By handing Ascend to Lapei in Macau, I wrapped up the grand journey of stockpiling Ascend throughout China.
It had truly been a long, tedious, arduous, and infuriating task.
But anyway, it was over now.
Whether things went well or not, there was nothing more I could do.
Now I could only watch as a bystander.
******
Chen Guolin, who ran a hotpot restaurant in Guangzhou.
Preparing ingredients at dawn, boiling broth,
during the day cooking food, serving customers, and handling the register,
at night cleaning up the restaurant, then coming home to briefly rest his body
before returning to work at dawn—he lived this exhausting daily routine.
Due to the nature of hotpot, a dish where meat and vegetables are dipped and cooked in broth that had been simmered for a long time, a great deal of time was inevitably spent on ingredient preparation.
The ingredients were not inside the dish but had to be served to the table in their pre-cooked state.
Above all, they had to be fresh, and they had to be diverse.
Chen Guolin believed that only that could sustain the shop.
So even though it was hard, he personally went to the market to inspect and purchase ingredients.
Nevertheless, sales did not rise accordingly, so he had many worries.
“Try leaving this here.”
“This? What is it?”
During the busy morning, two young men came to Chen Guolin and held out a plastic container.
“We’ve developed a new candy as a new product, and we brought it by for promotion and sampling.”
“Forget it. It’s annoying, just take it away.”
“You don’t need to worry about a thing. We’ll leave the container here and go, so just leave it as is. That’s all.”
“I just have to leave it there?”
“Yes. You just have to leave it there.”
“You’re not going to ask me to pay for the candy later, right?”
Chen Guolin did not drop his suspicion until the very end.
There were people like that.
At first they said it was just for tasting, a sample, and left it there, then later demanded money because it had been used.
Of course he wouldn’t pay, but he’d have to fight and raise his voice.
He didn’t want to waste energy like that.
Life was too exhausting for that.
“Absolutely not. Rather, we should give you money. You’re helping us with promotion.”
“You’re giving me money???”
“We should give you money for helping with our promotion and providing the space. If you’d like, we can even draw up a contract.”
One of the young men took out 250 yuan (50,000 won) from his wallet and handed it to him.
“It’s not much, but this is for helping us with our promotion.”
“You’re really giving this to me?”
“Of course we’re really giving it to you. Shall we write up a contract?”
“No need for a contract.”
Chen Guolin quietly accepted and pocketed the money.
“Then we’ll leave the goods here. It’s delicious and has fatigue recovery properties, so it should be good for you.”
“Leave it and go. But I’m not laying a hand on it. I’m not paying it any mind. I’ll just leave it there.”
“Yes. That’s sufficient. It’s enough if the customers can each take one as they leave after eating.”
“I can do that much.”
A slight smile showed on Chen Guolin’s face after receiving the money.
The two young men who had left the candy at Chen Guolin’s restaurant immediately made a phone call somewhere as soon as they stepped outside.
“Yes, Boss. We added one more place. Yes, yes, Boss. It was easy. As soon as we said we’d give money, they told us to leave it there.”
“But is it right to even give money while doing this? I don’t think we need to give money?”
“Just give it? Understood.”
“We can do plenty more. Shall we do a few more?”
“Do only the quota?”
“Understood. We’ll fill today’s quota and head back.”
The two men took out one transparent plastic container filled with Ascend from the car and headed to another restaurant.
******
Li Yuantao, a civil servant at the Guangzhou city hall, ate a late lunch alone.
Because the meeting had ended late.
The meeting was the related one he had recently taken charge of conducting.
The Guangzhou Flower Market Festival was a flower market and exhibition held around the Spring Festival.
With over 3,000 shops participating from 11 markets.
It was a large-scale event with hundreds of thousands of visitors alone.
Although there was still plenty of time left, as it was a mega-festival, there was much to prepare and much to coordinate.
But the preparation process was absolutely not smooth.
It had been creaking from the very start.
“The visitors keep complaining there are no toilets. What’s the problem with putting in some temporary toilets?”
“Who said not to put toilets? The location is the problem, the location.”
“Exactly. The toilets need to be where the visitors are.”
“No, that’s not it. Think about it. What if it smells like a toilet right next to the flowers? Say something that makes sense.”
“So then you’re saying we shouldn’t put toilets at all?”
“Who said not to put them? Just put them next to the flower market, in a parking lot or something.”
“Who’s going to walk all the way to the parking lot to pee while looking at flowers? The parking lot is really far away too. And parking facilities are insufficient as it is.”
“Anyway, no. I said it. It’s not happening.”
.
.
.
“What kind of talk is that? We’re paying to participate in the festival, and you’re telling us to sell food on the outskirts? Does that make sense?”
“The flower vendors say you absolutely can’t come inside because of the food smells.”
“Then tell them to eat the damn flowers. I’m sure the smell will be lovely.”
“Come on, don’t be like that.”
“Forget it. We’re doing this to earn money too, not to play sidekick to the flower vendors. If it’s not a main spot, we’re not participating. Contact us when you’ve secured a main spot. Let’s go.”
.
.
.
“How are we supposed to make a parking lot here? This area already has serious traffic congestion.”
“Isn’t the biggest complaint about the flower festival the parking shortage? You should at least make an effort.”
“No, we need space to make parking spaces. How can you just tell us to secure parking unconditionally?”
“Still, isn’t this something your department should handle?”
“I don’t know. We’ll just do as we’re told. Send us an official document. If you send us an official document, we’ll take it and proceed exactly as stated. Then we’ll be going now.”
.
.
.
Li Yuantao reviewed today’s meeting while eating lunch alone at a nearby restaurant.
Because the meeting had run late, he had been unable to eat.
Perhaps because of the frustrating meeting content, he couldn’t taste his food.
It only felt gritty, as if he were chewing sand.
Everyone was only talking about themselves.
The flower vendors wanted to block everything that interfered with flower viewing, since it was a flower festival,
and the food vendors wanted to open booths where there were many people.
The civil servants wanted to avoid getting involved as much as possible.
On the contrary, the visitors demanded a great deal, from convenience facilities to shopping, tourism, and things to see.
It was impossible to perfectly accommodate all of this,
but from Li Yuantao’s standpoint, as the one who had to host and support the event, he had to coordinate everything.
There couldn’t be zero complaints, but he had to minimize them and proceed with the event.
He had to create convenience facilities so visitors wouldn’t feel inconvenienced.
Toilets, parking lots, public transportation, flow management. Safety and on-site management. Marketing and promotions—it all had to operate perfectly.
All of this had to come together, but far from harmonizing, it was only amplifying each other’s chaos.
Thinking about work completely killed his appetite.
As he put down his utensils and paid, there was a plastic container with candy on the counter.
He thought he should at least eat this, since he hadn’t properly eaten his meal.
“Boss, can I eat this?”
“Yes. Please eat as much as you’d like.”
Li Yuantao roughly grabbed a handful of candy, stuffed it into his pocket, then unwrapped one and put it in his mouth.
The moment it entered his mouth, a fragrant aroma and a sweet taste spread across the tip of his tongue.
It’s delicious?
At the end of the sweetness, a tingling taste hid.
What kind of taste is this?
It was a taste he had never tried before.
As it lingered, rather than simply feeling sweet and delicious, he felt a sense of wonder.
He became puzzled about what he was eating.
It was a refreshing yet dreamy taste.
The more he ate the candy, the more it felt like a refreshing power welled up.
His head felt clear.
His mood improved, and his vision became clearer.
His mind brightened, and his senses grew sharper.
He felt good.
He felt like eating nothing but candy all day long.
He wanted to save it and slowly savor it little by little, often.
Enjoying the candy as he walked, he had already arrived at the office.
The way back was usually tiring, but he hadn’t realized it was hard at all.
He sat at his desk and looked at documents.
Huh?
Why?
Why did the solutions seem to appear all at once?
Spaces that had been vague until now, that had not even vaguely come to mind,
the haphazardly arranged festival space came to him vividly.
From the entrance of the event venue to the shops, convenience facilities, and the locations of the toilets—he could vividly picture where each should go.
The positions of police and fire brigades. The routes of guides and event vehicles could be made to not overlap.
Put flower stores on the main street, and run toilets all along the streamside below it.
Restaurants should be placed on the river-facing side.
Li Yuantao was astonished.
At having solved this problem in an instant.
And simultaneously, he felt self-loathing at having agonized over such a simple problem for so long.
Li Yuantao immediately began writing reports and planning proposals.
His hands did not rest for a moment.
There was no time to agonize.
He began writing reports at a speed faster than transcribing.
People looked at Li Yuantao with strange eyes.
******
Li Xin was staring blankly at the blinking cursor in front of the monitor.
He had been pulling all-nighters for several days with the same error code.
A “segmentation fault” kept appearing, but he couldn’t even sense where the problem was.
He had already scanned through the code several times but couldn’t find the answer.
Every time he looked at the code, his eyes seemed to spin.
He got up from his seat and went to a nearby cafe.
Because he felt he needed to recharge on caffeine.
While ordering coffee, there was candy placed to the side.
“How much is this candy?”
“Someone brought it saying they were promoting something? You can just eat it.”
“Really? Thank you, I’ll have it.”
Li Xin picked up a candy.
On the colorful, pretty wrapper, only “ASCEND” was written.
He put the candy in his mouth as he walked out with an Americano with an extra shot.
A faint sweetness passed by, and a tingling taste stimulated the tip of his tongue.
Is this really candy?
Should I say this is a spicy taste?
It’s stimulating.
But he didn’t want to spit it out.
Rather, he wanted to slowly let it melt in his mouth even longer.
When he had eaten more than half the candy like that, he felt a strange sensation.
He had been extremely tired and hazy from not sleeping properly for several nights, but his drowsiness completely vanished.
Blood began to circulate.
Strength overflowed, and his body became light.
His senses sharpened to the point where he could smell the air.
His memories began to grow clear.
His body rose to peak condition.
Why?
There was no reason for this.
To suddenly feel better from one sip of coffee?
He couldn’t understand it.
Walking to the office, he remembered all the code he had written up to now.
As if there were a monitor right in front of him.
No, as if he had become the code, he could see how each line operated.
Slowly examining each line, the incorrect part appeared.
It was one parenthesis.
It was just one measly parenthesis, yet he had suffered for days unable to find it.
But how could he memorize the entire long code?
How could he know it more accurately than looking at the monitor?
How could he feel the code executing?
He couldn’t know.
However, he did think that he should save this coffee and drink it sparingly.
*****
Liu Mei was only sighing in front of the draft she had promised to deliver to the client by next week.
She had made it according to the client’s demands, but she simply couldn’t be satisfied with it.
If she made it according to the client’s demands, the design became a mess,
and if she touched the design, the client would get angry.
It was frustrating.
She felt like she was going crazy.
If she made it according to the client’s requests, they would probably ask her to remake it again.
Because the design was a mess.
Because it was uncomfortable to look at.
Conversely, if she touched it, they would say this wasn’t what they asked for and demand she remake it.
Either way, she would have to remake it.
In that process, she would have to attempt futile communication with an obstinate client.
She would have to bow and scrape, saying yes, yes, yes.
Just thinking about it made her head ache already.
Just then, someone held out a piece of candy.
“What’s this?”
“They were handing them out when I came out after eating. So I got two. Thought we could share.”
“Thanks. I was craving something sweet, so this is perfect timing.”
Liu Mei put the candy in her mouth without hesitation.
A sweet flavor spread through her entire body.
Was it fruit-scented? What was it? She couldn’t tell.
But it was delicious.
By the time the candy had melted a little.
The monitor in front of her looked different.
The colors felt more vivid.
If she had to match that color, she felt like she could.
Temperature and scent became distinct.
The sensation in her fingertips came back to life.
Her thoughts became fast and clear.
And when she looked at the design draft, she saw it.
A way to satisfy the client’s demands while also improving it from a design standpoint.
The moment the idea came to her, Liu Mei quickly grabbed the mouse and began immersing herself in the design work.
Liu Mei was using the greatest masterpiece of her life to make a neighborhood sign.
******
Chen Guolin, who ran a hot pot restaurant, finished business for the day.
By the time he even finished cleaning, it was well past ten.
A hard day had come to an end.
Now all he had to do was go home and collapse into sleep.
But when he thought about having to wake up at four tomorrow morning and come back again,
just the thought made his body feel heavy.
He really wished he could at least get a good night’s sleep.
Thinking that, he left the shop, and saw the plastic container the young men had left behind in the morning.
When he looked inside, there was exactly one left.
‘They said this had a fatigue recovery effect too, right?’
Praying that it would help with his fatigue, Chen Guolin put the last remaining candy in his mouth and cleared away the plastic container.
On the way home.
His body felt lighter.
It felt as if the fatigue soaked into his body was fading away.
Strength coursed through him.
Power filled his arms and legs.
Energy surged up.
His body felt settled, as if it had been put in order.
The Chen Guolin who had been exhausted one minute ago was gone.
Now there was only Chen Guolin, overflowing with strength even without sleep.
He felt like he didn’t have to sleep tonight.
*******
“Everything ready?”
“Yes. All preparations are complete.”
“And tracking?”
“Absolutely impossible.”
Chen Zhihao, who was in charge of Ascend’s purchase site, answered.
Chen Zhihao was a programmer belonging to Yeonggyeseon, whom we had contacted last time to obtain GoGo Casino’s source code.
He was a talent we’d picked up after raiding Yeonggyeseon’s office last time.
Their skill at avoiding tracking.
Their skill at making sites was unrivaled.
They were the bastards who had identified users’ conditions and manipulated win rates in real time.
There was no team with better skills for selling Ascend.
They had stayed in Mindanao for several months and built the purchase site.
Now, all someone had to do was scan the tiny QR code on the wrapper.
Then Ascend’s SNS would appear.
Through the SNS, they could go to the purchase site.
The address changed constantly, and it was made impossible to track.
That wasn’t the only thing we gained that day.
We entered into a cooperative partnership with Yeonggyeseon.
If you paid them, Yeonggyeseon were the kind of bastards who would do anything and make anything.
The ones currently distributing Ascend to restaurants in mainland China were Yeonggyeseon.
Whether they distributed it themselves or outsourced it, Yeonggyeseon was spreading Ascend.
Thanks to that, all I had to do was place Ascend in the warehouse.
“You’ve worked hard all this time. In another two or three days, the reactions should start coming in little by little. Rest well until then. Then let’s make another push.”
“Yes.”
“Then get some rest.”
I was about to leave their office when I heard a sound.
Ding.
“What was that?”
“Huh? It seems someone accessed the site.”
“What do you mean? We only started distributing Ascend today. It should take at least two or three days before there’s any response.”
“No? An order came in.”
Chen Zhihao answered while looking at the monitor.
“What? An order came in? You listed it at 50 yuan per pill, right? Ten thousand won? Who would pay ten thousand won for that? Isn’t it an error?”
“No. It was ordered through the normal process.”
“It really is.”
I checked the monitor as well.
There, a record of an order for ten pills remained clearly visible.
I was thinking it was strange how quickly Ascend was getting a response when I heard it.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding. Ding.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Di. Di. Di. Di. Di. Ding.
The alarm kept ringing.
“Orders keep coming in.”
Orders started exploding from the very first day we spread Ascend.
Edward, just what on earth did you make?