"You donât have to drink it. A 1997 RomanĂ©e-Conti goes for over two hundred thousand on the open market."
Stan studied the bottle for a moment, then looked back at the man. A gift worth two hundred thousand dollars, delivered out of nowhere, there had to be something behind it.
"Two hundred thousand is a lot of money to spend on someone youâve never met."
The suit-clad man held Stanâs gaze, his smile thinning into something more deliberate.
"For most people, yes. It would be."
The implication was barely hidden. It was as if he was saying, youâre no one. You have nothing. And youâre not worthy of Maya. It was an open but subtle way of declaring the Zimmerman family stance on Stanâs friendship with Maya.
Stan noticed it, smiled, and shook his head. He couldnât be bothered with matters like this. He ignored the meaning behind the suit-clad manâs words entirely...
He let out a low sigh...
"Hold on a second." Saying this, he walked back into the dormitory, rummaged through his things, and returned carrying a plain wooden box.
Inside were the tea leaves, the systemâs reward from earlier. Stan didnât drink tea, and despite their intent, he wasnât about to let someone give him a gift without offering something in return.
The suit-clad man blinked, clearly not expecting a reciprocal gesture from a broke college student. But he accepted the box with a polite nod and left without another word.
Twenty minutes later, the man stood before a broad mahogany desk in a private study. The surroundings were dark, so one couldnât see much...
But one could see the dark silhouette of an elderly man tracing something on a board. It was unknown what he was doing...
"Sir, the young man, Stan Harrison, sent you a box of tea in return."
Mr. Zimmerman didnât look up from his papers. A box of tea from a college kid was hardly worth acknowledging.
"Keep it. Itâs yours."
The suit-clad man gave a small bow and lifted the lid.
The fragrance hit the room like a wave.
It was layered, ancient, and impossibly refined. The scent was so good and rich that the suit-clad manâs hands went still the next second...
Mr. Zimmermanâs pen stopped mid-stroke.
He knew that fragrance. Heâd encountered it exactly once in his life, decades ago, inside the private reception hall of the Valemont estate in Aurum City.
Celestine Leaf.
The Valemont family was one of the Nine Sovereign Houses, with bloodlines stretching back over eight hundred years to the Age of Crowns. Families whose influence didnât merely shape nations but predated them.
And Celestine Leaf was the tea the Valemonts reserved for a single purpose: receiving guests of equal standing. Other Sovereign patriarchs. Figures whose names moved markets and toppled governments.
It was never served casually. Never gifted. Never seen outside those walls.
Mr. Zimmerman had only tasted it once, and even then, only because his father-in-law, an elder-level figure within one of the Nine Houses, had brought him along as a companion to the family patriarch. Heâd been permitted a single cup. One sip, seated at the far end of the table, barely acknowledged by the hosts.
That memory was thirty years old, and he could still taste it. From this alone, one could tell how rich those tea leaves were...
Now that same tea was sitting in a plain wooden box, handed over by a twenty-year-old college student like it was a courtesy gift from a convenience store.
âHow could he possibly have this?â
Mr. Zimmerman rose slowly from his chair.
âAnd he just gave it away? Without a second thought?â
The realization crept in like ice water through his veins.
Itâs impossible to buy the Celestine Leaf. It wasnât sold. It wasnât traded. It existed within the Sovereign Houses and nowhere else, passed between bloodlines as a matter of protocol, not commerce.
Which meant the boy hadnât purchased it.
He had it.
And for someone to have it so naturally, so unremarkably, that parting with it meant nothing to him meant only one thing...
Mr. Zimmermanâs hands trembled against the edge of his desk.
âA direct descendant. Sent out for tempering.â
It was the only explanation that fit. The Sovereign Houses had done it before, placing their heirs in ordinary lives, stripped of status and privilege, to test their character before granting them true authority.
And he had just sent a man to that boyâs doorstep to imply he wasnât good enough for his daughter.
A thin bead of sweat rolled down Mr. Zimmermanâs temple.
âWhat have I done?â
Back in the dormitory, Stan lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. Sleep wasnât coming. His mind kept circling back to the same thought, the double rebate.
Ten million in, twenty million back. The math was almost too clean.
Sighing, he pulled out his phone and opened TikTuk Live.
âIf spending money on bound targets triggered the rebate, then the fastest way to scale was volume, and livestream gifting was the most frictionless way to burn through cash.â
He scrolled through the top channels until one name caught his eye.
Xenia.
She was one of TikTukâs most popular female streamers, with nearly two million followers, a regular fixture on the platformâs trending charts. Word was she lived somewhere on Inksea Island too.
[Xenia: Beauty Rating 8.9. Can bind as a consumption rebate target. Bind?]
"Bind."
[Binding successful. Reward: 30% of Wanhai Group shares.]
Stanâs eyes widened slightly, but he filed it away. He could look into that later. Right now, he had work to do.
He tapped into Xeniaâs room.
Entering the stream, he found her singing, her soft and soothing voice instantly drawing people in.
Under the warm lighting, she looked stunning, her flawless, delicate skin glowing gently, her presence both elegant and captivating.
Every small movement carried a natural grace, making it hard to look away.
More than just her beauty, it was the atmosphere she created, calm, mesmerizing, and almost spellbinding, that made the entire stream feel silent, as if no one dared to interrupt her moment.