Translator: Transn Editor: Lucas
In the Yingjin Building of the Pingle District.
When Lou Cheng entered the lobby of the newly-built office building, he received a lot of attention from the security guards due to his student-like appearance. He ignored them and looked around with great interest, observing the passing office workers who wore down jacket or all kinds of overcoats instead of the typical suits and ties or formal skirts and high heels in his imagination.
The elevator he entered was not crowded as the people in the building were still at work. On his left were two men discussing business. On his right was a straight-haired girl carrying a few cups of milk tea and several slices of cake. With his keen sense of smell, Lou Cheng had to pinch his nose slightly due to the smell of perfume on her body.
“If I didn’t get Jindan and didn’t start practicing martial arts, perhaps this would be my daily environment... ” Lou Cheng lamented internally. He exited the elevator at the tenth floor and saw the logo on the wall in front of him.
It read Zaoji Martial Arts Supplies Co. Ltd.
“This is the place I am looking for!” He turned left and saw a receptionist with long beautiful hair looking down at her phone in a bored manner.
“Hello,” he tentatively greeted the lady.
The receptionist suddenly raised her head and put down her phone quietly. She blurted out,
“Who are you looking for?”
As a company receptionist, she had a beautiful look and sweet smile, but also a pair of glassy eyes.
“I’m looking for Manager Wu.” Lou Cheng returned her smile.
“Manager Wu? Who are you referring to?” the lady asked with confusion, having calmed down.
“Manager Wu. Wu Qinggui,” Lou Cheng answered calmly.
The lady looked him up and down suspiciously.
“Have you already made your appointment?”
Though she found the young man in front of her to be very cute, he also seemed younger, as if he was an undergraduate student. So what was he doing here?
Was he here to apply for an internship?
But there was no need to bother Manager Liu with such trivialities, was there?
“Yes, I have.” Lou Cheng nodded with a smile.
“Okay then, I will ask.” She picked up the phone with uncertainty, dialing someone’s number.
“Hello, Manager Wu. A guest is waiting for you... Yes, yes, he’s very young... Okay, okay.” As she talked on the phone, she looked at Lou Cheng with surprise.
He really had an appointment with Manager Wu!
After putting down the phone, she said with a much sweeter smile, “Manager Wu asks that you wait for a moment.”
Manager Wu did not mention why he had to wait and neither did she know the reason.
“Okay.” Lou Cheng put his hands in his pockets and looked around leisurely, admiring the layout and decoration of the Zaoji office.
Just then, he heard a burst of rapid footsteps closing in. He subconsciously looked in that direction and found a middle-aged man with a thin and strong figure approaching,
“M-Manager Wu!” the receptionist stood upright and shouted shyly.
Manager Wu came out to personally welcome this young man!
Who was this young man?
Wu Qinggui wore a suit and tie. He had a square face with thick eyebrows and big eyes. He approached Lou Cheng with a smile and outstretched his arms to shake hands with him passionately.
“Oh, you should have called me first when you arrived. Come, come. Come into my office.”
“Manager Wu, you are too kind. I can find this place myself,” Lou Cheng said calmly. He followed Wu Qinggui into his office and passed by many working quarters. He finally arrived at the office at the end of the corridor, leaving the receptionist stunned for a long time. It took her a long time to snap out of it.
“... that is the general situation. I believe Tingting has told you this?” In the office, Wu Qinggui sat on the guest sofa and repeated the conditions about the endorsement. He took a cup and took a sip of tea to moisten his throat.
Lou Cheng smiled. “Yes. I basically know what is going on. I just want to know what specific terms you have made.”
Wu Qinggui requested the sample contract from the secretary and handed it to Lou Cheng.
“The main content is that we will give you one million yuan over three years. You just need to wear our martial arts shoes when you fight in matches. There are additional terms of the contract made to give you money. You can first take a look at them.”
“Okay.” Lou Cheng began to read the contract quietly.
One million yuan over three years. This condition was much better than he had expected!
He felt embarrassed to even bring up the endorsement money again...
He thought that his current endorsement fee would only be tens of thousands of yuan. Most fighters of the Dan stage did not even have the chance to get an endorsement. What was more, he would not need to attend other activities or film any advertisements. He would earn this fee simply by wearing a pair of shoes. It was that easy!
He turned the pages very quickly, the professional terms used in the contract making him dizzy. He basically understood the contract in the end.
The additional terms that Wu Qinggui had mentioned earlier were indeed beneficial to him. Generally, the terms meant that he could get extra money according to the level of matches he participated in!
For example, the group competitions of the National University Martial Arts Games would certainly attract less attention than the semi-quarter finals, the semi-finals, and the finals. Every bit of progress he made would lead him to advance in a completely different stage, meaning the martial arts shoes he endorsed would certainly be shown in a much more popular stage. Thus, the endorsement contract also set out some ranked rewards.
According to those terms, the maximum fee this contract could offer him was more than 10 million yuan within these three years. But Lou Cheng thought this was an illusion. He certainly could not make this much money, because the biggest reward he needed to get based on this contract was the title of one of the top 32 fighters in the five biggest title matches.
How could he achieve this!?
The fighters who advanced to the top 32 of the five biggest title matches were all masters of the physical invulnerability!
With his strength and current improvment speed, he was still hopeful to earn more than 1,500,000 yuan in these three years based on this contract... Lou Cheng put down the contract in his hand.
“Manager Wu, can I bring this contract home to look it over? I will respond in two days.”
That was right. He was interested in these conditions. He would return and find a lawyer to help him out with this contract!
He needed to ask his Senior Sister for help this time. She would introduce him to a good lawyer!
“No problem. You can write down my email address. If you have any problems with the contract terms, you can directly ask me.” Wu Qinggui readily agreed. He picked up the pen and quickly wrote down an email address on a paper.
He then stood up and laughed. “I will bring you around our office. This is the center of gravity of my recent business. Oh, by the way, I can help you measure your accurate data so we can design a specific martial arts shoes for you.”
“Okay.” Lou Cheng did not turn down his suggestion.
Following Wu Qinggui, he toured the design department and other places. In the end, he entered an office decked out like a scene out of a science fiction film.
“This machine collects data about your force. We can carry out the following steps with the data.” Wu Qinggui ordered the professional designers to help Lou Cheng measure the length and width of his feet, pointing at the metal table mounted on the ground.
After the designers were done with the measurements, he smiled and raised his chin. “Give it a try. You only need to stand on it and exert your maximum force into your feet.”
Lou Cheng hesitated. “Won’t I break it?”
Even he was terrified of the explosive power he now had...
“How can that happen? This machine is of good quality. I have already asked a few Professional Ninth Pin fighters and mighty ones of the Dan stage to test its force.” Wu Qinggui smiled without any concern.
Lou Cheng was still uncertain. “There really won’t be a problem?”
“No problem! If it breaks, it’s on me!” Wu Qinggui laughed.
“Okay then.” Lou Cheng stepped on the metal table with his socks on.
As they waited for the technicians adjusting the equipment, Wu Qinggui said, “Okay, you can start now.”
Under Wu Qinggui’s eager eyes, Lou Cheng took a breath to unify and balance his spirit, his blood, and his force, concentrating them into one entity.
He broke out his Danqi and abruptly exerted force into his feet.
Clang!
At the entrance of the Zaoji office, the receptionist suddenly felt dizzy and found the ground shaking.
“Earthquake!” Startled, she ran out. She also found that her colleagues were also rushing out from every office.
Just then, the microearthquake ceased. The workers in the company looked at each other with stupefied expressions.
“Go back to work. It is no big deal.” The receptionist settled down and waved her hand to comfort them.
That scene repeated on every floor of the Yingjin Building.
In the testing room, Lou Cheng looked at the broken metal table and raised his head innocently. “Seems like I broke it... ”
It was not ‘seemed like’! It was really broken! Completely broken! Wu Qinggui gaped and his eyes widened. He was truly startled, as if he was seeing the arrival of an alien.
Was this the explosion made by a Sixth Pin fighter?
It was like he had caused an earthquake!
“Manager Wu, the fighters you found before were of Eighth Pin in the Dan stage, right?” Lou Cheng tried to pass the buck.
“Yes, yes.” Wu Qinggui broke out of his reverie and said with a wry smile, “This machine really does not work well. It’s on me, on me!”
The fighters who were in the Inhuman rank really were inhuman now!
Lou Cheng once again looked at the table he was standing on and curiously asked, “Has it measured any data?”
“No... ” The technicians answered him with tearful expressions.
Wu Qingui calmed down and smiled. “It’s time to get off work. How about we have a dinner together?”
“Haha. It is my first day back home, so I must accompany my parents. Let’s eat together next time.” Lou Cheng still felt a little guilty.
“Okay.” Wu Qinggui did not insist on his suggestion.
...
Lou Cheng first went home and chatted with Coach Yan for a while. He then called his Senior Sister, Shi Yuejian, to discuss the endorsement. Following her instructions, he took photos of the contract and sent them to her.
When it was late, Shi Yuejian called him back. “Little Brother, the contract has no problems, but it lasts for a long period of time. Three years from now, you will graduate from university and will certainly become a fighter who can participate the top professional games, so your social status will be completely different at that time. This contract will waste your value. So you should sign a contract for two years. They should give you 700,000 yuan within two years. All the uncertain terms are reserved.”
“If you are too embarrassed to demand this from them, you can adopt the two-plus-one pattern. Two years from now, they have your endorsement priority, but the conditions they offer should be similar to what others are offering.”
“Got it. Thanks, Senior Sister,” Lou Cheng said happily.
The door opened just then. Qi Fang and Lou Zhisheng had returned home wearing tired expressions.
“Cheng, what are you talking about?” Qi Fang casually asked him while changing out of her shoes.
Lou Cheng laughed. “I’m talking about a big contract.”
“Big contract... ” Qi Fang smiled without interest and walked into the kitchen.
What kind of big contract could one sign by only fighting in some matches and winning a little bit of money?
Lou Cheng did not explain himself. He wanted to wait until he signed the contract and surprise his mother with money for their house furnishing.
Haha...
“I only saw how hard your mother had it after following her around to work on the house furnishing.” Lou Zhisheng sat down and leaned against the sofa in exhaustion.
Lou Cheng glanced at the kitchen. “Then let’s ask Mom to stop making dinner. How about we eat out?”
The moment he finished his words, he heard Qi Fang shouting from inside the kitchen. “What kind of pork ribs did you buy?”
“Just regular pork ribs... ” Lou Cheng answered in bewilderment.
Was there any difference between ribs...
Qi Fang was annoyed but also found her son ridiculous. “Can’t you pick a better part of the pork? Since your teeth are good, you should gnaw on them yourself!”
The champion of the Youth Tournament and fighter considering a one million yuan contract, Lou Cheng, blinked innocently and felt a little sorry for himself.
How would I know which rib part to buy...