“Ticket…” Chen Junnan stared at the puzzle book in the other party’s hand, hesitating for a long time. “Does Old Qi have a connection with this ‘ticket’?”

“Yes.” Man-Snake nodded, then changed his words a second later. “Maybe.”

“Alright then…” After hearing this, Chen Junnan nodded. “Since that’s the case, I’ll reluctantly help you out this once.”

After hearing this, Man-Snake stared at Chen Junnan and said, “Speak properly. What do you mean by ‘reluctantly help me out’?”

“Aren’t you asking me to do something for you?” Chen Junnan said. “Now I’ve agreed. I’ll tell Old Qi when I get out.”

“That’s not right…” Man-Snake said. “Clearly I helped you store the ‘characters’ first, then you help me find Qi Xia. This isn’t me begging you—it’s mutual benefit between us, right?”

“Store ‘characters’?” Chen Junnan blinked. “Did that happen? I don’t remember.”

“Fine.” Man-Snake nodded and pointed at Jin Yuanxun with his hand. “Then there’s no need to compete. I declare the winner this time is…”

“Bro, bro, bro!” Chen Junnan quickly stepped forward to grab Man-Snake. “I was just messing with you! You really get worked up easily.”

Jin Yuanxun had been watching Chen Junnan and Man-Snake chat for a long time on the side and finally couldn’t hold back anymore.

“Bro, are you done with your secret dealings?” he asked.

“…?” After hearing this, Man-Snake paused, then pointed at Chen Junnan and said to Jin Yuanxun, “Kid, you can learn Chinese from anyone, but don’t learn it from him.”

“Huh? Why?” Jin Yuanxun said.

Man-Snake shook his head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you learned Sichuan dialect, Shanxi dialect, or even Cantonese here, but I’m afraid you’ll learn a mouthful of wild words.”

After saying this, Man-Snake came to his seat and pointed at the two chairs in front of him, telling the two to also sit down.

“Snake Bro!” Chen Junnan reached out to stop him. “That won’t do!”

“What won’t do?”

“I just glanced at your notebook. The questions get more abstract the further back you go. How about starting from the first page?”

“Just three questions total. Why should you care?” Man-Snake lowered his head and looked at the questions in the notebook, saying, “Let me say this first… when the game ends, accept your fate. If you continue to be unreasonable, ‘Xuanwu’ will have to come and spar with you.”

“Your bro still has some sense about that.”

Man-Snake cleared his throat and said, “Listen to the question.”

The two sat upright, as if they had arrived at a classroom.

“A restaurant, in order to improve service quality and customer satisfaction, installed a message board on the wall inside the store, encouraging all customers to write down any issues. From the store’s decoration to the taste of the dishes—very quickly the owner received a pile of opinions and improved these problems one by one. If they said the lighting was too dim, he brightened it. If they said the dishes were too salty, he reduced the salt. However, the store’s business didn’t improve. Instead, it gradually went from being packed with people to being so empty that birds could nest at the door, and ultimately he could only choose to transfer ownership. Why is this?”

After hearing this, Chen Junnan turned to look at Jin Yuanxun and asked, “Did you understand?”

“I understood,” Jin Yuanxun said.

“Good, you answer then.”

“Why? Me?” Jin Yuanxun said. “You’re the older brother. You answer first.”

After hearing this, Chen Junnan blinked, feeling that Jin Yuanxun wasn’t so easy to fool. He turned to look at Man-Snake and said, “Alright, I’ll answer first. I don’t bully kids.”

“Good.” Man-Snake nodded.

Chen Junnan reached out to stroke his chin, feeling that this kind of question really wasn’t his style. He felt that Qi Xia should have already finished answering by now, but he couldn’t grasp any thread.

A store that paid great attention to customer experience ultimately went bankrupt?

Never mind this store—even the stores in his memory would conduct customer follow-ups and satisfaction surveys… why didn’t they go bankrupt?

Chen Junnan believed the key point of this question wasn’t about valuing customer experience—that should be a distraction… The problem lay with the store itself.

“I suspect it was sabotaged,” Chen Junnan said.

“Hmm…?” Man-Snake raised an eyebrow. “Elaborate.”

“Because you said it was packed with people, so it was easy to attract envy,” Chen Junnan said. “In this world, peers are always enemies. I suspect he was targeted by other restaurants working together. The content on that message board might be fake, written by people sent by other stores to confuse the owner. But the owner didn’t know and still randomly changed things, leading to his failure.”

“Slander by competitors…?” After hearing this, Man-Snake pondered for a moment. “That does seem to make some sense.”

“What do you mean ‘makes some sense’?” Chen Junnan said. “This is the truth. Just judge it directly. Who gets the child?”

“…?”

“Who gets the ‘character’?” Chen Junnan said again.

“Let’s not talk about who gets it yet…” Man-Snake turned to look at Jin Yuanxun. “At least both people need to answer before we can decide, so be patient. Let me hear the other contestant’s answer.”

After hearing this, Jin Yuanxun cleared his throat. Chen Junnan originally thought he wouldn’t have any reliable answer, but then he saw the kid smile wickedly and say:

“Ya, bro, you can’t answer this?”

“What are you bragging about? You know?” Chen Junnan asked.

“My family used to run a barbecue restaurant.”

“I object!” Chen Junnan immediately raised his hand to Man-Snake. “Teacher, someone is fucking cheating!”

“Where is this considered cheating?” Jin Yuanxun said somewhat anxiously. “Bro, don’t talk nonsense like that… When my parents were running the store, how would I know I’d need to answer quiz questions? Huh?”

“Fine, fine, fine, then speak.” Chen Junnan nodded. “I’d like to see if your little brain is actually sharp or not.”

“Ya, I really know,” Jin Yuanxun said. “The problem with this matter lies in… he improved all the opinions that people raised. This is wrong.”

“Oh?” After hearing this, Man-Snake raised his eyebrow again. “Elaborate.”

“Because the people who can raise opinions are always a small portion, right?” Jin Yuanxun said. “The owner, in order to satisfy the small portion of people, lost the majority of people. That’s the reason why there were fewer and fewer people.”

“Sss…” Man-Snake and Chen Junnan both fell into thought at the same time.

Man-Snake turned to look at Chen Junnan. “I’m a snake. It’s fine for me to hiss. Why are you hissing?”

“Stop your hissing for now. I feel what this kid said isn’t necessarily right either,” Chen Junnan said. “Think it over carefully. Isn’t that broken thing of yours a logic puzzle? This kid seems to have answered using ‘business principles.’ Does it match the specialty?”

Man-Snake lowered his head and thought for a while before saying, “To be honest… this isn’t just a matter of ‘business principles.’ It also reminds me of a famous theory. It seems this young man gave the correct answer.”

“Famous theory…?” When Chen Junnan heard these two words, he couldn’t help but be sensitive. “How did this get connected to theory?”

“Once it can be connected to theory, it proves the answer has infinitely approached the truth,” Man-Snake raised his head and said. “The first round is won by this young man surnamed Jin.”