Football: Salary System - Chapter 166: Chocolate and a Snowy Night (Three-in-One) (Patreon)

December 24, early morning.

Zayn and Raiola set out together for the small town of None, just outside Turin.

It was home to Domori, a chocolate brand once ranked first among the world's nine finest chocolate makers.

On the drive, Raiola gave Zayn a quick lesson on the company.

Domori was nowhere near the size of Cadbury, the chocolate giant Zayn had previously endorsed.

Within the industry, however, its reputation was absurdly high. Among chefs and serious chocolate connoisseurs, Domori had long been regarded as one of the absolute elite.

The claim that it ranked first among the world's nine top chocolates was not something the company had invented for itself. It came from outside evaluations.

The brand was widely regarded as both a pioneer and a benchmark for quality in the chocolate industry.

Put simply, Domori focused on the premium market.

It wanted to be exclusive, refined, and expensive.

Ten 25-gram chocolates could sell for one hundred euros. The price was not beyond the reach of ordinary people, but it still placed Domori firmly in the industry's top tier.

To protect that professional, boutique image, the company had never used conventional celebrity ambassadors. It preferred to work with elite culinary professionals, Michelin-starred chefs, pastry chefs, and similar figures.

"Then why did they come looking for me?" Zayn raised an eyebrow. "I'm not a food critic."

Raiola chuckled.

"Domori's reputation is excellent, but financially they've always been stretched thin. Premium ingredients and complicated production methods cost a fortune, and they've accumulated plenty of losses over the years.

They changed CEOs in April. The new guy has improved the numbers a little, and now he wants to enter the British market."

Zayn nodded.

Britain certainly had an enormous chocolate market, and with his current popularity back home, even Kane might have to move aside for him.

"You told me you wanted a food brand, so I contacted them," Raiola continued. "High-end, niche, stylish. Perfect."

Zayn was speechless.

Stylish, my ass.

He had asked Raiola to contact food brands because of the mission tied to his Hazard Template.

When he gave Raiola the instruction, he had specifically said he wanted an international fast-food brand.

But Raiola had made it clear since the Aston Villa days that he wanted to build Zayn into an elite commercial figure. Ending up with a niche luxury chocolate label instead was hardly surprising.

The money would still convert into [Business Health Index] anyway.

And Zayn had received his salary increase less than a month ago. Without a quest reward accelerating things, progress on the Hazard Template had only just passed 1.5%, still a long way from the 25% cap.

There was no need to rush.

...

"Mr. Ryder! Welcome to None."

The moment Zayn stepped out of the car, a short middle-aged man hurried forward to greet him.

Several staff members followed behind, carrying folders and sample boxes.

Raiola leaned closer and whispered, "Andrea Macchione. Domori's new CEO."

"Mr. Macchione, thank you for inviting me. Just call me Zayn."

"No, no. We're the ones who should be thanking you for coming."

The new Domori CEO's enthusiasm was understandable. Convincing Zayn to participate had exceeded his expectations by a considerable margin.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, Italy's economy had spent years struggling with weak growth. Even in 2018, the country's GDP per capita remained below its 2007 level.

Businesses in every industry were cutting costs, and a high-end niche brand like Domori did not have a large marketing budget either.

For this collaboration, the company had emptied its pockets and still managed only 300,000 euros.

Compared with the multimillion-pound contracts Zayn had already signed, it looked almost insignificant.

Even so, the figure had surprised Raiola.

He was Italian himself. He knew how difficult the past several years had been on the peninsula.

Of course, Raiola had not brought Zayn here to do charity work.

The fee was modest, but so was the workload, and the partnership fit the premium commercial image Raiola wanted for him. On that basis, he had agreed to the deal.

Macchione, meanwhile, felt as though hiring the hottest young star in world football had been a gift from heaven.

He had barely stopped smiling all day and could not have been more accommodating.

"Mr. Ryder, today's tasting has several stages. First comes the evaluation. We've prepared several batches of premium cocoa beans that arrived this year, including our signature Criollo, along with varieties from Venezuela and Ecuador. We'd like you to choose your favorite."

Just as Raiola had promised, Zayn's role in the collaboration required very little actual work.

He only had to eat.

"After that, we'll choose the beans and discuss the direction of the recipe. Finally, we'll design a limited-edition chocolate together, and you'll give it a name."

By the time Macchione finished leading them down the corridor, he had explained the entire job.

Then he gave Zayn a knowing smile.

"Mr. Ryder, your partner for the shoot is already waiting backstage."

That partner was Angelina Danilova.

Domori planned to record the entire event, from tasting and evaluation to bean selection and design, and release it as a video. In later years, the format would have looked very much like a vlog.

The company's original plan had included several models as decorative background figures. They would hold cocoa beans, present chocolate samples, and stand prettily behind Zayn while he tasted everything.

The idea had come from Macchione himself.

Italy's four-time world champions may have missed that summer's World Cup, but the humiliation had done nothing to kill the country's love of football. Italians mostly treated the failure as an accident, and Macchione was no exception.

As someone who followed football closely, he had noticed how obsessed the British public seemed to be with Zayn's tabloid stories. The smallest hint of romance was enough to generate endless discussion.

That was why he had added the models to the campaign.

Domori did not have enough spare cash for famous names, so the original plan had been to hire several local Turin models.

Once Zayn heard about the arrangement, however, he asked Raiola to request Angelina instead.

Macchione already considered Zayn's participation a huge favor. Letting him choose one model was nothing by comparison, especially when Angelina's fee was extremely affordable from Domori's perspective.

So Macchione simply canceled the other bookings and kept only Angelina.

...

After taking Zayn backstage, Macchione tactfully stopped at the door.

He told the staff to wait outside, then left to prepare the shoot.

Zayn opened the door and immediately saw the girl sitting inside.

Angelina was looking down at a fashion magazine. When she heard the door, she raised her head.

Perhaps because she would be styled for the shoot shortly, her long tawny hair had been loosely gathered behind her head, while several stray strands framed her delicate face.

The moment she recognized Zayn, undisguised joy flashed through her pale green eyes.

They had not seen each other in a long time.

Angelina had not even changed into her outfit for the shoot yet. She wore nothing more than simple, comfortable clothes, but Zayn still found his gaze lingering on her for several seconds.

"Ahem... Long time no see."

His eyes might have paused, but his mouth did not.

He even said the greeting in Russian.

The effect was immediate.

Angelina shot out of the chair, crossed the room in a few quick steps, and hugged him first.

Her warm body pressed against him, carrying a faint jasmine fragrance.

Zayn instinctively wrapped his arms around her waist, then felt a strange trace of guilt.

After all, he had learned the Russian phrase for "long time no see" from Dasha.

Then he felt Angelina's shoulders trembling against him.

She buried her face in his chest and began to sob, trying to keep the sound low as though she did not want him to notice.

There was no hiding it.

Zayn sighed and said nothing.

He gently patted her back and held her a little tighter.

Angelina had not had an easy year.

After the advertising shoot where she first met Zayn, their collaboration had indeed given her career a major boost.

As Zayn's reputation grew across Europe, her social media following rose with it. She picked up several endorsements of her own, and her agency began paying much more attention to her.

But political tensions between Russia and Europe kept worsening, while the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was already simmering beneath the surface.

Hostility toward Russia increased sharply across Europe. Brands began reducing their use of Russian models, and several projects Angelina had already negotiated collapsed one after another.

Before the situation deteriorated further, her original agent made a decision and sent her to South Korea to develop her career.

Tall East Slavic women with striking features had always been popular in East Asian markets.

South Korea in particular had a strong appetite for Russian models trying to establish themselves in Seoul.

Angelina moved there and signed with a Seoul agency.

That was one of the main reasons she had been unable to see Zayn again.

Once the contract was signed, however, her original agent was almost completely pushed aside.

All of Angelina's work contacts, scheduling, and commercial negotiations were taken over by her new Korean manager.

The woman was in her forties, with the polished, distinctive look of a TV personality. Her specialty was controlling foreign girls who had only just arrived, couldn't speak the language, and had nowhere else to turn.

Korean agencies were notorious within the industry for squeezing their talent, and Angelina was not someone who bowed her head easily.

She refused to accept exploitative demands and completely rejected the so-called business entertainment that took place around drinking tables.

And because she did not publicly cross paths with Zayn again afterward, his halo soon faded from the agency's calculations.

The Korean company began treating her as just another foreign model.

She was beautiful, certainly, but in a country with an enormous cosmetic-surgery industry, beauty alone was hardly scarce.

Angelina became trapped in South Korea's rigid idol-style management system, taking mediocre commercial jobs that went nowhere.

After paying rent, she had to calculate every meal carefully. There was no meaningful career path in sight.

Then Zayn told her in a chat message, "See you in Turin."

Then Domori's invitation arrived in her manager's hands.

The Korean manager's attitude changed overnight.

Suddenly she was warm and attentive, constantly asking whether Angelina needed anything, as though the cold treatment and deliberate pressure of the previous six months had never happened.

Even then, Angelina could barely believe it.

She and Zayn chatted frequently, but in the end, they had only met once in person before today.

All the grievance, anxiety, gratitude, and disbelief she had carried for months surged up the moment she saw him.

It came out as tears.

"Sorry... I shouldn't be like this."

After a long while, Angelina finally stepped back from his embrace.

Her pale green eyes were wet, and the tip of her nose had turned red. The sight made Zayn's chest tighten.

"It's okay. I'm here."

He reached up and gently wiped away the tear tracks beneath her eyes.

Angelina had only mentioned once in their chats that work had not been going well lately.

Even so, Zayn could roughly guess why she was crying.

That was exactly why, despite having met plenty of other models by now, Angelina had been the one person he specifically requested when he learned Domori planned to include models in the shoot.

...

At the same time, a sharp-faced middle-aged woman was wandering irritably through another part of Domori's headquarters.

It was Angelina's Korean manager, Park.

Two hours earlier, a staff member had separated her from Angelina. The girl had been taken to a lounge, while Park was led off to see the cocoa-bean sorting and roasting process.

She followed for ten minutes, looked at a few machines, pretended to sniff at several things, then raised her head and discovered that the employee guiding her had disappeared.

After that, nobody paid any attention to her at all.

She did not know the building, could not read Italian, and had now been lost for two hours.

Park checked the time on her phone, looked down another empty corridor, and finally cursed under her breath.

"Shibal!"

It was not as though Park had never considered simply leaving.

But Angelina's fee for the shoot had not arrived yet.

More importantly, Park's real assignment on this trip was to "sell" Angelina.

If she could establish any connection at all to Zayn Ryder, even a single photograph or social media post, she could triple Angelina's commercial rate once they returned to Korea.

So she endured it.

She crossed corridor after corridor and passed office after office.

Italian employees occasionally walked by, and the looks they gave her contained undisguised dislike.

When she tried asking for directions, they ignored her outright.

Park gritted her teeth and kept going.

Eventually, she found the room where Angelina had been taken two hours earlier.

But the moment she reached the door, an arm blocked her path.

Park looked up.

A round, heavyset man stood in front of her.

She forced a smile and spoke in heavily accented English.

"Hello. I'm Angelina Danilova's agent. I'm here to see my client."

The man looked her up and down.

Then his eyes widened and he pointed straight at her face.

"Vaffanculo!"

Park froze.

She did not understand Italian.

"What did you say?"

"I said you Koreans are thieves! Liars! Shameless bastards!"

The man thoughtfully switched to English and continued shouting so violently that spit flew from his mouth.

"You bribed the referee and stole Italy's victory! The whole of Italy remembers! We'll never forget it!"

Several Italian employees heard the commotion and immediately joined in.

"Vaffanculo! You kicked Coco until his head was covered in blood and the referee pretended he saw nothing! Totti was brought down in the penalty area and somehow he was the one sent off!"

"Bastard!"

"Get out!"

Park was completely bewildered.

She had a reputation for being vicious herself within the Korean industry, but she had never been publicly abused for reasons she could not even understand.

The heavyset man saw her expression and sneered.

He pulled a manila envelope from his pocket and threw it at her feet.

"Take it and get out."

Park looked down at the envelope, not knowing what was inside.

"That's the 100 million won termination fee written into Angelina's contract," he said with open contempt. "The termination agreement is in there too. Sign it, then leave."

Park opened her mouth. "You..."

"Enough." The man waved impatiently. "Are you signing or not?"

She wanted to argue, but when she met his cold stare and noticed the group behind him flexing their hands as though eager for trouble, the words died in her throat.

Nobody had spelled out what would happen if she refused.

But Park was alone in a foreign country, and whatever the consequences were, she clearly did not want to discover them.

Before coming to Italy, she had heard plenty of stories about how active the Mafia still was. In 2018 alone, twenty-two local governments had reportedly been dissolved because of Mafia infiltration.

She certainly did not think the menacing, broad-faced man in front of her looked like a good person.

Trembling, Park crouched down and picked up the envelope.

Inside was a thick stack of euros and a termination agreement that had already been prepared.

She clenched her teeth, signed the document, gripped the envelope, and walked away without looking back.

The man spat after her.

"Get lost, thief."

Hearing the commotion outside, Zayn and Angelina stepped out of the room just in time to see Park's disheveled figure disappearing down the corridor.

Angelina froze, recognized the silhouette, then noticed Raiola standing by the door with an empty manila envelope near his feet.

"Was that...?"

The heavyset man turned around.

It was Raiola.

The moment he saw Zayn, his usual cheerful grin returned.

"Done. Ms. Angelina's contract has been terminated. She has nothing to do with that Korean company anymore."

Naturally, Zayn had arranged it.

Angelina stood speechless.

She looked from Raiola to Zayn, disbelief filling her pale green eyes.

"But... the termination fee is one hundred million won..."

"It's only one hundred million won." Zayn waved a hand. "That's just over seventy thousand euros. Less than eighty. Small change."

Angelina opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

She had wanted to escape the contract for a long time, yet the fee was astronomical to her.

One hundred million won might convert to only a little over seventy thousand euros, but it was roughly 5.7 million rubles.

In 2018, the average monthly salary in Russia was only a little above forty thousand rubles.

For an ordinary Russian worker, the fee represented more than eleven years of wages.

"Zayn..."

Angelina's voice trembled, and her eyes were already threatening to fill with tears again.

Zayn answered casually.

"You've wanted out for a long time, right? That's why I had no intention of letting that company take a single cent from this Domori deal."

Raiola added from the side, "And I've... no, Zayn has already found you somewhere new to go."

Angelina turned toward him.

"Helena Seger. You haven't met her yet. Zlatan's wife. She has her own agency, excellent connections in fashion, and she came from the industry herself."

The woman who had managed to keep "God" under control was eleven years older than Ibrahimović.

"I've already spoken with her," Raiola continued. "She looked through some of your previous work and she's very interested. Once this shoot is finished, all you have to do is meet her."

Angelina's eyes reddened again.

"Thank you... Thank you both."

Zayn reached out and ruffled her hair.

"All right, no more crying. We still have a shoot to do. I personally guaranteed you'd be perfect for this. If you ruin your makeup and don't look good on camera, Macchione will come after me."

Angelina finally laughed through her tears and wiped the corners of her eyes.

Raiola gave Zayn a wink.

"I'll go tell Macchione. You two get ready."

With that, he turned and walked away.

Only Zayn and Angelina remained in the corridor.

Angelina looked at him for several seconds, then finally gathered her courage.

She rose onto her toes and pressed a light kiss to his lips.

"That's my thank-you," she whispered.

Zayn deliberately raised an eyebrow.

"That's it?"

Angelina blushed and refused to answer.

Instead, she closed her right hand into a fist and held it in front of him.

Zayn did not understand at first. His gaze was drawn instead to the pale wrist and slender fingers before him.

Angelina slowly opened her hand.

A single chocolate rested in her palm.

The wrapper was slightly creased, perhaps because she had kept it close to her for so long, but otherwise it had been preserved remarkably well.

Zayn finally recognized it.

It was one of the chocolates from the gift box used in the Cadbury Christmas commercial they had filmed together when they first met the previous year.

For a moment, he felt dazed.

An entire year had passed before they met again.

And once again, chocolate had brought them together.

...

The filming went even more smoothly than Macchione had expected.

Zayn was clearly someone who loved food. In front of the camera, he could talk at length about the textures and flavors of different chocolates without sounding lost.

During the bean-selection and recipe stage, he followed Macchione's guidance, sampled several premium cocoa varieties, and selected the one he "liked best."

In reality, he was following Domori's private instructions and choosing the company's signature Criollo.

Criollo was among the rarest and most prized cocoa varieties in the world, accounting for only around 0.01% of global cocoa production. It had always been at the heart of Domori's identity.

The final stage was the design and naming of the limited-edition chocolate.

Zayn had no real ideas about the design, so he mostly followed Macchione's suggestions.

The name was the one part that truly belonged to him.

He thought for a moment.

"Let's call it 'Snowy Night.'"

Macchione reacted immediately and clapped his hands.

"Snowy Night... wonderful. It paints a winter scene, and it immediately reminds people of your bicycle kick in the snow at the Westfalenstadion. Perfect!"

Zayn scratched his head and did not explain.

What he had actually remembered was the snow in Birmingham on this same day one year ago.

After filming ended, Macchione tried to keep Zayn for dinner, but Zayn politely declined.

"Mr. Ryder, we'll ship samples of Snowy Night to Dortmund within a month. Let's look forward to seeing how it performs in the British market."

"I hope we won't disappoint Domori, Mr. Macchione."

Zayn shook hands with him and said goodbye.

Then he and Angelina climbed into the car Raiola had arranged and returned to central Turin.

Zayn had reserved a deluxe mountain-view room at the Principi di Piemonte hotel in the city center.

An entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows faced the Alps. Even lying in bed, they could see the distant chain of snow-covered peaks.

The moment they entered, Angelina took off her coat, stepped barefoot onto the carpet, and walked toward the balcony.

She rested both hands on the railing and looked outside.

Night fell early in Turin at the end of December. It was only around four in the afternoon, yet only the last trace of sunset remained.

The distant Alps formed a silver-white arc against the twilight.

Below them, snow-covered Turin spread across the foothills, with the Mole Antonelliana rising high above the sea of rooftops.

Zayn stepped up behind Angelina and draped his coat over her shoulders.

"Don't get cold. It's been snowing all day."

"It's beautiful."

She turned toward him, her gaze already soft and unfocused.

They were so close that their breathing mingled in the cold air.

Zayn was about to say something when Angelina suddenly pushed him backward onto the soft bed behind them and leaned over him.

Before he could react, she kissed him.

A rich chocolate flavor spread across Zayn's tongue, warm and lingering.

At some point, Angelina had slipped that old Cadbury chocolate into her mouth.

...

Neither of them slept that night.

...

Note: We're gradually catching up to the latest RAW chapters. As we get closer, the posting frequency will likely slow down to match the author's release pace. Thank you for your understanding!