Chapter 1 Salary Increase

"You want a raise?" Yesenin put down his newspaper and looked at Chen Hero sitting across from him.

Chen Hero nodded. "Only five hundred euros a week. I think that's just too little."

Yesenin hummed in agreement. He also felt that five hundred euros a week was too little for Chen Hero. Although he didn't need Chen Hero to pay him for his services as a Russian teacher and translator, he and Chen Hero lived together, so he had to bear the living expenses, right?

And he also knew that Chen Hero was still sending money home to help pay off debts.

He admired Chen Hero for this and it was one of the reasons he was willing to help Chen Hero. A player who had become famous hadn't forgotten his origins, and would rather live more frugally himself in order to help his family pay off debts. There weren't many young people like that anymore.

"But you need an agent first," Yesenin said. "You didn't have an agent when you signed with Zenit, did you?"

"No, I signed it myself. Where am I going to find an agent now? I don't know anyone..." Chen Hero found it strange. Wasn't it said that as soon as you became a little famous, a large number of agents would flock to you, hoping you would sign with them? There were even legendary beautiful agents...

When he came back to his senses from his fantasy, he discovered that it wasn't Yesenin sitting across from him, but a middle-aged man in a well-tailored suit, with piercing eyes and a determined expression. The lines of his face were like they had been carved with a knife, with distinct angles, and deep, sea-blue eyes that seemed to possess a soul-stirring power. His straight nose and sensual lips were slightly upturned, as if always carrying a faint smile, like a charming gentleman. He was completely different from the slightly wretched Yesenin from before. If this middle-aged man walked down the street, he would definitely make many young women's eyes light up with stars.

"Uh..."

"What do you think of this agent image?" the handsome uncle asked.

Only then did Chen Hero realize that the person sitting across from him was still Yesenin, but he had just changed his image. This guy could transform at will, which really gave him "surprise after surprise."

"No way!" Chen Hero shook his head firmly in refusal.

"Why?"

"If you're so handsome, how am I supposed to get anywhere?" Chen Hero didn't want to finally get his hands on a girl, only to have her dump him after one look at his agent...

Yesenin pursed his lips. "Don't be so jealous..."

"I'm the main character, okay?" Chen Hero rolled his eyes.

"Okay..." Yesenin raised his hands in surrender. "Then what kind of agent do you want? A beautiful agent?"

"If I wanted to find a beautiful agent, I wouldn't be looking for you." Developing a romance with a beautiful agent wouldn't be bad, but definitely not with an androgynous person who could change between male and female at any time...

"Oh well, just an ordinary one will do, an ordinary one... but not too wretched." Chen Hero didn't actually know what an agent should look like for him to like them.

"Ordinary? What counts as ordinary?" Yesenin was also confused. This request was as good as no request at all. He thought for a moment. "How about I let you choose?"

Then, in front of Chen Hero, Yesenin began to rapidly change his appearance.

Chen Hero was already immune, otherwise, watching the person in front of him constantly changing his appearance would have been terrifying.

"How about this one? How about this one? What about this one? And this one?" Yesenin kept changing and then asking Chen Hero.

Chen Hero just shook his head. "Next!"

He felt like he was choosing a character image before playing a game, but he couldn't combine them himself, he could only choose randomly, and if he wasn't satisfied, he had to keep changing...

After changing dozens of them, Chen Hero's eyes were dazzled, and he couldn't pick one that satisfied him. In the end, he got annoyed. "Just change quickly, and then I'll close my eyes and shout stop, and you stop. Whatever shows up is what it is!"

He was playing a lottery!

Yesenin also thought this was better. "You shout start and I'll start, you shout stop and I'll stop."

"Start!"

Yesenin's face was reassembled, disassembled, and reassembled at a rapid speed, and countless faces appeared on his face in a very short period of time.

Chen Hero closed his eyes and shouted, "Stop!"

When he opened his eyes, he saw a bald head with a face full of橫肉 (héng ròu - excessive flesh), and fierce eyes...

"Are you a skinhead! It would be even better with some tattoos..."

Sure enough, a lizard tattoo appeared on Yesenin's neck. "You mean like this?"

Chen Hero didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I'm being sarcastic! Sarcastic! Can't you tell? Next! Again!"

After tossing around like this several times, the image of Chen Hero's agent was finally settled. A middle-aged man with a pale face, a straight nose, thin lips, high cheekbones, and deep-set eyes appeared in front of Chen Hero.

Chen Hero was satisfied.

"This isn't ordinary at all." Yesenin looked in the mirror.

"But I like it!"

Yesenin was helpless with Chen Hero's erratic thinking.

"You're my agent now? But are you still called Yesenin?"

"Of course not," Yesenin replied. "Yesenin, as your Russian teacher and translator, will disappear from your side after the task is completed, and there will be no more contact. As your agent, I'm called..."

"Dracula! You're called Dracula!" Chen Hero gave Yesenin a name.

Yesenin thought for a moment and expressed his acceptance. "Okay, I'll be called Vlad Dracula."

Yesenin—oh no, he should be called Dracula now—said, "When do you want me to talk to the club?"

"The sooner the better."

Dracula nodded. "Very well, but in order for the other party to believe that I am your agent, we must first sign a contract."

"That's for sure."

So Dracula took out a stack of paper from his arms, and when he opened it, it turned out to be a contract that had already been prepared!

Chen Hero was very interested in what dimension of space was inside his clothes. He lifted Dracula's suit—there was nothing inside, no different from any ordinary suit. But he didn't give up and put his hand into the inner pocket of the suit, but nothing happened where his hand entered a void. Half of his palm went all the way to the bottom.

"This pocket has nothing to do with Doraemon's stomach." Dracula looked down at Chen Hero doing this, and didn't stop him, just explained.

"Uh..." Chen Hero withdrew his hand dejectedly.

"Just sign your name." Dracula pointed to the place for the signature, "And then put a handprint."

"Don't you need to look at it?"

"You can look at it if you want."

Chen Hero only looked at two lines and gave up—those legal clauses were written in English, and his English level definitely couldn't understand the difficult legal vocabulary. Not to mention written in English, even if it was written in Chinese, he might not be able to understand...

"Okay, I'll sign." He turned to the last page, signed his name with the pen Yesenin handed him, then dipped it in the inkpad that Yesenin handed over, and pressed his red handprint on his name.

When his thumb was lifted, a burst of rainbow light flashed, even dazzling the unprepared Chen Hero so that he turned his head and squinted.

"What was that?" By the time he reacted again, everything was normal, as if nothing had happened.

"Would you believe me if I said it was a soul contract?" Dracula said seriously.

"No way!"

Dracula nodded. "Very good. It's actually just a fancy trick. Add a little fun."

Chen Hero didn't think much about it, he returned the contract to Dracula.

He watched Dracula put the contract directly into the inner pocket of his suit just like that. Such a large contract text definitely couldn't fit in the inner pocket. So Chen Hero didn't believe that there was nothing wrong with that pocket...

"What are your salary requirements, Hero?" Dracula asked after putting away the contract.

"The higher the better!" Chen Hero was going crazy from being poor. If he could earn big money sooner, he could liberate himself and his parents. They wouldn't have to do any more business, and he could enjoy himself to the fullest—now he could only go out and play with the eating, drinking, and playing group, just because he was short of money...

Dracula nodded again. "I understand. Leave it to me."

Konstantin Sarsania received a call from someone claiming to be Chen Hero's agent.

In the phone, this agent named Vlad Dracula said that his player wanted to renegotiate the contract with the club.

Sarsania knew very well who Chen Hero was. He was the most popular forward in the team's first team. In fact, after Chen Hero performed a hat-trick, he, the general manager of Zenit Club, also looked up Chen Hero's information, including the contract he signed with the team.

When he saw that Chen Hero's contract salary was five hundred euros a week, he had a premonition—the player would definitely take this opportunity to propose a salary increase to the club.

He had been a scout, a coach, and a sports manager, and he knew the players' thoughts like the back of his hand.

So he wasn't surprised.

He then told Edvocaat the news.

Edvocaat wasn't surprised at all about the salary increase itself. What surprised him was... when did Chen Hero get an agent? Chen Hero worked very hard in training every day, and he had to add extra training after training. He had never seen him come into contact with any agents...

Could it be an agent who found him on his own initiative?

A salary increase was a legitimate request, and Edvocaat also felt that Chen Hero's previous salary was too low.

He agreed with this.

Since everyone had no objections, then talk to him. Sarsania and Dracula agreed on a time, and the two sides decided to start negotiations.

Originally, when Zenit learned that Chen Hero's agent was going to talk to them, they had already prepared a contract in advance, raising Chen Hero's weekly salary to 100,000 rubles, which was about 2,800 euros.

Compared to Chen Hero's previous salary, it had increased several times.

They thought this salary would be enough to satisfy Chen Hero, right?

But they were wrong.

That agent named Vlad Dracula, who looked a bit like a vampire and whose name was also like a vampire, directly asked for an exorbitant price.

40,000 euros per week, and at the same time, a substantial increase in bonus benefits, a 4,000 euro appearance bonus, a 4,000 euro goal bonus, and a 10,000 euro winning bonus.

And this condition was the highest in the entire St. Petersburg Zenit!

Even Arshavin couldn't compare.