Chapter 7: Heavenly King, Old Man, Here Comes the Good Sister
The second store Zhou Wang chose was the established luxury brand "Louis Vuitton."
To be honest, Zhou Wang wasn't very fond of LV's style. After all, it started as a trunk maker, and there weren't many options for men's suits. If LV hadn't been so expensive, and unless there was the possibility of the Azure Dragon Saber striking a surprise, Zhou Wang might have turned left and picked Armani for its wider selection of clothing.
In the end, under Ranran's suggestion and thinking it might be useful later, he bought a whole set of the New Formal series black suit.
For this, Zhou Wang also bought an S-LOCK briefcase from the same brand to match the suit, aiming to boost his system rating. Normally, he wouldn't use a bag according to his own style.
At checkout, the clothes cost over 110,000, and the bag nearly 30,000, coming to just under 150,000 total.
After swiping his card, the system's notification sound followed as expected, with an impression score of "81"... Well, it seems even the system didn't like LV's clothes; it looks like I still have taste.
Zhou Wang muttered to himself, relieved he paired it with a bag, otherwise he might not have even hit 80.
The return ratio was only 81%. Excluding the Azure Dragon Saber's return, it meant a net loss of 30,000 this round.
To Zhou Wang's disappointment, the Azure Dragon Saber didn't strike a critical hit this time either, only offering a 0.5x return, which was just over 70,000.
Thankfully, all things considered, he ended up making over 40,000. If it had been 0.1x, he would have been at a loss.
"Brother, I've been feeling a bit down lately, could you do me a small favor?"
Zhou Wang was just about to call Ranran to head to the next store, but she stopped walking.
As if to emphasize it was just a tiny thing, Ranran pinched her fingers together and gestured, looking incredibly cute.
"Tell me."
"It's like this, I want to change my phone screensaver because everyone says when you're feeling down, you should look at handsome guys often. But I can't find the right photo, so... can I take a few shots of you?"
Ranran stood with her hands behind her back, leaning forward slightly, her bright eyes fixed on Zhou Wang, and by the end, a playful smile appeared on her lips.
Zhou Wang was initially confused, but it all clicked when Ranran showed her true colors.
Damn...
Zhou Wang's eyelids twitched, and all that remained in his mind were those two words.
Listen up, sit down and listen carefully, what does it mean to know how to speak?
Even though she was taking pictures of herself, Ranran used a pleading tone, explicitly saying she wanted to use the photos as her screen saver,while casually complimenting Zhou Wang...
Who wouldn't be flustered by this!
Zhou Wang decided to retract his earlier judgment.
How could such a girl be described as "manipulative?" Even the God himself would see her as the most understanding and sweet sister!
Of course, Zhou Wang found no reason to refuse, and probably no normal man could turn down such a request from a good-looking and appealing girl.
"Hehe!"
Seeing Zhou Wang's agreement, Ranran pulled him over to a decorative background wall inside the mall, whipped out her phone, and started snapping photos, "click" "click."
After finishing, Ranran came over with her phone to ask Zhou Wang if there was any photo he was dissatisfied with.
Truth be told, Ranran's photos were quite good. Zhou Wang himself couldn't achieve such quality, so he helplessly agreed to take a photo together with Ranran.
Just then, Ranran's phone suddenly rang, and Zhou Wang saw the caller ID "Little Mao Brother."
"Oh no!"
Ranran suddenly remembered that she still had a client waiting for her.
"What's wrong?" Zhou Wang asked, puzzled.
"It's nothing..."
Ranran quickly hung up the phone and set it to silent, then quickly resumed her smile, "Brother, where should we head next?"
"Versace?"
Zhou Wang casually said, having little conception of luxury brands, just randomly pointing one out.
"Brother really has taste, the fashion design style of Versace is very distinct, I also really like this brand!"
Ranran exclaimed excitedly.
Zhou Wang, such a kind man, naturally wouldn't expose her act, so the two of them went to the Versace store on B1 level. Along the way, Ranran naturally took the shopping bag from Zhou Wang's hand and stuffed her hand, which she had wiped with a wet tissue, into his palm. It was cold and greatly enhanced Zhou Wang's shopping experience.
At Versace, they chose a set of coats and casual wear, totaling an expense of 93,000, scoring 93 on the system, one point higher than Balenciaga, but unfortunately, it didn't trigger the Lucky Number.
It seemed that Zhou Wang's luck had run out this time; the "Azure Dragon Saber" only triggered a meager 0.3x multiplier, netting him only a small profit of 20,000.
By this time, after several fluctuations, the total amount on Zhou Wang's card had reached about 450,000.
After walking out of the Versace store, Zhou Wang fell into brief contemplation.
With Zhou Wang deliberately speeding up the pace, there were now less than 40 minutes left in this round, and the "Azure Dragon Saber" had one last chance to return.
Originally, Zhou Wang had planned to keep buying clothes, but now he realized one issue.
If he wanted to accumulate wealth faster, it was best to spend all his money during this last return opportunity.
Supported by the reimbursement system with a guaranteed "impression score", even if the return multiplier wasn't ideal, he wouldn't lose too much. But, if he could trigger a critical hit one last time, that could mean big gains.
However, wanting to reach that amount just by buying a set of clothes at these luxury stores was a bit difficult, after all, their in-stock items, no matter how expensive, couldn't add up to enough, and there weren't any haute couture options available for him to choose... Hmm, Zhou Wang found he had become too inflated too quickly; he was actually starting to complain about the prices of luxury goods.
Yet there was a contradiction in that if Zhou Wang didn't buy clothes the last time, losing the guarantee of "impression points" and betting on the return multiplier was too risky.
As Zhou Wang was wrestling with this dilemma, he glanced up unintentionally and saw a row of shops completely different in style from the clothing stores.
Zhou Wang had an epiphany—right, who the hell said outfits were only about clothing?
He realized he had been thinking too narrowly before.
Jewelry, watches—weren't these also part of an outfit?
The system hadn't confined "outfits" to just clothing!
Considering jewelry, Zhou Wang naturally dismissed it; as a man, of course, he ought to buy watches.
Thus, he led Ranran directly to the first floor of the mall, which hosted an area dedicated to all the mall's watch brands.
At a glance, Rolex, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, Blancpain... There seemed to be quite a few brands to choose from.
Although Zhou Wang wasn't knowledgeable about watches, he had a roommate whose father was a watch dealer who loved to talk about these things and often secretly brought some famous watches from home to show off in the dorm, so Zhou Wang had picked up a bit of knowledge by osmosis.
First of all, he passed on Rolex. More than once, Zhou Wang had heard his roommate say how difficult it was to buy a Rolex watch.
If you went to the brand store and asked, they would stubbornly deny having any stock distribution, and they would always quote the official price, but there was never any stock available...and in reality, most of the stock that arrived at the store was taken by watch dealers.
Another embarrassing point was that there were just too many fake Rolex watches. Zhou Wang had read an anecdote, not sure if it was a joke or not, that said at a dinner table of ten, eight were wearing black and green "Submariners", creating a stunningly explosive scene.
After thinking it over, Zhou Wang headed straight for the Vacheron Constantin boutique.
As what most in the watch world acknowledged as the "perennial second-place", buying a watch worth several hundred thousand shouldn't be too hard, right?
"Brother, are you here to buy a watch?"
Ranran, carrying a bunch of shopping bags and following closely beside Zhou Wang, saw him heading towards the watch section and curiously asked.
"Yeah, just seeing if there's anything suitable."
Zhou Wang chatted with her with interest, but quickly lost interest when he realized Ranran's knowledge about watches was limited to knowing "Rolex is awesome" and "Patek Philippe is explosively awesome"—she was totally a layperson.
Entering Vacheron Constantin and then leaving Vacheron Constantin—it all happened in just eight minutes.
It wasn't that Zhou Wang hadn't found a watch he liked; in fact, after hearing his requirements, the salesperson had quickly introduced him on an iPad to a Vacheron Constantin classic series watch, the Overseas 1225V with diamonds in pink gold with a handsome blue dial, priced at 410,000.
Zhou Wang liked it but found out when he was ready to buy...that there was no stock available.
Then why the heck did you stammer about it!
Determined, Zhou Wang asked about several other models, but sure enough, none were available in stock, except for a few ladies' watches in the display case that could be bought on-site. Most popular models required queuing, which could possibly be counted in "years".
Oh, wrong, they didn't even call it queuing; they asked you to fill out a Wish List, emphasis on "wish"...
That's when Zhou Wang realized, it wasn't just Rolex that played the marketing game of scarcity.
Leaving the Vacheron Constantin boutique with a sullen face, Zhou Wang scanned the remaining few watch brands, considering the half-hour left, he directly passed on Jaeger-LeCoultre and Blancpain too.
Their tier was not far from Vacheron Constantin's, and if Zhou Wang finally settled on a watch model that also had no stock, this whole operation would be pointless.
"Then just a little bit of IWC, surely your home can't possibly have no stock, right?"
Thinking so, Zhou Bao again hurriedly led Ranran into the IWC boutique.