Just Plain Sick

Just then, Shen Chuanzhu and Li Weizhou returned, looking travel-worn.

After exchanging their points with the production team for cooked food, the two entered the dining room.

The next second, Li Weizhou placed a box of honey-glazed chicken wings in front of Xu Su.

"Eat."

His sudden words were as gentle as water.

Everyone: ?

The viewers: ??

The recipient of this inexplicable gift of food: ???

Xu Su stared at the box of chicken wings that had suddenly appeared, looking, smelling, and presumably tasting delicious. His mind kept swinging between Has he been driven into a corner and decided to poison me with this? and Does he have cataracts and think I'm Zhuang Luo?

Eventually, his thoughts settled on He must have eaten too much sludge from the lotus pond and gotten a blocked artery in his brain. That's the only reason he'd do something this insane.

Xu Su stood, dusted off his backside, and turned to leave.

-in the adult world, ignoring something was the most powerful response.

But Li Weizhou refused to give up. He caught hold of Xu Su. "Don't you want any?"

Xu Su was extremely polite. "Sorry, I'm allergic to certain substances that might be in there."

Li Weizhou: "..."

[Low emotional intelligence: I'm afraid you poisoned it. High emotional intelligence: I'm allergic to certain substances that might be in there.]

[Oh my, what's this? Is he the one sucking up now?]

[Best Actor Li's face is the exact same green as the bok choy my grandma just picked.]

[o(*￣︶￣*)o That felt so good.]

His face sporting nature's own color, Best Actor Li seemed unwilling to give up. After a brief silence, he said, "Xu Su, I don't mean anything by it. I'm just..."

"Just plain sick."

Huo Yuchen had stood up at some point, and his pointed completion of that sentence was smoother than silk from two thousand years ago.

Called sick in front of tens of thousands of viewers, even Best Actor Li, for all his composure and fear of offending people, was beginning to lose his cool.

He asked resentfully, "Mr. Huo, may I ask if I've offended you somehow?"

Huo Yuchen casually, languidly turned his head to look at him and slipped both hands into his pockets, radiating disdain and arrogance from head to toe.

"Does holding me up from working in the fields count?"

Li Weizhou froze at those words. When did I ever hold this almighty man up from working in the fields?

Bewildered, he instinctively glanced at Shen Chuanzhu and Xu Su, who were both there.

Shen Chuanzhu was the sort who remained unmoved no matter what storms raged around him. He paid no attention whatsoever to Li Weizhou's confusion and simply kept shoveling food into his mouth.

After wearing himself out for most of the day, with more fieldwork still to come, who had the time to bother with that nonsense?

Xu Su had some idea of what Huo Yuchen meant, but he wasn't certain, so he said nothing either.

While he was mulling it over, he heard Li Weizhou ask despite himself, "What might you mean by that?"

Truly a cultured man who had acted in far too many historical dramas.

He was clearly thinking, What the fuck do you mean? Yet he could phrase the question with such refinement.

Huo Yuchen glanced at Xu Su, then shifted his gaze back and stared unblinkingly at Li Weizhou.

"I should have left here with my assistant three minutes ago to go to the wasteland, but because you keep shamelessly pestering him, my assistant can't leave, which indirectly means I can't leave either..."

After a pause, Huo Yuchen tilted his head slightly. When he spoke again, his tone had grown a little colder.

"So, rounding it off, doesn't that mean you're holding me up from working in the fields?"

"...?!"

Li Weizhou said nothing, his blank expression looking distinctly dumbfounded.

Xu Su, meanwhile, generously gave him a thumbs-up. "Truly the god of domineering CEO logic from Ancient Greece!"

[[Applause] What a god of domineering CEO logic from Ancient Greece!!!]

[Holy shit? Why does this feel like a romantic showdown?? But the lead's wrong. Shouldn't it be Zhuang Show-off Luo???]

[Hahahahaha, what the hell is Zhuang Show-off Luo?]

[Asking from the depths of my soul for the 1,001st time: Director, are you really not considering turning this show into a dating show on the fly?]

Actually, this so-called assistant arrangement was something for after the show ended, but Xu Su didn't mind Huo Yuchen giving him the "title" now.

After all, having the title meant having someone backing him up.

Night fell.

Dusk steeped the quiet hills, and a bright crescent moon hung at the edge of the sky right on schedule. Insects chirped incessantly in the wild undergrowth.

Out on the wasteland, Xu Su looked at the tiny patch of soil they had tilled, his heart filled with desolation. "Sigh..."

If his pay hadn't gone up, he would have really wanted to ram the hoe in his hands straight into Director Yu's lungs.

It wasn't as though they were experienced hands who did farmwork every day. With so little time, they had to earn points, compete regularly, and finish tilling all this wasteland. It was practically an attempt to work them to death.

Not far away, Huo Yuchen seemed to have noticed Xu Su's melancholy. His warm, pleasant voice sounded through the dusk, carried by the night breeze.

"If you're tired, go rest. I'll do it."

"??"

This sudden offer of "care" was like spotting a lump of gold when he had nowhere left to turn. Xu Su was utterly bewildered.

But along with his bewilderment, he couldn't help feeling delighted.

"Really?-never mind."

No sooner had those excited words left his mouth than he regained his reason and abandoned the idea of continuing to reap the rewards without doing any work.

It wasn't that he had suddenly fallen in love with labor. Rather, he couldn't afford to wear this particular man out.

After all, this was a crown prince who genuinely had a throne waiting for him at home. He had already been "gravely wounded" because of Xu Su during the day and earned him so many points. Making him toil away tilling the land for him at night too would be going too far.

Yet the budding sprout called conscience had barely emerged before Huo Yuchen personally pinched it dead-

Thud.

Having approached at some point, he tossed Xu Su's hoe onto the ground with natural ease.

At the same time, he ordered, "Sit over there."

Tsk.

[Classic domineering CEO move.]

[Fuck, those few words have hijacked my bedtime fantasies tonight all over again.]

[Seriously, do you have to spoil him this much???]

[Someone! Set out my memorial tablet early!! If I don't kowtow until my head breaks off today, my surname isn't Xie!!!]

"This kid takes after me. He knows how to dote on his wife."

In an antique, luxurious study decorated throughout with golden-thread nanmu wood, Huo Ruhui, wearing reading glasses, reviewed assorted documents while glancing at the tablet beside him and offering a running commentary.

Secretary Cheng was opening each document to the signature page for Huo Ruhui. At those words, he gave an expression of agreement that was difficult to describe. "You're absolutely right."

Outwardly, he bowed for the sake of his paycheck, but inwardly, he thought, There isn't even the slightest sign of anything yet, and you're already calling him his wife.

Having battled in the business world for years, Huo Ruhui had a piercing eye. He didn't even need to look to know what bullshit Secretary Cheng was thinking.

His deep voice drawled, "You still have a lot to learn from your father."

Secretary Cheng's father, Senior Secretary Cheng, had once been Huo Ruhui's personal secretary. He had already retired, and his son had now taken over.

The younger Secretary Cheng didn't dare act out in front of the old man. He nodded obediently. "Yes."