A white-haired old collector walked onto the stage, trembling slightly.
He wanted a full set of original bound newspapers from a specific City, a specific year, and a specific month.
The requirement was the April 1984 edition of the "Pengcheng Special Zone Daily," and it had to be the original saddle-stitched or thread-bound version from the newspaper office that year.
This request seemed unremarkable, but it was actually as difficult as reaching the heavens.
This wasn't just a collectible; it was a unique copy carrying the memories of an era.
Lu You responded with that same single word: "Yes."
"Yes, this is the smell, this is the look. I've been searching for this for half my life..."
Following him was a food blogger with a fiery figure, clearly a top-tier foodie.
Her challenge was full of the flavor of everyday life.
"Boss! I want the freshest fruit! I want ten boxes of Musang King durian, and another twenty boxes of Jumbo-sized cherries!"
"The requirement is that I want them now, and they must be in that chilled state, fresh off a cold-chain truck!"
[This is good! This is down-to-earth! But how could a Hardware Store have a cold-chain warehouse? This fruit is transported from its place of origin, and the requirements for preservation and transport are extremely high. The boss can't just conjure them out of thin air, right?]
[Exactly! Even if he has them, in the few minutes it takes to move them out of the warehouse in the middle of summer, that chilled state would be gone!]
Lu You smiled. "I have them."
He pushed a small trolley out from the back warehouse.
A rich, overbearing aroma of durian and the icy sweetness of fruit instantly swept across the entire stage.
On the ten foam boxes, a layer of cold water droplets had condensed on the outer walls.
As for the other twenty boxes of cherries, each one was plump and dark, with bright green stems.
There was even a crystalline frost hanging on a few of them.
The food blogger picked up a cherry on the spot and popped it into her mouth.
"Oh my god! This texture! This sweetness! It's fresher than the air-shipped goods I bought at the import supermarket yesterday!"
Over the course of the morning, dozens of challengers put forward all sorts of requests.
From industrial parts to out-of-print books, from antiques to trendy figurines, from professional equipment to daily necessities... it covered almost every corner.
And Lu You was like an omnipotent deity.
No matter how bizarre, how tricky, or how illogical the request was.
His answer was always that concise and powerful word—
"Yes."
Then he would turn around, enter the warehouse, bring it out, and complete the transaction.
The whole process was as smooth as flowing water, without a hint of hesitation.
The viewers in the livestream had gone from initial shock to eventual numbness.
[I've given up on thinking. I just want to shout: Boss is amazing! (Voice cracking)]
[Don't ask. If you ask, the answer is quantum mechanics; if you ask, it's parallel universes!]
[Yangcheng Culture and Tourism Bureau: We just wanted to ride the coattails of his popularity, but we didn't expect to invite a literal god!]
Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, the sun was setting and night was about to fall.
According to the drawing order, today's final challenger slowly walked onto the stage.
She was a quiet-looking young girl, wearing a simple and elegant dress.
Her face carried a hint of worry and expectation that was hard to hide.
Her appearance caused the scene, which had been noisy all day, to quiet down slightly.
"Hello, young lady. It's getting late. As our final challenger for today, please state your challenge," the host said softly.
The girl spoke into the microphone, her voice soft but clear:
"Boss Lu, I... I want a pot of flowers."
"Flowers?" This request surprised everyone.
This seemed like the simplest challenge of the day.
But the girl's next words instantly plunged the entire venue into a dead silence.
"I want a pot of... Queen of the Night that will definitely bloom tonight."
She added, "It must be guaranteed to bloom tonight. I also need you to provide a way for me to record the entire blooming process to make a time-lapse video."
As her voice fell, the entire venue was silent.
The bullet chat in the livestream also experienced a freeze lasting several seconds.
Only then did a discussion more intense than before break out.
[Queen of the Night?! Holy crap! This is the true ultimate boss of the day!]
[All the previous challenges, whether it was Lego or Suzhou embroidery, were 'objects' that objectively exist. As long as you have the channels and the stock, you can theoretically find them. But this... this is about controlling life!]
[Science lesson time: The Queen of the Night, scientific name Epiphyllum, has an extremely short blooming period, lasting only a few hours from blooming to wilting.]
[Furthermore, the blooming time is completely unpredictable and full of immense randomness.]
[That's why there's the idiom 'a flash in the pan.' (Literal: 'A Queen of the Night appearing briefly')]
[Making it bloom tonight just because she says so? How is that possible?! Even God couldn't do that!]
The audience at the scene was also buzzing with discussion.
"Is this girl here to cause trouble? Only the gods know when a flower will bloom."
"Yeah, this is basically an unsolvable problem. The boss can't exactly give the flower a shot of ripening agent, can he? Even that wouldn't control the timing!"
Everyone felt that Boss Lu's myth might end here.
Even the host, who had been full of confidence, now had a somewhat solemn expression.
He looked at Lu You, not even knowing how to smooth things over for this question.
However, to everyone's surprise.
This time, Lu You did not immediately answer "Yes."
He fell silent.
He looked at the girl, a thoughtful expression appearing in his eyes for the first time.
The atmosphere at the scene was tense to the extreme.
In the livestream, countless people held their breath.
[It's over, it's over, the boss is silent!]
[It seems it's really not possible this time. This question is beyond the syllabus!]
[It's okay, Boss, there's no shame in admitting defeat! You've already reached godhood with what you did before!]
As she watched the silent Lu You, the spark of hope in the girl's eyes also seemed to dim.
She lowered her head and said softly, "If... if you don't have it, it's okay..."
Just when everyone thought this day-long miracle was about to end in regret.
Lu You suddenly smiled.
He looked at the girl and said in a relaxed tone, "What a coincidence."
"I just happen to be growing a pot here, and by my calculations, it's about time for it to bloom. It should be tonight."
Boom—!
These words were no less than a nuclear bomb exploding in everyone's minds!
A coincidence?
By his calculations?
It should be tonight?
That casual tone made it sound as commonplace as saying, "I calculate that the evening news is about to start!"
[I'm going crazy! I'm really going crazy! What kind of existence is he?!]
[This isn't science anymore. If he says it blooms tonight, it must bloom tonight!]
[Don't stop me, I'm going to Yangcheng to find a master! I don't want to learn anything else, I just want to learn the boss's ability to act... no, his composure in controlling everything!]
The girl snapped her head up, the surprise from before reigniting in her eyes.
Lu You turned and walked into that unfathomable back warehouse once again.
When he came out, he was holding a pot with a seemingly ordinary green plant.
It was a Queen of the Night with thick leaves.
On the edge of one of the leaves, there was a greenish-white flower bud ready to burst.
It looked no different from any Queen of the Night found in a flower and bird market.
"This pot, plus this." Lu You placed the flower pot on the counter and took out a small, black, matchbox-sized square.
"This is a miniature time-lapse camera. It's magnetic, so just stick it to the side of the pot. It has auto-focus, and you can see the real-time footage and the final generated video by connecting it to your phone via Bluetooth."
The girl looked at the flower in front of her, then at the high-tech little gadget, too excited to speak.
"How... how much is this?"
"Three hundred for the flower. Six hundred for the camera. Nine hundred in total."
The girl paid by scanning the code without hesitation.
Then she carefully picked up the flower pot, as if she were holding the hope of the entire world.
"Thank you! Boss Lu! Thank you so much!" She bowed deeply to Lu You, tears shimmering in her eyes.
She didn't say much about her own story.
But everyone could read a heavy sense of hope and reliance from her eyes.
With the departure of the final challenger, today's challenge competition officially came to a close.
But the story was not over.
Everyone's hearts were tightly bound to that pot of Queen of the Night.
This suspense was like an invisible hand, gripping the hearts of millions of viewers across the internet.
Even after the livestream ended, they remained on various social media platforms, frantically refreshing their feeds.
Waiting for that final moment to witness a miracle.