Breakfast time.

Having decided to build a wearable suit of battle armor that had existed only in human fantasy, Su Mo no longer intended to hide his abilities and slack off one hundred percent of the time.

The main parts of the armor could indeed be upgraded and refitted with survival points, and he now had nearly fifty thousand of them.

But going by his current stock, the basic materials were still far from enough. He would have to buy several more batches through Zhang Min.

So at the breakfast meeting, when he heard Zhang Min asking everyone for their opinions again, Su Mo stood up and made a suggestion.

“Proprietress Zhang, since yesterday I haven’t seen a single person come to our lane asking about work. That’s not a good sign. We do want to hide our development progress, but if all those people sign labor contracts with Qiankun Grain Store, we’ll be in real trouble.”

“I also heard that Qiankun Grain Store will hold a Summer Harvest warm-up conference in seven days. We have to bring out something solid by then, at least enough to keep these migrant workers from falling entirely to Qiankun Grain Store’s side.”

Many of the materials he was about to collect had not a shred of relation to the energy stone tools the others were making. For his plan to go smoothly, Su Mo had to start revealing some of his talent, so he began to “talk on paper” at the meeting.

“Taking all these points together, if you can provide me with another batch of materials to research with, then... in seven days I might be able to bring out a decent tool. Who knows!”

He had drawn a big pie in the sky.

Zhang Min did not bite. She calmly swept a glance over everyone else’s faces and then refused. “Mr. Su, the tool and material budgets the others bought add up to only five thousand points. But since you came in, that machine and the early materials alone have cost me fifty thousand. That is not a small sum. Also, Qiankun Grain Store spent a full half year developing with Zero Manufacturing before they brought out those energy stone tools. You want to make something of equal level in seven days. Forgive me for being blunt, but judging by the ability you’ve shown so far, it’s hard for me to believe you have the strength.”

“Then we can’t just sit here and wait to die. Qiankun Grain Store’s knife is already at our necks. If we want to win this fight and we’re short on time, we have no choice but to increase the budget!”

Concern leads to confusion. As soon as he finished the sentence, Su Mo felt something was off.

His words did highlight the urgency of the moment, but they also put the other few “freeloaders” in an awkward position.

Sure enough, when he turned his head, the four who had banded together earlier were glaring at him with eyes as round as bronze bells, spewing anger.

If Zhang Min had not been standing there, they would probably have rushed over together already, wanting a real-life PK.

However, to everyone’s slight surprise,

in the silence, Zhang Bowen, who had never spoken up until then, suddenly stepped forward to ease the situation.

“Sis, I actually think what Mr. Su says makes some sense. We really have no time now, and trading budget for time is a reasonable approach. After all, a large number of experiments surely means consuming a large amount of materials.”

“I saw Mr. Su using the miniature development platform yesterday. Judging by his proficiency, I think we can give him a chance.”

“Hm? So it was him?”

Su Mo glanced at Zhang Bowen gratefully. Seeing that the fire had been diverted, he took the opening to climb down and sat again.

Yesterday, while he was installing and debugging the miniature development platform, Su Mo had kept feeling that someone was sizing him up from outside the window.

At the time he hadn’t minded the gaze and had only assumed it was Sun Quan or Zhang Min checking on him.

And what he was doing was just the most basic familiarization with the platform, so naturally he wasn’t afraid of being watched.

But now it seemed the gaze hadn’t come from those two after all, but from Zhang Min’s younger brother, Zhang Bowen.

“Oh? Since you say so, Bowen, all right.”

“Mr. Su, my younger brother happens to be sitting the Academy of Sciences entrance examination this year. Since you’re confident you can make a decent tool in seven days, I trust it won’t affect you if he stands by to observe and learn?”

“Learn from me?” Su Mo was stunned by the odd request, but without thinking much of it he nodded.

“It can be done, but since I’m developing a tool, I still need a certain amount of time alone to think every day.”

“That’s no problem. From now on Bowen will study with you from two to six in the afternoon, and the rest of the time is yours to arrange as you please!”

As the current proprietress of Zizai Liang Lane, Zhang Min decided it on the spot with a smile, before the others could react.

And this bit of favoritism instantly turned the four who had banded together green with envy.

Seeing the atmosphere stiffen again, Zhang Min’s expression changed and she put on the authority of a proprietress.

“If everyone has finished eating, go ahead and get on with your development.”

“I have a few words for Mr. Su alone.”

Although the others wanted to say something, in the end they could only leave one after another.

After a short while, only three of them remained in the room: Zhang Min, Su Mo and Zhang Bowen.

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