Wednesday, 2:00 PM.

Lu Zhixian pushed open the door to the company's conference room and scanned the scene inside.

Old Zhao was sitting at one end of the oval table, which was covered with a stack of documents. Beside them were two cups of coffee; one was clearly untouched, left for him.

All of this was normal.

What wasn't normal was Old Zhao's face.

Usually, during meetings, this man's facial expression management was textbook—a deadpan look of "this is perfectly reasonable" no matter what figures were being reported.

But today, as he sat there, the corners of his mouth were pulled down, his eyes were darting elsewhere, and his neck was tensed.

He was holding back a laugh.

Lu Zhixian sat down opposite him, took a sip of the coffee, and remained silent.

Waiting for you to speak.

Old Zhao picked up the stack of documents and pushed them toward him.

"Take a look first."

Lu Zhixian looked down. The first page of the document had an English header. He glanced at it; the font was a serif typeface that hadn't been changed in decades—steady and prestigious.

VALENTE.

He recognized the brand. In this world, it was a very famous clothing brand.

He continued flipping through—two pages, three pages. The structure of the English contract was easy for him to read, and the logic of the clauses was clear. On the fourth page, numbers appeared.

He paused for three seconds.

He looked back at it once to confirm he hadn't miscounted the decimal places.

He hadn't.

He closed the contract and looked up.

Old Zhao was still holding it in, but he looked like he was about to suffer internal injuries from the effort.

"They want you to be their Asia-Pacific spokesperson," Old Zhao began, then paused and cleared his throat.

"No, I misspoke."

Lu Zhixian waited.

"Global Spokesperson."

The conference room fell silent for two seconds.

"This brand was founded ninety-seven years ago," Old Zhao said, emphasizing every word.

"They have never had an Asian face as a Global Spokesperson. You are the first."

Lu Zhixian reopened the contract, turned to the compensation page, and looked again.

The numbers were still there, sitting quietly.

He closed it and leaned back against his chair. "How much?"

Old Zhao didn't move. "You just saw it."

"You didn't look?"

"I did," Old Zhao said.

"I want to hear you say it."

Lu Zhixian recited the string of numbers.

Old Zhao nodded, finally unable to maintain his composure. The corners of his mouth twitched upward before he forcibly suppressed them again.

"Yes, that's the number. I was originally planning to reject it."

"Why?"

"It's too ridiculous," Old Zhao spread his hands.

"No active artist in the country has ever secured an endorsement of this magnitude. My first reaction was that it was a scam." He paused.

"Then I checked. It's from the New York office, registered fifty-six years ago. It's real."

Lu Zhixian pulled the contract back, opened it again, and began reading the clauses from the beginning.

Old Zhao read them out one by one beside him.

No restrictions on collaborations with other brands, except for those in the same category.

No requirement to bind his private life, and no restrictions on the direction of his public statements.

Flexible scheduling for shoots, with only two brand events required per year.

Lu Zhixian flipped to the last page, finished reading, and closed it.

Old Zhao set down the last clause he had read, fell silent for two seconds, and spoke first. "This doesn't look like a commercial contract."

"What does it look like?"

"It looks like fanboying." Old Zhao felt the description was absurd even as he said it, but he didn't take it back.

"All the clauses lean entirely in your favor, as if they're terrified you won't sign."

Lu Zhixian tapped his index finger on the cover of the contract.

"Why did they choose me?"

Old Zhao took out his phone, found an email, and pushed it over.

Lu Zhixian picked it up to read.

The email was the original text from the brand's Creative Director, in English, with a direct tone.

The gist was that she had come across a video of his performance from the Semi-finals on social media. It was that specific version: a dark stage, a single top light, a guitar, and him sitting on the side of the stage against a backdrop of a screen full of night sky.

She wrote in the email that there was something in that image called a 'star'.

She said that this happened to be the theme for the brand's next season.

Lu Zhixian handed the phone back and leaned against the back of his chair, thinking for a moment.

Star.

"Sign it."

Old Zhao was slightly taken aback. "You're not going to look at it some more?"

"I've finished reading the contract." Lu Zhixian pushed the document back.

"As you just said, with these kinds of clauses, they are the ones pleading with me."

"But what if..."

"There are no 'what ifs'." Lu Zhixian interrupted him, his tone flat.

"You've reviewed what needs reviewing and checked what needs checking. Hesitating at a time like this would be ungrateful."

Old Zhao was silent for two seconds.

Then he laughed.

It wasn't the suppressed kind; he genuinely laughed, with a hint of relief.

"Alright, I'll handle the coordination. The shoot location is in Milan. We'll head out in the middle of next month. Check the expiration date on your passport."

Lu Zhixian stood up and walked out, stopping for a moment at the door.

"Old Zhao."

"Yeah?"

"If I cook a meal for them in Milan, do you think I could conveniently negotiate a co-branded collection?"

Old Zhao's smile froze on his face. He remained motionless for nearly two seconds.

Lu Zhixian didn't wait for his answer and left.

There was no one else in the hallway. The sound of his footsteps on the floor felt a bit hollow.

He was actually serious.

The only use for his Master-level Culinary Arts right now was for himself every morning. If he put it in front of a century-old luxury brand in Milan, it might just open some doors.

Food transcends language.

He set the idea aside in his mind, thinking the feasibility was about thirty percent—not high, but not zero either.

Back at his apartment, Lu Zhixian sat on the sofa, opened the system interface, and found the popularity points panel.

The popularity points were still rising.

The news about VALENTE hadn't been announced yet, but the aftershocks of the "Godfather of R&B" trending topic were still lingering. The screenshot of Mr. Zhou's "Benevolence" character was still circulating across various platforms, with new rounds of discussion popping up every few hours.

The popularity points were jumping even more frequently than the numbers on that contract.

He watched for a while, swiped to the right, and opened the status bar.

Master-level Culinary Arts, Native-level English, Master-level Vocal Techniques, Intermediate Combat Mastery.

He stared at this column for ten seconds.

Every time this system gave him something good, it first used a bunch of cleaning products to drive his expectations down to negative numbers before giving him something big.

From the last three-hundred-draw streak, only two practical skills were pulled: English and Culinary Arts.

But the English really came in handy when reading the contract, and the culinary arts came in handy every day.

He closed the system interface, picked up his phone, and sent a message to Old Zhao:

[Passport is valid for over two years, so it's fine. Send me a copy of the schedule for Milan, I'll look it over myself.]

Old Zhao's reply came quickly:

[I'm already coordinating with their law firm. By the way, their Creative Director asked a question. She said she didn't recognize your name in that video, and the first thing she asked was, "Is this person currently working on a personal music project?"]

Lu Zhixian looked at the sentence and didn't reply immediately.

She didn't ask "how many fans does this person have" or "what trending topics has he been on"; she asked about a music project.

This way of asking showed she knew the industry.

He leaned back in his chair and replied to Old Zhao:

[Tell her yes. The album is in progress.]

After sending it, he set his phone down.

Milan.

Next month.

He made a mental note of the date.

One thing he was very clear about.

The system's debt would have to be repaid sooner or later. The more he saved, the faster he spent; this pattern had been verified by him countless times.

He stood up and walked toward the kitchen, planning to think about dinner first.

Master-level Culinary Arts should be like a fish in water in Italy.