene where Yan Chen goes to Lan County?]"

The system was on the verge of tears: [...No.]

[What should we do, host?] it worried.

Qingran: [What are you worried about?]

System: [What if the male lead and Su Yu had met earlier?]

A note from the author: