After the breakup, I was taken in by a group of trendy young women.

Bai Xiaojing pushed open the door to the barbershop.

Before pushing it open, she stood at the door for a full half minute, her nose pressed against the glass door as she peered inside. The hem of her Lolita dress billowed in the cold wind of the mall. She held the dress down with one hand and clutched Lin Ye's clothes with the other, her expression as if she were scouting for enemy positions.

"Brother, are you sure this is the place?"

She turned around, her deep brown eyes filled with suspicion. "Why is there no one here? Is it too expensive and nobody comes?"

"This is called an appointment system."

Lin Ye took his hand out of his pocket, pushed open the door, and the wind chimes hanging on the door frame jingled.

As soon as the door opened, a cool breeze carrying a faint aroma of white tea wafted out, a stark contrast to the cloying sweet smell of popcorn and milk tea that filled the air in the mall outside.

Bai Xiaojing shuddered. Her canvas shoes slid across the marble floor, leaving a thin gray mark on the sole. She quickly looked down, then looked up at the receptionist at the front desk, who was wearing a black apron and had impeccable makeup. She instinctively covered the dirty tile with her other foot.

The man with the tattooed arm followed behind, pushing his sunglasses up to his forehead, revealing the koi fish on his arm that gleamed with a bluish-black light under the spotlight.

She glanced around at the minimalist decor, the gray and white tones, the abstract paintings she couldn't understand hanging on the walls, and a bird of paradise taller than herself in the corner. There wasn't even a price list on the marble countertop at the front desk.

She paused for two seconds, then turned to Lin Ye and whispered, "Brother, how much does it cost to get a haircut here? Last time we went to that place in the alley, a wash, cut, and blow-dry cost fifteen yuan, and hair coloring was an extra ten yuan."

"Since we're already here..."

Lin Ye took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it back in the cigarette pack. He could tell the store was a no-smoking place as soon as he walked in.

The receptionist had already come to greet him, her meticulously made-up face bearing a professional smile, her gaze flickering back and forth between Lin Ye and the seven colorful girls behind him.

Her professionalism prevented her from showing any extra expression, but her gaze lingered for a fraction of a second on the arm covered in koi stripes, then on Shen Qing's face, which could easily be used to slap a makeup artist, before finally settling on Lin Ye, as if confirming who the core of this group was.

"Hello sir, do you have an appointment?"

"No. Can you arrange it?"

"Yes, we happen to have two stylists available. May I ask which one you'd like to do your hair?"

"Do it all."

Lin Ye stretched out his thumb and gestured behind him.

"Seven people, each needing to have their hair washed, styled, and styled. Also, do you have a beauty salon? Could you add a facial treatment?"

All seven heads turned to him at the same time.

Bai Xiaojing tugged at his clothes, her voice low but urgent: "Brother! We don't need it!"

"Exactly! Look, they don't even have a price list posted here. They're probably afraid it'll scare people away!"

The tattooed man chimed in, nudging Zhang Jingjing with his elbow.

Zhang Jingjing immediately chimed in, "I got my hair dyed at a small shop last time for only eighty yuan, and it was pretty good. There's really no need to waste money at places like this."

Green Hair and Pink Hair had already taken a step back towards the door. Qi Liu Hai was holding Wang Cai, and the cat poked its head out of the backpack and meowed, probably asking why they weren't going in yet. Qi Liu Hai whispered, "Brother said to do it."

Lin Ye ignored their objections, took the program booklet directly from the receptionist, flipped through a couple of pages with practiced ease, and spoke as if he were ordering food at a market.

"This is the director's customized styling package. And this is a deep scalp treatment, one extra for everyone. For the facial treatment, choose the hydrating and repairing one. Oh, and for myself, I'll also add a men's exclusive grooming."

He closed the project brochure and handed it back to the receptionist, then took out his phone and showed the payment code. The whole process took no more than thirty seconds.

Bai Xiaojing tiptoed to try and see the payment amount on his phone, but Lin Ye had already turned the phone around.

She only saw the payment success animation flash on the screen, and then a receipt was spit out from the card reader next to her. The receptionist tore it off, glanced at it, and her professional smile changed from "standardized" to "genuine".

[Ding! Detected that the host is spending money on image management for six female escorts and unofficial members, triggering a hidden mission: Cultivate both inner and outer beauty.]

[Task Evaluation: The host's consumption behavior has upgraded from basic survival needs to image management, indicating a comprehensive increase in attention to the target audience, triggering a hidden growth-oriented task.]

[50x rebate triggered. Spending amount: 32,580 yuan.]

[The 1,629,000 yuan has been credited to your account.]

Lin Ye glanced down at the long string of numbers that popped up in the bank's text message, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly.

More than 1.6 million yuan has been deposited into my account, and my card balance has now exceeded 3 million yuan.

He put his phone back in his pocket, sat on the leather sofa in the lounge area, crossed his legs, picked up the freshly brewed coffee that had just been delivered, took a sip, and watched as the seven girls were led to the hair washing area by a group of assistants in black aprons. He felt that this coffee was better than any coffee he had ever drunk in his life.

The hair washing area is semi-enclosed, with seven shampoo chairs lined up in a row, each with a ceramic shampoo basin with a round hole in front of it.

The electric massage shampoo chair has a genuine leather backrest that automatically adjusts its angle when you sit down. When Bai Xiaojing was led to the chair by her assistant, she stared at the shampoo basin for a while before carefully sitting down. As soon as her back touched the backrest, the chair tilted backward automatically. She was so startled that she grabbed the armrest and stomped her canvas shoes on the floor tiles.

"Miss, please relax. This is electrically adjustable, so it won't fall."

The assistant was a young woman with a low ponytail and a gentle voice, completely unlike the older woman at the small shop in the alley who would shove her head directly into the shampoo basin.

Bai Xiaojing nodded stiffly, slowly leaning her back against the chair, which steadily positioned her above the shampoo basin.

When the warm water rushed up, she felt a shiver run through her body – it felt so good.

The assistant squeezed shampoo into her palm, lathered it up, and then applied it to her hair. The pressure of her fingertips in circular motions was just right. Starting from the Baihui acupoint on the top of her head, she massaged outwards in circles. When she reached the area near her temples, Bai Xiaojing almost groaned.

She quickly bit her lower lip, her eyes darting to the side. She lay on the shampoo chair to her left, her tattooed arm dangling from the armrest. She closed her eyes, looking completely relaxed. When her assistant asked if the water temperature was right, she hummed in response, her voice as languid as a lady on vacation.

"You said you wouldn't get a full-sleeve tattoo?" Bai Xiaojing asked in a low voice.

"Since the bro's already paid, why not do it?"

The tattooed arm didn't open its eyes; the tongue stud flashed briefly between its lips.

"Besides, this place is definitely more comfortable than the one in the alley."

Zhang Jingjing lay on her left arm, which was covered in tattoos, discussing the scent of shampoo with her assistant: "What brand is this? It smells so good! It's not the artificial fragrance you get in supermarkets, it's..."

"It's made with plant essential oils, miss. This series contains argan oil and tea tree oil."

"Morocco?"

Zhang Jingjing chewed on those two words and felt that the name alone was worth the price of admission.

Green Hair and Pink Hair were lying on the two shampoo chairs on the far right, separated by an aisle, and were still exchanging words.

The green-haired guy said, "My assistant is so gentle," and the pink-haired guy said, "Mine is too." Then they both burst out laughing at the same time, laughing so loudly that the guy with bangs shushed them across the aisle.

Qi Liuhai lay on the chair, while Wangcai squatted on the floor tiles at her feet, its tail sweeping back and forth across the tiles.

With her eyes closed, her bangs, which had fallen to the right, were tucked behind her ear with a clip by her assistant, revealing a clean and tidy face with a rare expression of relaxation.

Shen Qing was lying in the corner, and her assistant was applying conditioner to her hair.

Her long black hair spread out in the water.

Her eyes were closed, and her eyelashes cast two fine shadows on her cheekbones.

Lin Ye sat on the leather sofa in the rest area, holding his second cup of freshly ground coffee, watching the seven girls lined up to get their hair washed through the semi-transparent glass partition.

They lay on the shampoo chairs, their heads covered in white foam. Some were chatting with their assistants, while others were so comfortable they were almost asleep. Bai Xiaojing, who had been gripping the armrests tightly just moments before, now had her legs up.

He picked up his coffee, took a sip, and almost laughed.

The purchase cost over 30,000 yuan, with a 50-fold return, yielded over 1.6 million yuan. In other words, he made over 1 million yuan by bringing them here for a haircut.

This deal is a good one.

The hair washing took about forty minutes.

The steps for deep scalp care are: cleansing, massage, serum application, hot towel compress, and then cleansing again.

When the seven girls came out of the hair washing area, each with a white towel wrapped around their head, they lined up and were led to the leather swivel chairs in the styling area. It was a scene that was hard to describe.

The towel wrapped around the tattooed arm was crooked, and Zhang Jingjing tried to straighten it the whole way, but the more she tried to straighten it, the crooked it became.

The green-haired and pink-haired girls, wrapped in towels, were taking pictures of each other. After they finished, they gathered together to choose which one made their faces look smaller and which one made their hair look thicker.

Qi Liuhai followed quietly at the back, a towel on his head and holding a cat. Wangcai's ear was brushed by the corner of the towel, and he sneezed.

The styling area is more spacious than the shampooing area, with two walls lined with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and overhead spotlights illuminating each mirror brightly.

Leather swivel chairs lined up in front of the mirror, and next to each workstation was a tool cart, neatly stacked with scissors, combs, hair dryers, and curling irons, their metallic reflections gleaming coldly under the spotlights.

Lin Ye was led to sit down in the swivel chair in the very center.

In front of him was a full-length mirror covering an entire wall. In the mirror, he was wearing a loose-fitting white T-shirt. His hair hadn't been cut since the seven girls picked him up; his bangs were almost poking his eyes, and the hair on the back of his head was sticking up like it had just been blown up by firecrackers.

The workstation next to him was occupied by a male stylist wearing a black apron, with his long hair tied in a low ponytail, a row of earrings, and a name tag on his chest that read "Creative Director Kevin".

Kevin first circled around Lin Ye, examining his hair texture by lifting a strand from his forehead with his finger, then looked at his face shape and shoulder width. He then said very seriously, "Sir, your facial features are actually very suitable for a clean, Japanese-style short haircut. A gradual shaving on the sides, with some length left on top for texture, would look very energetic. What do you think?"

Lin Ye wanted to say that he was just a barber, but then he thought that the seven girls next to him were watching him, and if he casually said "just cut it short", it would seem a bit disrespectful to the director's seriousness.

So he nodded and said, "You decide what to do."

Kevin's professionalism deserves our respect.

He began posing with the forest as the focal point, displaying great poise.

On either side of the woods, the seven girls were discussing their desired hairstyles with their respective stylists, according to their own habits and ideas.

Bai Xiaojing sat in the swivel chair next to him. The stylist was a young woman with dyed silver hair. She was using her fingers to comb through Bai Xiaojing's straw-yellow hair. She got stuck halfway through, and with a blank expression, she used a little more force to comb it out. Then she said something that made Bai Xiaojing's eyes light up: "Your hair is a bit damaged. I suggest you get a protein treatment. As for the color, the black growing out at the back of this yellow hair is too obvious. A honey tea brown would be more sophisticated and make your skin look fairer."

"Honey tea brown? That sounds so fancy!"

Bai Xiaojing turned to look for Lin Ye to confirm, only to find that Kevin was pressing his head down to cut his hair, and she could only see the back of his head.

The woman with the tattoo sat on the other side. She didn't let the stylist touch her hair color, saying, "Black is fine." But she asked the stylist to trim the frizz at the ends of her hair. After the trim, the stylist asked her if she wanted a perm. She said no, then touched the ends of her hair in front of the mirror and nodded to herself, saying, "It looks pretty neat."

Zhang Jingjing was very cooperative. The stylist suggested that she get a natural, slight curl at the ends of her hair, which she did.

After getting her hair permed, she looked at herself in the mirror for a while, the rose tattoo on her leg rubbing against the edge of the swivel chair. She said, "It does look a little better than before."

The two girls, one with green hair and the other with pink hair, sat at adjacent workstations. Their stylist probably realized that the two were inseparable, so he designed the same style of hair with different colors for them. The green girl had a touch of pink highlighted at the ends of her hair, while the pink girl had a touch of green highlighted at the ends of her hair.

After looking at themselves in the mirror, the two of them turned to look at each other at the same time and simultaneously let out a drawn-out "Wow".

With her bangs straight, she placed her dog, Wangcai, on her lap. When the stylist asked her what effect she wanted, she whispered, "Just cut my bangs straight."

The stylist carefully trimmed her bangs to a neat straight shape and then combed out the knots in her hair at the back, braiding it into a loose side braid.

She looked at herself in the mirror, reached out and touched the braid, and a tiny smile curved her lips.

Shen Qing sat at the far end of the workstation. Her stylist stared at her face for a long time, probably wondering if it was a blessing or a curse that her face looked good with any hairstyle.

In the end, the stylist simply trimmed the layers of her long black hair, gave it a smoothing treatment, and after blow-drying, her black hair draped over her shoulders like a piece of satin, gleaming with a healthy shine under the spotlight.

Lin Ye's haircut lasted about forty minutes.

Kevin cut very meticulously, creating the gradient on both sides little by little with clippers, gradually deepening from the hairline upwards, with a natural transition like a shadow drawn with a pen.

The hair on top of the head was kept at a certain length and thinned out strand by strand with scissors to create texture, revealing the forehead and making the entire face's contours stand out from under the hair.

Finally, Kevin rubbed hair wax in his palms, ruffled it a few times on his head and forehead to set the style, then turned the swivel chair to face the full-length mirror, took off the apron on his body, and made a "look" gesture.

Lin Ye stared at himself in the mirror, momentarily stunned.

The person in the mirror has a clean and crisp profile, with lines from the temples to behind the ears that look as if they were cut with a knife.

The hair on top of her head was fluffy and layered, with a few wisps of hair left in front of her forehead, which perfectly framed her temples.

He turned his head and noticed that his jawline, which he had never paid attention to before because it was covered by his long bangs, now looked quite angular under the light.

The white T-shirt was still the same loose-fitting one, but the face had changed.

The person's entire demeanor was elevated by this neat hairstyle, as if a casual snapshot had been transformed into a professionally retouched portrait of the same face, and it was all free.

"Sir, are you satisfied?" Kevin stood to the side, arms crossed, his tone confident but not arrogant.

"That's good," Lin Ye said.

He said "It's fine" in a very calm tone, but when he saw the expressions of the seven girls behind him in the mirror, he felt that the scene was probably more than just "It's fine".

Bai Xiaojing was the first to turn around.

Her stylist was still blow-drying her hair when she turned her head directly into the hot air from the hairdryer, her deep brown pupils fixed on Lin Ye's face in the mirror. Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly, and her Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

Her hair had just undergone protein straightening, and the new honey-brown color shone with a soft, warm glow under the spotlight, but she didn't pay any attention to her new hair color, her eyes fixed on Lin Ye.

"That's so cool..."

Her voice slipped out of her throat, carrying an undisguised astonishment, "How come you look like you've applied a beauty filter after getting a haircut?"

I could also see my full-arm tattoo in the mirror.

She took off her sunglasses and held them in her hand, the koi fish tattoo on her arm rested on the armrest of the swivel chair, and her tongue pin circled between her lips.

Unlike Bai Xiaojing, she didn't shout it out directly. Instead, she stared at Lin Ye's profile in the mirror for a while, then lowered her voice and said to Zhang Jingjing next to her, "Was our brother always this handsome?"

Zhang Jingjing was having her hair curled by the stylist when she glanced at Lin Ye in the mirror and forgot to answer the question about the full-sleeve tattoo.

After several seconds, she said, "It seems like... my hair was too long before and it was blocking the view?"

The hair dryers of Green Hair and Pink Hair stopped at the same time, and they turned to look at Lin Ye almost simultaneously.

The green-haired girl had pink highlights at the ends of her hair, while the pink-haired girl had green highlights at the ends of her hair. The two looked at Lin Ye in the mirror, exchanged glances, and then simultaneously let out a drawn-out scream.

"Wow!"

"Brother, you've changed!"

"What has changed?"

"He's just gotten more handsome!"

Green Hair thought for a long time but couldn't come up with a more precise description, so he could only draw an outline in the air with his hand.

"He used to be handsome, but in that kind of way."

"That kind of undeveloped handsomeness!" Pink-haired girl finished the sentence for her.

Qi Liuhai touched her newly braided hair, secretly glanced at Lin Ye in the mirror, looked down, then looked up again, before burying her face in Wangcai's cat fur.

Shen Qing was the last one to transfer over.

Her long black hair had just been treated with a smoothing treatment, and it was so smooth that it could slip through her fingers.

She looked at Lin Ye's face in the mirror, her ears turning red again, but this time she didn't hide her face. She just looked at it quietly and then said something softly.

"I'm already handsome, but today... I look even more energetic."

Lin Ye stood up from the swivel chair and straightened his collar, which didn't really need straightening, in front of the full-length mirror.

The tattooed man behind him had already stood up and moved closer, circling him halfway around, as if admiring a newly unpacked work of art.

Green Hair and Pink Hair had already taken out their cracked-screen phones and started taking pictures. Bangs put Wangcai on her shoulder, and the cat's tail brushed against her braids.

Bai Xiaojing stood directly in front of him, tilting her head back. Her lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she didn't say anything and just smiled.

He looked at the seven girls in the mirror, their hair a completely different look: honey tea brown, ear-length dye, slightly curled ends, side braids, smooth black hair, and neatly trimmed short hair. The seven heads lined up in front of the full-length mirror, looking completely different from before they went in.

He probably looked like this in their eyes too: his messy hair cut short, revealing his forehead and brow bone, with sharp features and a refreshed appearance.