《A Guy, A Latte and Status Screen.》Chapter 5
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The day was still young, and yet Wa Lui Qi already woke up. He knew it was early morning because he couldn't hear the whir of the machines. The very first thing he did as soon as he woke up was, of course, stretching his body and went to clean up and then cooked his breakfast. The thing that he cooked was your standard instant misua (fine rice noodle) soup, though, unlike normal misua, Lui Qi's misua was enchanted with his skill, Cook Lvl 2 (Charisma Up.)
He precisely finished eating his breakfast at 5:17 o'clock, and spent the rest of his morning watching Youtube while creating another sandwich. Combining the one he made in the morning and the one he already made before he went to sleep, he was able to create 13 lunch bag.
Lui Qi went out from his apartment precisely at 5:30, bringing two stacks of cardboard boxes on his arms and heading to the nearest park. The city was as silent as if it ended in the night. The sun was still resolutely below the horizon and the street was as dark as some old-school black and white movie but there were several other people that also headed to the nearest park while bringing their own goods, Lui Qi knew his idea wasn't the most original idea, but knowing there was a lot of competitor with their own stands and banners somewhat made him uncomfortable.
At 5:40, he arrived at the selling spot. In one fluid movement, he spread the red and white checkered picnic cloth and started arranged his goods on top of them. Behind his back was the cardboard boxes, the secret cover that he used to take out Side Snack.
At 6:00, people, especially the housewives and the office workers started flooding at the park. Lui Qi patiently waiting, concentrating at his Mini-Map to check whether or not there were people that were interested with his goods... the line on his place was nonexistent as not a single person bothered to bat an eye at his place.
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He kept waiting and patiently waiting until the alarm on his phone buzzed. Signalling that it should be the time for Charisma Up effect to kick in. Yet, not a single soul batting their eyes for more than one second at his stand.
Then again, Lui Qi never hoped or thought that 10 Charisma was enough to make people attracted to his place. But he had a secret weapon. After waiting for a few minutes, he noticed there was a single person that somehow was always looking back and forth between his stand and the stand next to his.
"Finally." Lui Qi muttered. He grabbed the paper bag in front of him and started eating his sandwich... and as soon as he took the waterskin out and drank it, he noticed from his Mini-Map that the mysterious person was now heading toward his stand.
Drinking from waterskin might be unusual, but that also meant it would pique the passerby interest.
His mysterious buyer was a middle-aged man, covering his body with a khaki trench coat and wearing the same coloured fedora on his head. "Good morning." Lui Qi greeted him, he put the waterskin and placed it in front of the middle-aged man.
The middle-aged man greeted him back and asked. "What are you selling?" At the same time, Lui Qi noticed he took a quick glance at the waterskin.
"Just some sandwich, along with potato chips, nut and berry mix, and some juice." Said Lui Qi, he spread out the untouched sandwich and their companion on top of the brown paper bag.
"You should at least put some sort of sign," Said the middle-aged man. Lui Qi only weakly scratched his cheek while thinking how the hell he didn't think that.
The middle-aged man then took the water skin and waste a minute looking at it. "This sure brings some memory," He said. "How much is it?"
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Lui Qi only raised two of his finger, making a peace sign with them. "Twenty bucks?" The middle-aged man frowned a little bit.
Lui Qi shook his head. "No, it's two bucks." Said Lui Qi.
"What?" The middle-aged man's eyes widened when he heard that. "Listen here boy, I know this isn't my place to dote on your business, but this waterskin alone should've at least cost ten bucks."
"Yes, I know that, but I got them for free." Said Lui Qi. "A friend is giving a lot of it to me, though he said something about it's only last for a few hours before it dissolves itself. But I don't know much about the detail since he started going on blabbering about nature-friendly water bottle or something like that."
The middle-aged man was now looking at Lui Qi with eyes full of suspicion. 'Crap... that doesn't work huh.' Lui Qi silently spoke in his mind. He knew the one that increased was his Charisma, and lying was unrelated to it, but no matter how hard he turned the gears in his brain, he just couldn't find appropriate praise that he could throw to the middle-aged man.
"Young people this day sure have a unique idea." Surprisingly, the suspicion from the middle-aged man's eyes shifted to amazement. His lips curled up and he started telling Lui Qi his life story. "You know, back in my day the best we can think of is...."
He blabbered for a while. Just when Lui Qi thought the man would never stop his endless lecture about younger self. "I tell you what, two bucks is too cheap for something like this." Said the middle-aged man, though he still gave Lui Qi two pieces of one dollar and left with one paper bag on his hand.
'Wouldn't a normal person will give more money after they said something like that?' Lui Qi protested in his mind.
Though, much to his surprise, ten minutes after the middle-aged man left, several other people started flooding his place. Now there was a line in front of Lui Qi's stall, and less than a minute later, the rest of the bag was sold out. 'Even though nobody paid any attention toward my place before this.'
Lui Qi didn't know whether it was because of the bonus for his Charisma, or because people watched that middle-aged man drinking from some unusual container. Either way, from this morning alone he managed to collect 24 dollars.
One might be thinking Lui Qi was a big fool, but if they saw things from Lui Qi's perspective, he now just made 24 dollars without wasting a single cent or effort, except for the fact that he must wake up in the morning. Not to mention 12 sandwiches was the lowest production rate he could make in a single day.
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