Chapter 238 - Weasel and Weasel
Translator: Lav
Editor: Seliniaki Ilikia
Shi Lei quickly understood that when he was making an investment, he needed to make sure that he had enough private funds unless it was a fully complete investment. This was the only possible way for him to use the rest of his private funds for other investments and to ensure that he had enough to pay for the next stage.
Put simply, if Shi Lei had 150,000 yuan of private funds, he could invest 100,000 yuan for the first stage and use the remaining 50,000 yuan for other investments. He could even use that 50,000 yuan to earn enough money before the date of the second stage was due. Otherwise, the Black Card would force him to use its money to pay for it and judge it as an invalid consumption.
“Even if you force me to use the money to invest, I should be able to make up for that amount of money before the end of the consumption period, right?” Shi Lei still hoped that he had a chance.
“You cannot!” The Scepter’s response immediately made his blood run cold. “Even before the consumption period ends, you will have to accept my punishment even if you are a level two employee with the ability to make up the money. And this punishment…Hehe, you know what it is.”
Shi Lei felt as if he had been struck by lightning. He began to panic, but soon calmed down. Everything was still a big what-if. He hadn’t actually done anything like that for real. The worst-case scenario was that he would just have to stick to simple investments and would be unable to play around with separately staged investments.
After a moment of consideration, Shi Lei still thought that he might be able to change it around. Hence, he asked carefully, “Is there really no way to compensate for the amount of money you force me to use? You might as well just kill me if you don’t give me a chance to make up for it. What’s the point of be so fake and saying that your purpose isn’t to kill me?”
It was possible that the Scepter had never expected Shi Lei to ask something like that. It obviously didn’t have an accurate answer for it either and disappeared from the screen.
Shi Lei had already seen the Scepter disappear once, and he knew that it was because it had been asked a question it was incapable of answering, so it was either summoned back by the Black Card or it went to ask the Black Card itself.
It didn’t take long, less than three minutes, before the Scepter swirled into the middle of the screen once again.
Its voice sounded slightly upset. “I can’t believe that this treacherous Mickey Mouse has found another small loophole,” it said unwillingly. “Damn it! I’ll give you one chance to make up for it. Listen carefully. If I force you to use a part of the money to pay for the investment, then you can use twice the amount to compensate for it.”
Shi Lei felt indifferent, since it was difficult to earn twice the amount. Regardless of that, he was still eventually able to leave himself a narrow way out.
“I discovered a loophole in the rules, so shouldn’t I get some sort of reward?” Shi Lei was like a piece of low quality manufactured meat(1) and seized every small chance he could get.
It was just a shameless joke, but he didn’t expect the Scepter to yell, “Cunning weasel! How dare you actually ask me for a reward so shamelessly!?”
Shi Lei laughed. He had really guessed right. “But shouldn’t I get a reward no matter what?” he asked, roaring in laughter. “Come on, don’t be shy. Hurry up and tell me the reward I get!’
The Scepter screamed and yelled in anger, but still narrated the details of the reward between its roars.
“Regarding the incidence of the level two employee finding a loophole in the rule of investment, the Black Card has decided to give the level two employee an additional chance to the current number of chances he has to check the Golden Thumb Investment Card every month.”
Shi Lei smiled even more brightly. If it was before, he really wouldn’t think that the chances to check investments were very important. Now he cherished this hard-to-come-by extra chance.
“Nice!” Shi Lei snapped his fingers in excitement, but he soon asked nervously, “It applies to this month, right?”
“Yes, you cunning weasel!” the Scepter answered in an unfriendly tone.
Shi Lei didn’t care about the Scepter’s tone of voice at all, and he didn’t mind that it had used the wrong noun twice. “Now, I would like to ask how much money I have left this month,” he said.
The Scepter immediately gave him a number and Shi Lei was sure that the 100,000 yuan he used to buy the bulldozer was counted in it.
He concealed the massive shock in his heart. Since this amount was counted, it meant that the Black Card recognized it as reasonable consumption. But that bulldozer had only been worth 10,000 yuan, 20,000 yuan at most. That meant that what Shi Lei had done with the bulldozer was worth 100,000 yuan, or even more. And if it was worth more than 100,000 yuan, he could receive another reward. This reward could be money or a chance to draw a prize.
It mainly depended on whether the Scepter could calculate an accurate value of Shi Lei demolishing Qin Huaiyuan’s house.
Shi Lei had already figured out a pattern and gained the Scepter’s recognition.
A super worthy deal. If his action could be calculated with an accurate value, such as him saving money from renting a house, or renting a house with a lower price, then the Black Card would reward him with private funds. But if it was something impossible to calculate and only had a level of value such as a slave agreement with Sun Yiyi or Wei Xingyue’s first kiss, then it would be graded with stars. Different numbers of stars corresponded to the number of chances he had to draw a prize.
But these weren’t important. What was important was that Shi Lei had a high chance of receiving a prize.
He didn’t ask the Scepter about the reward immediately, since he could draw a prize twice on calculation day and could ask about it at that time. He had exchanged Song Miaomiao’s verbal promise for these two chances. When her hair really reached waist length, he could receive another one or two chances after he acted according to the promise. As to why it was either once or twice, it was because if Shi Lei did it with Song Miaomiao before the end of Sun Yiyi’s agreement, then he would have two chances. But if he did it after Sun Yiyi’s agreement ended, then this chance wouldn’t double.
“I have another question. If I buy a membership card and reload, would the amount of money in the card be calculated as how much it is or calculated depending on the sum of the card?” Shi Lei needed to clarify this.
“It will be valid as long as it doesn’t exceed ten percent of the sum when fully charged.”
Shi Lei understood. The Scepter was preventing him from going crazy and buying all kinds of membership cards. But at least he could buy a membership card within 100,000 yuan every month, right?
“Cunning weasel, do you have any other questions or not?” The Scepter was still upset because of the loophole Shi Lei had discovered.
Shi Lei shook his head. “No.” He reached out for the eject button but before he pressed it, he quickly said, “But there’s something I need to remind you. For the sake of putting me in the rodent category, you stubbornly changed huang shu lang to huang lang shu(2), which is extremely childish of you.” With that said, Shi Lei immediately pressed the button and the Scepter disappeared from the screen, unable to let out a single curse.
Shi Lei walked out of the self-service bank after taking the Black Card back. He touched the card he had placed in his pocket and confirmed that there was only about 300,000 yuan left to spend this month.
He had six days left and had to spend it all within those six days.
Low quality manufactured meat: in the Northern dialect, it is a metaphor for people who are shameless and who like to meddle with things
Huang shu lang & Huang lang shu: Huang shu lang means “weasel” in Chinese, but the separate characters literally means “yellow rat wolf.” Hence, the Scepter had changed the order of the last two words, making it “yellow wolf rat” instead