Chapter 60 Discovering a New Continent

Faculty dormitory.

"Mom, is lunch ready?"

"I'm starving. I'm going to have three bowls of rice today, but I need to take a quick shower first."

Having played basketball all morning, Wei Lin felt extremely uncomfortable with his long-sleeve athletic shirt sticking to his body. As soon as he walked through the door, he casually stripped off his top, walking bare-chested toward his small room to find a change of clothes.

"Ah!"

Little Teacher Mu let out an involuntary shriek from the sofa.

Wei Lin froze in his tracks.

Mu Lanyan, wearing a small grey suit jacket over a black T-shirt, had eyes that seemed veiled in a faint mist, now filled with utter horror.

"Why are you here?" Wei Lin asked, dumbfounded.

"Get your ass in the shower right now!" Teacher Wang roared from the kitchen.

"Oh."

Unfazed, Wei Lin walked away naturally with his athletic shirt, though feeling somewhat perplexed.

Ever since he told Little Teacher Mu that he wasn't interested in her, he had assumed their paths wouldn't cross again at his mother's place. He hadn't expected Little Teacher Mu to show up once more today.

"Does the old lady still haven't given up?"

After retrieving his clothes, Wei Lin emerged still bare-chested and ducked straight into the small bathroom.

On the sofa, Mu Lanyan bit her lower lip and let out a quiet sigh of relief.

"This jerk, he clearly saw me, yet he didn't put his shirt on immediately!"

"Is he showing off his body? His body... seems, well, actually... quite good."

Having gained weight to 78 kilograms, Wei Lin's physique had undergone a complete metamorphosis through a period of intense training and four rounds of vital evolution.

His prominent chest muscles, faint abdominal muscles, coupled with broad shoulders and strong arms, made his once lean torso look as though it were clad in a layer of armor.

He looked slender in clothes but muscular without them—that described him precisely.

At one meter eighty-three in height, coupled with this well-proportioned yet not overly bulky musculature, his figure had reached almost professional-model standards.

While Wei Lin was showering, Mu Lanyan's mind was filled with the image of his toned, shirtless upper body.

"Touching it should feel pretty nice," Little Teacher Mu couldn't help but think.

Before long, the dishes were served.

Wei Lin, having changed into clean clothes with his hair still damp, dug into the food without a care in the world as if no one else was there.

He was genuinely starving.

Nor did he care how the Little Teacher Mu opposite him viewed him; his eating habits resembled those of a wild beast foraging, as he grabbed a large bone and tore into it.

"Can you eat any less disgracefully?"

Wearing an expression of disappointment, Teacher Wang scolded him while smilingly explaining to Little Teacher Mu, "This brat just finished playing basketball, so he must be truly hungry. Please don't mind him."

Mu Lanyan smiled faintly, maintaining the poised demeanor of a young lady from a good family. She gracefully picked up some food with her chopsticks, nibbled in small bites, and said, "I don't mind at all. He's eating at his own home, there's no need to be so restrained."

Inwardly, however, she thought: *He can really eat! Is this guy a bottomless pit?*

After polishing off three bowls of rice, Wei Lin went for a fourth. The table in front of him was piled high with gnawed clean bones, and his meat-greased hands wielded chopsticks to rapidly grab more dishes.

The table full of meat dishes was more than half-devoured by Wei Lin alone, and he clearly wasn't full yet.

"Can't you eat a little less?"

Seeing him wolfing down his food with such crude and exaggerated table manners, Teacher Wang couldn't help kicking him under the table.

Then, she forced a smile and added, "Xiao Mu, he..."

Mu Lanyan waved her hand. "It's fine, really. I have a small appetite."

"You two chat for a bit, I'm going to slice another plate of cured beef!" Teacher Wang glared at Wei Lin, looking somewhat awkward as she retreated to the kitchen to chop up the remaining piece of beef.

As soon as she left, Teacher Mu let out a soft huff, stared straight at Wei Lin, and whispered, "Why did you delete me on WeChat?"

"As I recall, the two of us never even added each other on WeChat in the first place, did we?" Wei Lin asked with an innocent look, chugging down a few gulps of cola before continuing, "We never added each other to begin with, so how could there be any talk of deleting?"

"Mu Qingfeng!" Little Teacher Mu said angrily.

Wei Lin shook his head. "No impression."

"That day at Liket Fitness, I added your WeChat and asked you what on earth you whispered into that female coach's ear! Wei Lin, dare you say you really didn't know Mu Qingfeng was me?" Mu Lanyan gritted her teeth.

"Oh, oh, oh! So it was you! Why didn't you say so earlier?" Wei Lin reacted as if just realizing the truth, grinned broadly, and said, "People add me on WeChat all the time, so I can't tell who's who. An accidental deletion! Definitely an accidental deletion!"

Just as his voice trailed off, Little Teacher Mu's WeChat QR code and her phone were shoved right into Wei Lin's face.

"Add me back!"

Mu Lanyan glared at him hatefully.

Just as Wei Lin intended to tease the young teacher a bit more to keep her in check, seeing his mother coming out with the beef, he had no choice but to scan the code with a thoroughly reluctant expression.

Seeing his expression, Mu Lanyan, who had been on the verge of chewing him out, noticed Teacher Wang sitting back down and could only glare at him secretly twice.

"This boy of mine isn't a bad person, and he's very motivated. When he got divorced back then, it wasn't because he did anything wrong. It was just that his father had recently passed away, and he poured all his energy into the company."

"He..."

Once Teacher Wang sat down, she began to sigh and recounted the reasons behind Wei Lin's divorce.

Finally, she earnestly added, "It certainly wasn't because he cheated during his marriage!"

Little Teacher Mu kept her head down, shoveling rice into her mouth in silence.

Wei Lin was utterly speechless. "Mom, if you keep going, she'll even find out what color underwear I like to wear!"

"What kind of nonsense are you spouting? Shut your mouth!" Teacher Wang rebuked indignantly, slapping the table and snorting coldly, "You'll be thirty next year, and the company isn't as busy as before. Why can't you properly find a partner and start over?"

"You weren't mature before, but now that you've been through a failed marriage, you'll know how to cherish relationships better."

"If your mother doesn't worry about your lifelong affairs, who will?"

Teacher Wang went all out with her firepower.

Wei Lin made a hasty retreat.

The moment he finished eating and hurriedly washed his hands, he bolted out the door.

...

Saturday afternoon, Xinlin Hats.

Inside a warehouse.

Looking at the hundreds of hats produced on an expedited basis by the factory, Wei Lin inspected them back and forth before saying with satisfaction, "In the early stage, they will all be white hats with the prominent Black Adversary Red Demon printed on them. We'll make detailed adjustments to colors and varieties later on."

Because of the large order from Fenglin, the factory had been working overtime recently, and An Yuntian had poured his heart and soul into the facility.

At that moment, looking at An Xin, whom Wei Lin had summoned over, An Yuntian frowned and asked, "Are we really going to push a brand in a big way and sell through those internet celebrity bloggers? Will that even work?"

"It's the general trend; whether it works or not, we have to do it." The moment Wei Lin thought of Zhuang Daoyuan, Tang Qiang, and formidable opponents like Zhuang Qing behind them who were already laying out plans in advance, he knew he had to act decisively without a moment of procrastination. "An Xin, you majored in logistics in university. From now on, the e-commerce side will be handled by you!"

Xinlin's employees were generally older and completely clueless about e-commerce. Wei Lin wouldn't feel at ease leaving it to them to fumble around.

"I still have to write my book!" An Xin complained.

"You write your book at night, what business do you have during the day?" An Yuntian let out a cold snort. "Xinlin, Xinlin—part of the company has belonged to you from the very beginning. You can't possibly dump everything onto your older brother, can you?"

An Xin shrank his neck. "I'll do it, fine."

Wei Lin immediately forwarded Zheng Zehui's WeChat contact to him and showed him the Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and official accounts of the six minor internet celebrities they had signed.

"With just this tiny following, can they actually sell anything?"

An Xin raised the exact same doubt as his old man.

"They have few followers now, but who knows how many they'll have in the future?" Wei Lin displayed immense confidence and said firmly, "You have to trust my eye for this. I'll bet that every single one of them will become a major influencer in the future!"

"If they really can become major influencers, then I suppose it's worth a shot." An Xin nodded.

"I have some bad news." An Yuntian furrowed his brows, sighed, and said, "After Tang Qiang came by on Thursday, the dozen or so small companies that we've had long-term partnerships with have made it clear that their subsequent orders will go to Qifeng."

"It doesn't impact us too much right now since we're currently very busy anyway, but a few months down the line..."

Looking deeply worried, An Yuntian continued, "I'm afraid that small companies like them will only become more and more numerous in the future. We make our living off these small companies; without their continuous orders, Xinlin's future is going to be very troublesome."

What was bound to come would come eventually.

Wei Lin simply hadn't expected Tang Qiang's side to move so quickly, already moving to choke off Xinlin's lifeline within two days.

"It's fine. Once we build our own brand and one or two of the influencers we signed blow up, the orders for our own brand alone will keep us too busy to handle. We won't need to rely on anyone else at all."

Wei Lin sneered, full of fighting spirit as he encouraged An Yuntian and his son, telling them to rest assured and forge ahead.

With that, he added, "An Xin, I know you have plenty of classmates working in logistics. Hurry up and recruit some people for onboarding!"

An Xin was startled. "Brother, do you really think our e-commerce venture can succeed?"

Wei Lin stated with absolute conviction, "It definitely will!"

...

3:30 PM.

Cooped up in his office, browsing through the Douyin accounts of those six influencers, Wei Lin unexpectedly came across an acquaintance: *Mu Qingfeng Teaches You Languages*.

In every single video, Mu Lanyan maintained the airs of a strict teacher, exuding a strong literary and artistic vibe.

Speaking fluent English, French, and Japanese, she stood at a podium translating identical sentences, pointing at a small blackboard with a teaching pointer.

Dressed in her youthful Qingfeng attire with light makeup, her presence on the podium was breathtakingly striking.

Followers: 970,000!

"Holy shit! Big data is truly terrifying! I just added her on WeChat at noon, and in the afternoon she pops up on my feed!"

Wei Lin sat up straight with a jolt, as if having discovered a new continent.

He scrolled through the videos one by one, discovering that every single one of Little Teacher Mu's videos had tens of thousands of likes, with comments, bookmarks, and shares numbering in the thousands.

"These are all solid followers, not bought fake fans!"

"No commercial plugs inserted in the videos, no live streaming, and no showcase windows!"

"This damn thing is a goldmine!"

Wei Lin took a deep breath, hurriedly opened WeChat, and found the newly added Mu Qingfeng.

In the upper right corner of Mu Qingfeng's avatar was a conspicuous little red dot, and the message preview on the right read: *What on earth did you say in her ear that day?!*

That damned curiosity!

Wei Lin suddenly realized that the reason Little Teacher Mu had appeared at his mother's place, and the reason she had added him on WeChat, was simply to get to the bottom of the matter.

She wanted to know what on earth he had whispered into female coach Zhao Jie's ear that night to leave Zhao Jie in such a state of panic.

After a moment of pondering, Wei Lin replied with a message long overdue: "Want to know? Accompany me to a gathering with some brothers tonight, and I'll tell you."

Mu Qingfeng replied instantly: "Deal! Time? Location?"

"Can you hold your liquor?" Wei Lin inquired.

Mu Qingfeng: "Yes!"

Wei Lin: "Can you drink iced alcohol?"

Mu Qingfeng: "Get lost!"

...