"Good morning, young miss!" A group of smiling, pretty flight attendants greeted Mu Yue in unison as she stepped onto her private plane for the very first time. Though the entire crew came as a bonus with the aircraft, every single member was well above the standard for good looks.
Mu Yue could not suppress the grin tugging at her lips. No sooner had she stepped inside than one of the flight attendants hurried over to gently take her coat, while three more stood by at the ready, prepared to fulfill any and all of Mu Yue's needs the second they arose.
The plane's exterior was remarkably understated, an elegant kind of low-profile that set it clearly apart from regular commercial airliners and even average private jets. The interior, however, was anything but modest—it was the epitome of opulent grandeur.
The cabin's color scheme centered around black gold, platinum, and sterling silver, dotted with starry sky elements that made it look as if a whole galaxy had been inlaid within the walls, or that handfuls of diamond dust had been scattered across every surface. Stepping inside felt like walking straight into a palace in the sky—and that was exactly what this plane was. According to Rich Cat, even the private jets used by certain royal families for their travels were no more lavish than this.
Multi-functional rooms were just the basic amenities here; the bedroom and walk-in closet were nearly the same size as the ones back at Mu Yue's home, and the level of comfort was a world apart from the luxurious first-class cabins she had flown in before.
Curled up in the plane's private theater, Mu Yue hugged a hibiscus-flower Su embroidery throw pillow, sipped on a glass of freshly squeezed juice, opened a video, and sighed contentedly: This is the real definition of living the good life!
This trip, Mu Yue was heading straight for the womanizer. She had already had her fun during the vacation, and now it was time to get down to the real business of earning points.
With the Spring Festival just around the corner, the Tang family was finally making their move. It was obvious that the Tang family planned to use the massive crowds of the holiday season as cover for their shady, underhanded deal.
Between scenes of her movie, Mu Yue checked the surveillance feed on the womanizer. His group was currently driving down the highway, which was still clear of traffic jams for now. They would take a rural side road on their way back—more of a hassle, but far safer than sticking to the highway.
From their conversations, Mu Yue learned that they had chosen a farmhouse restaurant as the location for their transaction. About five kilometers away from the farmhouse was a scenic tourist spot. They had already booked tickets for the spot and rooms at the scenic area's hotels, making it look on the surface as if they were just there to enjoy a Spring Festival vacation.
The scenic spot was located in a southern city, not far from the city where the Tang family was based. The local climate was pleasantly mild, like full-on spring, with flowers in full bloom across the entire spot. It drew hordes of tourists every year who came just to admire the blossoms.
Browsing through photos of the scenic spot online, Mu Yue was quite tempted. She had already tried skiing and hot spring trips, so the chance to see spring flowers in full bloom over the Spring Festival was too good to pass up. What's more, this city was home to a world-famous Lantern City.
The lanterns of Lantern City were exquisitely crafted, so vivid and lifelike that they looked completely different in the daytime versus at night. Since she was already going to be in the city, it would be a waste not to go explore it.
Mu Yue immediately asked Carter to book tickets for her. She could work on earning points while squeezing in a little vacation time, getting both her priorities and her fun taken care of—perfect!
After finishing a movie, Mu Yue played some video games with the four little ones for a while, then sat down for lunch. She had brought her top-tier personal chef along with her, so even 30,000 feet up in the air, she got to eat the most exquisite, high-end food, never letting her stomach suffer even the slightest bit of disappointment.
The top suite in the best hotel in M City had been reserved long in advance. Along with her on the trip were Carter, two bodyguards, and her chef.
The flight crew had all been arranged for accommodation as well, and Mu Yue gave them two million to spend as they pleased. Even though they weren't technically real people, every member of the staff had their own personal preferences, and letting them spend money made them happy, which in turn made Mu Yue happy—just like spending in-game currency on characters in a video game. That sum of money was nothing to her, it barely even made a dent in her accounts.
Mu Yue hadn't just brought people along on the trip, either—she had brought two of her cars. The plane had a dedicated "parking bay" with a wildly cool design that looked like something straight out of a sci-fi movie set in outer space; Mu Yue even snapped a couple of photos of it.
Once she checked into the hotel, the hotel butler thoughtfully handed Mu Yue a detailed M City travel guide, complete with recommendations for attractions, transportation, food and accommodation, various exhibitions, popular streets, and local markets, available in both digital and printed versions.
Mu Yue was flipping through the printed copy right then. The cover and illustrations were beautifully designed, and the most thoughtful detail was that each page with a photo of a flower gave off a faint, corresponding floral scent. Turn the page, and when a different flower or tree was pictured, the scent shifted to match. She had no idea how the hotel had pulled it off without mixing the different fragrances together.
Mu Yue was pleasantly surprised by the guidebook and wanted to buy it, but when she asked, the hotel gave it to her as a free gift.
After skimming through the whole thing, two spots caught her interest: the city's porcelain market, and M City's jadeite market. The porcelain there wasn't antique, but modern craftsmanship pieces made with such incredible, intricate skill that the items pictured in the guidebook could only be described as breathtakingly masterful, and Mu Yue instantly fell in love with them.
The jadeite market also had a mid-sized stone gambling section. Most of the stones there were low-quality offcuts meant to rip off tourists, but there were genuinely good finds hidden among them too.
The womanizer had x-ray vision, so a place like that was almost guaranteed to draw him in. Especially after suffering a string of setbacks, his current social status was nowhere near what he imagined he deserved, stuck as nothing more than a disposable errand boy for the Tang family. A protagonist like him would never be willing to settle for that—there was a good chance he would pull one of his classic stunts where he showed up the Tang family members who looked down on him.
Mu Yue had a whole stock of negative effect items saved up from check-ins, and it would be such a waste to leave them sitting unused.
But she wasn't in a rush to head there right then. She was going to rest for a while first— the manizer had only just arrived in M City, and was currently going through his usual routine of trading barbs and taunts with the Tang family members.
When she woke up in the mid-afternoon, fully rested and recharged, Mu Yue got a sudden urge to go on a massive shopping spree. Her bank account was overflowing with cash right now, and if she didn't spend some of it, her balance was only going to keep growing. She glanced at her accounts: she had over 150 million in cash, and more than 14,000 points. The next level of the Tycoon System required her to spend 5 billion to unlock, and she hadn't even hit one-fifth of that total. She still had a long way to go to level up.
High-value items like her three-story manor and this private plane were all rewards she had gotten from opening blind boxes and spinning the prize wheel. Just earning money from daily check-ins was nowhere near as cost-effective. She was only at level 2, and the drop rates for amazing prizes were already this insane—she could barely even imagine what incredible rewards the next tier of blind boxes would have. But there was no denying that opening these blind boxes that you never had to worry about losing money on was so much fun it was impossible not to grin.
After doing a quick tally of her assets, Mu Yue changed into a nice outfit and headed out with her two female bodyguards.
There was a high-end luxury shopping mall just a kilometer away from the hotel, and they arrived in just a few minutes. Back before the holiday season started, all the latest seasonal collections from the brands would get sent straight to her home for her to pick from, so it had been quite a while since Mu Yue had actually gone out for a proper shopping trip in person.
Shopping without a second thought about prices, she took whatever caught her eye. Even though her total spend came to less than ten million, the experience was incredibly uplifting. Most of her purchases were clothes, accessories and bags, but a perfume shop gave Mu Yue a wonderful surprise. She bought an entire collection from them, as both the packaging and the perfume bottles themselves looked like works of art. All the shops would deliver her purchases directly to her hotel, so she had nothing to worry about when heading back, and the cloakroom on her private plane was still empty anyway.
Mu Yue's physique, enhanced by stat point assignments and regular exercise, meant this little bit of activity was nowhere near tiring her out. As she was wondering what else she could go see next, she noticed there was a supermarket inside the mall. The supermarket had a name written entirely in English, a brand that did not exist in her original world, but was widely recognized in this world as the most expensive international supermarket chain.
A supermarket! Mu Yue suddenly realized that since she had arrived in this world, she had not actually visited a single supermarket even once.
Glancing around, she spotted so many products she had never seen before, and Mu Yue immediately got excited, pushing a shopping cart herself to start browsing!
The supermarket had an enormous selection of goods, most of which were imported, and every single one came with a pretty steep price tag. She grabbed a whole pile of unfamiliar snacks that looked delicious, and then at the fresh produce section she came across fruits, vegetables and exceptionally good-looking seafood she had never laid eyes on before, so she took a little bit of everything. She had no idea how to prepare any of them, but that was no problem at all - the hotel's chefs would handle all the cooking.
Before long, the cart Mu Yue was pushing, plus the carts of her two bodyguards, were all completely full. This sight drew plenty of stares from other shoppers. And when the checkout machine beeped to confirm a total payment of over 500,000, people were so shocked their jaws nearly dropped. Among the crowd was a mukbang creator who was streaming from the rest area. The audience in her livestream might not have heard the exact number clearly, but the creator heard it perfectly, and froze completely in shock.
Then she lowered her voice and said to her viewers in utter disbelief, "A girl just spent over 500,000 yuan...
The comment section immediately flooded with "666", "wait how much did you say?", everyone watching had never imagined someone could spend 500,000 yuan just on a trip to the supermarket.
Mu Yue, heading back to the hotel with her full load, did not care at all what other people thought of her. As long as she was happy, that was all that mattered. Of course, she did not buy any obvious gimmicky products that were a total waste of money, like bags of ice that cost over 100 yuan a piece, or tiny jars of salt priced at more than 100 yuan. All she bought were snacks and ingredients, and the largest part of that huge bill came from the seafood - grouper, king salmon and black-gold abalones, all fresh, at the perfect size for eating, and of the absolute best quality.
Of course, whether they were actually as good as they looked would have to be put to the test by tasting them.
Back at the hotel, it was time for the master chefs to show their skills. They were truly world-class, and just watching them cook was a feast for the eyes. For the nth time, Mu Yue thought that the butler team's character card was worth every penny, totally worth it!
When the dishes were done and she took the first bite, Mu Yue squinted her eyes in utter bliss. That money was very well spent.
There was no way Mu Yue could finish all that seafood by herself, but that was fine. She could share the rest with her character card staff, so nothing would go to waste.
After eating to her heart's content, Mu Yue teamed up with her four little systems for a five-player game, and spent the rest of her first day in M City in total comfort.
The next day, Mu Yue woke up bright and early. After finishing her breakfast, she checked the surveillance feed on Wang Jian. At this hour, he was almost all packed up, and looked like he was getting ready to head out. The Tang family had scheduled their transaction for three days later, so the womanizer going out at this point was almost certainly not for anything related to that deal.
But Mu Yue never expected that the male lead would bring her yet another surprise.
This male lead had secretly contacted a third party, planning to stir up some trouble during the transaction. He intended to step in and resolve that chaos himself, so that he could take out the Tang family's long-time rival and successfully wrap up the deal at the same time. Once he pulled that off, his position within the Tang family would completely flip the power dynamic.
Mu Yue almost burst out laughing. What a "brilliant" mastermind.
That plot point never appeared in the original story. Back when the male lead befriended the Tang family in the original narrative, he already had an established status, wealth and assets of his own, so he never needed to pull such a cheap stunt. But in reality, the male lead was desperate for a performance like this to climb the social ladder. If his protagonist halo was powerful enough, this plan might actually work.
But come on, his halo had been chipped away at over and over already. No matter how durable it was, it was bound to have its effects weakened. More importantly, Mu Yue knew exactly what he was up to now!
Mu Yue had already planned to pin the blame on the male lead just like she did back at the underground casino. Now she did not even need to plant any evidence at all - the male lead was already doing this all on his own! Tsk tsk, this was so much more convenient for her!
