Arranging His Affairs

While Zhang Shuai was eating skewers, a woman in blue workwear walked up to his table and lightly tapped it.

"Sir, sorry to disturb you."

Zhang Shuai looked up at the woman. She seemed to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with short hair and an air of sharp competence.

"What is it?"

Yang Wan chose her words carefully. "Sir, I'm the manager here. If you're feeling unwell, you can ask us for help..."

Zhang Shuai frowned and stared straight at the female manager. "What do you mean? Did I eat too much?"

Seeing the fat man's harsh tone, Yang Wan hurriedly waved her hands. "No, no, that's not what I meant. Please don't misunderstand, sir. I was just worried that you might not be feeling well... Please continue your meal."

Yang Wan left, and Zhang Shuai continued eating. He went back for more food several times, each time piling up an entire tableful. The servers were left dumbfounded. By the end, even Zhang Shuai could not remember how much he had eaten. By a rough estimate, it was at least enough for more than a dozen people.

Yet even after eating so much, the hunger had not gone away. His stomach was like a bottomless pit that could never be filled.

The two-hour limit was almost up. The buffet restaurant stipulated that diners could not stay longer than two hours.

With his heart turned to ashes, Zhang Shuai walked out of the buffet restaurant. As he left, he vaguely heard several female servers talking.

"That was terrifying. That fat guy was the biggest eater I've ever seen in my life. I was completely stunned."

"If there hadn't been a time limit, looking at the way he was going, he probably could've eaten every bit of food in the restaurant."

"He spent sixty-nine yuan, but he must've eaten a thousand yuan's worth of food. If a few more customers like him came in, this place would go under."

"How long had he been starving? Was he a hungry ghost reborn? It's unbelievable. I couldn't eat as much in a month as he ate in one meal."

"He eats so much, he could livestream it. He should do mukbang—he'd definitely become popular and make money!"

Zhang Shuai stood at the entrance and listened for a few moments, feeling rather bitter inside. They were treating him like a human garbage disposal? But despite all that food, he still did not feel full.

With no other choice, Zhang Shuai switched to another buffet restaurant and kept eating. Yet two hours later, he left that restaurant with his heart turned to ashes.

He had given up. It seemed his body really had a problem. Perhaps it was an aftereffect of that electric shock, one that had mutated his digestive system. If that was the case, then no matter how much he ate, it would be useless.

Forcing himself to endure the hunger, Zhang Shuai returned to his rented room. He was so hungry that his vision swam, and he could not summon a shred of strength throughout his body.

Am I going to die? In this day and age, starving to death alive is such a miserable way to go.

Lying on his bed, Zhang Shuai scrolled through his phone, wondering whether he should leave his parents some final words. But on second thought, both his parents now had families of their own and other children. They had never cared much about him anyway. In their eyes, their foolish son had long since ceased to exist. There was no need to disturb them.

The only person Zhang Shuai felt sorry for was Wang Qiang. He still owed Wang Qiang six thousand yuan.

Wang Qiang was Zhang Shuai's childhood friend. To Zhang Shuai, Wang Qiang was not only his only friend in this world, but also the only person who had never looked down on him and had always helped him. Zhang Shuai thought he should find some way to repay the money he owed Wang Qiang. Even if he was leaving this world, he could not leave with Wang Qiang's debt still unpaid.

Perhaps he could buy personal accident insurance and list Wang Qiang as the beneficiary. Wang Qiang could handle his funeral arrangements, and the remaining money should be enough to let him live a better life. That would count as repaying Wang Qiang's kindness.

Once the thought came to him, he acted on it. Zhang Shuai immediately chose a platform online and bought personal accident insurance. In the occupation field, he entered electrician. The policy cost him three hundred yuan, and the payout was one million yuan—enough to take care of his funeral arrangements.

The insurance had been bought. All that remained was choosing how to die.

Zhang Shuai specifically looked it up. Starvation did not count as accidental death, and the insurance company would not pay out. So he could not simply wait to starve to death.

What about going out onto the street and finding a car to stage an accident? Being hit by a car should count as accidental death, but the definition was too vague. If he got hit by a car right after buying insurance, the company could easily suspect he had committed suicide to defraud them.

So dying in a car accident was no good either. After turning it over and over in his mind, Zhang Shuai felt that the most reasonable way to die was by electrocution.

He was an electrician, after all. Though he had only gotten his electrician's certificate recently and had worked for just three months in total, he still had a legitimate job. Accidentally dying from electrocution on the job would be perfectly normal.

Zhang Shuai checked the electrician job platform to see whether there were any nearby jobs he could take. To his surprise, luck was on his side. There was a job in Yulong Residential Complex: a simple repair job, since the wiring in a resident's home had burned out.

Without hesitation, Zhang Shuai accepted the job through the platform.

Not long after he took the job, a call came in. It was the customer's number transferred through the platform.

"Hello! Is this the electrician?"

A woman's voice came through the phone. From the sound of it, she was likely a middle-aged woman.

Zhang Shuai said, "Yes. The wiring in your home burned out and needs repairs, right?"

"That's right. There's no power in the house now, and I still need to cook dinner tonight! Master, can you come over and fix it as soon as possible?"

"No problem. Give me the exact address!"

"Qingshui City... Yulong Residential Complex, Building Nine, Unit Three, second floor, Room 202!"

"Alright! Wait there. I'll be there within ten minutes!"

After hanging up, Zhang Shuai forced himself to endure the fierce hunger. He changed into work clothes printed with "Xiaotuan Maintenance," straightened his outfit, and stood before the full-length mirror in the bathroom, sighing to himself.

How pitiful. He had been reborn as a human in this life, yet never enjoyed any blessings. He had never tasted much good food, never seen the nation's magnificent rivers and mountains, and never even dated. It was as if he had come into this world for nothing.

Zhang Shuai prepared to send Wang Qiang one final message. But after thinking it over, he felt he could not send it. What if the insurance company found the message and decided Zhang Shuai had committed suicide, refusing to pay out? Wouldn't he have died for nothing?

Still, there were some things he had to explain to Wang Qiang. After much deliberation, Zhang Shuai sent a simple message to Wang Qiang's account through a mobile game.

"Brother, after last night's electrocution accident, I specifically bought personal accident insurance and listed you as the beneficiary. If something really happens to me, handle my funeral arrangements. I'll repay your kindness in my next life."

This mobile game was extremely popular right now, and both Zhang Shuai and Wang Qiang played it. Their accounts had a chat function for sending messages. Zhang Shuai believed that once Wang Qiang got off work and started playing, he would definitely see it.

Having arranged everything, Zhang Shuai took his toolbox with no attachments left in his heart and walked out the door without hesitation.