Chapter 63: Teacher Mu, Pressuring Forward Against the Odds

After dinner, on the way back as the designated driver took Mu Lanyan home.

"What on earth did you say when you went into the private dining room next door?"

"Lin Yaqin's bag, and that Van Cleef & Arpels necklace—how on earth did you manage to get them back?"

"Why did you and Wu Qianqian break up in the end?"

"Wei Lin, whatever made you suddenly think of going to Lin Yaqin to demand those things back?"

"And, what on earth did you whisper into that female coach's ear that night?"

As soon as she got into the back seat, Teacher Mu started firing off questions, her misty eyes overflowing with pure curiosity.

Wei Lin smiled without answering.

The affection value in his mind shifted from 93/1000 before dinner to 95/1000.

Those 2 points were each built from increments of 0.5.

In the span of just a single meal, Teacher Mu beside him had steadily contributed 4 affection points to him.

This was an extremely obvious signal!

"Hurry up and tell me!"

Seeing him smile and stay silent, Teacher Mu finally lost her patience, reaching out from the back seat to grab his arm and shake it.

That flawless, delicate face was tinted with a faint blush from several glasses of red wine, looking as enticing as a ripe apple, making one desperately want to lean in and take a bite.

"Wei Lin!"

Mu Lanyan was getting a bit annoyed. She let out a soft huff and said, "I agreed to accompany you to that dinner party, and you promised that you would satisfy my curiosity!"

"Alright. Let me answer your last question."

Wei Lin broke into a brilliant smile and said, "That day, I whispered to the female coach Zhao Jie that I had seen her checking into a hotel with one of her private training clients, which was why she suddenly panicked."

Mu Lanyan laughed in spite of herself: "So that's what happened!"

Pausing for a moment, she pressed further: "What were you doing at a hotel anyway? You must have been going there to check into a room too, right?"

"I never even saw her in the first place," Wei Lin hurriedly denied, explaining, "I just overheard other male coaches gossiping about how she was tangled up with various wealthy clients, so I deliberately scared her."

Teacher Mu understood, and then said with a deadpan expression: "Wei Lin, you are simply full of bad ideas!"

"If a man isn't a little bad, a woman won't love him," Wei Lin said unconcernedly, flashing a cheeky grin. "Teacher Mu, do you like bad men?"

"No, I don't!"

Mu Lanyan rejected the notion flatly.

After that, her curiosity running completely wild, she stared at Wei Lin and began pressing him about the earlier questions once more.

Wei Lin refused to answer. When she wore him down with her questioning, he finally said, "This afternoon, I came across you on Douyin."

"Oh." Mu Lanyan stopped asking, her gaze drifting elsewhere as she asked, "What about it?"

"You have a lot of followers, and they're all genuine, active followers." Wei Lin smiled, then shifted the topic: "With so many followers, why aren't you selling goods? Why not try to monetize it?"

"That's just my hobby. I want to help more people learn languages properly, why would I sell products?" Teacher Mu retorted.

"Could you do me a favor and advertise for me, help move some caps?" Wei Lin finally brought up his real purpose, saying, "My factory makes caps, and recently we've been heavily squeezed by competitors, leaving us with less and less breathing room."

"There are so many workers at the factory waiting for me to pay their wages. Without orders to back us up, the factory won't last much longer."

"Those people have followed my dad for many years. They don't have high educational backgrounds, and they're not young anymore."

"They have mortgages to pay, maybe car loans too, and they still have to support their children's education. I don't want to watch their lives fall into hardship, which is why I've been actively racking my brain lately to find orders."

Wei Lin let out a soft sigh, playing the emotional card to the kind-hearted Teacher Mu.

"I—well, I don't have particularly strong material pursuits myself, but..."

Mu Lanyan looked at his worried expression, thinking of his respect for Mr. and Mrs. Liu Maojun, his defense of Fan Jun, and his willingness to step up for the young coach He Jingxuan.

From a single spot on a leopard, one can see the whole animal.

Through these trivial matters, Wei Lin's character was definitely solid, and he probably treated the veteran employees at his factory quite well.

The moment she thought about how Wei Lin was only two or three years older than her, yet had to carry the weight of an entire factory on his shoulders, Teacher Mu felt a pang of sympathy for him and said, "I can give it a try."

...

That night.

Back at home, Wei Lin was still communicating with Mu Lanyan about the cooperation, telling her how to tweak her showcase window and how to casually mention the caps while making her videos.

Mu Lanyan worked until nearly midnight before figuring out the method under his guidance and knowing what to do.

Before going to sleep, Wei Lin checked the affection value in his mind out of habit, finding that the number had risen to 104/1000.

The newly added points came from Lin Nanxi, Gao Xue, Zhuang Qing, and Mu Lanyan. Aside from those, two affection points had surprisingly come from his ex-girlfriend, Wu Qianqian.

"It's affection value, not just favorability."

Wei Lin frowned slightly, reached for his phone, and turned it on.

Wu Qianqian, whose message notifications he had muted, had indeed sent a message: "Why didn't you tell me you got divorced?"

After a long silence, Wei Lin chose not to reply.

The two of them had met in a nightclub discotheque.

Wu Qianqian loved to party, lacked a clear sense of boundaries between men and women, and had far too many messy male friends alongside all sorts of random dinner parties and drinking sessions.

Because of this, Wei Lin had quarreled with her several times before finally proposing a breakup out of sheer exhaustion.

After the breakup, Wu Qianqian naturally made a fuss, but Wei Lin was resolved not to turn back.

Not long after, he met Liu Qi, whom his family was quite satisfied with, and the two of them quickly married.

Before his marriage, Wu Qianqian had sought him out a few times, saying they could still remain friends, but once he actually got married, Wu Qianqian wisely behaved herself.

"Perhaps you still have love for me, but I feel nothing for you anymore."

Wei Lin shook his head. This sentence was merely his internal whisper; he never sent it to Wu Qianqian.

...

The next day, Sunday.

Wei Lin didn't rest, keeping busy the entire day.

In the morning, he made a trip to the factory, inspecting the newly manufactured caps once again in the warehouse alongside An Yuntian and his son.

Fifteen hundred caps, all white baseball caps embroidered with the conspicuous "Inverse Demon" brand logo, categorized into large, medium, and small sizes according to head shape.

"How should we price them?" An Yuntian asked.

Wei Lin had already planned it out: "Forty-six yuan each."

An Yuntian drew a sharp intake of breath: "At such a high price, will they actually sell?"

"Brother, isn't that a bit too steep?" An Xin looked equally startled.

Both father and son knew very well that the production cost for this batch of baseball caps was six yuan, while the craftsmanship and quality matched the standards of Maple Forest, already reaching export grade.

The caps by Maple Forest—they had checked foreign websites—typically sold for over 130 RMB.

But that was Maple Forest!

As a sports and outdoor brand renowned both domestically and internationally, Maple Forest naturally dared to set such a high price. What was "Inverse Demon"?

Could the market possibly accept such a high price point?

"Caps backed by a brand, leaving aside luxury goods, often sell for two or three hundred. The materials and craftsmanship of Inverse Demon are no inferior to theirs. Is pricing them at forty-six yuan really that high?" Wei Lin challenged.

"They have a brand name! We currently have nothing, who's going to recognize us?" An Xin gave a bitter smile, looking at the fifteen hundred caps in the warehouse, and worriedly asked, "Brother, what if not a single one sells?"

If they truly couldn't be sold, the money spent on these caps would go down the drain, and Xinlin's production run would have been for nothing.

"I'll take a small size. Wait for my news!"

Wei Lin drove away, heading straight for the entrance of Teacher Mu's residential compound.

...

"Zijin Garden."

While waiting for Mu Lanyan, Wei Lin noticed the name of the compound and looked surprised.

He had drunk quite a bit last night, and when dropping Mu Lanyan off, he hadn't thought much of it. Only now did he suddenly realize that Zijin Garden was essentially the residential backyard for the Linjiang municipal government.

Zijin Garden was situated right next to the municipal government buildings, and with its hefty property values, many government officials chose to live here.

Eight minutes later, Mu Lanyan, dressed in pure cotton pajamas, came to the entrance to pick up the cap.

"Aren't you going to invite me inside for a sit-down?"

Wei Lin teased with a smile.

"My parents are at home!"

Mu Lanyan glared at him, looking somewhat nervous as she said, "Wei Lin, can I really pull this off? If I open the showcase window, put up your cap, and not a single one sells in the end, you're not allowed to laugh at me!"

"Go for it, Teacher Mu! Whether the workers at my factory lose their jobs or not rests entirely on you!" Wei Lin pumped his fist in encouragement.

Hearing him say that, Teacher Mu instantly felt the crushing weight of pressure. With a bitter face, she said, "I'm going back right now to work on the video. I'll have it uploaded to the platform before four o'clock this afternoon!"

"Heaven bless us, I hope I can really help you and help your workers."

The kind-hearted Teacher Mu unconsciously shouldered Xinlin's burdens, her mind filled with miserable imagery of Xinlin employees left destitute and alone after losing their jobs.

After she left, Wei Lin touched his chin and suddenly felt a twinge of guilt: "Am I being an absolute scumbag?"

The feeling vanished almost instantly as he rationalized, "What I said is true anyway. If Qi Feng really manages to choke off our neck, Xinlin will sooner or later face the pathetic plight of having no orders left to take."

"If Xinlin collapses, the employees won't have an easy time either. I'm just worrying about the employment situation in Linjiang City!"

"Besides, I strictly adhere to the old man's management style and treat the factory workers quite well. We pay social security, our wages are higher than Huamu, Zhijie, and Tianzhong, overtime pay is given according to national regulations, and there are various holiday benefits and gifts."

"A boss like me, a company like mine—we're practically a model enterprise!"

With that thought settled, Wei Lin made a phone call to An Xin, sent him Teacher Mu's Douyin account, and told him to add Teacher Mu to handle the liaison work.

...

At four-thirty, Wei Lin appeared at Like Fitness.

He didn't do strength training today; instead, he sparred with Feng Qing for a boxing session, getting as exhausted as a dead dog just fished out of the water.

"President Wei, your power is quite good, but your boxing technique is still far too crude."

"Your breathing rhythm and footwork still can't match up precisely when you throw a punch."

"Also, when you pivot your hips, your core isn't tightened, and your power transmission is far too poor."

Wei Lin had already sparred with him a few times.

After a session ended, Feng Qing no longer held back his "precious" time, pointing out the shortcomings in his workout.

"I know. I just need to practice more and let the boxing techniques form muscle memory."

Wei Lin smiled and nodded.

He understood his own problems; to put it bluntly, he had just started boxing, the number of practice repetitions was far from enough, and his striking movements weren't well coordinated yet, preventing him from exploding with his true strength.

"Ring-ring-ring!"

In the corner of the boxing ring, Wei Lin's phone rang frantically.

"Let's call it a day for now."

Giving a calm smile to Feng Qing, Wei Lin picked up his phone and answered.

"Brother! Mu Qingfeng is seriously freaking strong!" An Xin roared frantically over the phone.

Beside him, An Yuntian's soft muttering could be heard: "You can actually sell things this way? This works too? This trip has truly opened my eyes."