Chapter 13: It’s All Reputation
“That hot spring—your wife and kids will definitely love it. It’s completely natural. You can even see the spring source with your own eyes.”
“The environment is great too. You walk in on stone slabs all the way—barefoot and your feet don’t even get dirty. Soaking in it is incredibly comfortable… If I hadn’t booked a beauty appointment I wouldn’t have wanted to leave. I’m telling you, sis knows how to enjoy life—you can trust my judgment.”
“It’s definitely the level of a high-end club. The decor is tasteful, newly opened, spotless inside, and it smells really nice—not the kind of smell that gives you a headache.”
“If your wife goes, I’ll tell the girl there. After soaking, she can do a facial too. Their technique is really good, and that volcanic mud treatment is excellent. After applying it, you can immediately feel your skin tightening. After washing your face, it feels like you’ve turned back time. Honestly, I’m already this age and I look like the Eternal Youth Mistress from Mount Tianshan…”
The driver couldn’t hold it in at the mention of “Eternal Youth Mistress from Mount Tianshan.” While carrying peaches, he accidentally let out a laugh and nearly choked.
Kan Haoli didn’t mind at all. As she spoke, she even turned on her phone’s front camera and admired herself with satisfaction. “This money was spent exactly where it should be. Not wasted at all.”
“And those eggs are good too. Only people like our generation, who’ve lived through hard times, really appreciate eggs—ah, every time I eat them I think, how can something so plain, with no oil or salt, taste this good?”
Xiao Wang listened in a daze, instinctively giving a respectful smile. “There’s actually such a good place near the city? I just worry we couldn’t afford it.”
He wasn’t trying to sound pitiful on purpose—most of the places Kan Haoli usually went to had minimum spends in the tens of thousands, so this was a practical concern.
“A few dozen yuan per person,” Kan Haoli said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t make it sound like I don’t pay your salaries properly.”
“Oh, that’s great.”
Xiao Wang was startled by the price and couldn’t quite believe that President Kan would go somewhere so affordable.
“I went mainly to support that little girl’s business. I originally just planned to top up a membership card and leave,” Kan Haoli said, growing more and more convinced she had discovered a hidden gem, a little carried away with her excitement.
“I was thinking before that if the environment was really bad, I wouldn’t do the facial there. Since it’s kind of out of the way, I even asked Xiao Du if I could just go to my house instead—but once I got there, I’m telling you, it really had something going on.”
People recommending stuff are always like this: no matter whether the listener is paying attention, they still go through their entire thought process in detail, rehashing it until they’ve convinced themselves of how good it is.
President Kan, who was usually somewhat composed, spread her hands wide and gestured like she was describing a great river:
“Just that Cangjiang River—you cross it, and once you step onto the hot spring walkway, the whole atmosphere is different! You can smell the natural mineral scent of the hot springs, full of negative oxygen ions from the virgin forest!”
“The hot spring lobby has a whole wall made of rock jade. The columns are all golden silk nanmu and huanghuali wood. The grain of that wood made me practically drool—some parts were like flowing gold, shining brightly, and the non-golden grain looked like ink-wash landscape paintings. Even the reception desk had something like honey-colored yellow jade, like beeswax, right next to the computers. I don’t know which supplier they got it from, but it was seriously high-end.”
“I originally wanted to ask about the interior design, but after soaking in the hot spring I completely forgot about it. When I came out, I saw the owner was just a young girl about the same age as my daughter.”
Kan Haoli wore a confident expression of “I knew it,” “this is an undiscovered gem,” and “I’ve still got taste.” With the unmistakable authority of a successful businessperson, she delivered her final assessment:
“She’s probably the daughter of some real estate tycoon. Rich!”
She said that “rich” with real force, so much so that her mouth was getting a bit dry by the end. She took a sip from her thermos and suddenly remembered something.
“Guess who else I saw at the place?”
“You know that guy who runs that Sheraton hotel, Liu Yu? His son works at that club.” Her eyes darkened slightly. “Is he involved in it? He’s got that kind of taste?”
“Impossible—he’s busy fooling around with his mistress. Liu Bo’s own mother has been trying to push things along all day and still hasn’t gotten anywhere. Would he have spare money to open such a big club for his son?”
Those were not topics a working-class employee should be hearing about. Xiao Wang silently nodded while carrying the last box of peaches.
“Alright, leave a box for yourself later,” Kan Haoli said, walking around to the trunk and pulling out a few bottles. “Here, take these two bottles home too. You worked hard coming out so late.”
The garage was pitch dark. Xiao Wang couldn’t see clearly what he was holding—only that they were two oily-looking jars. They probably were some kind of local specialty, like the peaches.
Refusing would make him seem ungrateful, so he grinned readily. “Got it, President Kan. This really worked out for me today.”
“Everyone gets a share,” Kan Haoli said, rummaging through the trunk again and handing a few more bottles to the driver. “Come on, take the peaches and the jars home. Thanks for your hard work, both of you.”
“That’s enough, that’s enough—you only have one bottle left yourself, Sister Kan!”
“Just take it when I tell you to! I don’t like pickled stuff!”
After a bit of back-and-forth, both Xiao Wang and the driver ended up with fully loaded trunks. Xiao Wang then followed Kan Haoli back to her home to pick up the fried dough balls she wanted to send to her daughter.
Kan Haoli pulled several large boxes of frozen tangyuan from the fridge and reminded Xiao Wang to use extra insulation and choose the most expensive courier service—don’t try to save money. While looking at the oily jars in the entryway, she started complaining again:
“This matsutake mushroom oil jar is something a little girl from the village sells. She says she goes up the mountain early in the morning to pick it. And my girl, Xiao Le’er, has such good conditions but still doesn’t appreciate anything—always asking for this and that, even making me send her parcels…”
It was the usual cycle of complaining on the surface but clearly praising underneath. Xiao Wang kept smiling politely, but under the light, he suddenly froze when he looked at the jars.
“President Kan, this is matsutake mushroom oil, right? That’s expensive stuff.”
Kan Haoli gave a vague “mm.” At the time, she had only been focused on chatting with the girl and hadn’t really paid attention to what was in her hands.
She only remembered hearing that it had to be dug up in the mountains at three in the morning—and when she saw the girl’s thin face and watery big eyes, she couldn’t help herself and went all in.
Kan Haoli wasn’t from the south. When she was young, she had never eaten wild mushrooms. Now that she had money, she was afraid of dying young and took health preservation seriously, so she didn’t eat anything risky like that.
“This one’s been deep-fried properly, it won’t poison you. It’s really fragrant.” Xiao Wang’s mouth curled up as he spoke, almost drooling as his tone became animated.
“I’ve got relatives living deep in the Xihai mountains who used to get this for me. It’s unbelievably fragrant—just a little bit mixed into noodles or rice is enough to make you eat a whole big bowl. Even plain noodles can turn into a full meal.”
He swallowed hard, struggling to contain his excitement. Matsutake was already expensive, and after frying and oil-sealing, it shrank even further. Fresh ones on the market cost nearly 200 yuan per jin. Wild mountain ingredients like this were like wild honey—you couldn’t get the real thing unless you knew the right people.
And from what President Kan said, this came straight from the mountains. That alone made it feel priceless. Even better, there were still three jars left in his trunk—President Kan had said each of the three people in his household could take one.
That’s almost a thousand yuan worth!
The boss is generous.
Watching Xiao Wang leave happily, as if he had just received an early year-end bonus, Kan Haoli frowned in confusion and picked up the dark jar again to inspect it.
She had only bought it because she was helping out that little girl, Pippin. She’d bought peaches as company welfare, and as for the matsutake mushroom oil, she was worried employees might get stomach issues, so she only gave it to Xiao Wang and the driver.
She lived alone after her divorce, and her daughter was abroad, so she only kept one small jar and two peaches for herself—just a little taste of something new. The rest she had given away.
She vaguely remembered that the two little girls in the lobby said the peaches were very sweet…
She had originally planned to find a peeler, but after rubbing the soft peach skin in her hand, she decided it wasn’t necessary. She carefully bit into it instead.
The peach was so juicy it felt like it was wrapped in water. With the slightest pressure, juice burst out from the opening and rushed into her mouth.
She quickly closed her lips to contain it, and along with the juice came the soft, melt-in-the-mouth flesh of the peach.
The sweet peach pulp flowed from her tongue down her throat, filling her entire mouth with the rich, sugary flavor of fruit juice.
…To maintain her figure, Kan Haoli hadn’t eaten anything this sweet for a long time.
But when that intense, almost domineering sweetness flooded her mouth, she still couldn’t help letting out a soft sigh. Sugar—something humans had desperately pursued since ancient times—was not something so easily controlled.
Reluctantly, she pulled the shriveled peach away and took a closer look. Most of the flesh inside had already turned into nectar-like juice; only a small amount of pale yellow pulp clung to the skin, with a faint amber-colored pit visible in the center.
It felt like drinking a beverage—she had finished an entire peach in just a few bites.
Her hand unconsciously reached for the next one. The taste of peach still lingered in her mouth, but there was no sour aftertaste that usually came after overly sweet candy. Natural fruit sugar had a clean, unprocessed purity that additives could never replicate.
The peach in her hand was soft and full of moisture, covered in a fine white fuzz. Its skin was pink-white, its flesh a gentle pale yellow—the flavor was tender and sweet in the most delicate way.
At her age, she already had to control sugar intake and resist aging. It took considerable effort for Kan Haoli to put the peach down and open the matsutake mushroom oil instead, picking at it with chopsticks to taste it.
…She immediately regretted it.
She should have sent it to Xiao Le instead—didn’t her daughter always say the food abroad was terrible?
If she had known, she shouldn’t have given so much away. She should have had Xiao Wang send it all out.
Forget it. She could always go back to the hot spring place again—she could buy more next time.
The empty mansion felt lonely when she was alone. Leaning against the entryway, Kan Haoli sighed while touching her well-maintained, smooth skin.
She took out an old family photo and looked at it. She gently touched her daughter’s face, then glanced at her ex-husband on the other side—despite living comfortably at home, his face looked wrinkled like tree bark. The more she looked, the tighter her brows became.
At that moment, a WeChat notification popped up.
“—Hey Sister Kan, I heard you went out to have fun this weekend? Why didn’t you bring your little brother along? I could’ve driven for you.”
Kan Haoli, who was already thinking about when she could go soak in the hot springs and apply volcanic mud again, frowned and casually deleted the greasy message with a flick of her finger.
She toyed with her jade pendant, growing more and more regretful.
“I should’ve gotten the boss’s contact information… I wonder if they’d be willing to host company team-building events. I’ll ask Xiao Du later.”
——
Xihai University
“Still not sleeping?”
Li Qian climbed onto the upper bunk and looked at the light still glowing behind the bed curtains with some surprise.
She had just come back from the hot springs and felt completely refreshed, so she’d gone to bed early, ready to enjoy a high-quality, blissful sleep.
Among their roommates, Gu Xiaoshuang had the weakest health—an extremely delicate stomach and poor qi and blood. She was basically their “gold standard” for testing whether takeout food was safe.
It was said that a fortune teller once declared she wouldn’t live past fifteen. Her parents had raised her with extreme caution, and she had somehow made it to university under careful protection. Even skipping a little sleep could make her dizzy, breathless, or even cause chest pain. During exams, she would rather fail courses than stay up late.
Yet now, almost midnight, she was actually sitting there typing away on her computer.
“Did I disturb you?” Xiaoshuang peeked out from behind the curtains and dimmed the desk lamp slightly. “I’m writing a review for the campus wall post. I promised the boss.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Li Qian quickly waved her hand. “It’s just rare seeing you stay up late. You usually lie down before ten. Why are you working so hard just for a review?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Gu Xiaoshuang said, crossing her legs and starting to chat with her.
“My family actually used to consult a very skilled expert. I’m feeling really good today. After the hot spring, I’ve got a lot of energy. I even chatted with my friend just now.”
“What the TCM doctor told me before was that my body had cold-dampness, and I should exercise a bit to sweat it out and expel the ‘dirty stuff’ inside my body. But I can barely climb stairs. Last year I went to the gym and ended up spraining my foot and straining my back…”
“And then it turned into a vicious cycle—the less I exercise, the weaker I get; the weaker I get, the less I can exercise. Even in the hottest days of summer I break out in cold sweat, and the more I try to ‘tonify’ myself, the worse it gets.”
“A so-called master told me I should ‘connect with the earth’—some kind of natural healing energy therapy. In TCM, the ‘earth element’ corresponds to the spleen and stomach, responsible for digesting grains and nourishing the whole body. The earth has energy, and walking barefoot in rural mud can cure illness by absorbing the earth’s geopathic energy…”
“I thought about it and realized—this is basically the same thing as that hot spring. Soaking in natural pools lets you absorb and balance your body’s energy. Isn’t that the same idea?”
Li Qian, who had been raised under the red flag and in the spring breeze, had never heard such theories before, and showed a slightly stunned expression.
“Hey, don’t just dismiss it,” Xiaoshuang said. “Energy fields and magnetic fields are within the realm of science, right? Even rich foreigners believe in manifestation—it’s basically the same thing.”
Seeing that Li Qian didn’t agree, Gu Xiaoshuang huffed.
“I think it makes sense. That place’s energy field just really matches me. I’m going to post it like that.”
“Go ahead, go ahead, Your Highness,” Li Qian said, pulling her blanket up comfortably and wrapping herself in it.
“Next time we should go again. It’s actually closer than going into the city anyway. We can eat eggs, roasted marshmallows, and do face masks.”
“I think it’s the earth’s energy field that made the acne and inflammation on your face go down.”
“That’s a bit too far, isn’t it? Besides, you also used the volcanic mud the boss gave us. That’s the mud doing the work.”
“The volcanic mud is just the earth’s energy.”
“Maybe they just mixed antibiotics into the mud. Didn’t you say before that some places used to mix metformin into ‘blood sugar lowering’ herbal medicine, or even lead powder into face masks?”
Even while saying that, Li Qian still pinched her soft, smooth cheeks and felt instantly happy again.
“But come to think of it… even if they did add something, I’d still accept it. Hey, should we get an annual pass? Do they even have annual passes there?”
“Of course it’s fine!” Gu Xiaoshuang, who had been hesitant to apply the volcanic mud mask in the hot spring earlier, had now completely turned into a devoted believer of volcanic mud. Her hair almost seemed to “stand on end” in excitement.
“Don’t talk nonsense! If they really added anything, my face would’ve already swollen into a pig head by now!”
“True… and you’re such a sensitive-skin type. You used it and you’re totally fine.”
The two chatted casually back and forth. After Li Qian fell asleep, Gu Xiaoshuang organized her “grand essay” and gave it an imposing title:
“A Study on the Effects of Surface Thermal Flow Bio-Electromagnetic Storm Energy on the Human Body: A Case Study of Hama Valley Glacier Hot Springs”
She then submitted it to the Xihai University campus wall group chat:
— “Admin, admin, please post this hot spring review for classmates’ reference (^▽^)”
— “Okay~”
— “Wait a second… classmate, what exactly is this you sent? Is electromagnetic storm and hot springs the innovation point of your graduation thesis?”
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