The Pavilion of Serene Clouds was the kind of tea house where the water was sourced from mountain springs and the bill could purchase a small sedan. Usually, these four women would only meet here to discuss hostile takeovers or city-wide zoning. Today, they were discussing a man who had just used a plastic straw to defeat a seismic master.
Su Meiling, Lin Xuerui, Mu Ronghuan, and Ye Qingxuan sat around a circular jade table. The atmosphere was heavy—not with malice, but with a shared, agonizing confusion.
"He called it a 'sub-woofer,'" Mu Ronghuan said, staring blankly into her oolong. "But when I was dancing, I felt the earth's heartbeat. I felt... anchored. Like he was holding the world still just so I wouldn't trip."
"The janitor, Gary," Ye Qingxuan added, her graceful fingers tightening around her porcelain cup. "He has an aura of 'truth' that feels suspiciously like a divine bribe. And he hinted that Chen Feng and I... well, the rumors at school are already spiraling."
Lin Xuerui, the Ice Queen, remained silent longest. She was looking at a high-speed photograph her private security had snapped of the 'straw incident.' In the photo, the straw wasn't bending. The air around it was bending.
"He's a black hole," Xuerui whispered. "He draws everything toward him—trouble, power, and... us. He acts like a 'Salted Fish,' but he's the ocean."
Outside the private room, leaning against the mahogany wall, was Lin Xia. She had sneaked in, driven by a restless energy she couldn't name.
She remembered the "God of Purple Thunder" who had saved her. To her, Chen Feng wasn't a corporate security consultant or a lazy janitor's friend. He was a hero from a storybook that shouldn't exist in the 21st century.
Is it a crush? she wondered, her face heating up. No, that's too small. It's like... wanting to follow a star. A very lazy, strawberry-milk-drinking star.
She wasn't alone in her dilemma. Inside the room, the "Big Four" were experiencing the same internal shift. They were all hyper-competent, "A-type" personalities who controlled thousands of lives. Yet, in the presence of Chen Feng's absolute indifference to power, they felt a strange, magnetic pull. They weren't sure if they wanted to arrest him, hire him, or just find out what brand of milk he drank so they could buy the whole factory for him.
Meanwhile, in a cramped apartment filled with half-empty snack bags and a brand-new, oversized massage chair, the object of their collective obsession was busy with a map.
"The Maldives, Gary," Chen Feng said, pointing a churro at a globe. "I hear the gravity there is very relaxing. Or maybe the Swiss Alps. I want to see if I can nap at high altitudes without being interrupted by 'mountain-crushing' idiots."
Gary, the former God of Wealth, was currently using a divine "Golden Touch" to perfectly balance the legs of the massage chair with a few stacks of high-denomination bills he'd pulled from the void.
"Boss, a world tour costs money," Gary noted. "And since you refused the Su Group's bonus because 'filling out the deposit slip felt like a chore,' our liquid assets are currently... well, we can afford a bus ticket to the next town over."
Chen Feng sighed, leaning back into the chair. "I saved a school. I stabilized a tectonic plate. Why is the universe so insistent on making me 'earn' things?"
"Because," Gary grinned, "the Association just put a five-million-dollar bounty on the 'Ghost of Imperial High.' If we play our cards right, we can get them to pay for the first-class tickets ourselves."
Chen Feng's eyes partially opened. "They'll come to us? So I don't have to pack a bag?"
"Exactly."
"Fine," Chen Feng closed his eyes. "Tell them to make it quick. I want to be on a beach by Tuesday."