Reborn as a Ruthless Entrepreneur in Another World

Chapter Two: The Gilded Shackles

As the carved envelope split open with the morning light, Chen Mo caught a whiff of the unique osmanthus fragrance of the Elf race. It was the scent left on his cuff by the young apprentice who had fainted the previous night, but now it felt like a rusty nail piercing into the palm where he gripped the quill. Three Elf craftsmen stood awkwardly at the doorway of the study. The eldest one was rubbing the sealing wax of the agreement with fingertips as rough as bark, and the faint green tips of his ears had turned a nervous pale greenish-white.

"Lord Earl, this pattern here... the osmanthus pattern..." The old craftsman suddenly spoke, his voice carrying the instinctive vigilance of the children of the forest towards unknown symbols. "It resembles the ring patterns of the Ancient Elf Tree..."

"This is a revelation from the gods," Chen Mo dipped the quill into the ink of magical essence and drew a smooth percent sign on the parchment—a symbol deemed a "cognition blind spot" by the system. "Osmanthus represents eternity, rings symbolize accumulation, and this symbol..." He paused, drawing exquisite vine patterns around "0%", "is the perfect fusion of natural laws and commercial wisdom."

The young apprentice, clutching a bowl of medicine in the corner, still had traces of feverish redness on his pale face. His dagger was gone, replaced by a "work injury allowance" sent by Chen Mo in the wee hours—a magic essence crystal worth five gold coins, now being held by the old craftsman, reflecting a light woven with greed and suspicion. The system interface buzzed timely, with the morality value slightly dipping from % to 3%, accompanied by a stinging pain at the back of his neck, reminiscent of the suffocation he felt when scolded by a client in his past life for "not knowing reverence."

"Working 2 hours a day is the basic requirement," Chen Mo unfolded the second document, with Excel Alchemy generating complex compound interest formulas on the back. "But considering your piety, for the first three months, you may enjoy 'first-time loan benefits'—only requiring an initial interest rate of... hmm, 0%."

The apprentice suddenly choked, shattering the medicine bowl into pieces on the stone floor. "%? But my grandfather said the traditional lending practices of the Elf race..." He stumbled forward but was pulled back by the old craftsman. Chen Mo noticed the old man's knuckles turning white as he clutched the crystal, while his ear tips subtly oriented towards the words "Moonlight Workshop Entry Qualification" on the agreement—a sacred place fabricated by Chen Mo using PPT hypnosis, purportedly holding the "lost heritage" of the Elf race.

"Tradition?" Chen Mo sneered, his finger trailing over the exemption clauses written in ancient Elf script on the parchment, which were actually gibberish generated by Excel functions. "When the iron ores of the Orc race are sold at the gates of the Elf Forest, how many gold coins can your traditions fetch? Look out the window!" He suddenly raised his voice, startling the crows away from the windowsill. "That dilapidated watchtower was raided by Goblins three days ago, and your tax money is still molding away in the toolbox of the workshop!"

This was the "information gap fraud" strategy pushed by the system the previous night. In fact, the Goblin raid was a false intelligence purchased by Chen Mo for points in the mall, but when he projected the "eyewitness testimony" onto the parchment using magical essence, the Elf's ear tips instantly drooped—a stress response when the clan faces a crisis. The system interface buzzed again, with the morality value dropping to 1%. However, Chen Mo saw something else in the apprentice's misty eyes: the seeds of doubt were sprouting.

The agreement signing process went smoother than expected. The old craftsman was the first to press his palm print, and Chen Mo noticed his fingertips lingered for three seconds over the word "voluntary"—a term written in the common language of humans, subtly yet fatally different from the Elf word for "contract." The young apprentice was the last to put pen to parchment, the quill smearing ink blobs on the parchment like the chaos in his mind at the moment. Chen Mo suddenly recalled the scene of an intern forced to sign a "voluntary waiver of social security" in his past life; the same scene overlapping across different timespaces triggered a wave of nausea in his stomach.

Detected host triggering 'moral contrast' event, morality value rebounding to 2%.‌

The system prompt was like a bucket of cold water poured down his back. Chen Mo abruptly turned around, pretending to organize the magical tomes on the bookshelf, but caught a glimpse of the osmanthus crest on the cover of "Elf Race Code"—identical to the pattern on his fabricated agreement. He suddenly realized that these "backward" inhabitants of the other world might be closer to some primitive sense of justice than he had imagined.

"Three shifts starting this afternoon," his voice was sandier than expected. "The Moonlight Workshop will be located in the old mine, where the concentration of magical essence is three times that of the surface." The apprentice looked up abruptly, about to speak but was cut off by Chen Mo handing him a pair of goggles. These were inferior protective gear redeemed with system points, with the label "Adventurer Special Offer" still stuck on the lenses, capable of filtering only 0% of magical radiation.

As dusk seeped into the corridor, Chen Mo heard soft sobbing from the staircase corner. The young apprentice was hiding behind the armor display, his shoulders shaking as he clutched a crumpled parchment—a copy of the agreement clauses he had secretly transcribed. Chen Mo noticed the "%" on the paper was marked with countless question marks, beside which was written in Elf script, "My mother said interest should not exceed the growth rate of wheat." The system interface buzzed, with the morality value rebounding to 3%, accompanied by a throbbing pain in his temples, like someone pounding his nerves with abacus beads.

"What are you looking at?" As soon as he spoke, the apprentice hurriedly stuffed the paper into his chest. Chen Mo reached out and pressed down on the apprentice's thin shoulders, feeling the prominent ridges of his shoulder blades—a body that should have been chasing light spots in the forest, not calculating magical essence conversion rates in a mine. Suddenly, a warm sensation surged up his throat as he recalled feeding the apprentice medicine last night, the child muttering deliriously, "How tired the stars must be, shining for so long every day."

Consume points to eliminate moral fluctuations? Current point balance: points.‌

Chen Mo stared at the option on his retina, listening to the sound of gears turning in the workshop from afar. The Elves were using the "efficiency-boosting incantation" designed by him—in reality, a s*****y contract binding working hours to magical power—to cut magic essence crystals. The Excel spreadsheet on the parchment showed that today's earnings were sufficient to cover the repair costs of the west wall of the castle, but the dark circles under the apprentice's eyes expanded like ink stains in his vision.

"Get to work!" He roughly pushed the apprentice aside, turning around and knocking over armor. Amid the clanging of metal, he heard something c***k inside his chest, like the barely audible sigh when he patted the intern's shoulder during the last team-building activity in his past life, saying, "There'll be plenty of chances later."

The study was like a furnace in the dead of night. Chen Mo frowned at the balance sheet on the parchment, with the actual interest rate formula for magic essence loans twisting into grotesque vines under the candlelight. He accessed the system mall, his gaze lingering between "Employee Loyalty Potion" and "Work Injury Exemption Contract," ultimately selecting "Memory Blurring Dust"— points, causing the user to have biased memories of specific events. As he wrote "Voluntarily waive the right to pursue work-related injuries" on the back of the agreement, his morality value plummeted to 9%, accompanied not by a headache but by a bizarre sense of relief, like untying the first button choking his neck.

At 3 a.m., Chen Mo was awakened by pounding at the door. The old craftsman stood there supporting the unconscious apprentice, with greenish blood seeping from the latter's nostrils—a sign of magical overload. The system interface buzzed frantically, with the morality value rebounding at a visible speed, %, %, %... Chen Mo violently tore open his collar, staring at the apprentice's ear tips fading to grayish-white, suddenly remembering the terms like "karoshi obesity" and "self-treatment of work-related injuries" in news stories from his past life.

"Take him to the infirmary," he heard himself say, his voice eerily calm. The old craftsman was stunned, while Chen Mo had already turned towards the bookshelf, his fingertips gliding over the cover of "Elf Race Medical Sanctum"—a fake scripture redeemed with points earlier that day, filled with lies about "magical poisoning" cures crafted with Excel formulas.

The apprentice was placed in a guest room in the tower when Chen Mo slipped a honeycake beside his pillow—a "placebo effect enhancer" produced by the system. When the old craftsman kissed his handback with a choked sob, Chen Mo suddenly found himself smiling, a well-practiced expression of pity from client funerals in his past life. The system prompt timely sounded: ‌Detected host completing the 'hypocritical performance' achievement, morality value dropping to %, unlocking 'emotion manipulation'.‌

As dawn climbed up the windowsill, Chen Mo sat beside the apprentice's bed, watching the latter's peaceful sleeping face due to the medication. The "medical agreement" on the parchment was already signed, with the words "Treatment fees to be deducted from salary, interest rate subject to magic essence loan standards" written in ancient Elf script. He touched the mole at the corner of his left eye, recalling the "quotes of ruthless entrepreneurs" he saw in the mall last night: ‌True compassion is to let the weak perish in hope.‌

On the system interface, the morality value stood still at 0%. Chen Mo stood up, casually shoving "Elf Race Code" into the shadows at the bottom of the bookshelf. Outside the window, the lights of the Elf workshop burned through the night, the newly cast magic essence crystals twinkling in the morning mist, resembling the ever-lit LED screens in the office buildings of his past life. He suddenly smiled, a smile containing enlightenment about the system's mechanism, a desire to conquer the rules of the other world, and a trace of addiction to decadence that he himself was reluctant to admit.

When the first scream of a work-related injury echoed from the mine, Chen Mo was signing the second magic essence loan agreement. This time, the borrower was a half-Elf girl who wanted to use the loan to treat her mother's illness, failing to notice that the "collateral" section of the agreement did not list property but her unawakened magical talent. The system interface buzzed, with the morality value as steady as a rock—he finally understood that moral constraints were merely parameters to be optimized, and his Excel spreadsheet never needed the redundant item of "morality."

Key Setting Completion‌:

Magic Essence Loan Mechanism‌: Leveraging the Elf race's cognitive blind spot regarding decimals and percentages, the % annual interest rate is split into "3% monthly interest + 5% quarterly service fee + % year-end gratitude fund," circumventing the "visual impact of usury" through nested complex formulas.

Morality Value Fluctuation Rules‌: Actively implementing systematic exploitation (such as institutional fraud) leads to a significant drop, while passively addressing moral conflicts (such as witnessing work-related injuries) may trigger a rebound. Using system items can forcibly intervene in fluctuations but consumes points.

Legal Loopholes in the Other World‌: Nobles possess economic jurisdiction within their territories. Chen Mo circumvents the supervision of the church and kingdom by fabricating clauses in the "Ancient Elf Commercial Code," packaging modern financial traps as "traditional contractual wisdom."