A rough estimate: after working for eight days, Emily Foster has already earned over a thousand.

In August, Eric Bennett had been living in the Xuant Special District on the East Fourth Ring for more than a month and a half. With his efforts, he managed to achieve a monthly salary of over ten thousand, though of course, that was mainly thanks to the orders brought in by second-generation types like Brian Carter.

Before Emily Foster joined his small team, just a single internet café order had earned him ten thousand.

Later, Brian Carter found two more childhood friends from the Planning Bureau’s family compound who had started companies. For one company, from the boss’s high-end computers to the regular staff’s standard setups, a single order could net four to five thousand, and two orders nearly ten thousand.

After splitting fifty-fifty, he still got four or five thousand.

The rest was Emily Foster and Anna helping to hand out business cards and run errands.

The profit from assembling computers wasn’t bad, and repairs were decent too.

Now, Eric Bennett had not only paid three months’ rent at once and made up the deposit, but also bought an electric scooter for getting around.

Beijing’s public transport and subway system were fairly convenient, but for making house calls to repair computers around the neighborhood, an electric scooter was definitely much more suitable.

In this apartment building, he’d previously assembled computers for a few girls sharing a flat—thanks to the business cards Emily Foster handed out. She and Anna would calculate their share, basically using Eric Bennett’s business card, sometimes printing an extra “薇” or “依” character.

This made it easier to tell whose business it was when customers came calling.

This method wasn’t perfectly accurate, but it worked well enough for their makeshift team.

After nearly two months since his “transmigration,” Eric Bennett had been hustling for two months, and the prospects were looking quite promising.

Heaven rewards diligence system.

Host: Eric Bennett, 22 years old.

For every effort, there is a reward; you reap what you sow.

Cooking, Excellent, (462/1000).

Assembling and repairing computers, Average, (477/500).

Fitness, Excellent, (89/1000).

Architectural design, Beginner, (42/100).

Driving, Excellent, (317/1000).

Fishing, Average, (222/500).

…………

Besides cooking and fitness gradually reaching the excellent level, even his driving skill—which had long been stagnant—started to improve as he zipped around the city on his electric scooter.

No need to say much about cooking and driving.

Reaching “excellent” in fitness brought significant changes too: strength, speed, endurance—all were improving steadily. His muscles now easily showed off eight-pack abs and a v-line.

He was already a bit taller and more handsome than Brian Carter, and with his current physique, he was getting plenty of looks from women on the street. The bolder ones would even ask for his contact info.

Emily Foster shook her head shyly at his words. “I only worked eight days this month, sorry, Brother Bennett. It’s just been so hot…” Eric Bennett waved it off. “No worries, you’re all helping out voluntarily and freely. I know it’s hot—lots of people are getting heatstroke.”

This summer was truly scorching. In the original timeline, Lauren Harris took her ailing mother out by bus, got heatstroke on the bus, ended up in the hospital, and there were plenty of people around getting IVs for heatstroke.

That was when Lauren Harris finally decided to go work as a model at nightclubs, occasionally getting flowers from older men, being invited for drinks or meals—she needed to make money!

She argued and fought with Brian Carter over this more than once, since the usual routine after eating and drinking at nightclubs was to get a room.

Dealing with these half-neighbor, half-friend employees, Eric Bennett wasn’t some heartless capitalist… He didn’t expect to get rich just from assembling and repairing computers, so he didn’t fuss over it.

In the future, whether it was real estate, e-commerce, or even bitcoin, there would be plenty of fast tracks to making money.

It was too late for things like Tencent, but with bikes, Didi, and all sorts of basic games—from “stealing vegetables” to various web and mobile games—as long as he made his first pot of gold, even if he didn’t know game development, he could rely on creativity and hire a team to develop.

The two of them chatted and laughed as they reached the roadside of the neighborhood. Eric Bennett glanced left and right, just about to say something, when he suddenly stared in shock at a young man unlocking an electric scooter. “What are you doing? Thief!!”

Damn, this wasn’t 2023 or 2024 yet, with surveillance cameras everywhere. He hadn’t expected that in this previously well-managed neighborhood, where strangers weren’t allowed in and scooters were parked outside, he’d actually run into a bike thief.

With a shout of anger, he handed his bag to Emily Foster, and Eric Bennett took off running at the thief.

The thief bolted.

When the guy had run a dozen meters and looked back, he was surprised to see Eric Bennett wasn’t chasing him, but was already checking the scooter.

The thief cursed under his breath and kept running.

After checking the scooter and trying the key, Emily Foster ran over. “Brother Bennett, are you okay?”

Eric Bennett nodded. “I’m fine. Good thing we came out early, or the new scooter would’ve been gone.”

Once an electric scooter is stolen, what are the chances of getting it back after calling the police? He remembered that before his transmigration, around this time, after graduating college and living in a city village, there were so many cases of stolen laptops, electric scooters, and bikes in the middle of the night.

As he pushed the scooter into the non-motorized lane and motioned for Emily Foster to get on, he sighed, “Suddenly, society feels a bit unsafe. Do you think I should find a martial arts school or sect to learn some self-defense?”

Emily Foster was baffled, then laughed. “Brother Bennett, stop joking. What era do you think this is? Who still goes looking for martial arts schools and sects?”