SAHBQT 04

Chapter – 04

The Beloved Missy — X

All users on the “Quest for Fragrance” platform were nationally certified master perfumers.

Given the special status of perfumers in this era, most posts on the platform were anonymous—to protect the perfumers’ personal privacy and safety.

This did not include two perfumers: one named Hua Jing, and the other named X.

You Mingming noticed that the posts by these two were all pinned and had countless replies—roughly over nine thousand each. That meant about seventy to eighty percent of the master perfumers on the platform were their fans.

Not to mention the lower-level perfumers who weren’t even qualified to register as “Quest for Fragrance” users.

One could say that these two were titans in the perfumery world—authoritative, impartial, and immensely knowledgeable.

You Mingming sent each of them a private message, attached one of the ancient perfume formulas from the USB drive, then opened her phone and began scrolling through public posts trying to guess the real identities of these two. At the same time, she kept an eye on the platform to see if either of them had replied.

Half an hour later, there was still no activity on “Quest for Fragrance.” Her messages had vanished like stones dropped into the sea.

The system couldn’t help but say, “This won’t work. If you keep waiting, Wen Suyue’s theft system will have finished parsing all the formulas on the USB drive.”

“These two won’t even look at their messages. Even Wen Suyue had to find connections in the real world and spend half a year just to auction off the formulas.”

Having followed You Mingming for so long, the system naturally knew her game plan—make use of proximity to gain an advantage, rely on powerful backers to enjoy the shade, and leverage the influence of famous names to auction off the perfume formulas quickly.

But things were never that easy.

If it were that simple, this world wouldn’t have been rated S-class. Four hosts under the system’s colleague’s supervision had all failed in this world without exception.

The colleague said those four hosts were currently preparing to resign and seek re-employment in Mary Sue fiction.

The system was terrified that You Mingming might also run off.

“No rush,” You Mingming said. “How much time is left before Wen Suyue’s garbage system finishes parsing the USB drive’s contents?”

“Eleven hours and seventeen minutes,” the system checked the countdown and added, “twenty-seven seconds.”

“Oh,” You Mingming continued scrolling on her phone. “That’s plenty of time.”

You Mingming flipped to another post. The OP had laid out a great deal of evidence claiming that X—the famously acerbic and aloof user on “Quest for Fragrance”—was actually Lian Fenghua, the CEO of Venus Corporation. However, the replies were all just a string of “haha” laughter.

Someone declared they were actually an employee at Venus and found it hard to imagine their notoriously taciturn CEO ever being associated with the word “sarcastic.”

Under that comment was a high-definition photo. In the photo, a man stood by a floor-to-ceiling window—broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, dressed in a silver-gray suit that created an extreme aesthetic of contradiction on him, as if a savage beast were restrained beneath a civilized exterior, exuding an overwhelming aura of raw magnetism—

The kind that made people want to tear off his clothes, grab his tie, and press themselves endlessly closer to him.

And so, all the replies under that comment began to veer off course. The comments shifted from “haha” to “swoon,” “so gorgeous,” and “I love you, darling.”

The computer chimed, indicating a reply. You Mingming muttered something about “the world going downhill and morals decaying” while saving the photo and looking over at the screen.

The system: “…”

The system followed her gaze to the screen. In the “Quest for Fragrance” chat box, X had replied with a question mark. Hua Jing still hadn’t responded.

“Do you think X could be Lian Fenghua?” You Mingming said. “For the sake of the mission, I’m willing to sacrifice my pure love and get together with that despicable capitalist.”

“Ah,” the system sighed, somewhat melancholic. “Didn’t you say you would never be a lackey of capital?”

“I don’t want to either,” You Mingming said with a look of deep sorrow. “It’s all for the revolution.”

“Whatever you say,” the system gave up on treatment. “Just don’t break the rules and don’t get caught by the adjudicator.”

While the two were chatting, You Mingming had already given X a general rundown of the situation and expressed her willingness to offer two long-extinct ancient perfume formulas, plus ten percent of the auction proceeds.

X, true to the man who had been roasted all over every forum, replied: Why should I help you for such a pittance? I’d rather process a few more documents with my time.

Could it be that for these rich people, a hundred million counts as just a pittance?

You Mingming fell into thought, finding herself growing increasingly disgusted with the wealthy. She’d heard that the more you hate something, the more you become it—she hoped that was true.

She started playing the sympathy card, saying she had lost both parents at a young age, her company had gone bankrupt, she was burdened with massive debt, and was about to be kicked out onto the street.

X was silent for a long while, as if weighing the truth of her words. Finally, he said: Forget the payment. First, send me the formulas you plan to auction—I’ll have someone test them.

You Mingming immediately packaged a folder named “Tent Fragrance,” along with her bank card number, and sent it all to X.

After the compressed file was sent, X didn’t reply for a long time, and no auction post appeared in the Xunfangchen software either. Everything remained calm.

The system: “Great, even if X is a good person willing to help you run an auction, by the time the formulas sell, the countdown will already be over.”

“Besides, the perfume formulas you sent are only one percent of what’s on the USB drive. The auction money won’t be nearly enough to cover the compensation…”

Unable to face such a bleak reality, the system decided to give up and lie flat.

It lay flat for ten hours. When it woke up, it saw You Mingming tinkering with something on her computer.

On the table, her phone kept displaying bank deposit notifications.

“Awake?” You Mingming said somberly. “If only I could make money this easily.”

“Keep at it,” the system consoled.

Perhaps because the Great Compassion Mantra had been playing on a loop for ten hours, the system was now in a peaceful, Buddhist state of mind. It no longer wanted to think about the competition among colleagues over their hosts. Instead, it looked at the screen and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Sending Wen Suyue a big gift package.”

You Mingming’s face was lit by the flickering green glow of the computer screen.

The system finally understood exactly what she was doing. It wasn’t particularly surprised—the only thought in its mind was: This is You Mingming, after all. I really did underestimate her.

***

On the other side, after a tense, sleepless night, Wen Suyue, who had been working frantically until nearly 1 a.m., finally saw the parsing progress on her computer screen reach 100 percent.

She excitedly opened the 8-gigabyte USB drive, feeling as though her life was about to take a major turning point at this very moment.

She could use these nearly lost perfume formulas to ascend into high society, or amass tens of billions in assets.

And all of this was thanks to her thieving system.

When people are excited and happy, they cry; when nervous, their hands tremble—

Wen Suyue’s eyes welled up with tears. Her hands trembling, through a blur of moisture, she saw several hundred episodes of Sponge Bob Square Pants.