"Honey."
Su Yue stirred.
"Darling."
She shifted under the covers.
"Wife."
Her brow furrowed.
"Wake up."
Her eyes snapped open.
She shot upright, heart pounding.
She turned to the side.
Lin Feng stood there, a faint smile on his face.
"Husband," she called out, still half asleep.
He raised an eyebrow.
"It's a little too early to be calling me that. For now, I go by Lin Feng."
Her face flushed crimson.
She buried it into her hands.
"Just kill me," she muttered.
Lin Feng chuckled.
"There's no need to be so embarrassed."
He paused.
"That being said, I didn't think you were this kind of person."
She peeked through her fingers.
"Just what kind of dreams were you having?"
Her gaze turned piercing.
He immediately bowed at the waist.
"There is no need to silence me. I have short-term memory loss."
He straightened up, his expression turning blank.
"What were we talking about again?"
She sighed heavily.
She reached for her phone and checked the time.
"It's so early. Why did you wake me?"
"Do you want to be seen walking out of a love hotel in the morning?"
She froze.
"If not," he continued, "I advise you to freshen up quickly. We'll leave before dawn."
She nodded rapidly and scrambled out of bed.
...
A few minutes later, she was ready.
The two slipped out of the hotel while the sky was still dark, the streets empty and quiet.
Once they were a safe distance away, Lin Feng stopped.
"You go on ahead," he said. "I'm going somewhere else."
Su Yue nodded.
She turned to face him and bowed slightly.
"Thank you for yesterday."
Then she turned and walked away.
Lin Feng watched her figure disappear around a corner.
Then he turned the other way.
...
A few moments later, he arrived at his office.
He unlocked the door and stepped inside.
As he settled into his chair, a notification appeared on his phone.
[Personal account has been credited with ¥560.00 from account ending in...]
Hmm.
It seemed Su Yue's streaming revenue had been processed.
His smile widened.
He summoned the system.
[Infinite Money System]
[Total System Balance: ¥3,675.00]
[Available System Balance: ¥185.00]
[Personal Balance: ¥19,046.00]
His smile faded.
Damn.
He really was going broke.
He stared at his personal balance for a moment, then shifted his attention to the Available System Balance.
His frown deepened.
Just as I expected. It's not that easy to trick the system.
He had spent 5,000 yuan on gifts for Su Yue during her stream. His plan had been simple - boost her earnings, receive 15% as her manager, and funnel that money into the system.
Since he had worked for it, and since she acknowledged it as his, he hoped he could use it as a way to increase the Total System Balance.
But the system wasn't as dumb as he had hoped.
Out of the 560 yuan sent to him, only 185 yuan had been acknowledged by the system. It still entered his personal balance but didn't contribute to the system balance.
Probably only the portion that didn't originate from me was acknowledged.
He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
So that's how it works.
The system could trace the money. It recognized the exploit and filtered out anything that was essentially just his own funds cycling back to him.
He exhaled slowly.
This could be troublesome.
After all, most of his current businesses were running on his own capital. The delivery business. Tianji Capital. Su Yue's streaming setup. All of it was built on money that originated from him.
If the system applied this rule broadly...
He needed to figure out exactly how it worked. What counted as "his" money? How far back did the system trace? Was it based on percentage? Origin? Something else entirely?
If he didn't understand these rules, all his hard work might be for naught.
He closed the system interface and pulled out his notebook.
Time to run some tests.
…
A while later, Lin Feng observed his system.
[Infinite Money System]
[Total System Balance: ¥5,677.00]
[Available System Balance: ¥2,002.00]
[Personal Balance: ¥19,230.00]
He finally understood how the system's new rule worked.
At first, he had tried using his money to buy and sell something to confirm whether it would contribute to his system balance. If it didn't, he'd be in quite a bit of trouble.
Since buying physical items and selling them would be troublesome, he decided to just buy crypto instead.
After buying and selling, he noticed that nothing had changed.
Actually, something had.
He had gained two yuan to his system balance.
He looked at the crypto more carefully. It seemed to have jumped in price slightly during that short moment, meaning he had made two yuan in profit.
He fell into deep thought.
He had spent 5,000, but only the profit had contributed to his system balance.
Thinking about it, this made sense. Otherwise, he could just exploit the system by buying things with his total personal balance and exploding his system balance overnight. Then he could do the same thing the next day. And the day after that. Infinite money.
That being said, there was something he didn't understand.
Back then, he had invested 50 yuan into their snacks business and received 415 yuan in return. Not 415 minus the initial 50. The full amount.
How did that work?
Was it some sort of newbie gift?
It didn't seem like it. There must be something he was missing.
At that moment, a notification appeared.
[Personal account has been credited with ¥2,000.00 from account ending in...]
It was from his mom.
His expression brightened. What perfect timing.
He quickly called her to thank her, and they ended up talking for ten minutes. After he ended the call, he wore a bright smile on his face.
He decided to test a theory he had.
He used the 2,000 yuan to buy crypto and instantly sold it. Then he looked at his system.
His mouth fell open.
The 2,000 had gone into his system balance.
He was deep in thought again.
Was it because it came from his mom?
No, that didn't make sense.
After some thought, he came up with a plausible theory.
The money he currently had was all generated by the system and could be considered "system money." System money could not be recycled into the system balance - only new money earned through it could. That meant when using system money, only the profit would enter the system balance.
This of course did not affect personal balance. All money could go into personal balance.
Next was "original money."
Money not from the system was considered original money and had the possibility of entering the system balance. But this didn't happen automatically. He had to use it in a way that made him "earn" it, and only then would it go into the system.
And it didn't have the profit restriction.
So if he received a hundred thousand yuan and bought something with it and sold it, all of that would go into the system balance.
This was actually quite broken.
He decided to see if he could exploit it.
He logged into his bank portal and borrowed a hundred yuan. He used it to buy crypto, then sold.
Hmmm.
He observed the system. Nothing had changed.
He was back to square one again.
Did it really have to be from his mom?
After some thought, he felt he had finally figured it out.
Other rules still applied. How could he have forgotten?
Even for original money, the rule still applied that the money had to be acknowledged as his.
That meant loans didn't work, as the money didn't truly belong to him.
When his mom gave him money, she didn't lend it - she gave it to him and acknowledged it as his money.
This also meant he couldn't exploit this by asking someone to give him money. They had to genuinely acknowledge it as his, which was a hard bar to cross.
He exhaled.
He would have to experiment with this some more.