I met my whole family through Baidu Tieba.

Pang Dehai also noticed this scene and looked over.

The first thing he noticed was the beautiful girl in the group; she was so beautiful that Pang Dehai was stunned for a moment.

Then, with a second glance, Pang Dehai noticed the target of those people's greetings.

That was the most handsome guy in the group, responding to everyone who greeted him: "Good morning." "Good morning to you too."...

The newcomers were Shen Kang and his gang.

Among those who greeted him were local teams from Yangcheng, who had witnessed Shen Kang's extraordinary abilities during the last city-level competition; and also teams from other cities participating in this provincial competition, such as Huayi Normal College and Qiannan University of Nationalities, who had seen Shen Kang yesterday and realized he seemed to have some talent.

For a time, Shen Kang became very popular.

The captain from Yangda University even chatted with Shen Kang for a couple of minutes.

"Old Shen, your project is absolutely amazing! I reckon you'll win this provincial competition too."

"It's alright, it's alright."

Zhou Man followed beside him, watching with great interest. Seeing that the young man was quite popular, she was also quite happy.

Many others, with sharp eyesight, looked over there from a distance, unable to discern the contestant's background.

The same applies to Pang Dehai's table.

Many people looked in that direction.

Meanwhile, the people at the two tables next to him, who had been watching Pang Dehai, also looked over there.

This annoyed Pang Dehai, who felt his limelight had been stolen by this guy. What bothered him even more was that no one had greeted him when he entered.

"Yao Shubin, do you know who this person is?"

Feeling frustrated, Pang Dehai asked Yao Shubin, who was standing next to him.

Surprisingly, Yao Shubin actually knew.

"I know, the captain of the Yang University of Science and Technology team is named Shen Kang."

Upon hearing that Yao Shubin actually knew him, a girl from Sanshan College turned around and asked, "Is he famous? It seems like a lot of people know him and have a good relationship with him."

As soon as the girl asked the question, several other people around looked over.

Seeing this, Yao Shubin's eyes welled up with tears—it was still Shen Kang!

As soon as Shen Kang appeared, he didn't need to say a word to attract everyone's attention and shut up the incessantly chattering Pang Dehai, finally bringing silence.

Shen Kang can not only get people to give him face from a distance, but he can also suppress pretentious people from a distance!

This Shen Kang is so useful, it's really great.

Yao Shubin's liking for Shen Kang grew even stronger, and he said, "He's quite famous, I suppose. You arrived late last night, so you missed something..."

Yao Shubin recounted in detail yesterday's "giving face remotely" incident.

The students of Sanshan Academy were hearing about this for the first time, and they were all surprised. Their gazes toward Shen Kang became even more curious and interested.

Two girls from Sanshan College started discussing, "Why do you think those two people would give him face?" "Probably because they're rich kids. Those two have business dealings with his family, that's why they know each other."...

It's not just them.

The students at the next table didn't know Shen Kang either. After hearing what Yao Shubin said, they even leaned over and asked him a few more questions.

Yao Shubin responded while observing Pang Dehai's expression, feeling quite pleased.

So he simply told her about some things he had found out yesterday.

"I heard from someone at Yang University that the competition he participated in also had a very interesting story..."

Yao Shubin heard about Shen Kang's performance in the city-level competition last night while visiting various places and making connections. He recounted how Shen Kang presented his project at the city-level competition, only to be thoroughly criticized by the judges.

Upon hearing this, Pang Dehai's mood improved somewhat, and he finally spoke up: "The challenge is actually quite simple. He can't even handle this? Haha."

Yao Shubin smiled.

He deliberately divided the story into two parts in order to entice Pang Dehai to speak.

Sure enough, Pang Dehai couldn't wait to speak up.

Yao Shubin continued the story: "But it didn't end there. The people from Yang University said that they immediately modified their team's project based on the judges' comments, creating a C2B2C solution..."

It was about what I heard last night. Yao Shubin remembered many details quite clearly and recounted them one by one.

"...After he made those changes, the judges couldn't find any fault with it anymore, and they all gave it very high praise. They even stopped caring about the competition time. While others only gave presentations for ten or fifteen minutes, I heard that he gave a presentation for more than forty minutes. This was because the judges were so impressed with his revised project that they weren't just giving feedback, but were actually discussing it together."

Yao Shubin observed that as his new story unfolded, Pang Dehai fell silent again.

This made Yao Shubin very happy.

This was the first time he'd ever helped someone else show off, and he actually felt this good—that's amazing.

Such a twist in the story naturally surprised everyone.

Pang Dehai suddenly spoke up: "Is this really a last-minute modification to a project plan? To the extent you're describing it, isn't that a bit of an exaggeration?"

Yao Shubin smiled inwardly and said, "It's no exaggeration. That guy from Yangda said he wrote down the general outline of the project right away, intending to actually implement it. And from what he said, it seems he wasn't the only one planning to do this. You can imagine how good this on-site, improvised project plan was."

Pang Dehai was even more frustrated.

Yao Shubin was even happier.

……

Shen Kang and his group kept agreeing with each other until they finally found an empty table to sit down and start ordering.

Breakfast was served quickly, one serving for each person.

"That's the only downside of this hotel," Ma Liang complained as he started eating. "The breakfasts are all fixed. The last hotel we stayed at had a buffet breakfast, where you could eat whatever you wanted."

The hotel provided dinner yesterday as well, offering several set menus to choose from.

"It's free, we should be grateful to have something to eat," Shen Kang said casually.

Ye Jintong, sitting opposite, said, "However, the chef at this hotel is very skilled; the food tastes much better than at the last hotel."

As Ye Jintong spoke, she scooped up another spoonful of porridge and pointed to a small piece of mushroom in the bowl of vegetable and lean meat porridge. "It's quite creative. Adding chicken leg mushrooms to vegetable and lean meat porridge tastes pretty good."

As he spoke, he put it in his mouth and ate it with relish.

Shen Kang looked at the "mushroom" she had just pointed to and thought to himself, "Sister, this isn't a chicken leg mushroom, it's a matsutake mushroom." The chef's skills are certainly good, but not ridiculously so; it's mainly because the ingredients are high-quality and expensive.

However, Shen Kang naturally didn't say it out loud, but just glanced at Zhou Man sitting next to him.

Zhou Man ordered the same Chinese breakfast as Ye Jintong, which included a bowl of vegetable and lean meat porridge, a small plate of shrimp and egg stir-fry, a small plate of ham slices, a small plate of freshly cut fruit, and a small bowl of yogurt.

Zhou Man was eating a piece of shrimp and scrambled eggs with her chopsticks, seemingly lost in thought.

Shen Kang knew what she was thinking, so he leaned closer and whispered, "It seems like only our table is like this; it was the same at dinner yesterday."

Zhou Man also whispered, "Was this arranged by Sun Hongjun?"

"Most likely."

Zhou Man laughed. "He really knows how to make dishes. It looks the same as other people's dishes, but the ingredients are really different. It's Iberian black pork, matsutake mushrooms, and fresh tiger prawns."

Shen Kang joked, "President Zhou, you're quite knowledgeable. I can't taste it, but I know it's not ordinary. Actually, yesterday's dinner was really outrageous; I turned his yogurt into bird's nest stewed milk."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Man smiled slightly and said, "I was wondering why it was so strange that breakfast wasn't a buffet. It turns out that it's not easy to arrange special dishes for you at a buffet."

After saying that, he lowered his voice and started talking about serious business with Shen Kang: "There's something you need to know. Haobo Hotel is planning to open a branch in Xiahai, and they'll be sending Sun Hongjun there to inspect it. If it's successful, Sun Hongjun will also become the general manager there. Although it's a lateral transfer, the Xiahai branch is of a higher standard, so it's actually considered a promotion. The reason they're sending Sun Hongjun is because he's been very good at flattering you, 'Young Master Shen'."

Upon hearing this, Shen Kang sensed that Zhou Man's intentions went beyond simply opening a Xia Hai store; however, he didn't know exactly what Zhou Man wanted to achieve. Nevertheless, he understood Zhou Man's meaning.

"If anyone asks me about this, I'll just admit it: Sun Hongjun got the position of general manager at Xiahai store because he followed my lead, right?" Shen Kang asked.

Zhou Man hummed in agreement. "That's roughly the gist of it. How you respond is up to you. But it's possible no one will come to you asking."

"Okay, I understand."

After Shen Kang and his group sat down and ate, the college students who participated in the innovation and entrepreneurship competition also quieted down and continued eating.

The only difference from before was that some people who didn't know Shen Kang started asking around and whispering among themselves.

At Pang Dehai and Yao Shubin's table, Pang Dehai started speaking again, trying to regain the spotlight from Shen Kang.

I must say, Pang Dehai has a strong mental fortitude and a clear line of thought.

He started by examining Shen Kang's "remote gesture of respect" incident, which revealed his "suspected rich second-generation" status.

"It's better to have your own than to have your own parents. In the end, we're here to participate in the innovation and entrepreneurship competition. The real ability and skill lies in standing out from the competition on our own."

Upon hearing this, everyone agreed. After all, they were all from ordinary families, without parents to rely on, so they subconsciously felt that relying on parents wasn't a real skill, and that it was much more impressive to have one's own abilities.

Pang Dehai continued, "In competitions, the real-world competitions are actually more difficult than the challenge rounds. No matter what the project, no matter how eloquently it's presented in the PowerPoint, it ultimately has to be implemented in practice. I've seen many projects that sound incredibly impressive, boasting about their models and strategies, as if they'd be guaranteed success once implemented. But reality is often harsh; the vast majority of these projects encounter various real-world problems as soon as they're implemented and then fail miserably. Let me give you a simple example..."

Pang Dehai was indeed trained through practical experience, and he had also encountered some of the problems in society.

He simply gave two examples of troublesome kids, which opened the eyes of these college students, making them realize that this kind of thing could happen in the real world.

In Pang Dehai's two cases, the projects failed precisely because of these practical details.

Because these two examples were based on real experiences of one of Pang Dehai's friends, they were detailed and persuasive, and everyone accepted them upon hearing them.

Some people couldn't help but exclaim, "It sounds like there's a huge difference between real-world practice and PowerPoint presentations!"

Some people said, "If I were in that situation... I really wouldn't know what to do."

Seeing that he had swayed the tide, Pang Dehai was very pleased and immediately said, "That's why just looking at the PPT isn't very meaningful; it's just about participating in the competition. To truly prove yourself, we'll have to put you to the test..."

Pang Dehai resumed his eloquent speech, once again adopting the demeanor of a seasoned gangster.

And the focus of attention once again shifted to Pang Dehai.

Even the two girls from Pingxi College listened again, thinking that compared to the rich second generation who only knew how to make PPTs, the first generation of entrepreneurs who were actually doing real work seemed to be more attractive.

Seeing this, Yao Shubin couldn't help but feel depressed again as he watched Pang Dehai regain his high spirits.

That's really impressive.

He thought he could use Shen Kang to suppress this show-off from a distance and stop him from jumping again. Unexpectedly, Pang Dehai spun around and jumped up again.

Yao Shubin had also fallen into a path dependency; seeing this situation, he wanted to use Shen Kang to suppress this pretentious person from a distance. However, he had already said everything Shen Kang had to say, and for the moment, he really didn't know how to use Shen Kang to suppress this pretentious person.

Lu Zijian, on the other hand, remained as laid-back as ever.

Just then, their breakfast was served, so Lu Zijian stopped playing on his phone and quietly buried himself in his breakfast.

Just as Pang Dehai was talking non-stop, Lu Zijian was eating breakfast in a Buddhist-like manner, and Yao Shubin was thinking about how to suppress that pretentious person, someone else arrived at the entrance of the Chinese restaurant.

The visitors this time were neither college students participating in the innovation and entrepreneurship competition nor ordinary hotel guests, but reporters.

Don't ask how anyone knew the other person was a reporter—the one in front was holding a microphone, and the one behind was carrying a camera on his shoulder. Anyone who isn't blind could tell they were reporters.

The appearance of these two people also drew the attention of many people in the Chinese restaurant, who looked on with some confusion: Why are there reporters here?

Following everyone's gaze, the two walked in a certain direction and eventually arrived at Shen Kang's table.

Shen Kang had already stood up at this moment.

Under everyone's gaze, Shen Kang extended his hand and shook hands with the reporter in front of him, saying, "Welcome, welcome."

It was obvious that these two people were looking for Shen Kang.