The reading says you have one life to live

The two stared at each other in silence for two seconds, one wanting to spout some more bullshit, the other wanting to say "Get out," when Huo Yuchen's voice suddenly rang out outside the door:

"Am I just ignorant? So this is how the village roosters crow. They sound just like people talking."

Xu Su: ?

Li Weizhou: ?

Those words were heavily laced with insults, and their target was very clear: the people in this room.

Xu Su frowned in thought for a second, then his brow relaxed.

An amused smile curled his lips, and with a Pan Zhoudan-style sidestep, he slipped behind Li Weizhou to open the door.

"Excuse me, are you talking about this rooster in my room?"

Li Weizhou, the bewildered rooster: ??

Huo Yuchen stood at ease a few meters from the doorway. His perfectly fitted, understated yet expensive pure-white casual sportswear showed off his proportions and refined air to perfection.

When he saw Xu Su open the door, a hint of teasing appeared at the corners of his narrow, restrained eyes.

"So your third fetish is stealing the villagers' chickens?"

Xu Su scoffed and pushed the door wide open, revealing Li Weizhou's figure.

"Don't be ridiculous. What honest villager would raise such a disgusting rooster? Not only does he like trespassing, but his ass is planted upside down on his face. Every time he opens his mouth, out comes a string of stinking farts."

Huo Yuchen chuckled, folded his arms, and looked at that disgusting rooster with interest.

"You're right. This certainly doesn't look like a rooster the honest villagers of Miemeng Village would raise."

Li Weizhou, who had finally caught on: "..."

Fine, fine, fine. So insulting people to their faces was all the rage now, huh?

With Huo Yuchen interfering like this, Li Weizhou could no longer keep up his psychological manipulation. He turned and left, planning to find a suitable opportunity to continue "reforming" Xu Su.

A pale, fish-belly white appeared on the horizon.

Knowing today's popularity would shoot straight up, the enthusiastic (and utterly unscrupulous) Director Yu grabbed a half-meter-tall megaphone and "invited" all six of them out of bed the moment the clock struck six.

"Good morning, everyone!"

He was brimming with energy.

"..."

The guests who had been forcibly awakened were brimming with the aura of death.

Especially Xu Su.

He had only just provoked that idiot Li Weizhou into leaving and was about to go back to sleep when Director Yu hauled him up to work.

Overwhelmed by sleepiness, he began his half-dead denunciation:

"Sure enough, there's no such thing as a free lunch, only unpaid overtime. If I'd known the mortal world had things like this, I never would've descended from heaven."

"No wonder people say life has no hurdle you can't overcome, just endless hurdles to overcome; no overtime you can't work, just endless overtime to work. I used to scoff and smile. Now there's no escaping my fate."

"I suggest adding 'work starts at six' to the ten great tortures of the Qing dynasty. I think it could take first place all on its own."

"I pray that everyone in this world who makes us workhorses get up early for work steps in chicken shit, duck shit, dog shit, pig shit, cow shit, horse shit, sheep shit, bird shit, cat shit, bear shit, wolf shit, and human shit the moment they leave home."

"..."

The entire place fell silent, every gaze converging on Xu Su.

Only Huo Yuchen's lips curved slightly. "Well said."

"..."

Director Yu's silence was deafening.

The masses of early-shift corporate slaves who shared his pain resonated deeply:

[Holy shit!!! You're so right!!]

[Fuck, what did I ever do wrong? Having to suffer through work first thing in the morning is bad enough, and now I have to get emotionally wrecked too.]

[There aren't enough kinds of shit. I'm afraid my boss might get lucky and escape. Please add a few more and seal that fucker in from every angle.]

[Tiger shit, deer shit, elephant shit, ape shit, rat shit, fish shit, monkey shit, snake shit, frog shit, whale shit, donkey shit, turtle shit, goose shit, porpoise shit, rabbit shit, mosquito shit, fly shit, shrimp shit, and my shit. Enough? Add more yourself if it isn't.]

[(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`) Who gets it, folks? To let my boss live the life he wants, I get right up even when it's over forty degrees out.]

[Starting work at six isn't just the worst torture of the Qing dynasty. It's the worst torture of the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties combined!]

[As someone who starts work at five every day, I'm genuinely exhausted. It feels like raising six sons, then having to raise twelve grandsons for them.]

#Xu Su: "Getting up early for work" is torture#

His effortlessly quotable lines quickly made the trending searches.

Still, their popularity couldn't match the topic about the Zhuang-Zhou CP using single personas to rake in fans and money.

At the same time, the sympathetic comments were quickly buried by the emotionally shattered Zhuang-Zhou CP fans and the two men's respective haters.

At the scene, Li Weizhou and Zhuang Luo were also in a state that defied description.

Although both were working hard to maintain presentable smiles for the sake of their precarious images, the exhaustion in their eyes was fully exposed.

Zhuang Luo in particular had eyes like a monkey's ass after crying all night. Paired with his forced smile, the sight almost made Xu Su find a helmet to cover his face when he happened to glance his way.

"Let me announce today's little points-earning task!"

"-You'll be helping the villagers harvest lotus roots in neighboring Lotus Village!"

Director Yu switched to his sleek little voice amplifier and began blathering:

"Since Lotus Village is quite far away, walking would take too much time. Our transportation is limited, too, so we can't take everyone over at once. We'll therefore hold a team competition to determine how you'll travel there and back."

"First place gets a luxury electric scooter, second place gets a 1982 bicycle, and third place gets a nostalgic old mule cart."

"A friendly reminder: you also need to plow fields today, and faster transportation will save you more time, so do your best!"

Having finished, Director Yu smiled deviously.

[Oh, so a bicycle wasn't enough? You had to throw in an old mule cart? Director, you're downright evil.]

[I genuinely cannot imagine the crown prince riding an old mule cart. [facepalm]]

[Just saying, is there no even more primitive option? Like making whoever comes last crawl.]

[Then lock the Zhuang-Zhou CP together and assign them last place in advance.]

[You people up there really know how to vent your anger. [giggle]]

Lu Jing asked, "Then how are we splitting into teams?"

"Good question!"

Director Yu produced a fortune-stick cylinder. "Let heaven decide!"

Everyone: "..."

Now they were even bringing mysticism into it.

The cylinder contained six bamboo sticks in three different lengths. Whoever shook out sticks of the same length would form a team.

Xu Su stepped forward first, took the cylinder, and gave it a dashing shake, only to shake out one of the shortest sticks.

Staring at the short stick, Xu Su suddenly furrowed his brow. "Master, how should this fortune be interpreted?"

Director Yu joined in with an equally eccentric air of contemplation. "Well..."

"The reading says you have one life to live."

At some point, Huo Yuchen had come to stand beside Xu Su, speaking in a languid, teasing voice.

Hearing that, Xu Su froze at first, then abruptly widened his eyes and sucked in a sharp breath, looking as though enlightenment had dawned.

A few seconds later, however, his brows suddenly lowered slightly, and he turned to Huo Yuchen with a somewhat speechless expression.

"I could say your reading is wrong, but I do have one life to live. But saying your reading is right really doesn't sit well with me. So who exactly taught you to interpret fortunes like that?"

Huo Yuchen said nothing. He took the cylinder from Director Yu, preparing to shake out a stick.

[So who exactly taught the crown prince to interpret fortunes like that?]

[Crown prince: None of your business!]

[LMAO, if that's how Huo Yuchen's playing it, I feel like I could tell fortunes too.]

[Person above, you're still young. You don't understand how treacherous the world is or how unpredictable people can be. Often, a simple sentence isn't merely as simple as a simple sentence. It also holds many hidden mysteries. Take what you just said, for example. It's very inappropriate in the context of your life and could very likely cause you a lot of unnecessary trouble. So listen to me, delete it, and let me say it.]