How about Shaxian? All you can eat.

"Mr. Huo, is there a lot of lotus root around here?"

Zhuang Luo asked with a smile.

Bright sunshine paired with a bright, gentle smile-the ultimate move for winning over a top!

Yet, one second later: "..."

Two seconds later: "..."

Three seconds later: "..."

Ten seconds later: "..."

Everything was silent. The whole damn world might as well have been dead.

Even when Zhuang Luo's facial muscles started twitching, he still received no response.

In his embarrassment, he couldn't help wondering whether his voice had been too quiet for Huo Yuchen to hear.

So he mustered his courage again, raised his voice, and asked once more, "Mr. Huo, is the lotus root here easy to harvest?"

The result:

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

The idiom "playing music to a cow" had been brought to life with absolute perfection.

[Hahahahahaha hohohohohohoho I have no manners, so I'm laughing first]

[Just ordered ten massage guns, for no other reason than to give our crown prince's icy aloofness 10,086 likes!]

[I admit I have double standards. Someone else ignores me: rude bastard!!! Huo Yuchen ignores Zhuang Luo: aaaaaah he's so hot, he gets me!!!]

[[Clap clap clap.jpg] This deserves applause]

[[Clap clap clap.jpg] There's already applause here]

[[Clap clap clap.jpg] There's plenty of applause here]

[[Clap clap clap.jpg] There's the most applause here]

[[Clap clap clap.jpg] There's... hey, I'm breaking the pattern]

And just like that, the perfect plan died before it could get off the ground.

Time drifted and hurried along, and before they knew it, it was three in the afternoon.

Remembering that the wasteland still needed plowing and that getting back would take some time, they wordlessly agreed to call the staff over to weigh their harvest, intending to return to Miemeng Village.

While the bearded man bustled about carrying plastic crates, Xu Su took out the new phone the production team had given him and opened the app to check the exchange rate for converting lotus root into points.

"I forgot to check before we came. Let me see what it is this time..."

His cheerful voice cut off abruptly. Xu Su looked again and again in disbelief, stunned.

"?!?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?!?"

He whipped his head toward Director Yu. "One jin of lotus root only gets us 0.5 points?!?"

"Is there a problem?"

Director Yu gnawed on a fresh lotus root a villager had handed him, his face utterly composed and fearless, not thinking there was anything reprehensible about his behavior at all.

Xu Su pointed at the lotus pond in righteous indignation:

"Do you know how hard it is to harvest this lotus root?!"

"Do you know you're devaluing the fruits of honest people's labor?!"

"Do you know this extreme exploitation of yours is no different from those dumbasses who fake a persona to scam fans out of their money?!"

Director Yu: "..."

Zhuang Luo & Li Weizhou: "..."

[That was vicious]

[Doesn't stop me from loving it]

[Haha]

In the end, thanks to Xu Su's strenuous efforts, the exchange rate for the lotus root finally... still didn't change by a single point.

A few minutes later, the app notified them of changes to their points: Lu Jing +18 points, Zhuang Luo +16 points, Shen Chuanzhu +33.5 points, and Li Weizhou +32.5 points.

Xu Su, meanwhile, gained 77.5 points.

-That was the fruit of Huo Yuchen's full day of work plus his own half day of work.

As of now, everyone's points were as follows:

Shen Chuanzhu had 65.5 points, and Lu Jing had 52;

Zhuang Luo had 41 points, and Li Weizhou had 67.5;

Xu Su had 205.5 points, and Huo Yuchen had 0.

On the way back to Miemeng Village, Xu Su asked kindly, "What would you like to eat later?"

It wasn't genuine generosity. Mainly, all the points were with him, and starving the Huo Group's crown prince to death wasn't some minor matter he could resolve by jumping off a building. Chairman Huo, who was supposedly extremely difficult to deal with, would surely dig up eighteen generations of his ancestors' ashes and plaster the walls with them.

Huo Yuchen was gazing at the pastoral scenery outside the window. A breeze that wasn't particularly strong blew in through the window, lifting his hair and revealing his sharply defined features.

At the question, his gaze remained firmly fixed, and he merely let two words slip softly past his lips. "Anything's fine."

He seemed easy enough to feed.

Having received an answer, Xu Su turned toward the assistant director in the front passenger seat.

But before he could say the words on the tip of his tongue-"Let's order some plain noodles in clear broth"-he heard the crown prince add, "Just some matsutake, shark fin, and eight-treasure chicken will do. I'm not picky."

"...??"

He called that not picky??

Xu Su slowly turned his head to look at Huo Yuchen's profile. The expression on his delicate, smooth face was rather complicated, and every word was full of skepticism:

"Do you understand what 'anything's fine' means?"

Huo Yuchen withdrew his gaze. As his eyes met Xu Su's, a trace of amusement entered them. "No."

Xu Su drew back sulkily and leaned against the back seat. "...Being uncultured is truly terrifying!"

After muttering his complaint, Xu Su thought that only yesterday, this man had been an ordinary person who could stomach Luffa Egg Drop Soup. All he'd done today was dig up some lotus root, and he'd already reverted to acting as though he were above mortal fare. Were all rich people this "twisted"?

Before long, they were inside the production team's villa in Miemeng Village.

At the dining table, Xu Su slurped down big mouthfuls of tomato and egg noodles personally cooked by the Huo Group's crown prince, satisfaction written all over his face.

Yes, indeed. Upholding his philosophy of "hardship first, sweetness later," Xu Su-the transmigrated version-had ultimately been unwilling to spend extra points ordering expensive food for Huo Yuchen.

After all, those points had been hard-earned. If they feasted here, they would inevitably have to do more work afterward just to barely maintain three basic meals a day. Frankly, there was no need.

They might as well endure a little hardship now and enjoy themselves properly once the show ended.

After drinking the last mouthful of delicious noodle broth, Xu Su looked at Huo Yuchen, who was still eating his noodles "reluctantly," and patted him on the shoulder in consolation:

"Your Highness, you've suffered. Don't worry. Once we're out of this village, I'll definitely treat you to something good!"

His solemn promise rang through the dining room. A subtle change came over Huo Yuchen's impassive expression, only for it to freeze a second later:

"How about Shaxian? All you can eat."

"..."

[Nice]

[Holy shit, he picked a cuisine where even eating yourself to death wouldn't cost a hundred]

[Shaxian: so we've moved up in the world now, huh?]

[I knew he was generous, but I never thought he'd be this stingy. Sure enough, our dear Su never disappoints]