Early the next morning.
After breakfast, Yu Xiaxing got into the car, planning to head to school to carry out the second-round task.
Suddenly, the passenger door was pulled open from outside.
Yu Zheng climbed in without a word and slammed the door shut.
“Morning, little sister.” Yu Zheng adjusted the seat, stretching his long legs out in the spacious passenger-side footwell.
He turned his head and gave Yu Xiaxing a perfectly natural smile. “My new car hasn’t arrived yet. Give me a ride since you’re going that way.”
Yu Xiaxing wanted to kick him straight back out.
But then she remembered that this car had been extorted from him in the first place.
She still owed him one for that, so she decided to let it go.
With an annoyed snort, she stepped on the accelerator. The luxury car, with its superior performance, shot out of the garage.
Just before they could leave the main residence, at the final bend in the driveway, another luxury car slowly approached from the side. The two cars met right at the intersection.
Yu Xiaxing slowed down and glanced over. It was Yu Lingyi.
The two cars were now blocking each other, and Yu Xiaxing had no intention of yielding.
Yu Lingyi’s window slowly rolled down. Her gaze passed over Yu Xiaxing and landed on Yu Zheng in the passenger seat.
“A-Zheng, Xingxing, good morning.” Yu Lingyi’s calm, gentle voice drifted over through the open window.
As expected of the Fourth Miss Yu, the person in the entire Yu family most renowned for her refined, ladylike bearing. No matter how much she disliked someone, she never showed it on her face.
Unlike Yu Xiaxing, who only put on a pleasant expression when the elders were around.
“Morning, Fourth Sister,” Yu Zheng replied.
Yu Xiaxing merely gave a faint “Mm,” without even fully turning her head.
Yu Lingyi didn’t take Yu Xiaxing’s attitude to heart.
This little hellion of a sister wore every emotion plainly on her face.
When they were children, the two of them had disagreed over something involving an outsider. Ever since then, Yu Xiaxing had refused to give her a pleasant look, and Yu Lingyi had long since grown used to it.
She asked with a smile, “Are you two heading to work together? When did you make up? That’s quite a rare sight.”
Yu Xiaxing had never liked her in the first place. Now, she gave her a deliberately provocative smile.
“Our branch of the family has always been close. What, Fourth Sister, are you jealous?”
Yu Lingyi continued smiling amiably and didn’t take the bait.
“Then you two go ahead. I’m not in a hurry.”
She even took the initiative to reverse her car a little, putting on the air of a gentle older sister—graciously giving way to two immature younger siblings.
“Fake,” Yu Xiaxing muttered. She couldn’t be bothered to keep arguing. She hit the accelerator and shot past Yu Lingyi’s car, kicking up a trail of dust.
Once they had left the Yu estate, Yu Zheng spoke lazily.
“What’s your grudge against Fourth Sister? You won’t even bother maintaining a polite front?”
Yu Xiaxing answered casually, “I just can’t stand her. She’s acted fake and sanctimonious since we were kids. You have no idea how good she is at putting on an act.”
“I remember one incident… You were already studying abroad by then and weren’t home. There was a family banquet once, and one of our older male cousins got drunk. He sexually harassed Auntie Zhang’s daughter, cornering her outside the bathroom and putting his hands all over her.”
“I happened to walk in on it. That girl was crying her eyes out. I was going to tell Grandpa, but Yu Lingyi stopped me. Guess what she said?”
Yu Zheng asked, “What?”
Yu Xiaxing replied, “She said that all the guests were there, and it wouldn’t look good if something like that got out. She would privately compensate the girl and told her to avoid certain people in the future.”
“That girl was about my age at the time! That bastard had already shoved his hand inside her clothes!”
“And yet, for the sake of the Yu family’s reputation, she wanted to brush aside the victim’s humiliation and suffering as if they were nothing. Then she even turned around and told the victim to avoid certain people in the future?”
“I got into an argument with her right then and there. I said I was going to tell Grandpa while everyone was still there. So she locked me in a room and didn’t let me out until the banquet was over!”
Still, Yu Xiaxing wasn’t the sort of person who judged others solely by their worst side, so she added, “To be fair, she did give Auntie Zhang’s daughter a sum of money afterward, and Auntie Zhang and her daughter were quite satisfied… But I still can’t stand her!”
Yu Zheng thought for a moment. “I wasn’t there, but I heard about it later. That cousin of ours was beaten to death a few years ago for… doing something to a woman. The person who beat him acted in self-defense and didn’t face any consequences.”
Yu Xiaxing raised an eyebrow. “So? Are you trying to praise her for doing the right thing? Was she able to predict that if she let him continue behaving badly, he’d eventually suffer divine retribution?”
Yu Zheng said, “No. She doesn’t have any ability to predict the future. She just likes smoothing things over. But if it had been me, I wouldn’t have gone straight to Grandpa either.”
Yu Xiaxing slammed on the brakes, intending to kick Yu Zheng out of the car.
They clearly followed different principles and could never work together!
Unexpectedly, Yu Zheng immediately added, “If I see something I can’t stand, I deal with it directly. I’d beat that cousin until he was on his knees begging for mercy. He shouldn’t do things I dislike in front of me.”
Yu Xiaxing started the car again and continued driving him to work.
His way of handling things was simple and rough, but Yu Xiaxing wholeheartedly approved.
Honest people like us prefer to be straightforward!
So perhaps they did share the same principles after all—and could work together!
Soon, they arrived outside Kang Le Gardens.
Yu Xiaxing pulled over.
Yu Zheng opened the door and got out. He then stood outside the car, bent down, and rested one hand on the window frame as he looked at Yu Xiaxing.
“Little sister, go do your task properly. You won’t keep winning forever!”
“Win first, then talk!” Yu Xiaxing shot back provocatively. She immediately raised the window and merged back into traffic.
Through the rearview mirror, she saw Yu Zheng walk into the residential complex.
Several elderly men and women returning from their morning grocery shopping spotted him and actually smiled as they greeted him.
Looks like he was doing pretty well there.
—
As soon as Yu Xiaxing arrived at the school board chairman’s office, she went straight to the complaint box.
There were several hundred unresolved complaints inside, accumulated over many years.
While she looked through them, she also instructed Lu Yanzhao to investigate how her other competitors had handled their respective cases.
Lu Yanzhao was as efficient as ever.
In less than an hour, a concise and clearly organized report had been sent to Yu Xiaxing’s email.
Yu Xiaxing skimmed through it.
Her eldest brother ran a supermarket and had encountered a bizarre customer who had publicly taken off his pants to try on a cheap pair of underwear from the shelves.
The security guard had escorted him out of the supermarket, but the man had actually filed a complaint, accusing the supermarket of “humiliating his dignity” and providing “abominable service.” He demanded an apology and compensation.
In her previous life, Yu Xiaxing had lost points because of this case. She had been so frustrated she could hardly stand it.
Her eldest brother hadn’t indulged the man. He had gone straight through legal channels, pointing out that publicly taking off one’s pants violated the public security regulations.
As expected of someone who had studied law—fast, precise, and decisive. He had placed himself firmly on the moral and legal high ground, all without spending a cent.
The only problem was that if the matter really went to court, it seemed it would take quite a while…
What if the other party wasn’t intimidated by the lawyer’s letter and insisted on filing a lawsuit? Then her eldest brother wouldn’t be able to resolve it within a week.
Sixth Sister’s case involved a sales associate who had secretly kept aside a limited-edition perfume and resold it to a friend.
A VIP customer who wanted to buy the perfume found out and filed a complaint against the sales associate.
Sixth Sister had immediately fired the employee, sincerely apologized to the customer, and promised to reserve another limited-edition fragrance from the following month’s new release for her.
Sixth Sister had also resolved the matter at zero cost.
Fourth Sister’s approach had been to smooth things over, asking both sides to settle privately: “Let it go. Everyone has their difficulties.”
Fifth Brother’s complaint involved a neighbor who livestreamed for a living. He slept during the day and sang on livestreams at night, seriously disturbing the neighbors. Attempts to communicate with him had been unsuccessful.
Fifth Brother simply borrowed the apartment upstairs from him and, while he was asleep, had his men sing and dance there as well.
As expected of Fifth Brother—he really was good at fighting fire with fire.
He had quite a few friends, too. Sure enough, there was a resident willing to lend him the apartment. Then again, that resident might simply have been driven half mad by the noise from downstairs.
Second Brother and Third Brother’s solutions were fairly standard, with no obvious flaws.
Whether they could score highly was uncertain, but they probably wouldn’t come in last.
…
After reading everything, Yu Xiaxing felt that every one of them was incredibly capable.
It looked like she had a pretty good chance of getting that coveted yellow card!
To be safe, though, she still had to choose the most troublesome issue—the one that would anger the greatest number of people—to deal with.
She scrolled through the list…
One teacher had complained that the reimbursement process in the administrative and logistics department was overly complicated and seriously delayed.
This was an internal management issue; all they had to do was streamline the process.
It might offend the administrative department, but the teachers would cheer.
Maybe it would even earn her extra points! PASS.
Some students had complained that the hot-water supply in the dormitories was unreliable, with the temperature constantly fluctuating between scalding hot and freezing cold.
That was a hardware problem and would require spending money, which didn’t fit the “zero-cost” requirement. They could deal with it after the task was over by spending money to fix it. PASS.
She continued going through the complaints one by one, her brows drawing tighter and tighter.
They were all trivial issues that could be solved with ease.
“Isn’t there a single perfect complaint—something broad in scope, long-standing, deeply entrenched, entangled with everyone’s interests, liable to explode at the slightest touch, and capable of offending a whole crowd of people?”
Yu Xiaxing slumped back in her chair, growing rather irritated.
Unwilling to give up, she continued filtering by “most frequent complaints,” “affecting the greatest number of students,” and “most perfunctory handling records.”
A new list appeared.
