Lu Zhen · Chat

2:17 AM. A new notification popped up on the shop's backend. The phone screen suddenly lit up in the dim bedroom, the white glare stinging his eyes. Lu Zhen was leaning against the headboard, having just showered. His short black hair was still wet, clinging to his neck as water droplets rolled along the edges of his tattoos and disappeared deep into the collar of his bathrobe. He tilted his head, narrowing his purple eyes at the screen, and lazily swiped open the notification bar with his fingertip. A negative review. He let out a scoff, thumbing into it casually. He was about to swipe it away without even looking closely. After all, he’d received dozens of bad reviews over the past month—all from competitors hiring trolls or bots. The scripts were always the same: "Poor quality," "Fake goods," "Never coming back." He could practically recite them. Looking at the default avatars of those throwaway accounts, Lu Zhen knew exactly what was going on without even checking. In this business, getting sabotaged by rivals was normal. He didn't open this shop for the money anyway. But this one seemed a bit different. The finger that was meant to swipe the screen suddenly stopped. The comment was only six words long, and the punctuation wasn't even proper. "Uncomfortable, doesn't work well" Six words. So sloppy and perfunctory that it felt almost honest. No cursing, no agitation, no substantive accusations. It didn't even use a generic term like "poor quality." It was just a simple, indifferent sentence tossed there, as if the person didn't expect the review to do anything or care if anyone believed it. That casual air actually made Lu Zhen take a second look. Bot-written reviews didn't have this tone; bots wanted to stack every negative word they could think of. This comment was light, like someone casually dropping a truth or being too lazy to make up a better reason. "Interesting." He murmured under his breath, his voice still raspy from the shower. He clicked into the details of the review, wanting to see the user's avatar and nickname. Most trolls didn't bother changing their avatars—just the system's default gray figure—and their homepages were always empty. But this one was different. Not only did the user have an avatar—a casual selfie taken at an awkward angle in a dimly lit room—but the profile actually had a browsing history and even a few favorited items from the shop. It was a live one. A real person. Lu Zhen’s gaze lingered on that selfie for a few seconds. The photo wasn't well-lit, the angle was messy, and there was clearly no composition or filters used; the pixels were even a bit blurry. But that face... honestly, it was quite his type. To Lu Zhen, it was much more interesting than those heavily edited influencer photos. He brought the phone a little closer, squinting as he studied it for a few seconds. Then, he let out a low laugh, his tongue clicking against his back teeth. The irritation from being woken up in the middle of the night had dissipated, replaced by a vague, unspoken sense of amusement. He exited the review page, opened his contacts, and dialed a number. It was picked up after two rings. "Master Zhen," the voice on the other end answered respectfully. "Find someone for me." Lu Zhen’s voice was slow and steady, carrying that lazy, just-woken-up drawl, but every word was crystal clear. "The one who left a bad review on my shop tonight. Address, phone number, name—I want the full set. Send it to me within ten minutes." The person on the other end didn't ask a single question, gave an affirmation, and hung up. The night view of Lanchang City poured in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the neon lights of distant skyscrapers painting the bedroom in shifting shadows. He simply felt that tonight had suddenly become much less boring. A few minutes later, the phone buzzed with a full file. Lu Zhen scrolled through it—name, age, address, even shopping records from the past six months. He copied the address into his map. It was less than a forty-minute drive away, in an old residential area in the south of the city. He changed into a black hoodie and gray sweatpants, stepped into an old pair of sneakers, and tied his hair into a small, messy bun. He looked like an ordinary young man heading out for a midnight snack. Grabbing his keys, he headed out. The elevator descended to the underground garage. The engine roared in the empty parking lot as he turned the steering wheel with one hand, the car sliding out into the deserted streets of the early morning. Twenty minutes later, he parked beneath a residential building. His footsteps echoed clearly in the narrow stairwell. Standing before the door, he checked the address on his phone one last time to confirm he was in the right place, then raised his hand and knocked twice. The force was firm enough to be heard but not so loud as to disturb the neighbors. There was movement inside. The sound of shuffling footsteps approached, and then the lock clicked open. Half a face peered through the crack, heavy with sleep and looking at him in a daze. Lu Zhen leaned against the doorframe, hands stuffed in his hoodie pockets, looking down at the face that was identical to the one in the photo. He tilted his head slightly, a slow smirk tugging at his lips, his purple eyes filled with a wicked sort of amusement. "Uncomfortable? Doesn't work well?" He spoke, his voice deep and drawling, each word sticky with a thuggish charm. "Or do you just not know how to use it? Or maybe you haven't even opened it yet, and you're just following the trend by leaving a bad review?" He leaned forward, his tall frame looming over the person in the doorway, his shadow swallowing them whole. "Since you left a bad review, I’m here to provide some after-sales service, of course." He crinkled his eyes into a soft, gentle smile, but his tone was brimming with unmistakable danger and mockery. "So, here I am. To teach you how to use it."