Rebate King: Every Beauty I Spoil Makes Me a Billionaire-Chapter 22: Peak Of Beauty
Maya and Xenia had been far too enthusiastic for Stan’s own good.
No matter how many times he tried to wave them off, the two of them kept loading up shopping bags in his name, designer suits, luxury watches, leather accessories, all of it stacked into glossy paper totes with crisp embossed logos. By the time the whole entourage finally drifted out of the mall, Stan was carrying more brand names on his person than most people owned in a lifetime.
As dusk started to settle over the city, Xenia said her polite goodbyes and slipped away first, already tapping out messages on her phone as she walked. Maya lingered a little longer, reluctant to let the afternoon end, before finally heading home herself.
Stan had the pile of designer clothes delivered back to his own place rather than dragged into the dorm. Walking through the dormitory gates with half a luxury boutique on his shoulder would be far too flashy, and he still had every intention of keeping his low profile intact, at least for a little while longer.
It was already past six by the time he made it back to Peak University.
He was still wearing one of the outfits Maya had bought him, a sharply tailored fit that sat cleanly on his shoulders, the fabric catching the warm amber light of the setting sun as he walked through the main gate. He hadn’t thought much of the change when he’d put it on that afternoon. But a few heads turned as he passed the gatehouse. Then a few more. Clothes really did make the man.
He was halfway across the courtyard when the shouting started.
"The goddess, the goddess is here!"
"Sophie Youngs came out of her dorm!"
Stan’s footsteps slowed. ’Sophie Youngs.’
Even he had heard the name, and he wasn’t the type to keep up with campus gossip. Sophie Youngs was, by nearly unanimous agreement, the most beautiful girl at Peak University, her reputation outstripping Sarah’s, Maya’s, and every other so-called campus belle people liked to argue over in the cafeteria.
She was a senior, notoriously reclusive, and rarely seen in public. When she did appear, word traveled through the student body faster than any group chat could keep up with. In all his time at Peak, Stan had never actually laid eyes on her himself.
A crowd had already formed around the convenience store up ahead, three, maybe four rings deep. Mostly boys. A few curious girls scattered through the mix. Phones were out. Several people were leaning on each other’s shoulders trying to see over the heads in front of them.
Out of pure curiosity, Stan drifted closer.
Then she stepped out of the store.
A slim figure in a soft blue dress, black stockings, knee-high jet-black boots, long hair lifting gently in the evening breeze as she walked. She carried a single plastic shopping bag in one hand, just a few everyday items from inside, but the way the crowd reacted, she might as well have been stepping off a red carpet.
Her face silenced half the onlookers for a full beat before the murmuring started back up.
Even Stan, who had spent the entire afternoon surrounded by women the system rated in the high eights, quietly swallowed.
’So that’s her.’
A clear notch above Sarah. Slightly prettier than Maya too. Not by a massive margin, but enough that the difference registered immediately, the way a small change in key registers in a familiar song.
[Sophie Youngs: Appearance Rating 9.5. Eligible for consumption binding. Bind?]
The system chime landed in his ear right on cue.
’Bind,’ Stan thought without a second of hesitation. An opportunity like this didn’t walk past you twice in one lifetime.
[Binding successful. Reward: 10% of Wanhai Group shares.]
The corner of Stan’s mouth twitched upward.
The last time he’d bound a target, Xenia, just a few nights ago, the reward had also been Wanhai Group shares. Between the two bindings and the original thirty percent from earlier, his stake in the conglomerate was climbing into genuinely absurd territory.
He’d need to sit down with a calculator at some point and figure out exactly how much of Wanhai Group was now technically his.
But that was a problem for later.
Right now, there was a more immediate question.
[Sophie Youngs, Favorability: 0]
No surprise there. They’d never so much as made eye contact before. He was starting from zero.
Which meant he needed a reason, any reason, to actually spend money on her. The consumption rebate mechanic only triggered on expenditures directed at a bound target, and random unsolicited gifts weren’t going to work on a girl like Sophie.
A woman who turned the entire campus into a parade route just by walking to the convenience store wasn’t the type who’d accept a cold approach from a stranger.
He needed a natural opening.
Stan took a quiet breath, adjusted the cuffs of his new jacket, and started easing his way through the outer rings of the crowd. People shifted and parted more readily than he’d expected, partly for the clothes, partly because he walked with the kind of unhurried confidence a man carries when he’s holding nine figures in his back pocket.
A faint, barely there floral scent drifted past as he got close to the inner ring. Something soft and expensive, it was a really nice perfume...
He stepped out of the crowd and into the open space in front of her.
He stepped out of the crowd and into the open space in front of her.
Her skin caught the amber light cleanly, without a single flaw to interrupt it. Her lashes were long enough to throw a soft shadow across her cheek when she blinked. Her features weren’t just beautiful, they were arranged beautifully, every angle finding the next with the kind of precision that usually required a camera filter and good lighting. She had neither. She didn’t need either. As for her figure, her shape was just perfect. It was so perfect that it felt unreal.
