mesbooks Chapter 15, First Income
Chapter 15, First Income
The printer in the finance office printed out the last report. Bai He Zhenren pushed up his glasses, tapped the numbers three times with his finger, and his expression changed from calm to shock, finally settling on a complex expression that Lin Chen had never seen on his face before.
"Boss," Baihe Zhenren's voice was a little unsteady, "do you know how much money we made during the first week of our trial operation?"
Lin Chen leaned back in his chair, twirling a pen in his hand: "Stop keeping me in suspense, just tell me."
"Two million one hundred and thirty thousand." Master Baihe slammed the report on the table, the paper making a crisp sound. "After deducting operating costs, personnel expenses, monkey feed, and mountain maintenance, the net profit is nine hundred and forty thousand. Boss, and this is only seven days."
Lin Chen stopped writing.
He knew it would be a hit, but he didn't expect it to be this explosive. During the trial operation, the ticket prices were very reasonable: 98 yuan for adults and half price for children, with additional charges for the monkey interaction activities. With 30,000 visitors, plus secondary spending on snacks, souvenirs, and photo services, the business managed to generate a revenue of 2 million yuan.
"How much money is available in the account right now?" Lin Chen asked.
"Around 1.2 million, with working capital set aside for next week and employee salaries, we have about 800,000 in readily available cash."
"Get six hundred thousand." Lin Chen stood up, opened his desk drawer, and pulled out a black backpack. "Cash, today."
Master Baihe was taken aback: "Cash? Boss, who still uses cash these days?"
Lin Chen didn't explain, he just smiled and said, "I'll pay your Brother Dasheng's salary."
Master Baihe's expression instantly became subtle. He wanted to say something, but opened his mouth and then closed it again. During this time working with Lin Chen, he had learned that if he couldn't understand what the boss told him, he shouldn't think about it. Anyway, after staying in Huaguo Mountain for so long, nothing outrageous was outrageous anymore.
An hour later, Lin Chen, carrying a backpack full of cash, walked towards the mountainside as the sun set.
The monkeys had just finished their day's work and were squatting in twos and threes on tree branches, rocks, and the railings at the entrance of the Water Curtain Cave. Some were preening each other, while others were nibbling on apples that tourists had secretly given them. When they saw Lin Chen approaching, several little monkeys squeaked and jumped down, circled him twice, and then pointed in unison to the top of the mountain, as if to say, "The king is up there."
Lin Chen patted the head of the lead monkey, took out a handful of peanuts from his pocket and handed them to it: "Go, call your king down and tell him the boss is looking for him to collect his wages."
The monkey understood the word "wages," its eyes lit up, and it grabbed the peanuts and disappeared in a few leaps.
In less than five minutes, Sun Wukong descended from the mountaintop on his somersault cloud. When he landed in front of Lin Chen, he deliberately struck a cool pose, with one hand behind his back and the other on his golden cudgel, his chin slightly raised, giving off an expression that said, "I, Old Sun, don't care about this little bit of money."
But Lin Chen noticed that the tip of his tail twitched slightly behind him.
"Boss, what do you need me for?" Sun Wukong's voice sounded casual. "I'm practicing my skills on the mountaintop."
Lin Chen didn't say anything, but unzipped the backpack and turned the opening towards him.
The rays of the setting sun slanted into the bag, illuminating stacks of brand-new red banknotes, neatly piled up to fill the entire bag.
Sun Wukong's pupils suddenly contracted.
He had seen mountains of gold and seas of silver, the rare treasures in the Heavenly Treasury, and the mountains of coral and jade in the Dragon King's Crystal Palace. But those were the riches of the divine realm, things he had disdained when he was the Great Sage Equaling Heaven, titles that held no real meaning during his tenure as the Victorious Fighting Buddha.
The bag in front of him right now contained real, hard-earned money.
Lin Chen put the bag on the ground and clapped his hands: "In the first week of trial operation, the scenic area's revenue was 2.13 million. According to the contract we signed, your basic salary plus performance bonus, plus the security director's allowance, totals... here, see for yourself."
He took a payslip out of his pocket and handed it to Sun Wukong.
The moment Sun Wukong received the payslip, his fingers stiffened slightly. He glanced down at the numbers, then at the bag on the ground, and his Adam's apple bobbed.
"Boss, this is..." His voice was a little hoarse.
"Your salary," Lin Chen said casually, "cash, a whole box. I was worried you wouldn't feel a sense of occasion since it's your first paycheck, so I specifically got cash. What, not satisfied?"
Sun Wukong remained silent.
He examined his pay slips three times, then squatted down and fully unzipped his backpack. Neatly stacked stacks of cash were inside, exuding the scent of ink. He reached out and touched the top stack, his fingertips lightly tracing the paper, then abruptly withdrew his hand.
"I, Old Sun..." He swallowed hard. "I, Old Sun, have never received a salary in my entire life."
Lin Chen squatted down next to him, speaking casually, "Then let's experience it."
"When I was the Victorious Fighting Buddha in Heaven, my salary was delivered directly to my cave—boxes of immortal stones, elixirs, and magical artifacts," Sun Wukong said, a self-deprecating smile playing on his lips. "Later, Heaven said it was short of funds, so the immortal stones were converted into immortal coins. Then the immortal coins depreciated drastically, and eventually they couldn't even issue immortal coins anymore, turning them into a bunch of useless merit certificates. I, Old Sun, flipped through the ledgers and realized that after working in Heaven for over a thousand years, I hadn't even saved up a single peach of immortality."
Lin Chen didn't interrupt, but listened quietly.
"This is the first time I, Old Sun, have earned money with my own hands." After saying this, Sun Wukong suddenly stood up, slung his bag over his shoulder, grinned, and said, "Boss, I'll take this money. Don't worry, I'll work hard as soon as I get paid and I definitely won't let you down."
Lin Chen stood up and patted him on the shoulder: "I'll treat you to drinks tonight."
Sun Wukong waved his hand, stepped onto his somersault cloud, and flew away. Lin Chen watched his figure disappear into the sunset, and suddenly felt that the monkey's wingtips were flapping with more force than usual.
Late at night, under the old peach tree atop Huaguo Mountain.
Sun Wukong sat cross-legged on the ground, with 600,000 in cash spread out in front of him. He divided the money into stacks of 10,000 each, stacking them neatly into 60 stacks, and then began to count them repeatedly.
The first time I counted, I forgot where I was when I got to the thirty-sixth stack, so I had to start over.
The second time, when he was counting to the fifty-first stack, one of the cards was blown away by the wind. He frantically chased after it for half a mountain before finally retrieving it.
The third time, he learned his lesson. He placed each stack on his left side while muttering to himself, "One, two, three... fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty." After finishing, he let out a long sigh of relief and then quickly counted again, afraid of making a mistake.
An old monkey squatted nearby and watched all night. Finally, it couldn't help but squeak twice, meaning, "Your Majesty, you've counted more than ten times already."
Sun Wukong glared at it: "What do you know! This is the salary I, Old Sun, earned through my own skills!"
The old monkey rolled its eyes, turned around, and left.
After counting the money, Sun Wukong took out 50,000 coins, then thought for a moment and took out 80,000. He carefully wrapped the remaining 520,000 coins and hid them in a hole under the roots of a peach tree. He then sealed the hole with a stone, clapped his hands, and stomped on the ground to make sure there were no traces before nodding in satisfaction.
Then he took the 80,000 yuan, climbed up the tree, and started handing out red envelopes to the monkeys.
"Da Mao, this is yours. You gave the tourists good directions the other day."
"Erdan, you saw me holding an umbrella for the tourists that day when it was raining."
"Sanya, don't think I, Old Sun, don't know. You secretly picked peaches for that lost little girl. Well done."
"Four Blacks, you..."
The monkeys stared wide-eyed as their king stuffed crisp new banknotes into their hands. Some of the younger monkeys, seeing money for the first time, curiously took a couple of bites, only to be slapped on the head by Sun Wukong: "That's money! Not food!"
That night, the monkeys of Flower Fruit Mountain squatted neatly in the trees, each holding one or more bright red banknotes in their paws. Some monkeys held the money above their heads and looked at the moon, some folded the money into little boats and let them float in the pond, and one clever little monkey rolled the banknotes into a tube and whistled, which led to Sun Wukong chasing and beating him halfway up the mountain.
The next morning, when the first group of tourists went up the mountain, they saw a scene they would never forget.
The monkeys at Huaguo Mountain Scenic Area line up neatly on both sides of the entrance from dawn, stretching all the way to the Water Curtain Cave, seemingly endless. Leading the way is an old white-browed monkey, standing at the very front, leaning on a branch as a cane, his expression unusually serious.
The tourists looked at each other, bewildered, wondering what had happened.
Just then, Sun Wukong, wearing the armor that the tourists thought was a "cosplay outfit," walked out of the scenic area gate. His aura today was different from usual. Usually, he walks with a swagger and looks at everyone with an air of "I, Old Sun, am the best," but today he seemed a little flustered, and even the tips of his ears were a little red.
He walked up to the old monkey and stood still.
The old monkey suddenly raised its arm, waved it in the air, and let out a sharp, long howl.
Immediately afterwards, along the entire mountain path, from the foot of the mountain to the top, hundreds of monkeys bowed deeply in unison towards Sun Wukong.
Then, they opened their mouths.
"Thank you, Great Sage..."
The voices varied, some clear and crisp, some hoarse, and some with the sharp tone unique to monkeys, but when put together, they clearly formed these four words.
The once noisy scenic area instantly fell silent.
All the tourists stopped in their tracks, staring wide-eyed at the scene. Some pulled out their phones to record, others gaped in disbelief, and a blogger holding a selfie stick stood frozen in place. The live stream chat exploded with comments: "Holy crap, the monkey's talking?" "What kind of amazing scenic spot is this?!" "Why am I suddenly crying?!"
Sun Wukong stood there, stunned.
He had witnessed countless grand scenes. When he wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace, surrounded by 100,000 heavenly soldiers and generals, he was not afraid. When he made a bet with Buddha and was imprisoned under the Five Elements Mountain for five hundred years, he never submitted. When demons and monsters blocked his way on the journey to the West, he never backed down.
But at this moment, seeing his monkey followers bowing to him in unison and hearing them say "Thank you, Great Sage," his eyes suddenly welled up with tears.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but found his throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton.
The old monkey straightened up, walked up to Sun Wukong, patted his hand with its paw, and squeaked twice, as if saying something. Then it turned around and led its troop of monkeys away to do whatever they were doing—some wiping railings, some giving directions to tourists, and some asking for bananas, as if nothing had happened.
Sun Wukong stood still for a long time.
Tourists filmed the entire process with their phones, and the video spread across the internet at lightning speed. Headlines were increasingly exaggerated: "Monkey King of Flower Fruit Mountain Gives a Speech," "Monkeys Collectively Thank the Great Sage," "Is This Really Not Special Effects?" But the most popular headline was: "The Great Sage Equaling Heaven's First Pot of Gold Brings Tears to Our Eyes."
It's trending at number one; it's gone viral.
When Master Baihe stormed into Lin Chen's office, phone in hand, Lin Chen was leisurely sipping tea. Master Baihe shoved the screen in his face, his voice booming, "Boss! We're trending again! Over 300 million views across the internet!"
Lin Chen glanced at the screen, a slight smile playing on his lips.
In the video, Sun Wukong stands amidst a field of monkeys, the setting sun casting a long shadow. His head is bowed, his shoulders tremble slightly, and no one can see his expression, but everyone can sense that he is trying to suppress some emotion.
Lin Chen leaned back in his chair and slowly sipped his tea.
"So what if they filmed it?" he said. "Anyway, we don't have to buy trending topics."
Master Baihe stamped his foot anxiously: "Boss, aren't you worried? With such high popularity, people will definitely question whether it's staged, scripted, or special effects!"
"Let them question it." Lin Chen put down his teacup, smiling nonchalantly. "Tomorrow I'll have the Great Sage do a somersault on his cloud right in front of them. Guess if those who question it will kneel down on the spot begging for a yearly membership?"
Master Baihe was speechless.
After a while, he silently refilled Lin Chen's teacup and said, "Boss, you're really a talent."
"I dare not accept the title of 'talented person'," Lin Chen stood up, walked to the window, and looked in the direction of the mountains. "I just feel that it is only natural to work for others and earn money. Even gods are the same."
A mountain breeze blew by, and in the distance came the chattering of monkeys, mixed with the exclamations and laughter of tourists.
Lin Chen's phone vibrated; it was a message from Sun Wukong.
It's a very simple sentence, no emojis, no punctuation, just eight characters:
"Boss, I, Old Sun, am still at work tomorrow."
After reading it, Lin Chen replied:
"Don't be late tomorrow. The time clock will be turned on at 8 a.m.
After sending the message, he put his phone in his pocket and turned to walk towards the foot of the mountain.
Behind him, in his office, Baihe Zhenren stared into deep thought at the surge in reservation data on his computer. Ticket reservations were booked for two months in advance, and the newly added live-streaming rooms for internet celebrities were filled with comments like "Wait for me at Huaguo Mountain."
He took a deep breath, opened the scenic area's backend management system, and silently added a line to the employee notes section for "Security Director":
"The employee's motivation for working: salary."