It Must be the Fault of the Hideous Poster

Cloud Hao was busy with his company affairs all day. As night came, he got onto the subway and headed back to the dorm. However, he didn't expect that he would be torturously interrogated on his return…

"Brother Cloud, come clean."

Looking at Zhou Xuan's serious face, Cloud Hao, who had just changed into his slippers, was momentarily stunned.

"Come clean about what?"

Zheng Xueqian stopped writing and turned his chair around. With a wicked smile, he also joined in on the fun and said, "We saw you. You should just tell the truth to receive a lighter sentence. Which college is your girlfriend from? Introduce her to us."

Cloud Hao was completely bewildered.

What the hell?

Looking at the silent Cloud Hao, Zhou Xuan thought he was just shy. He became even more zealous and teased him while making eyes at him.

"Not bad, bro. You found a girlfriend within a month of coming to university. I thought Brother Ziyuan in your dorm would be the first to find a girlfriend. I didn't expect you to jump the gun."

"You guys can just tease Brother Cloud. Don't drag me into it."

Completely immersed in his own music, Ziyuan narrowed his eyes and played the guitar. He had no interest in this topic, much less in caring about the little fatso who always poked fun at him.

Cloud Hao felt tired at the moment. After running outside all day, he was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. He didn't even have the strength to retort. With a yawn, he said impatiently, "Get lost, get lost. Girlfriend, my a*s. I don't have time to play with you. I'm going to take a bath and hit the bed."

Zhou Xuan smiled and said, "That's enough; stop pretending. I clearly saw you sitting with a gorgeous girl in the cafeteria and eating together. She was smiling as pretty as a flower at you. The international practice is that if you're dating, you have to treat your single pals to a meal!"

Zheng Xueqian also joined the hype. "That's right. Treat! Hurry up and give us a treat!"

Smiling as pretty as a flower is still fine.

But is that how you use the phrase?

Besides, that's only because I recounted your embarrassing incidences.

If it was someone else who had such outrageous roommates, I'd probably be laughing at their misfortune till my sides split, let alone smiling as pretty as a flower.

"Treat my a*s—"

Just when Cloud Hao was about to retort, the door of the dorm room suddenly opened again.

This time, it was a rare visitor.

Brother Kening, the head of their dorm room, actually came back before ten o'clock for the first time ever.

Zheng Xueqian asked, "Woah, why are you back so early?"

"Hah, there's a troublesome matter." Under his roommate's curious gaze, Zhu Kening grimaced and neatly placed a thick pile of useless documents on the table. "For this year's freshmen welcome party, the Student Union's Literature and Art Department made it compulsory for every class to come up with a program."

"What happens if we don't?" the little fatso Zhou Xuan reflexively retorted.

Zhu Kening said with a grave expression, "Class points will be deducted."

Zhou Xuan said awkwardly, "Uh, in that case… It seems to be quite serious."

Cloud Hao wanted to probe further and ask what would happen if class points were deducted, but Brother Kening did not give him a chance. He had already turned to Brother Ziyuan with an imploring expression and said, "Brother Ziyuan… how about you cooperate with me?"

Zheng Xueqian: "?"

Zhou Xuan: "?!"

Cloud Hao's head was full of question marks.

Dorm room 401 fell into an awkward silence for a while.

Fortunately, the pick in Liang Ziyuan's hand only froze for half a second before he continued to strum the strings indifferently.

"It's stupid."

When they heard these two words, everyone in the room, except for Zhu Kening, heaved a sigh of relief.

Oh boy.

If this guy really goes up to sing, the auditorium will probably be turned upside-down by the people fleeing.

"I'm desperate. This job is too difficult. No matter how I rack my brains, it's useless. Nobody is willing to cooperate…" Zhu Kening grumbled as he rubbed his aching temples.

Speaking of which, this was the first time Cloud Hao was seeing a slightly more normal expression on this guy's face.

However, that made sense.

For him to come up with the terrible plan of finding Liang Ziyuan to go up to sing, it seemed that he had indeed been backed into a corner.

Cloud Hao mourned for him in his heart. Then, he grabbed the towel hanging next to the cabinet and prepared to take a shower.

However, at this moment, a line of light blue text quickly flashed before his eyes.

[Mission 2: Ensure that the Software Engineering Class 1801 wins first place in the welcome party]

Cloud Hao was utterly bewildered.

What the f*ck?

Two missions can be carried out at the same time?

…

Even though it was fine to not do the system missions, for Cloud Hao, that meant wasting a "suspected" SSR pawn.

There was no doubt that this task was related to Teammate Zhu.

According to the system rules, once the mission failed or was abandoned, the associated target might not be able to trigger a mission again for a certain period or even forever. In serious cases, the hidden potential stat might even decrease.

So far, Zhu Kening's hidden potential stat was still a question mark.

Although Cloud Hao was quite skeptical about Zhu Kening's abilities, he still had a tiny bit of anticipation.

After all, he had witnessed how incredible the system was.

Turning on the showerhead, Cloud Hao began scheming while slathering on the soap.

"Anyway, the registration deadline is still one week away. Let's see if anyone signs up."

"There's no need to count on Liang Ziyuan… If this guy goes up to perform and decides to improvise at the critical juncture, it's fine if he doesn't find it embarrassing, but my mission will fail."

There are still a lot of talents in Class 1801.

There was no lack of multi-talented people amongst those unchecked classmates.

When the time comes, I can just choose the one with the highest potential from the sign-ups to help me. Perhaps this task is actually quite easy?

Thinking about this, Cloud Hao, who had climbed into bed after taking a shower, finally closed his eyes with peace of mind. He fell asleep before Comrade Zhu Kening's snoring began…

…

The next day…

Cloud Hao got out of bed early and went downstairs after washing up.

When he passed by the dorm supervisor's office, he teased Yellow, who neither wanted to respond to him nor catch mice. Then, he headed straight for the school gate.

Today was Saturday, so he didn't have any classes.

It just so happened that the River Town South Talent Market campus recruitment fair was also today.

Whether or not he could complete the system mission depended on the success of this recruitment drive.

In order to save time, the usually stingy Cloud Hao became extravagant for once. He booked a cab online to rush to the Talent Center.

Although his preparations were hasty, the staff here went all out to solve these university students' employment issues. They even managed to prepare his booth and posters in one night.

"This is your work pass. Your booth is Booth 17, located in the fourth row of the hall on the first floor. There'll be a 15-minute roadshow at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon in the Lecture Theatre 12."

"Our staff will bring your poster over… Are you alone?"

The so-called roadshow was similar to a recruitment seminar, which was quite common in Country Xia.

The main purpose was to let the recruiters talk about the company's future plans and benefits. It was another mode of publicity besides the posters in front of the booth, primarily intended for companies that required talents with specialized skills.

Generally, the roadshows for the larger companies were held in the morning for about two hours. That was enough time for the HR sent by the recruiters to brag about how amazing they were. The even better companies would have another session in the afternoon, not talking about work but about ideals.

Regardless of whether the session was useful or not, the young people would usually listen carefully and even take down notes, fearing that they would be tested during the interview.

For small businesses, roadshows were more casual.

If they applied to participate, they would be slotted in after one in the afternoon, and it would usually last for about ten minutes.

After all, if the duration was too long, nobody would want to listen.

"Yup, it's just me… My turn in the roadshow will be at two o'clock in the afternoon?" Cloud Hao grumbled slightly. "Won't it just be other people's leftovers then?"

The staff member gave a dry cough and responded in a politically correct manner, "Don't worry about this… There's no lack of talent here. As long as the benefits are appropriate, I believe that you'll be able to hire the employees you need."

Will it really go that smoothly?

To be honest, Cloud Hao didn't doubt the staff member. His initial thoughts were even simpler than his.

After all, in his previous life, he had been standing in the position of a candidate waiting to be selected. In his impression, the HR responsible for recruitment simply needed to stand there and drink tea while waiting for the resumes to come knocking.

However, after the campus recruitment fair officially started, he gradually began to feel some pressure.

Even though the Talent Center was packed like sardines, with young faces in the aisle pushing each other forward like waves, only a few were willing to linger in front of his booth for a few seconds.

It was not that no one submitted their resumes.

It was just that their attitude was too nonchalant.

They were so carefree that it almost seemed like they were handing out a leaflet. They simply threw him their resume, thanked him, and left, with no intention of chatting with the boss, aka him.

The realization finally dawned on him that he had indeed underestimated the problem.

Although River Town was a city of universities, also well-known as the world's largest university city in this lifetime and had absolutely no lack of good-quality employees, there were also many top-grade companies here. For example, Long Wei, Dami, and Tenfly were all top 100 global corporations, having research and development bases here.

If they could, of course, everyone hoped to work in these renowned companies. The excellent salary and benefits were a given, and you would have a lot of face when telling others.

As for those small startups…

It was hard for them to see eye to eye with these job seekers.

It was very normal for them to dislike each other.

Cloud Hao pondered in front of the completely deserted booth for a long time and came to a conclusion.

The problem was most likely the poster!

However, this was inevitable since he had made the poster using PPT at the last minute. Apart from the basic information required to be on the cover, it was totally unattractive compared to the posters in front of the surrounding booths.

"Made a mistake…"

Looking at the indifferent crowd in front of him, Cloud Hao's brows involuntarily knitted together.

Yesterday, he only fantasized about how to showcase his talents at the job fair, but he forgot that recruitment was a two-way choice.

While he was choosing people, people were also choosing him.

No matter how high their hidden potential stat was, if they didn't come to his booth to submit their resume, or if they were not interested in his company, it was utterly useless.

Thus far, among the applicants, Cloud Hao did not meet any job seekers who triggered his innate abilities.

"It's not too late to redo the poster now… Looks like I'll have to bank it on the roadshow in the afternoon?"

Cloud Hao had initially planned to focus on the selections in the morning and just get the roadshow in the afternoon over and done with, but he gradually felt a sense of urgency rising in his heart.

Perhaps…

That might be his only hope.

…

Amidst the tense waiting preparations, it was finally two o'clock in the afternoon.

Cloud Hao had no appetite, only eating half of his lunch. He went straight to Lecture Theatre 12, took the microphone from the staff, and walked up to the podium.

Cloud Hao ignited his fighting spirit after much difficulty and looked at the audience seats. However, as if a bucket of cold water had been splashed on him, his heart sank.

I'm screwed.

There aren't many people sitting in this room!

He hadn't even started to talk, yet the candidates sitting there had disinterested expressions on their faces, giving his roadshow the death sentence before even kicking off. Many people sitting in the back row had even started to do the past-years Dami Corporation recruitment written test.

My God. So, these a*sholes are just here to take a break?

Seeing no signs of activity from Cloud Hao in a long time, the staff coughed to remind him.

"You can begin."

Nonetheless, Cloud Hao tried to salvage the situation. "Let's wait a little. Until there are a bit more people."

However, the staff member standing here was obviously not as enthusiastic as in the morning.

He already didn't have much patience for this job that was just for him to get by. He was just waiting to knock off work to go home to sleep. Hence, he said impatiently, "Whatever. If you want to wait for a while, you can wait for a while. I've already started the timer."

Cloud Hao was speechless.

F*ck! You're seriously not giving me any face!

What should I do?

Just start talking like this?

Like hell anybody would be interested, let alone a pawn with a hidden potential stat greater than 5!

However, just then, an idea struck the anxious Cloud Hao. He recalled the treasure still lying in the system inventory, resourcefully turned his head like lightning, and looked at the disgruntled staff member nearby.

"Open both the front and rear doors."

"Huh?" The staff member, fiddling with his watch in boredom, was stunned for a moment. Then, his brows furrowed as he asked, "The corridor is packed with people… You don't find it noisy?"

Cloud Hao shook his head.

"It's fine. Open it."

Despite being confused, he still skeptically cooperated with Cloud Hao's request.

As the front and rear doors opened, the noise from outside rushed into the lecture theatre. The backbenchers, jotting down their answers to the questions, frowned and stopped writing.

When Cloud Hao looked at the job applicants whispering to each other in the lecture theatre, he decided to go for broke. He held the microphone while crushing the motivational gem he had taken out from the system.

In the blink of an eye, it felt as if the microphone in his hand had become enchanted and was flickering with a glow that only he could see.

The light was faint, and it was hard to even notice it unless one scrutinized it.

Just when Cloud Hao was wondering why there was no response, an unknown energy poured outwards from the handle of the microphone, even making his palms feel slightly hot…

It's coming!

That burning feeling is here!

Taking a deep breath, Cloud Hao suppressed the restless emotions in his heart.

In a calm but destined-to-be-marvelous tone, he kicked off with his opening remarks for the roadshow.

"You guys—"

His voice was light, but it carried a lot of weight.

Driven by an unknown force, it caught the attention of almost everyone's ears…

And soul.

"Do you crave success?"

The moment his voice fell…

The atmosphere in the entire venue bubbled with energy!