Chapter 1464 - 1: The Rise of the Legendary Merchant

Chapter 1464: Chapter 1: The Rise of the Legendary Merchant

(This is a serialized side story that’ll be updated irregularly. Updates here won’t delay the main story, and the main story’s word count won’t be cut. The side stories will focus on characters other than Wen Xishu. The zodiac signs, or little supporting characters, all have a shot.)

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Hawker had tasted a life of booze and luxury.

He was the William Family’s young master, with a grandfather who was the shrewdest Merchant in the Bunker and backed by overwhelming power. That also meant Hawker’s status at Desire Tower Academy was untouchable.

Desire Tower Academy is the kind of place where—there’s no performance review, only all kinds of theory classes.

Like, how to make people obsessed with you, how to gain the favor of certain figures in the Desire Tower.

If Wen Xishu were here, chances are he’d feel like they were teaching you how to scam people’s feelings.

Simply put, it’s about how to use the lowest possible cost to rack up favorability with all those people in the Desire Tower World.

How to make people feel pleasure.

And Wen Xishu’s missions are different—his missions are complicated.

But for most people climbing the Desire Tower, the tasks are simple—make the target experience pleasure.

Sexual desire is the best method they can think of.

Of course, there are people like Wenren Mirror, who actually want to give the other party a deeper kind of pleasure—people who truly study the Desire Tower.

But at Desire Tower Academy, the students actually don’t like researching that much in their spare time.

What they care more about is how to cozy up to the rich young masters after graduation.

Which also means some people are destined to be the darlings of Desire Tower Academy.

For example—

William Hawker.

This richest young master in the Bunker came from a family that controlled the vast majority of businesses down here.

All along, William Hawker never needed to climb the Tower.

People like him don’t need to curry favor with anyone; they’re the ones others suck up to.

But... that kind of life is just too boring.

Many times, Hawker felt he really did have a talent for business.

But from the moment he was born, his life was set to easy mode.

In this Bunker, most people are on hard mode.

Someone like Wen Xishu is an even more extreme case: a Hell-mode start.

But William Hawker is even above Wenren Mirror, starting out on ultra-easy mode.

Most of his life went like this—

"Grandpa, I’ve spotted a business opportunity, we could do this thing inside Desire Tower Academy..."

Before he even finished speaking, William Gordon would immediately agree:

"No problem, we’ll do it just like you said."

"Wait, Grandpa, you haven’t even heard what I’m trying to say yet!"

"I don’t need to know, Hawker. Good child, you don’t need to prove your talent. As long as I’m here, you can even squander as you like."

Years ago, Hawker thought that was pretty awesome.

But slowly, he started realizing... it was really dull.

He desperately wanted to prove himself, but the halo of the Five Elder Clans made it impossible.

Everything he was eager to do would succeed.

Every idea he had would be implemented.

There was no challenge. He was the winner every single time.

Whenever he went to negotiate a deal, the other side didn’t even care about profit or loss. He really wanted them to understand that when they did business with him, profit and loss were something they could actually haggle over.

He was aiming for win–win...

But he had no choice; the moment people saw him, they’d immediately green-light everything without a thought:

"Young Master Hawker, you don’t need to say any of that, just give us the contract and we’ll sign."

That was Hawker’s life.

At Desire Tower Academy, Hawker was also the one everyone was desperate to ingratiate themselves with.

Want to make friends? No problem, you get the exact same kind of bootlicker, regardless of gender.

Want to vent? No problem, the exact same kind of bootlickers are dying to be beaten up by him.

Want to play at something fun? No problem, the exact same kind of bootlickers will rack their brains to find things that amuse him.

Too boring. How can life be allowed to be this easy?

William could even feel that maybe his grandfather wanted it that way.

Wanted him to become... an arrogant dictator. Wanted him to realize that he was nobility.

The kind of noble that everyone yearns to fawn over, and accepts that as natural.

He figured, give it a little more time and he really would gradually lose interest in everyone.

Instinctively, he’d start dividing people into classes, just like his grandfather.

He’d get used to it all.

That was his fate.

But that fate was broken.

Because that year, a monster appeared in the Bunker.

That monster’s name was Wen Xishu.

...

...

On Hawker’s last Desire Tower trip, he’d been to a place: Jicheng, a little tavern.

On that trip, Hawker had sat there, talking to the tavern owner nonstop:

"You know, that guy Wen Xishu... he was the first one to make me actually feel nervous!"

"Hey, for the first time, I felt like this was someone even my grandfather couldn’t handle."

"He dares slap the faces of all the Bunker People, including those high-and-mighty Five Elders—and don’t ask me who the Five Elders are. Just remember: they’re big shots, that’s all you need to know."

"But the Miyamoto Family still got pushed around by him until they were a wreck."

"Yet they still couldn’t do anything about him."

"That was when I knew—my challenge had arrived."

"Only people like that will turn me down. Only people like that won’t start slobbering over me right after I finish introducing a business plan!"

"That’s a real partner. Someone like that is the kind of person even my grandfather isn’t sure he can win over."

"From then on, I finally started feeling some fun."

"Later, I did a lot of deals with him. He really dared to curse me out, really dared to say my ideas were crap. Of course, there weren’t that many cases like that."

"He praised me more often than he trashed me. I’m still pretty good, you know."

The tavern owner was puzzled; mostly, it was that a lot of what he heard, he didn’t understand.