Forcing Me to Be Reborn?!

Chapter 119: Chapter 103: Open for Business to Her Only

At the entrance of “Youu Come to Play,” student Cheng Youu in a little white dress fell into a brief daze.

Sometimes, the astonished expressions of the children were really cute, and a bit… funny?

But her chubby little face, paired with her big eyes, made her look even more endearingly clueless.

Children’s thought processes don’t necessarily align with adults, and Cheng Zhu wasn’t sure if his little sister had figured out that I, her brother, was the owner of this shop.

However, it was clear that her focus was elsewhere at the moment.

Cheng Zhu waved her in, and once inside, she eagerly looked around, occasionally standing on tiptoe, clutching the claw machine’s controls, and peering into each machine to see what the stuffed toys inside looked like.

Whenever she saw a cute one, she’d let out a tiny “Wow~”

After she had toured every corner of “Youu Come to Play,” Cheng Zhu crouched down and asked her, “Do you like it here? This shop?”

“Yeah! I love it!” Little Youzi nodded enthusiastically.

Only then did Cheng Zhu proudly thump his chest and announced, “This shop is mine.”

Then he gently patted his sister’s little head and added, “Of course, it’s yours too.”

And sure enough, he could vaguely see a look of disbelief in her eyes.

As expected, she wouldn’t have known it was my shop if I hadn’t told her.

“Brother, why is there no one else in the store?” she asked curiously, looking around as if she was concerned about the business.

She truly is the little princess of the Yunlai Restaurant, already thinking about customer traffic at such a young age.

“It’s because the store hasn’t officially opened yet, sort of like… kindergarten hasn’t started?”

“Today is just for you,” Cheng Zhu grinned.

Anyway, he was going to try each machine, and it was perfect for Little You to join in.

Besides, on the taxi ride over, student Cheng Youu had already paid her brother the one yuan coin she had saved up.

So, Cheng Zhu turned to her and asked, “Ready to start clawing for stuffed toys?”

“I am!” Little Youzi immediately raised her hand.

“Alright then, what do we need to play the claw machine?”

“We need… I know! I know! Game Coins!”

“Exactly!” Cheng Zhu patted her and motioned her to follow him.

There was a coin dispenser in the corridor.

In “Youu Come to Play” there were two coin dispensers, one at the counter and one in the hallway.

The one in the hallway was for VIP customers with membership cards.

As long as you had a “Youu Come to Play” membership card and the card still had funds, you could swipe for coins at the machine, convenient and quick.

But for the shop owner like him, his card naturally had… unlimited coins!

Standing before the machine, Cheng Zhu held his head high; he then pulled out the one yuan coin Little Youzi had given him from his trouser pocket.

“You gave your brother one yuan, right?” he asked his sister.

“Yeah!” Little Youzi nodded vigorously.

“Well then… I’m returning the favor.” Cheng Zhu swiped his exclusive BOSS card on the machine, entered a six-digit password, and the coin dispenser started spewing coins crazily.

The speed at which the coins dropped was shockingly fast!

The silver coins, under the light, were so dazzling, so brilliant.

The sound of their fall was also so pleasant, so resounding.

Ten coins, fifty coins, a hundred coins…

Cheng Zhu stood there tall and proud, enjoying the gaze of his sister, feeling like he was nailing the cool act!

…

…

Each “Youu Come to Play” was equipped with wicker boxes for holding Game Coins.

Each box could hold about two hundred coins.

Cheng Zhu filled five boxes for Little Youzi in one go and lined them up neatly on the counter.

For kindergarten kids, this was an incomparable visual shock!

Cheng Zhu remembered when he was a child going to such game rooms, envying adults with boxes brimming with coins so much.

Many children who lacked money to play would stand by and watch others at arcade games and still find it thrilling.

Children’s happiness is always so simple. But once people grow up, happiness becomes harder to attain.

Because everyone’s happiness threshold is, in fact, continually rising.

But that doesn’t matter.

Right now, Little Youzi was very happy.

Although she knew that her brother owned the store, the sight of those five full boxes of Game Coins still made her mouth fall open in awe.

Cheng Zhu watched her and predicted that next week at Sunshine Kindergarten, she would most likely show off to her classmates with gusto.

For some reason, just imagining it made Cheng Zhu feel awesome.

As someone who was a habitual braggart, recognized as the king of braggarts in his friends’ circle in his past life, he shouldn’t get such a thrill out of this.

But family is, after all, different.

It’s like when your parents brag about their children to others, and you listen in, you might even feel more elated than if you yourself had boasted.

“Ha, wait till I give the kids at Sunshine Kindergarten a little shock with these Game Coins!” Cheng Zhu’s smile was stretching ear to ear.

He casually picked up a box of coins and handed it to Little Youzi.

Cheng Youu took it with both hands, almost dropping it.

For a child, a full box of coins was indeed too heavy.

But she held it with a determined little face, struggling to keep it, unwilling to let go.

“It’s okay, it’s okay; we don’t need to carry it around.”

Cheng Zhu tersely placed one box of coins in front of each of the five machines.

A joke, how could my little sister’s hands handle carrying around so many coins?

I’ll just set them all up! Fully stocked in front of each machine!

After doing this, he said to Little Youzi, “Wait a second, I’ll get you a special little stool.”

The child was too short to operate the claw machines by herself and needed to stand on a chair.

Speaking of height, both Cheng and Xu Yun weren’t short. Cheng Zhu’s height of over 1.8 meters certainly made him tall in the south.

Well, people from Shandong don’t need to comment on this!

Little Youzi, although still young, had good proportions and would surely grow up to be a long-legged beauty.

Cheng Zhu fetched a small pink stool from the counter, which he had prepared earlier.

The stool legs were very sturdy, not like those cheap, lightweight plastic stools, to prevent his sister from accidentally falling.

He followed her around, watching her play the claw machines.

Little Youzi was conscientious, only clawing one toy per machine, even if she really liked the style, she wouldn’t go for a second.

Because she knew that these toys were for her brother to make money with.

Just a tiny one for me would be good!

Cheng Zhu, meanwhile, took notes on his phone for each machine’s settings, as some probabilities he’d later increase, others decrease.

He was going to calculate the costs and profits, making sure the final earnings met his expectations.

Of course, these specialty claw machine shops had a higher winning rate than the average arcade.

Also steep, but not as extortionate.

“Thank goodness for competition,” Cheng Zhu thought to himself.

Just then, two girls stopped outside the store and looked in.

It was unclear if they hadn’t noticed the “Not Yet Open” notice on the door, or if it was for some other reason, but they walked in and asked, “Excuse me, I’d like to know… is this place open?”

Cheng Zhu glanced back at them; the girl who asked the question was quite pretty, roughly 1.2 times prettier than Chen Tingting, the beauty of the computer science class in level two.

Shaking his head, he continued to focus on playing with his sister, as he already answered several people about the same issue, saying:

“I’m sorry, we will only officially open to the public on Monday. Right now, in the entire shop, she is the only one who can play.”

…

…

By 8:40 p.m., Little Youzi had bagged a full sack of stuffed toys.

These special bags in the store were transparent long bags, about 80 centimeters long, and could be carried.

This design was also intended for customers to take photos; the toys could all be packed into these transparent bags and then carried for pictures.

“Did you only grab one from each machine?” Cheng Zhu asked her.

Little Youzi nodded, eventually adding, “Brother, I really like this pink rabbit, can I have another one? I’ll just take two of them, is that okay?”

“Of course,” Cheng Zhu smiled.

Then he rolled down the shutter door, adjusted the setting of each machine by himself.

After everything was set, he cut the power and locked the door, taking his sister home.

In the past, Cheng Youu would have been both excited and nervous bringing so many dolls home.

The reason was simple: she was afraid of getting a few words from her mother.

But today, there wasn’t a trace of nervousness, she felt like a victorious general, believing she had won a battle in the stuffed toy store!

It’s my brother’s store! He said I was the only one allowed to play today! No one can complain about me!

When the two arrived home at half-past nine, Comrade Cheng had also come home early, suggesting the restaurant had emptied quickly that day.

For Cheng Zhu, Cheng’s early return was also good news. After all, today was his… showdown day?

As soon as the siblings entered the house, their parents’ attention was immediately drawn to the bag full of plush toys.

Xu Yun frowned slightly, saying, “Did you take her to the arcade again? And you got so many stuffed toys.”

The Cheng family was famously biased towards the daughter, not minding spending money on her. Getting some plush toys was no big deal, little girls all like dolls, but this was too much!

Moreover, the parents were well aware that arcades were businesses: capturing toys from machines was certainly more costly than buying them outright.

Oh, how much wasted money…

Xu Yun looked at her daughter and said, “Didn’t we agree last time, dear? Mom knows you like the process of clawing toys, and I haven’t stopped you from playing, right?”

“Right.” Little Youzi nodded.

“But you promised Mommy, right, that from now on you would only claw three at an arcade, and if you want more, we have an agreement to go buy them in a store.”

Xu Yun was quite generous with these terms; she firmly believed that claw machines were a scam, but also respected her daughter’s experience, valuing the joy she got from the process of capturing toys.

But still, one cannot indulge in uncontrolled happiness.

Children can’t be spoiled without conditions.

Little Youzi lifted her head and said, “But we didn’t go to an arcade.”

She looked straight at her mother, with an unshakable voice she firmly said, “My brother said it wasn’t an arcade, it’s my castle!”

The couple on the sofa exchanged looks, then both stared at Cheng Zhu.

Alright, son, did you start deceiving the child with fancy talk again?