Before leaving, Ma Lu and Flush your Pee each bought a large bag of honey cheese sticks from the bakery at the entrance of the neighborhood.
Ma Lu tried one on the spot and found it to be indeed tasty, but still not as good as those made by Old Wang.
After arriving home, he shared the remaining cheese sticks with Zhen Ye, Ma Youyou, as well as the other guests who had visited these days.
Holidays are always too short, and in the blink of an eye, it was the fifth day of the new year. To avoid the peak of the return journey, Ma Lu decided to head back to City B that day.
Before leaving, he took everyone to the city zoo for a visit, making a special trip to Bear Mountain to say goodbye to Flush your Pee.
Flush your Pee was sitting under the artificial mountain soaking up the sun, unmoving no matter how much the tourists shouted and cheered.
Ma Lu was now somewhat able to understand his choice, knowing that, belonging to the service industry, perhaps only Flush your Pee could completely ignore the various demands of customers.
Even if he slackened off at work and wore a sullen face all day, no one would complain, and just the slightest bit of effort could thrill the tourists outside.
In a sense, Flush your Pee inside Bear Mountain might be more free than anyone outside of it.
At this moment, Flush your Pee noticed Ma Lu, stood up from under the fake mountain, and waved his bear paws in this direction.
A little boy sitting on his daddy’s shoulders immediately began excitedly shouting.
"Daddy, daddy, look at that lazy bear, it’s waving to us!"
"Really? Wife, take a look," the man was also delighted. "That bear that’s always sleeping has woken up!"
Then more and more people started to notice Flush your Pee.
In the next moment, Flush your Pee slightly leaned back and started shaking his bum.
The little boy was even more thrilled. "Daddy, the bear is dancing! Hahaha, this is so much fun!"
Only Ma Lu knew that Flush your Pee was imitating the car seat massage he had experienced the other day.
Ma Lu then made a ’stay in touch’ gesture to him, and Flush your Pee below saluted in response.
The atmosphere on the scene was completely ignited by this salute, with the crowd pulling out their cellphones, not wanting to miss this rare moment.
"Look, that bear is saluting!!!"
"I didn’t believe you when you told me earlier, Ma Youyou said. "But seeing is believing, he really seems to be enjoying himself."
"Right? That guy really loves control, having people at his whim."
"Eh, it’s going to be hard to look at the animals in the zoo the same way ever again. I used to really like this place when I was little, always coming here with my brother."
"Ah, so you’re also from L city," Ma Lu raised his eyebrows, "That’s right, a few days ago when I asked you to buy fireworks, you went straight to the wholesale market. If you were from out of town, you probably wouldn’t have known about that market."
Ma Youyou also realized she had let something slip, but she didn’t try to cover it up, just chuckled instead.
"By the way, now that you’re back, didn’t you take the opportunity to see your family? Even though you might run into your current self, a glimpse from afar shouldn’t be a problem, right?"
"No need," Ma Youyou said, "Things are pretty good as they are now."
"Heartless guy."
"Haha."
Returning from the zoo, Ma Lu went home for lunch, gave his parents 500,000 each in red envelopes, and then drove Old Wang and others back to City B.
However, after returning, he wasn’t in a hurry to open for business. He went to Hokkaido with Angie to play for three days, showing off his skiing talent.
When he finally returned, it officially marked the end of the holiday, ready to focus and get back to work. And, as it happened, it was also time to go out and gather ingredients.
Back at Hou De, the research on "Practice is the best teacher" and "Weight Training" had already been completed.
Especially the latter, once it was introduced, it effectively halved the already frail combat strength of the Hou De Virtue Teachers and Students in the catastrophe belt.
Hence, before he left, Ma Lu repeatedly stressed to Cao Youyi to not send anyone to clear the catastrophe belt until he returned.
But his instructions were probably redundant, as the only ones from Hou De who had been leading teams to clear the catastrophe belt recently were the Cao siblings; and with Jin Hua’s death, Cao Youyi had to stay and look after the school.
They didn’t have any instructors available to take students out, and besides, the catastrophe belt was usually not near the school, requiring a sum of traveling expenses to get there.
Given Hou De’s current financial situation, even this traveling expense could not be afforded.
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When Ma Lu returned, he saw Cao Youyi standing at the school gate, confronting a group of people.
Those people were uniformly dressed in indigo long shirts and wore tile hats, their physiques well-built.
And the man leading them was wearing a monocle, dressed smartly in a suit.
"Miss Cao, I’m just following the rules," he said while pulling out a contract from his bosom.
"Even if you’re a Talisman Master, you can’t stop us from checking on our own property."
Cao Youyi lifted her eyebrows, "My brother indeed borrowed some money from your bank for emergency use, but we had agreed to return the principal with interest in one year. Manager Bian, it’s a bit too early for you to be asking for repayment, isn’t it?"
"Not early, Miss Cao can see the second clause in the contract—although the withdrawal period is not yet due, my bank may request the return of the principal and interest at any time."
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Hearing this, Cao Youyi finally reached out to take the contract and indeed saw the clause mentioned by the monocle-wearing man.
"It’s not that I intentionally want to trouble you, Miss Cao, but the head office has ordered that a large sum of capital be withdrawn from our bank.
"In order to prevent news leakage and a run on the bank, we also have to take precautions and recall some loans in advance to prepare for any unforeseen need."
Manager Bian spoke politely, but Cao Youyi sneered, "Hou De is not what it used to be, we do have many empty school buildings, giving you one won’t matter, but you said before what you plan to open there?"
"An opium den," the monocle-wearing man said. "However, we are not the ones opening it. After repossessing your building, our bank plans to sell it to the Salt Gang’s Mr. Ji, and those who came with me today to check the place are also from the Salt Gang."
"You plan to sell the school building to thugs and let them open an opium den here?"
The monocle-wearing man touched his nose, "We are a bank; we sell to the highest bidder, and what they choose to do with the land afterward is beyond our control."
"Then please give us some more time, I will find a way to raise the money to pay you back."
A hint of difficulty appeared on Manager Bian’s face, "But we’re really in a rush, the bank manager has instructed that we need to see the money today."
"Then we’ll repay it today."
A voice came from behind the crowd; Manager Bian turned around and saw a young man with an unfamiliar face.
"Who are you, and what business do you have with Hou De?"
"Me? I’m the principal of Hou De," Ma Lu said with a slight smile.