“What’s going on here?”

Xiang Yu walked over and found that everyone was there—the employees and Director Ji alike. They were all utterly exhausted, tongues hanging out as they panted like a pack of dogs.

The hot spring pools were temporarily closed while the system carried out its cleaning cycle and automatically replaced the water, so everyone was squatting outside waiting.

“Boss!!!”

The moment they saw Xiang Yu return, her overworked employees scrambled to their feet from the ground, looking as if they wanted nothing more than to throw themselves at her and hug her legs.

Liu Bo’s face and hands were smeared black with coal dust, no doubt from setting up charcoal stoves and hauling coal for the guests. When he grinned, his white teeth stood out so starkly that he looked like a toothpaste commercial.

“Guess how much we made today!”

Xiang Yu almost didn’t recognize him. With genuine respect, she cupped a hand to her ear.

“How much?”

The accountant, Mu Qian, had dirt all over her hands from peeling potatoes and shelling peanuts. Squatting on the steps, she said in an exhausted voice,

“You don’t even need to check. On a normal day, rotating three or four groups through the pools is already pushing it. At absolute maximum, the springs can hold just over a hundred people at once. Today they ran at full capacity the entire time. At least three hundred guests soaked in the pools, and almost all of them bought the package deal.”

“Today’s revenue: 30,000 yuan.”

Xiao Tian, the female bath attendant—known as the Buddhist Guardian Boy—looked utterly dazed.

“There weren’t enough straw mats to go around. The people at the back started buying mats from the people in front… and we couldn’t boil the hot spring eggs fast enough…”

“There was just… no way we could keep up.”

Xiao Shan, who had spent the entire day calling out, “Sir, this way, please!” to the men’s bath guests, covered his face and burst into tears.

“People were even stealing the slippers…”

“My hands are almost callused.”

The shyest employee, Du Zhilan, turned her head, tears streaming down her face.

“I don’t know which idiot posted online that the volcanic mud was amazing for your skin. So all the people who couldn’t get into the hot springs started asking for volcanic mud facials.”

“There wasn’t a single break all day…”

She had suffered the worst of it.

The hot spring pools had a limit on how many guests they could admit, but each skincare session took twenty minutes.

The entire operation had become an assembly line.

One customer would finish applying the volcanic mud and immediately move on to a massage. By the time that massage was over, the next customer’s mud mask had already finished and they were ready to take the chair.

For the first time in her life, Du Zhilan felt that even charging 50 yuan per treatment wasn’t enough to compensate for how sore her hands had become.

Ji Kailang was squatting nearby with her backside sticking up, busily sorting through something.

When Xiang Yu leaned over for a closer look, she found it was a stack of commemorative banners.

One read:

“The Spinning Top King Is Forever the GOAT!”

There were also banners saying:

“A Benevolent Healer”

“Miracle Worker”

“The Nation’s Top Bian Que”

“Worthy of Worship in the Imperial Ancestral Temple”

“…Leading the Charge with Manure.”

…That last one really seemed like it belonged at Pingping’s house instead.

Seeing everyone so utterly exhausted, Xiang Yu didn’t waste time with a long speech.

She simply announced two pieces of good news.

First, the staff dormitory and cafeteria were ready.

Second, she’d brought everyone shopping gift cards as a reward for all their hard work over the past few days.

Nothing boosted morale like an immediate reward.

The university students were especially easy to cheer up.

Only moments ago they’d been sprawled across the steps, too tired to move. But the instant they heard that room and board had been taken care of, they started howling with excitement.

“Boss, you’re amazing!”

When they actually received the gift cards, they were so touched they could barely find the words.

Their exhaustion vanished in an instant.

The group noisily piled into Liu Bo’s car to head back to campus, all eagerly asking Xiang Yu to take pictures of the dormitory for them so they’d know what bedding and pillows to bring when they moved in.

Ji Kailang stayed behind until everyone else had left.

With a mysterious smile, she handed Xiang Yu a bulging plastic bag.

“What’s this?”

“From Pingping’s mom. Go ahead and take it.”

Ji Kailang opened the bag.

It was filled with all kinds of wild mountain mushrooms.

“Given her family’s circumstances, this is the best gift she could possibly afford. She also gave some to Liu Bo, Xiao Du, and the others. This portion is for you.”

“I brought something for you too.”

Xiang Yu pulled out another plastic bag, looking a little embarrassed.

“I was originally going to get you a shopping card too, but in the end I bought mosquito-repellent wristbands and some floral water instead.”

The night breeze drifted past.

The two of them exchanged bags and smiled at each other.

It felt like the perfect ending cutscene after clearing the first day of business—a flawless MVP victory screen.

Ji Kailang gave Xiang Yu’s shoulder a hearty pat.

“Get some rest.”

She had only taken a few steps away before suddenly remembering something.

It felt as though someone was missing from this victory CG.

“By the way… where’s that handsome guy of yours?”

“I haven’t seen him since the fight.”

Director Ji really had a knack for getting straight to the point.

Just as Xiang Yu was about to open the Hama Green app and search for “What do I do if I’ve lost an employee?”, she spotted the little cat sitting beneath the staff dormitory.

The kitten had followed her ever since she first entered Hama Valley.

It had trailed after her everywhere, weaving around her feet while she bustled from place to place. Under the lights, it still looked very young, with a soft, fluffy belly.

It was a purebred cat.

Its fur was creamy white, while its ears, legs, and tail gradually darkened into a rich chocolate brown. The warmer parts of its body were lighter, and the cooler extremities were darker.

Xiang Yu vaguely remembered hearing about this breed before.

A Siamese cat—often nicknamed the “nanny cat” among felines.

For some reason, though, the kitten’s whiskers looked a little singed.

She crouched down and gave it a gentle stroke.

The kitten let out a soft meow. After allowing itself to be petted, it hopped a short distance away.

It didn’t seem to like having its rear touched…

But it clearly liked her.

After hesitating for a moment from a few steps away, it suddenly lowered its head and trotted back, bumping it squarely into her waiting palm.

Its little head was unbelievably fluffy beneath her hand.

The sensation was wonderfully satisfying.

Reluctantly, Xiang Yu withdrew her hand.

She rubbed her fingertips together, unable to stop herself from savoring the memory of that feather-soft fur.

It reminded her of the cat she’d had in her previous life.

It had been about the same size as this one, felt just as soft, and had the same little black paws that looked like tiny gloves.

People always said cats were selfish creatures.

They demanded the finest canned food, the tastiest treats, weren’t especially bright, quickly forgot people, wandered off halfway through being petted, and never tolerated anything that made them even slightly uncomfortable.

But Xiang Yu’s cat had remembered people.

The two of them had shared a very special bond.

She’d asked other students before, and hardly anyone even remembered seeing the black cat that lived beneath the dormitory building.

Yet every single time Xiang Yu walked past the flowerbeds carrying a chicken drumstick and called out, “Kitty?”

The cat would appear without fail.

Every.

Single.

Time.

It had been almost miraculous.

During the winter, when it snowed, Xiang Yu would bring the little cat into the cardboard-box shelter she’d built on the dormitory balcony.

The cat was clean and beautiful, and all of her roommates adored it.

They fed it salmon, freeze-dried fruit treats, and premium snacks.

One of her roommates, whose family was wealthy enough that she drove a Porsche Panamera, even said she’d adopt the cat after graduation.

The cat wanted nothing to do with it.

Whenever the rich roommate tried to pet it, it would dodge away.

And just like that, it let a life of wealth and luxury slip through its paws.

From then on, everyone agreed it was undeniable proof that the cat wasn’t very bright.

By Xiang Yu’s junior year, the place where she worked provided employee housing.

Her roommates were used to seeing her climb back over the dormitory wall late at night, but because she didn’t want to disturb them when she worked night shifts, she started sleeping at work instead.

The very next day, one of her roommates called.

“The cat’s gone.”

It was snowing that day.

Xiang Yu was still wearing her gloves as she answered the phone and unlocked the door.

The moment she turned on the light, she saw the cat sitting on the windowsill.

The window faced north.

Cold winter winds howled through the gaps, ruffling the cat’s fur, which was dusted with delicate six-pointed snowflakes.

That was when Xiang Yu made up her mind.

When I’m an old lady someday…

Even if I end up wandering the streets collecting trash to survive, I’ll take you with me.

Winter was always hard for poor people.

The tiny dorm room had at least been warm enough.

But the little rental room she later lived in was almost empty, with nothing but a single electric space heater for warmth.

The cat loved rubbing itself against the heater until its fur was practically singed.

Its entire little face would end up soot-black every day, looking just like a lump of coal.

Fortunately, the old heater always tripped its circuit breaker if it stayed on too long, so it never actually roasted the foolish cat alive.

At night, it would curl into a ball beside her feet beneath the corner of the quilt, purring contentedly.

Sometimes, if her foot accidentally bumped into it, the cat would shiver from the cold.

But instead of moving away, it would press its little body even closer against hers.

It was just the two of them, making their way through life together.

It was hard to say who had really been taking care of whom.

Whatever Xiang Yu ate, the cat ate too.

Steamed buns.

Chicken drumsticks.

Cucumbers.

Instant noodles.

Even the tough cores of napa cabbage.

After every meal, it would meticulously lick its paws and wash its face until it was spotless.

Then it would disappear for a while to go hunting…

…and come back carrying money.

A cat’s way of repaying kindness is usually to bring home dead mice, cockroaches, or maybe even a snake.

But this cat had once come back from “hunting” with a heavy gold necklace.

Xiang Yu turned it in to the lost-and-found.

After that, the cat started bringing home cash instead.

People rarely used paper money these days, and although it was never much—five yuan here, ten yuan there—it was still impossible to imagine where the little rascal kept finding it.

A little pickpocket.

That was what Xiang Yu secretly called it.

She spent every yuan the cat brought back on canned cat food.

Only then did she discover that the cat wasn’t stupid after all.

It knew perfectly well that canned food was delicious.

When life was hanging by a thread, she never had the luxury of thinking about the cat.

But now that she’d bought herself a few more days to live…

She wanted to bring it with her again.

Especially today.

She’d earned a lot of money.

Enough to buy plenty of cat food and dried fish.

And now there was a new dormitory.

The new place was beautiful.

The ancient-town-style buildings were embraced by a stream fed by snowmelt from the mountains. Every room had an open corridor and a terrace. The courtyards were enclosed by wood and stone, each with its own charming little patio. There was even a tiny ornamental mill that looked more like part of the landscaping than a real tool.

It would be perfect for grinding meat into pâté or preparing cat grass.

A place like this would easily rent for four or five hundred yuan a night on a travel-booking app as a boutique guesthouse.

Now she finally had wealth and comfort…

But the cat was gone.

That’s just…

Unfortunately, Xiang Yu had never been much for elegant words.

Even though the mood was perfectly set for a poignant reflection, the only saying she could think of was:

“The child wishes to provide for their parents, but they’re no longer there to receive the care.”

Not exactly the right proverb.

Lost in those scattered thoughts, she arrived at the staff dormitory.

To her surprise, the lights inside were still on.

The steps were damp, with fresh streaks left behind by a recently mopped floor.

Someone had gotten there before her.

It looked as though the place had already been tidied up.

Shen Jiu?

Xiang Yu climbed the steps and gently knocked on the heavy wooden door set into the bluish-gray mountain stone.

The door swung open with almost no resistance.

Someone had deliberately left it unlocked for her.

But the person inside wasn’t Shen Jiu.

Instead, standing there was a delicate, pretty young girl wearing a dress with her hair neatly tied up in a bun.

A small bucket sat beside her.

She was struggling with both hands to push a mop that was taller than she was, working so hard that sweat covered her forehead.

Behind her dress extended a metallic-colored tail.

A rag was wrapped around the tip of the tail, and it was busily wiping down the table while she mopped the floor.

The sound of someone entering made her jump.

With a whoosh, she whipped her tail back behind her. The rag wrapped around its tip fluttered gently to the floor.

Then she turned toward the doorway.

She and Xiang Yu stared at each other for two seconds.

Suddenly, the little girl gathered up her skirt and dropped to one knee with a smack.

“Benefactor!” she called out in a bright, clear voice.

She clasped her hands in salute and bowed her head.

“I am the newly assigned disabled employee, Xuan Ying.”

Who knew how long she’d been cleaning?

The dormitory—which was, technically speaking, still under renovation—was now spotless.

Not a speck of dust remained.

Everything gleamed.

The tables, the lampshades… every surface shone as though it had been polished with wax.

Her name sounded straight out of an ancient fantasy novel.

Xiang Yu hurried over and pulled her to her feet.

“Okay, okay. My name is Xiang Yu. We don’t do this kind of grand ceremony here. And don’t call me ‘Benefactor,’ either.”

Xuan Ying caught on immediately.

She nodded obediently.

“Master.”

That title instantly reminded Xiang Yu of certain unpleasant memories.

But looking into the girl’s wide, innocent, sparkling eyes, she simply couldn’t bring herself to object.

Xuan Ying enthusiastically led Xiang Yu over to the dining table.

To Xiang Yu’s surprise, dinner had been left waiting for her.

There was stir-fried wild vegetables with eggs, mushroom soup, and a bowl of rice topped with two glossy, braised chicken drumsticks.

Seeing the little girl staring at her with bright, expectant eyes, Xiang Yu immediately headed into the kitchen to find another bowl so they could share.

Xuan Ying frantically shook her head.

“No, no! I don’t eat.”

“I’m a scorpion spirit.”

“Thank you.”

Xiang Yu spoke with complete sincerity.

“You don’t have to do all this. I’ll hire a cafeteria chef.”

“Okay!” the girl answered loudly.

“But… I don’t dare tell him.”

“You’ll have to say it yourself, Master.”

“…Huh?”

The little scorpion spirit explained with complete honesty,

“When I arrived, I saw The Heaven-Swallowing, Dao-Protecting, Nine Heavens’ Heavenly Fortune, Evil-Suppressing Celestial Exalt cooking in the kitchen.”

He was simply far too hardworking.

She had only just arrived and had no idea what sort of immortal paradise this was. Naturally, she didn’t dare offend such an exalted being.

So when she noticed a pile of cement and bricks in the corner, she immediately mixed mortar and patched every uneven spot she could find.

Then she discovered the well, picked up a rag and a mop, and spent the entire evening cleaning every inch of the place.

She was exhausted.

Such was the way little demons survived.~

<< _ >>

The post Scenic Area Ch.20 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

According to the system notifications, Xiang Yu had gone from being a “critically endangered creature” with barely ten days left to live to gaining nearly another half year of lifespan.

After doing the math herself, Xiang Yu figured out the exchange mechanism between visitor traffic, positive reviews, online popularity, and lifespan. If she could seize this wave of publicity and work hard enough, she might even survive until the New Year.

She finally understood why top students could stay so motivated. When every bit of effort brought a tangible reward, people naturally became more driven. The harder they worked, the more energized they became. It was even more satisfying than winning the lottery.

She was completely hooked. Right now, all she wanted was to head into the mountains and dig a few more hot spring pools with her bare hands.

Even better, she wouldn’t have to.

The system had unlocked a new area in the mountains behind the hot springs called “The Emerald Wonderland.” Along with it came an employee benefit package: a staff dormitory complete with a cafeteria.

It was exactly what Xiang Yu had been dreaming about.

On one hand, the Special Employee System required her to provide accommodation for its employees. On the other hand, her regular staff were all university students, and commuting was difficult. Aside from Young Master Liu Bo, who drove himself, the others either hitched rides with him or took the shuttle boat. They would all be graduating soon and moving out of their dorms, leaving them with nowhere to stay. At one point, Xiang Yu had even considered letting them sleep on the floor inside the hot spring resort.

But this was deep in the wilderness. There weren’t even basic cooking utensils, and food delivery wasn’t an option. They couldn’t exactly spend their days chasing wild pheasants for dinner.

A cafeteria was perfect—absolutely perfect.

Now that the visitor numbers are up, we’re finally making money. I won’t have to keep living in that leaky mud hut anymore!

I’ll hire a good chef to cook proper meals for everyone. Our employee benefits are going to be top-notch!

Because the staff dormitory had been completed and the resort’s popularity had skyrocketed, the system would soon assign two more disabled employees.

Xiang Yu was beginning to understand how it all worked. These disabled employees didn’t survive on ordinary food. Instead, they healed by feeding on things like Faith Points and public exposure. Shen Jiu’s growing online fame while working with her had improved his system evaluation, which in turn qualified Xiang Yu to receive new employees.

It was hard to call Shen Jiu “famous,” though…

The original goal had been to get his face out there, but somehow it was his butt that got exposed first. (…)

At this point, there was nothing to be done about it.

The priority now was to set up and manage an official account as soon as possible. Although Xiang Yu had turned down the MCN agency’s contract offer, she still needed a social media account to post statements, upload videos, and gradually introduce these special employees to the public.

Come to think of it, she also wondered how Shen Jiu was doing.

She had asked Liu Bo and Ji Kailang, but neither of them had seen him, and she didn’t even have a phone number to contact him.

As she pondered this, Xiang Yu looked at the rapidly climbing revenue figures in the backend of the app and decided she’d buy him a cellphone while she was in town later.

She was making money now—there was no need to be so stingy.

The man had followed her into danger despite barely knowing her. Just thinking about how he’d hobbled over on his lame leg to join a group fight made her feel it hadn’t been easy for him at all.

…Well, okay. She had a tiny selfish motive too.

After all, the guy had blown up a car, blocked bullets, and—with one kick from that supposedly crippled leg—had smashed a car door clean off. Faced with something so obviously beyond the ordinary, anyone would feel a certain sense of awe.

The system had handed out quite a few rewards in this latest gift package.

Judging by its description, Emerald Wonderland referred to an outdoor hot spring area. The staff dormitory and cafeteria appeared on the app’s map of the ancient town at the foot of the snowy mountain, where a tiny building icon had lit up in what had previously been a gray, unexplored region.

The icon itself was small, but unlocking a new area made the place finally look a bit like a proper tourist attraction.

If she didn’t expand the map soon, she’d end up running what looked like a private club.

Just the other day, a middle-aged woman had insisted on adding her on WeChat and asked her to close the resort for a day so she could bring over a hundred employees for a company retreat. She’d even asked whether the resort had a banquet hall, mahjong rooms, and KTV facilities so everyone could sing karaoke after dinner.

When a tourist attraction is located like a private club, decorated like a private club, and provides services like a private club…

People are going to assume it’s a private club.

And if it isn’t one, some wealthy lady will offer to invest the money to turn it into one.

What an insult.

Do they really think I’m the kind of person who’s desperate for money?

…Actually, she wasn’t just short on money.

She was short on life. (…)

Maintaining a steady stream of visitors was far more important than the one-time windfall from renting out the entire resort.

With the resolve of someone gambling with her life, Boss Xiang firmly turned down the wealthy lady’s sponsorship, watching a fortune that had practically reached her mouth sprout wings and fly away.

Back then, she’d sighed to herself:

“The biggest taboo in our line of work is falling in love with your customers.”

Now, with her lifespan extended, Xiang Yu felt emboldened. She was overflowing with ambition for her business.

A luxury private club no longer interested her in the slightest.

If she was going to build something, she’d build a national 5A-rated tourist attraction.

Once areas like the snow-capped mountains and Heavenly Lake were unlocked, she’d take everyone trekking through the snow to spot snow leopards and dig for caterpillar fungus. The city tourists, who’d never experienced anything like it, would end up with frozen noses and bodies stiff from the cold before heading back down the mountain to soak in a steaming hot spring. Then, pleasantly exhausted and lightheaded, they’d spend the night in the cozy little town at the foot of the mountain.

That’s what you call flash-freezing to lock in the freshness, then slow-simmering over a gentle fire.

No Chinese person could resist turning themselves into such a perfectly prepared poached chicken.

Although most of the map was still grayed out and the boss herself hadn’t exactly seen much of the world either, that didn’t stop her from staring at the app’s map and daydreaming about her grand business empire.

No one looking at her now would ever guess that just yesterday she’d been an “endangered species” with barely over ten days left to live.

After indulging in her fantasy for a while, Xiang Yu hailed a taxi back to the university to meet the school administrators, who were reportedly frantic to see her.

On the ride back, her phone continued chiming nonstop with new messages.

Ji Kailang called her, and this time she finally answered.

She was so excited that her voice was practically shaking.

“Boss Yu, you’re incredible! Seriously incredible! You have no idea how many people showed up this afternoon. Your huge parking lot was completely full—the visitors’ cars were parked all the way out on the field ridges! It was absolutely packed! People everywhere—it was a scene of overwhelming excitement!”

“There were too many people and too few hot spring pools, Boss! Anyone who arrived late basically didn’t get to soak. But nobody wanted to leave empty-handed. They all grabbed bags of peanuts or walnuts, or bought a couple of chickens from the villagers before heading home.”

“The village’s free-range chickens start trembling the moment they see people coming now. And Old Man Liu at the entrance has been casting his fishing net over and over again. He’s so frugal he barely even feeds the fish, so they’re usually so skinny that nobody in the village wants to eat them. But the folks from the city think they’re fantastic—they love this kind of all-natural produce.”

To the villagers, it was like country folk marveling at city folk—except the city folk were just as enchanted by them.

Director Ji didn’t say much more. After hurriedly thanking Xiang Yu a few times, she hung up. In the background, Xiang Yu could hear what sounded like someone herding ducks.

Director Ji was busy collecting payments from tourists through Alipay, and later she’d have to exchange the digital payments for cash so the elderly villagers without smartphones could get their share.

City people wanted their chickens cleaned and ready to cook.

After slaughtering them, the birds had to be thoroughly washed at the village well and chopped into small pieces. Many young people no longer owned heavy cleavers for chopping bones, so they wanted to be able to toss everything straight into the pot as soon as they got home.

It was more work, sure.

But those extra few steps meant the villagers could sell directly at retail prices instead of letting middlemen take a cut. The customers didn’t want the chicken heads, tails, or innards, so the villagers kept those for themselves and stir-fried them into another meal.

In effect, the grain they’d fed to their chickens and ducks had been transformed into stacks of genuine cash.

It was hard to imagine what a dark day this was for all the birds and beasts of Hama Valley.

Xiang Yu opened WeChat and found that Ji Kailang had sent her more than a dozen long voice messages that afternoon.

Her excitement practically overflowed from every recording.

The first few were all expressions of gratitude.

“Thank you so much, Boss, for saving Liao Xiaopang and Pingping.”

“Grandpa Liao wants to thank you personally. He’d like to visit someday and express his gratitude.”

But after that, she completely lost herself in the excitement.

“Oh my God, Sister Yu! Sister Yu! There are so many people!”

“So many people!”

“I had Pingping and the others come over. We’re not going inside the main hall—we’re just helping outside.”

“Holy crap, these bosses are so generous!”

“Even our termite mushrooms aren’t enough to sell!”

“We’re running out of chickens to slaughter!”

“Don’t worry, Sister Yu! All of us village officials are on duty! I even brought Da Huang, the big yellow dog at the entrance, out to help keep order! We’ll make sure everything’s up to standard!”

“I’ve finally seen what a tourism economy looks like! Hahahahahahaha! Hehehehehehehe!”

She called her “Sister Yu” in every other sentence, completely ignoring the fact that Xiang Yu was three years younger than she was.

By the last voice message, she was laughing like some deranged demonic elder from a xianxia novel, her maniacal cackle lingering in the air long after the recording ended.

She also sent Xiang Yu screenshots from the village’s group chat.

The village officials were asking everyone who had red dates or sweet potatoes at home to bring them to the hot spring resort so visitors could grab a handful for free. The idea was to encourage tourists to buy the villagers’ peaches, termite mushrooms, free-range chickens, and ducks as well.

This was followed by a detailed price list and regulations.

Price gouging was strictly forbidden.

Passing off inferior goods as premium products was strictly forbidden.

Anyone caught doing either would be blacklisted by Boss Xiang and permanently banned from selling at the hot spring resort.

Apparently that warning alone wasn’t enough.

They even had Grandpa Liao—the elderly man who had shouted, “Put down roots here!” while taking charge of the earlier crisis—record a speech outside the ancestral hall.

In the video, he solemnly reminded everyone to live up to their ancestors’ expectations, never do anything against their conscience, and earn their wealth through honesty.

Although these village officials were all quite young, they clearly commanded tremendous respect in the village and knew exactly how to get things done.

Xiang Yu remembered that, before coming here, she’d stuffed two expandable batons into her bag.

It wasn’t that she wanted to assume the worst about people.

But she knew the saying: poor and isolated places often breed troublemakers.

She didn’t know whether Hama Village had once been such a place.

But by the time she arrived, people like Ji Kailang had already been stationed here for three years as poverty alleviation officials.

She marched in funeral processions wearing mourning clothes, supervised environmentally friendly funerals so people wouldn’t set off firecrackers or accidentally burn down the mountains, helped Xiang Yu build relationships with the villagers, accompanied her up mountains and across rivers…

All so the villagers could earn a share of the tourism economy and make some money selling their local specialties.

Every single day he raced around the village and the surrounding hills as if fueled by inexhaustible energy.

It was almost as though that small body of hers contained a system whose sole mission was to revitalize Hama Village.

Now that’s something…

Once the resort was fully developed, she’d set aside a dedicated area for them as a specialty products market.

After replying to Director Ji’s messages, Xiang Yu received another call from the team of lawyers assembled by the university.

Even the ever-helpful Professor Wang had gone through connections at the affiliated hospital to check on the injuries of the human traffickers.

Several alumni working at local law firms added Xiang Yu to a group chat and carefully walked her through exactly how to fight the case if the other side decided to sue her.

Overall, things weren’t nearly as serious as Ning Qiao had made them sound online.

Xiang Yu hadn’t been taken to the police station as a suspect—she had simply gone there to give a statement.

After the legal team asked her about the details of the incident, they visibly relaxed and were even in the mood to joke around with her.

“So… your gang—uh, I mean, your team—is just a little too good at fighting. You barely made a move, and the other side was almost beaten to death.”

“Now, beating someone to death is definitely against the law. Even if it’s self-defense, it gets pretty complicated. What you did as an act of bravery doesn’t exactly fall under ordinary self-defense, either…”

“So, beating people into that condition definitely isn’t ideal. And then someone recorded the whole thing and posted it online. Try not to do that again.”

Then the lawyer offered his “professional advice.”

“My suggestion? If the stray dog at the entrance to the village happened to bite someone to death, that would just be an unfortunate accident.”

“You know—the little Tibetan Mastiff mixed with a German Shepherd. You never registered it, never got it licensed. You just felt sorry for the poor thing and tossed it a few bones every now and then. Then some strangers showed up, and it rushed over and bit them a bunch of times.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

Even the elite lawyers had quite a sense of humor.

Before ending the call, one of them added,

“A friend of Dean Wang’s over in the emergency department checked on those traffickers’ injuries for you.”

“You have no idea how disgusting the ER was today. The doctor doing the wound cleaning had an absolutely miserable time.”

“He also asked Dean Wang to pass along a message: if you’re going to beat up human traffickers, then beat them up. But after you’re done, don’t pour manure on them and make extra work for the medical staff.”

Xiang Yu nodded obediently.

Under the lawyers’ guidance, she created the hot spring resort’s official social media account and had professionals draft a formal statement explaining the situation.

She also called Director Ji from the Public Security Bureau to let him know that the clarification had been posted.

Once everything was taken care of, she stopped by the shopping mall to buy several mobile phones.

After a moment’s thought, she also purchased a stack of Tiangou Supermarket shopping cards and JD .com gift cards—one set for each employee.

For the past few days, the handful of university students in the staff group chat had been carrying the resort through its overwhelming surge of visitors. Their salaries had already been agreed upon in their contracts, so it wasn’t appropriate to change them on a whim. Since young people loved shopping online, gift cards were practically the same as giving them cash.

She had originally planned to follow the lawyer’s joke and actually buy a dog as well.

But she was simply too exhausted.

She’d gotten into a fight, rushed into the city, run errands all over the place, and spent the entire day answering endless phone calls and replying to countless messages.

By the time she walked out of the mall, night had already fallen.

By the time she reached Hama Valley, night had completely fallen.

The countryside was wrapped in a deep, velvety darkness. Only a bright, clear moon hung high against the black sky, while the distant mountain ridges were outlined with a soft silver glow. Around her echoed Hama Valley’s signature chorus of strange, quirky bird calls, accompanied by the refreshing night breeze rustling through the bamboo groves.

She had only been here for half a month.

Yet the way she felt now was completely different from the unease she’d experienced when she first set foot in this place.

Walking this land now filled her with an unexpected sense of peace.

A little cat chased the moonlight at her feet, trotting alongside her all the way home.

From far away, she spotted the hot spring resort, glowing brightly against the darkness.

And sprawled haphazardly across the steps outside the entrance were several familiar silhouettes.

<< _ >>

The post Scenic Area Ch.19 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

The exposure and customer traffic she’d been prepared to spend a fortune buying were now pouring in of their own accord.

For the time being—

No.

For a very, very long time—

She wouldn’t have to worry about her remaining lifespan anymore.

Although the system’s mission to disrupt the human traffickers hadn’t been mandatory—it had explicitly told her to act within her limits—it seemed that doing good really did bring its own rewards.

Xiang Yu let out a long, heavy breath.

The enormous weight that had been pressing on her heart was finally half gone.

Watching her lifespan tick down day after day, only to suddenly trigger a guaranteed windfall of bonus days…

…was actually kind of exhilarating.

Perhaps if she had an ordinary person’s lifespan, she wouldn’t have had the courage to charge headfirst at the traffickers.

She didn’t know.

There was no point dwelling on it.

What she did know was that, right now, she could still take on ten human traffickers.

I, Xiang Yu—

The Spinning Top King.

The Dark Knight of Xihai.

The Divine Punisher of the Lightning Five-Hit Whirlwind Combo.

The Queen of Electric Scooters.

The Watchman who patrols the entrance to Hama Valley Village.

The Destroyer of Human Traffickers.

The Defender of Order at the Hot Springs.

The Lord of Hama Valley, destined to build an international glacier resort!

Her blood racing with excitement, she picked up the tea Manager Wang had poured for her and drained it in one gulp.

It tasted remarkably sweet and refreshing.

Director Ji… I’m really sorry.

But when my life was literally on the line, that emotionally charged publicity article really did save my life.

I’ll post a clarification as soon as possible.

Manager Wang had no idea what had gotten into her. Thinking he’d said something wrong, he quietly messaged Xiao Hu, asking her to come to his office.

Just then, Xiang Yu’s phone rang.

She looked at the caller ID.

As expected—it was the deputy director of the Public Security Bureau himself.

“Boss Xiang! Boss Xiang! Have you checked Weibo? You’re trending!”

The burly man who had been the first to jump out of the police car to rescue the hostages now sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

He hurriedly explained,

“Could I trouble you to open a social media account and make a statement? You definitely won’t bear any criminal liability for this! We fully support what your hot spring did…”

The deputy director—who would have willingly climbed mountains or crossed seas in the line of duty—was now so anxious he could hardly get his words out, repeatedly sighing, “Oh dear… oh dear…”

He talked nonstop without pausing for breath.

Xiang Yu couldn’t even find an opening to get a single word in.

On the other end of the line, Ji Gang swore up and down, practically calling heaven and earth to witness, insisting that there had to be some kind of misunderstanding.

He even offered to send a police car to pick Xiang Yu up so they could sit down and talk everything through in person.

Halfway through saying that, he let out another long sigh. Realizing it might sound like the police were trying to intimidate her, he quickly changed his mind.

“Forget it, forget it. We’ll just talk over the phone.”

By the time he finished, all that remained was a helpless sigh from someone who simply couldn’t explain himself.

Acting bravely.

Beating up human traffickers.

Going to jail.

Those three phrases together were pure viral gold.

The problem was that the person at the center of it was one of the good guys.

What a mess.

Xiang Yu had no desire to let innocent people be wronged, so she readily agreed.

But before the deputy director had even finished speaking, another call came in.

It wasn’t just a single ring, either.

While she was talking to Ji Gang, the other caller kept dialing over and over.

She had no choice but to promise Ji Gang that she’d create a social media account and post a clarification later. After telling him they’d talk again soon because she had something urgent to deal with, she returned the unknown call—

Only for a text message to pop up first.

Academic Advisor: Xiang, we all know what happened now. Ning Qiaoqiao is Professor Chen’s student in the Department of Media Studies. We’ve seen the video and have already confirmed with her that it’s authentic.

Academic Advisor: The police station just called us and said there’s been a misunderstanding. Is there really some kind of misunderstanding?

Academic Advisor: Having a student like you who acted so courageously is the pride of our school! You haven’t officially graduated yet. After discussing it, the department leadership has decided to award you a medal. No matter what people outside may say, we will protect our own students.

Academic Advisor: Don’t be afraid. The wife of our department secretary is Dean Wang from the School of Law. She watched the video and said that no matter how you look at it, your actions do not constitute criminal liability, and there’s no way you could be considered the principal offender! Answer her call immediately. She’s arranging a lawyer for you. Whatever anyone asks, don’t say anything. Just listen to Professor Wang.

Academic Advisor: Answer your phone! You’re driving everyone crazy with worry!

One call after another.

One message after another.

It was like rushing from one appointment to the next.

No one was giving her even a moment’s peace.

The last time her academic advisor had bombarded her with messages like this was when he was constantly urging her to find a job.

Ever since she’d become an “iron rice bowl” holder, nothing like this had happened again.

She replied with a laughing-through-tears emoji.

Teacher, I’m really fine. No one’s giving me a hard time. I’ll post a clarification right away.

The advisor immediately sent another flood of voice messages.

“What clarification are you posting? With the way the internet is nowadays, don’t go running your mouth and accidentally incriminate yourself!”

“I’m telling you, this isn’t something you can take lightly. Whatever statement you want to make, you discuss it with Professor Wang first. That’s the department secretary’s instruction. Do you know how many people would pay just to get a chance to consult Professor Wang?”

Xiang Yu’s scalp tingled.

“Teacher, I’m really okay. I just went to give a statement. I’ve already left the police station.”

“Oh, you silly child. Do you even know what you should and shouldn’t say?” Her advisor worried over her endlessly, firing off words like a machine gun.

“Have you never heard that line from American TV dramas? ‘I have the right to remain silent until my lawyer arrives.'”

“The whole university is in an uproar! It started when a girl posted a review of your hot spring on one of the campus confession walls and it got a little attention. Then today’s incident happened. Your junior students in the Law School, graduates from previous years, even your senior alumni all said they wanted to help boost support. There are even several distinguished alumni getting involved!”

“I’ll tell you something in confidence. Right now it’s admissions season, and even the Bureau of Culture and Tourism has heard about this. Both the university and the higher authorities are definitely going to do everything they can to protect you. Whatever happens, we’ve all got your back.”

Whatever interests or considerations might be involved behind the scenes, hearing those words still warmed Xiang Yu’s heart.

All she could do was thank her sincerely.

“Okay, Teacher. I understand. Thanks to all this, business at my hot spring has actually picked up. I’m looking forward to welcoming teachers and classmates from the university.”

“Good. Accept my WeChat friend request. And if anything happens, don’t try to shoulder it all by yourself.”

“You silly child… you’re so clueless. You’re going to worry us all to death.”

— —

While Xiang Yu was still wrangling with the media company, things had already started blowing up across Xihai University’s campus.

The spark was Gu Xiaoshuang’s outrageously over-the-top recommendation post, titled:

“Using the Hama Valley Glacier Hot Springs as an Example: The Effects of Surface Heat Flow, Bioelectromagnetic Storm Energy, and the Human Body.”

She began by talking about how she’d been frail and sickly since childhood, then went on to describe how, after soaking in the hot springs, she felt completely rejuvenated, as though she had become immune to every illness. She enthusiastically praised the extraordinary magnetic field of Hama Valley.

She even cited The I Ching and feng shui theories in proper APA format. Xiang Yu had only asked her to write a positive review, but what she produced was a sprawling, mystical manifesto. If she’d put this much effort into her graduation thesis, none of her professors would ever have had anything to worry about.

How this post would later be repeatedly brought up in almost legendary fashion is another story. But when it was first published a few days earlier, it was almost universally mocked.

Most of the comments were along the lines of, “You got paid for this,” or “This has to be an astroturfing account.” There were a few who didn’t ridicule it, though. Gu Xiaoshuang’s close friends simply asked, “Does your family own this hot spring or something? If we go and mention your name, can we get a discount?”

It irritated Gu Xiaoshuang to no end.

People often become even more stubborn when they’re challenged. Normally calm and detached, Gu Xiaoshuang transformed into the hot spring’s most fanatical supporter. She battled anyone who questioned Hama Valley Hot Springs in the comments section, arguing round after round without backing down.

Then the “Spinning Top King” video went viral.

It was exam season at Xihai University, and students were delighted to discover that the number one trending video on Xyin was a local clip—and that the people in it were relatively familiar faces.

The university forum exploded instantly.

[Isn’t that Xiang Yu from the Biotechnology department?]

[She even did my campus running errands for me before. Her prices were super reasonable.]

[Holy crap, that’s my senior!]

[I even spotted Liu Bo from our Management department.]

[Guys, this is the real Xiang Yu.]

(A pun: “real Xiang Yu” refers both to her name and to the famous warlord Xiang Yu, implying she’s incredibly formidable.)

[Those human traffickers really picked the wrong person to mess with. Sister Yu’s campus running service is legendary—she runs at least twenty kilometers a day. I still remember watching her sprint around the track. She could lap the PE majors by half a lap.]

[This girl’s the real deal. Even my coach—a National Second-Class Athlete coach—kept nodding after watching the video. He tried several times to persuade her to pursue sports professionally.]

[Back then, half the girls in our club had her run the 800-meter test for them. That’s the kind of reputation she has.]

[? She was that blatant about it? The teachers didn’t do anything?]

[Yep. The PE teachers absolutely adored her. Plus, she’s a financially disadvantaged student, so the school kind of turned a blind eye.]

[The students paying someone to run for them were mostly physically weak anyway. If something happened while they were running, it’d be a bigger problem. Better to let a professional do it.]

[Our university may be broke, but its weird brand of humanitarian concern is something else.]

[Forget whether they’re stingy or not—just answer this: do they care about the students?]

[Fair point. Doing odd jobs on campus was also safer than working part-time off campus. Freshman year, I once pulled an all-nighter at an internet café, and when she got off her night shift unloading packages at the courier station, we climbed over the campus wall together. She was up it in one leap, then squatted on top and literally hauled me up by hand… I’m 180 cm tall and weigh 70 kg. Anonymous because I still have some dignity.]

[No matter what, she’s a really pretty girl. You never had even the slightest crush on her?]

[Shameless. In Sister Yu’s eyes, the OP was probably just another small parcel to carry. brushes dust off hands]

[I don’t know why she ended up working at some rural hot spring and even became a little manager, but it seems easier than unloading trucks at a courier depot. I’m genuinely happy for her.]

[No, no, no. She’s clearly on the wrong career path. With her ability, she could grab a belt and go work as a bodyguard at Zhongnanhai.]

(Zhongnanhai is the central leadership compound in Beijing, so this is joking that she’s qualified to be an elite bodyguard.)

[Seriously though, I’ve watched that video seven times already. Even after reading all your explanations, I still can’t believe it. How can someone fight that well…?]

[Are we sure Sister Yu grew up in an orphanage and not at the Shaolin Temple?]

[She made it look way too easy. Sure, the guy with the cane provided good support, but honestly, I feel like even without him she could’ve taken on all eight of them—and then dragged the one still in the van out so she could beat him too.]

[I get what you mean. It’s like entering a boxing match because the referee says your opponent’s name has the character “Tai” in it. You get yourself psyched up, thinking you’re about to test yourself against Mike Tyson (泰森 / Tàisēn)… then the guy who walks into the ring is Ultraman Taro (泰罗/Tàiluó).]

[I get it too. It’s like you go to Hama Valley to kidnap a child, and a girl at the village entrance says her name is Xiang Yu (向榆)… then the fight starts and she turns into Xiang Yu (项羽 the legendary warlord famed for his overwhelming martial prowess).]

[Who’s going to Hama Valley to kidnap kids in the first place?!]

[LMAOOO. Come on, let’s go soak in the hot springs. Let’s support our senior’s workplace.]

On the university forum, quite a few people actually knew Xiang Yu. Compared with the casual jokes and speculation on the wider internet, they dug much deeper into her background. Stories about all the part-time jobs she’d worked to support herself through school became even more legendary after the viral video.

Everyone chatted away excitedly, quickly pushing the thread to the front page with a bright red “hot” tag. They even managed to hit the forum’s post limit and collapse three separate threads. One could easily imagine that ten or twenty years down the line, Xiang Yu would become one of the forum’s legendary Hall of Fame figures.

Like a fine wine, the stories only grew more embellished as people retold them. Even Gu Xiaoshuang’s earlier post about the “geothermal electromagnetic hot springs” was rediscovered and scrutinized. Quotes like “even my skin has loosened up” and “my knees are so smooth now that even flies slip when they land”—obviously exaggerated to begin with—spread even further as they were repeated from person to person.

As the only two people who had actually visited the hot springs—Gu Xiaoshuang and Li Qian—and the two who had gone there literally the day before the huge incident, they suddenly found themselves being treated like customer service representatives by their curious classmates, who had far too much free time.

“Yeah, it’s just over there from campus, maybe a little more than ten kilometers.”

“Yep, it’s across the river. Don’t worry—there’s a ferry, and it’s free.”

“Just check the listing on the group-buying app. They’ve posted the ferry schedule, so you can time your trip.”

“The prices are exactly what’s listed online. No hidden charges.”

“It’s very clean—super clean. You don’t even need to bring your own slippers. Their slippers come sealed in sterile packaging.”

“You have to get one of the packages. The volcanic mud treatment and the eggs are both amazing. The eggs are ridiculously delicious, and the volcanic mud works incredibly well.”

“If you come out about half an hour before the shuttle ferry arrives, you can sit in the lobby and eat the free roasted marshmallows while you wait…”

“Last time I even met a little girl selling peaches. They were so, so sweet, and only cost about as much as a cup of milk tea.”

“Ahhh, I don’t know! I didn’t see the really handsome guy. I was only looking at Senior Xiang! Yes, she’s tall and really pretty. Isn’t she already in the videos?”

“Whether you can come here to become her apprentice? Why don’t you call Senior Xiang and ask? Seriously, what kind of question is that?”

…

Xiang Yu knew nothing about the commotion on campus.

Ever since leaving the police station, her phone hadn’t stopped ringing. Liu Bo messaged her to say that, all of a sudden, groups of people had started arriving one after another.

There were so many cars that they had overflowed into the villagers’ fields, parking along the raised ridges between the farmland. At first he thought troublemakers had shown up, but instead everyone was shouting that they wanted to soak in the hot springs. Some people even dropped off congratulatory banners and left immediately.

The sudden influx had completely exceeded the resort’s capacity.

They couldn’t exactly send people home empty-handed, so everyone waiting for a turn was invited into the lobby, where they were given roasted sweet potatoes and roasted marshmallows to snack on.

Liu Bo sent her a video.

The lobby was packed shoulder to shoulder, as crowded as dumplings boiling in a pot. On opening day, Xiang Yu had thought the enormous lobby looked ridiculously empty and had even joked to Liu Bo that it was extravagant for just a handful of them to occupy such a huge space.

Now, not only was every seat inside filled, but people had spilled outside as well.

That lobby was as big as a football field!

There were even livestreamers filming videos for Xyin.

“Alright, guys, we’ve officially made it to the scene! As you can see, this whole line of people is here to support the boss’s business. Even though the weather isn’t exactly cool today, everyone’s enthusiasm is burning hot!”

“You can see the environment here is fantastic, and the atmosphere is great too. The hot springs are very reasonably priced, and the owners are incredibly genuine. While you’re waiting, they even give you free snacks. Look at these little charcoal grills—they’re really neat. You just roast whatever you want yourself. It’s a really fresh idea.”

Director Ji deserved enormous credit for pulling all of this together with her connections. Standing in the middle of the crowd with a loudspeaker in hand, her face flushed red with excitement, she kept making announcements.

“Friends who’ve come from afar! To ensure everyone has a good experience, we’re temporarily suspending entry to the hot springs. The wait is currently over two hours! We close at seven o’clock, so please keep an eye on the time. Thank you all so much for your support! You can always come back tomorrow—you can come back tomorrow!”

Hardly anyone was listening to what she was saying.

Someone in the crowd lifted the teapot from their little charcoal stove, raised it like a wine glass, and shouted at the top of their lungs,

“All hail the Spinning Top King!!!”

That somehow struck exactly the right chord.

Everyone immediately followed suit, raising their cups and glasses into the air.

“Three cheers for the boss!”

“Eat well! Drink well!”

The camera panned around through the lively scene before finally stopping on Liu Bo himself. He was drenched in sweat, but grinning from ear to ear as he gave the camera a thumbs-up.

“Boss! You’re awesome!”

At this point, there were actually more people outside the hot spring pools than inside them.

But seeing everyone happily gathered around their little charcoal braziers, roasting food and entertaining themselves, each busy in their own way, nobody had the heart to disturb them.

Sure, Xiang Yu’s reputation on the internet had taken a bit of a beating—but she’d gained a longer life in return, the guests got free roasted sweet potatoes, and the villagers gained customers without ever leaving home.

Now that was what you called a win-win-win.

With a satisfied smile, Hama Valley’s proprietor—Xiang “Spinning Top King” Yu—opened the system mailbox in the Hama Green app.

With this much traffic and publicity…

Surely the system was going to give her some kind of reward, right?

<< _ >>

The post Scenic Area Ch.18.2 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

For Sun Quanyou, this was the darkest day of his life.

He had committed every kind of evil. He was an outlaw through and through. He accepted the risks of the life he had chosen, and from the day he entered the trade, he had known exactly what sort of business he was in.

Because of that profession, he had severed all ties with his relatives, friends, parents, wife, and children. But he’d also been fortunate. He had built an efficient operation for abducting, transporting, transferring, guarding, and selling victims. After every job, he’d move to a different province, evading police investigations time and again.

This time, the buyer wanted one boy and one girl.

In a remote village, he had tricked a chubby little boy as easily as if it were a game, then abducted a young girl. His brothers joked about the old children’s song, “The Little Girl Picking Mushrooms.” Once they drove deep into the mountains, they could even cook themselves some wild game.

On top of that, they’d also landed a prime “yellow merchandise” in Xihai—a girl they’d spent a very long time gro*ming. Her online boyfriend had accepted money to lure her out, get her drunk, and drug her. An unmarried “yellow merchandise” like her was top-quality stock: whether sold as a bride in some remote mountain village or, more safely, smuggled across the border into one of the scam compounds, she’d fetch an excellent price.

It had been a trip full of rich rewards.

Sure, this was the kind of work that could cost them their heads. But with a truck full of brothers who shared the same “career,” he often felt like one of history’s great outlaws—a heroic figure with countless comrades at his side…

They would often chat about the newly built Western-style houses back in their hometowns, about the children studying there. His younger brother Qiangyou’s son had excellent grades. Maybe the boy would even get into Tsinghua University.

That smug sense of satisfaction lasted right up until they encountered the woman riding an electric scooter—the kind they called a “tall mule” in their own jargon.

Only then did it occur to him that he might never live to see his nephew get into Tsinghua.

Because your uncle here was already “dead at Peking University.”

He had never found the sound of police sirens so beautiful. The sight of the five-pointed star on the police insignia nearly moved him to tears.

But even the police couldn’t protect him…

He’d thought that getting beaten until his face “burst into blossoms” would be the end of it. Yet after the police arrived, some crazed woman who came out of nowhere still managed to dump a bucket of excrement all over his head and face.

At the thought of it, overwhelmed by his disappointment in the police, Sun Quanyou couldn’t help but break down into muffled sobs.

“Don’t stop now.” A police officer outside the interrogation room set down his pen and impatiently tapped the table. “Keep talking. Your little brother has already confessed everything—the white merchandise means married women, yellow merchandise means unmarried women, and those kidnapped dark merchandise too. Don’t try any tricks.”

“Beat me to death then!”

Knowing the police couldn’t simply beat a suspect, Sun Quanyou became even more brazen.

The officer taking the statement had long since reached the limit of his patience with this foul-mouthed scumbag. If not for the body camera recording everything, he’d have loved to rough him up back in the patrol car. He shot to his feet, pointed his baton at Sun Quanyou, and barked,

“Don’t think I don’t dare hit you!”

“Civilized interrogation. No hitting suspects.” Ji Gang patted his colleague on the shoulder, then leisurely pulled out a photograph.

“This your house back in your hometown?”

Sun Quanyou’s eyes nearly split with rage.

“What are you trying to do?! My family doesn’t know anything about this! They have nothing to do with me!”

“This isn’t your house anymore,” Ji Gang said patiently. “It’s a criminal hideout.”

“If you don’t explain your entire trafficking operation from beginning to end, we’ll investigate every inch of that little house. You understand? We have to wipe out every trace of this criminal network. When we’re done, even your son’s classmates will know their classmate’s father is a human trafficker. So what exactly are you panicking about?”

“I won’t accept this! I won’t accept this!”

Tears streamed down Sun Quanyou’s face.

He had no cards left to play—but he simply couldn’t swallow this humiliation.

“I admit I lost fair and square, but I still won’t accept it! That man and woman—they’re monsters wearing human skin! You need to get Bureau 749 to arrest them! You can’t let them keep running wild! Today they dare beat people; tomorrow they’ll dare eat people!!”

After finishing her statement with the accompanying police officers, Xiang Yu happened to pass by the interrogation room.

She glanced inside—and unexpectedly stumbled upon such an entertaining scene.

“Boss Xiang, we’re really sorry for delaying your business,” the officer beside her said apologetically.

Finding the situation amusing, Xiang Yu suddenly turned toward Sun Quanyou and pulled a grotesque face at him—crossing her eyes, sticking out her tongue, and opening her mouth wide like a man-eating ghost.

“Ahhh!!!”

Sun Quanyou let out a shrill scream of terror.

“She’s revealed her true form! She’s revealed her true form!!!”

The young police officer accompanying Xiang Yu looked into the interrogation room in confusion, picked up his radio, and said,

“Request a psychiatric consultation. Increase the voltage.”

“Have you figured it out yet? Where did the little girl in the trunk come from?” Xiang Yu asked with a smile as she handed over the belt she was holding. “If he won’t talk, just scare him with the belt.”

“We’ve already contacted her friend,” the officer replied with a sigh. “She’s a student at the neighboring Academy of Fine Arts. Her family situation is… complicated. Her father died in a car accident when she was little. Her mother remarried and moved overseas. She said over the phone that she doesn’t plan on coming back. The girl’s already an adult.”

Xiang Yu nodded.

Since she was legally an adult, her future was ultimately her own choice. There wasn’t much anyone else could do.

The young officer escorted her to the entrance before lowering his voice.

“The Sun brothers hate you with a passion. One of the traffickers you punched still hasn’t woken up. The doctor says he may have suffered brain damage…”

He quickly added,

“All of us think he deserved every bit of it! The chief said that defending yourself against such violent and heinous criminals doesn’t carry major legal liability. But if they try to file a civil lawsuit, you might have to go through the process and pay some compensation. As for opening a criminal case…” He grinned. “Well, according to all our body cameras, it was clearly the entire village that beat them up. We definitely won’t single out and detain any individual.”

It was exactly the reassurance Xiang Yu needed.

Smiling, she thanked him and firmly shook hands with the enthusiastic young officers.

“This has to be a huge case you’ve cracked. I’m going to have a commendation banner made for your station.”

“What are you saying, Boss Xiang?” the young officer laughed. “Where are you headed next? I’m going back to Hama Village for follow-up interviews anyway, so I can give you a ride on the way.”

“I still have business to take care of in the city,” Xiang Yu replied.

She still had to sign a traffic-promotion contract, so she spared no effort in advertising Hama Valley Hot Springs.

“Hama Valley Hot Springs is really nice. You should go soak there over the weekend.”

After saying goodbye to the police, she received a call from Liu Bo.

“Boss! Boss! Where are you?” Liu Bo panted on the other end of the line. “Our front desk suddenly got a ton of phone calls asking where you are.”

Puzzled, Xiang Yu instinctively glanced over her shoulder.

“I’m at the police station.”

“Oh, that’s what I told them,” Liu Bo answered honestly. “I said you’d been taken away by the police.”

“…”

“Never mind, never mind! Business is way better than yesterday. We’ve got customers coming in!”

Click.

He hung up before she could say another word.

Holding her phone, Xiang Yu felt both bewildered and oddly comforted.

Maybe this is the blessing I earned from doing a good deed today.

She had originally wanted to ask how Shen Jiu was doing and whether he was adjusting well.

To be honest, the man he had punched with a single blow still hadn’t regained consciousness. Thinking back to her earlier joke about hiring him to stand beside the entrance as a stone guardian lion, it suddenly seemed incredibly fitting. It made her want to assign him to security even more…

Just as the system had indicated, regardless of whether the injured veterans could adapt to service or technical jobs, they were genuine combat specialists—battle-hardened former soldiers.

And if all the disabled employees she recruited were this formidable…

Then she’d end up with the strongest disabled security team in the world.

At first glance they would look old, weak, sick, or disabled.

In reality, they’d be an elite squad of security guards.

It gave off the feeling of Shaolin masters living incognito among ordinary people.

The thought of “pretending to be weak while hiding overwhelming strength” filled Xiang Yu with excitement.

After bidding the police officers farewell, she hailed a taxi and headed for the media company’s office building.

Perhaps it was just her imagination, but everyone in the building—the KOLs and influencers in particular—seemed intensely curious about her. As she walked through the halls, people kept turning their heads to stare.

She had made an appointment in advance.

However, instead of the Ms. Hu she’d been told would receive her online, the receptionist escorted her directly to the manager’s office.

The middle-aged manager, dressed in the standard sales uniform of a suit and tie, with a noticeably thinning hairline, greeted her with extraordinary enthusiasm. The smile on his weathered face was so broad that it was practically folding into wrinkles.

He personally pulled out a chair for her, then hurried off to pour water and make tea before returning to lean forward attentively, wearing the eager expression of someone determined to please.

“Ms. Xiang! You’re finally here! Please, have a seat. Have some water.”

“You want to create your own social media account, right? Let me tell you—this is the perfect opportunity! We need to launch it immediately! Right now! While this wave of traffic is still hot! I’ve been pacing around my office wondering why you hadn’t arrived yet!”

He rubbed the few remaining strands of hair on top of his head, opened the contract in front of Xiang Yu, and forced out a fawning smile.

“I’ll give you our very best terms. The highest revenue-sharing ratio. The best promotional resources. The highest-quality sponsorship deals. Official exposure opportunities through the platform. Professional operations staff to help optimize your content…”

“You haven’t registered an account yet? Oh! I actually have a name you can use. It’s factual, funny, and exactly the kind of thing young people love!”

Although she had no idea what he was rambling about, Xiang Yu found her curiosity piqued.

“Oh? What name?”

“Master Xiang, the Spinning Top King!”

Xiang Yu: “…”

Manager Wang kept chattering away.

“You should register this account! I know what creators worry about most is account ownership. During our partnership, the account will technically belong to the company—but that’s only so our professional operations team can manage it properly. Once our cooperation ends, we’ll help you transfer everything back. We’re a major company; we wouldn’t risk our reputation over something like that!”

“Now, take a look at this customized content strategy we’ve prepared for you. First of all, spinning-top demonstrations are naturally perfect for short-form videos. We’ll hire a few actors, and every day you’ll perform one set of your Lightning Five-Hit Whirlwind Combo!”

“Then the actors will spin around you—rotating on their own axes while orbiting around you at the same time! Like little planets revolving around the sun! We’ll set up the stage lighting to look like The Four Little Swans! They’ll gracefully dance circles around you…”

He became more animated the longer he talked, clearly convinced he was describing the next viral sensation. Meanwhile, Xiang Yu sat there in complete silence, wondering whether she’d accidentally walked into a comedy sketch instead of a marketing agency.

Xiang Yu: “…”

“And monetization doesn’t have to rely only on sponsorships!” Manager Wang continued enthusiastically. “You can also take on disciples! While I was waiting for you, I’d already planned everything out. We’ll divide them into Outer Disciples and Inner Disciples. Do you know the genius behind that?”

With a blank expression, Xiang Yu replied,

“No.”

Despite his age, Manager Wang was thoroughly versed in internet marketing. Seeing her puzzled look, he couldn’t help feeling a little smug.

“The Outer Disciples get a Martial Arts Secret Manual for ¥3.90. We’re not making money from that—it’s purely to drive traffic. We just charge enough to cover shipping.”

“Then the Inner Disciples can officially study under you! You’ll record exclusive tutorial videos breaking down your spinning-top techniques and personally teach your secret moves.”

“Once an Inner Disciple passes the assessment and posts a demonstration video that gets over 10,000 likes, they’ll be promoted to a True Disciple!”

“That’s how we successfully incubate a Spinning-Top IP!”

Xiang Yu: “…”

“This is an untapped market! In the martial arts content niche, people are already doing swords, spears, staffs, halberds—you name it. But spinning tops? That’s a completely blue ocean!”

Manager Wang was getting carried away by his own sales pitch. Looking at Xiang Yu with the proud expression of someone who believed he had discovered a hidden prodigy, he asked,

“What about that handsome guy from your sect? The one who’s your fellow disciple. Is he interested in signing with us? His staff techniques are excellent, but more importantly…” He lowered his voice as if revealing a trade secret. “His looks are outstanding. He’s exactly the kind of talent our company likes to sign.”

“Stop. Stop.”

Xiang Yu finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“Where’s the Ms. Hu I made the appointment with? I’m not here to open a social media account. I’m here to buy advertising.”

If she still couldn’t tell that something strange was going on, she had no business running a tourist attraction.

Right in front of the manager, she took out her phone.

A local news notification immediately popped up.

“Please help save the hot spring owner who acted bravely. She may be facing jail time.”

“I’m the person who filmed the video, just an ordinary tourist. Earlier this morning, the owner of a humble hot spring gave us a breathtaking, life-or-death rescue. Yet at this very moment, this hero who courageously stepped forward is sitting alone in the cold interrogation room of a police station…”

Xiang Yu stared at the sensational opening in utter disbelief.

But that was only the beginning.

“At seven o’clock this morning, I arrived early at Hama Valley Glacier Hot Springs as a travel-review blogger. A classmate had recommended the place to me. To be honest, I’d visited Hama Valley before to gather material, so I already knew there were hot springs here and had mentally prepared myself for the environment. I didn’t really believe my classmate’s claims about how elegant and spotless it was.

“But the moment I crossed the Cangjiang River and entered Hama Valley, I immediately felt that something was different. The roads were paved with bluestone, the air was fresh, and because I wanted to shoot outdoor footage, I arrived at the resort at seven in the morning.

“The owner hadn’t opened for business yet, so I called to wake her up. Not only did she show not the slightest trace of impatience, she immediately arranged for one of her employees to come open the door for me.

“Once inside, I was genuinely surprised. The décor was tasteful, the place was so clean you could walk around barefoot, and everything had clearly been disinfected. It was obvious the owner had put a tremendous amount of care into running this hot spring.”

Attached photos: Lobby.jpg · Hot Spring Pool.jpg · Rock Garden Corridor.jpg · Interior.gif

“Up to this point, everything had been relaxing and enjoyable. I was even admiring the handsome employee at the hot spring…

“Then the owner said a couple of words before suddenly shouting that there was a fire and speeding away on an electric scooter. At the time, I had absolutely no idea she was riding off alone to confront a gang of human traffickers.

“The employee who stayed behind was also incredibly kind. He told me to go ahead and enjoy the hot spring while he loaded hoses and water onto a vehicle to help fight the fire.

“Of course I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing! So I followed them to the scene. What happened there was exactly what everyone has seen in my livestream recording.

“Although many people are joking that the star of the video possesses peerless martial arts, I must stress that this was an extremely serious incident. The owner of the hot spring was risking her life fighting dangerous criminals. Please don’t reduce this grave event to mere entertainment!”

“The grieving mother in the video, the furious villagers, and Boss Xiang and her employees throwing themselves into danger were all deeply moving. As for the human traffickers who have destroyed countless families—they deserve to be hacked into a thousand pieces and cast into the eighteenth level of hell! There was even another woman hidden inside the trunk of their vehicle! Thank goodness the police arrived in time. Otherwise, the victims’ chances of survival would have been slim.

“But what truly infuriates me is that this courageous hot spring owner was ultimately the one taken away in a police car. She has no powerful local clan backing her. She looks about my age. If the traffickers suffered serious injuries at the hands of the villagers, will she—the one who first sounded the alarm—end up bearing all the consequences?

“I didn’t see some Spinning Top King.’ What I saw was a clever and courageous young woman. I also saw every employee of Hama Valley Tianbai Mountain Glacier Park Hot Springs joining the rescue. Before I left, I repeatedly confirmed with the manager that the man who rushed forward despite limping was also one of their employees. He even has an official disability certificate, and he was injured as well. I didn’t see him afterward, so I assume he went to the hospital on his own.

“Finally, I call on everyone to pay attention to this horrific crime. Please show your support for the owner of the hot spring. If you live nearby, consider visiting the hot spring. I’ve also uploaded the environmental footage I filmed earlier on my homepage.

“I can say with complete confidence that she is a sincere, kind-hearted business owner who runs her business with genuine care. If the hot spring reaches its maximum capacity because of everyone’s support, I hope you’ll all be understanding. We cannot allow people who act courageously to end up shedding both sweat and tears!”

The comment section had already exploded to nearly 100,000 comments.

“This made me cry. Way to go, Spinning Top King!”

“No more words needed. I checked—Hama Valley is only 200 kilometers from me. Taking my wife and kids there this weekend to show our support.”

“That handsome guy is actually disabled…? That’s practically a medical miracle. Human traffickers, take a good look at yourselves—even someone who needs a disability certificate got so angry he stood up to beat you.”

“Death penalty for human traffickers!!!”

“Turns out it’s real. With fighting skills like those, these two masters could start livestreaming and make a fortune. That’s genuine kung fu.”

“They’re probably from Shaolin. Those kicks looked kind of familiar.”

“If you can’t make the trip, at least leave them a five-star review on Dianping. The place just opened and doesn’t even have a single review yet.”

“What heroes. The boss charged in first, and not a single employee backed down.”

“If what happened in the video is real, it’s terrifying. There were that many people tied up inside one van…”

“If you have daughters, tell them to stay away from vans parked by the roadside. Broad daylight, in the middle of the day, and traffickers are still this brazen.”

“I’m driving over for a soak right now. Don’t any of you beat me to it!”

“Too late, brother. I just called the front desk. They said every hot spring pool is packed with people and told me to come another day.”

“A boss like this deserves to make a fortune!”

“Checked out the blogger’s page. The place actually looks great. Looks like I’ve found somewhere to spend my annual leave.”

These were the ordinary people’s simple, instinctive sense of justice.

Looking at the flood of impassioned comments—and at the Xihai Public Security Bureau, which had somehow become collateral damage in the discussion—Xiang Yu didn’t know how to react.

So this was what happened when you added just a little artistic embellishment.

A few vivid, believable details—like mentioning Shen Jiu’s disability certificate—made the whole story feel all the more authentic and emotionally compelling.

That’s how you stir people’s emotions. It’s all in the details.

Her hands trembled slightly as she hurriedly opened the Hama Green app.

[Received 50 satisfied customers. Lifespan +5 days.]

[Hot Spring Exposure +1,000. Lifespan +5 days.]

[Received 100 satisfied customers. Lifespan +5 days.]

[Hot Spring Exposure +2,000. Lifespan +10 days.]

[Received 150 satisfied customers. Lifespan +5 days.]

[…]

Amid the avalanche of glowing reviews, Xiang Yu could barely keep up with the flood of system notifications.

<< _ >>

**TN

(This is a Chinese internet joke. “北大死了” (běidà sǐ le, “died at Peking University”) is a pun on “被打死了” (bèi dǎ sǐ le), meaning “beaten to death.”)

The post Scenic Area Ch.18.1 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

The police inspected Ning Qiaoqiao’s equipment and, to avoid any further complications, shut down her livestream first.

They didn’t make things difficult for the young woman. Instead, Xiang Yu pulled Ning Qiaoqiao aside and asked her a few more questions. Worried that the stream might have captured Shen Jiu dodging bullets and using his crutch to stop the van, she also specifically asked Liu Bo—who had arrived with Ning Qiaoqiao—what exactly he had seen.

“I saw how awesome you were, Boss.” Liu Bo was completely won over, looking at Xiang Yu with nothing but admiration.

“Boss, you were freaking amazing! Damn, you and Brother Shen—one using a staff, the other using a whip—you beat those traffickers senseless! Holy crap, that was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“Oh, by the way, what’s up with Brother Shen’s leg? Does his crutch actually count as a regulated weapon?”

Xiang Yu let out two dry chuckles and turned to look at Shen Jiu. After the villagers had rushed in, he’d quietly retreated to the back. Now he stood there as if nothing had happened, casually leaning on his crutch.

The man was standing off to one side, looking as calm and elegant as a chrysanthemum, pretending to be crippled. But after seeing him alter the trajectory of bullets and force a speeding van to a stop, even his silent, low-key presence now radiated an overwhelming “B-King” aura.

So this is what a true powerhouse feels like… so dazzling.

She had countless questions for him. How exactly did his ability work? Did all Special Employees possess supernatural powers? Were there limits to using them? What kind of job had he actually come here to do?

What a ridiculous day. The new employee hadn’t even finished introducing himself before helping her fight an all-out brawl.

As if sensing her gaze, Shen Jiu turned toward Xiang Yu and slightly curled the corner of his mouth.

Although his expression barely changed—a smile made up of perhaps a single pixel—he really was smiling. Xiang Yu caught it immediately and couldn’t help smiling back.

Somehow…

…this felt like the classic case of “no acquaintance without a fight.”

The moment a fight starts, he joins without hesitation. Acts decisively. Actually listens when people talk. Yeah… this guy’s someone worth keeping around.

She was thinking exactly that while, on the other side, everyone was busy processing the crime scene. The ambulances had already arrived, but the condition of several of the criminals left even the medical staff at a loss as to where they should begin treating them.

The medical staff eventually put on thick protective suits and, pinching their noses, dug the manure back out of the unconscious traffickers’ mouths.

The water Liu Bo had brought finally came in handy. Bucket after bucket was poured over them, and before long, the fire truck he’d called in also arrived. The firefighters had rushed over with high-pressure hoses expecting to put out a fire. They found no flames—but the hoses didn’t go to waste.

Standing atop the truck, they sprayed the traffickers down one by one. Once the filth had been washed off, those with severe injuries were taken to the hospital, while those still able to walk were escorted to the police station.

Sun Quanyou had already been tortured into a delirious state. As he was about to be loaded into a police car, he caught sight of Xiang Yu and suddenly shrieked,

“It’s her! It’s her!”

Using both his hands and feet, he tried to lunge at Xiang Yu. His mind was no longer clear. Even while being restrained by two police officers, he kept baring his teeth and waving his arms at her.

“She jumped out halfway through! She’s the one who killed them! She beat all of us to death! And that man—he’s a ghost! A ghost! Aaaah!”

If that woman and that man hadn’t suddenly shown up, we would’ve gotten away!

Ji Gang was so fed up with him that he roared,

“Even if she had beaten you to death, it’d still count as a righteous act!”

He had manure splattered all over himself too. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to switch off his body camera and slap the trafficker across the face.

But instead, he had to patiently escort the ringleader of the trafficking gang, investigate the identity of the little girl found in the trunk, send the half-dead traffickers to the hospital, and later return to take statements and write reports. The entire village was in the middle of funeral arrangements—whose family, after having their child kidnapped, would be in the mood to cooperate with the investigation and follow the police back to give a statement?

Afraid Pingping’s mother might splash him with another ladle of manure, he simply turned to Ji Kailang.

“Teacher Ji, could you come with us and give a statement?”

Then he looked at Xiang Yu, his tone becoming much gentler.

“Miss, they say you were the first witness at the scene. Would you mind coming along too? It won’t take too long.”

Xiang Yu agreed. She told Liu Bo to stay behind and help clean up the aftermath before climbing into the police vehicle herself. Then she took a deep breath.

“…Can I ride in Director Ji’s electric cart instead?” she asked awkwardly. “The smell in here is… pretty intense.”

They had no idea what this hastily improvised livestream would become once the power of the internet got hold of it.

Ning Qiaoqiao wasn’t a famous streamer. She was a journalism and media student who had only recently started creating content. She was still an amateur—unsigned by any MCN agency—and at the stage where she was making up for inexperience through sheer hard work.

The night before, she’d seen a post on her university’s campus forum about a hot spring that supposedly had “a mysterious aura.” So early that morning, she headed over to film. After shooting the exterior, she moved inside. The hot spring resort turned out to be much nicer than she’d expected, and she figured this video might do reasonably well.

What she hadn’t expected was to stumble into the chance to go viral.

The moment the owner arrived, she started shouting that there was a fire and told the manager to call the police and get help.

Sensing a story, Ning Qiaoqiao followed without hesitation. The muscular store manager had initially tried to stop her, but then figured having another person to pass buckets of water would be useful. Since the livestream camera she’d been using around the hot spring was hanging from a lanyard around her neck, she never turned it off. Wearing the camera the whole time, she helped fill buckets, loaded them onto the vehicle, and charged straight to the scene.

She never imagined she’d capture so many unforgettable moments.

It started with a whip and a staff beating up human traffickers, followed by the “Lightning Five-Hit Whip,” a funeral procession stepping in to help with weapons drawn, manure literally raining down on the criminals, and firefighters blasting everyone with high-pressure hoses…

Not a single moment lacked entertainment value.

The only problem was that her livestream was far too obscure. Without the platform pushing it to more viewers, even excellent stream quality couldn’t save it. By the time she ended the broadcast, she’d only attracted one or two thousand viewers.

But then she met the person who changed everything.

Among those viewers was a content creator who specialized in making clipped videos from livestreams. They downloaded the recording and uploaded it to Xyin. Whether they were too busy to edit it or simply thought every second was entertaining, they posted the entire recording completely uncut, exactly as it had happened.

For the first hour, almost no one watched it.

Then, because it happened to include one of the platform’s promotional exposure hashtags, more and more people started clicking on it. Somehow, a major account on Weibo picked it up and drove traffic to it under the title:

“[You Won’t Believe All of This Happened in a Single Day]”

Soon, the barrage comments and comment section outnumbered the likes. As viewers began enthusiastically recommending it to one another, the recording exploded in popularity.

Still shaken after everything she’d experienced, Ning Qiaoqiao finally returned to her dormitory and opened her account.

She was greeted by 999+ notifications for mentions and likes.

Her inbox had been flooded with private messages.

Following the links people had sent her, she opened the recording on Xyin.

The moment she saw it, her vision went black. 

198,000 likes. 88,000 comments. 6.4 million views.

It had reached #1 on the local trending list and #5 on Xyin’s overall trending chart.

With trembling hands, Ning Qiaoqiao tapped on the video.

A flood of bullet comments immediately covered the screen.

[The place where it all began.]

[A timeless classic.]

[There’s no escaping this one.]

[The most righteous episode.]

[A new holy scripture has appeared.]

[Stay tuned.]

As an internet veteran, she knew exactly what comments like these meant.

They meant explosive traffic.

They meant fame and fortune.

They meant that the vast, eldritch horror that was the internet hivemind had glanced in your direction—and that single glance was enough to shower you with countless “Cullinan fragments” (enormous wealth brought by viral fame).

Ning Qiaoqiao’s hands shook so badly she could barely hold her phone.

Amid the internet’s jubilant celebration, the video began with that ordinary country road where the now-legendary incident had taken place—a road that countless netizens would later visit as if making a pilgrimage.

Her filming equipment was professional. Hanging around her neck, it had produced remarkably stable footage, and the audio quality was excellent. Although the action was distant and somewhat blurry, viewers could still clearly make out a man and a woman in the middle of the frame, fighting a crowd with exhilarating abandon.

The man’s staff moved like a black dragon bursting from the sea, sweeping through enemies with unstoppable force.

The woman’s belt danced like a soaring dragon, its long leather strap striking like a venomous serpent. Every time the heavy brass buckle came crashing down, it landed with overwhelming power—one hit, and another trafficker went silent.

Both displayed extraordinary footwork. The staff flowed with the man’s movements, seamlessly blending offense and defense. One fought with hard, direct force; the other with supple precision. Their coordination was flawless. Wherever they passed, people fell in heaps. Despite being surrounded, they cut through the crowd as effortlessly as a general deploying his troops, felling enemies one after another.

Not to mention the immensely satisfying spectacle of “lifting them up and whipping them.”

The bullet comments streamed across the screen in perfect formation:

[Chinese kung fu.]

[Human Beyblade King.]

[First strike the legs so they can’t run.]

[Second strike the mouth so they can’t beg.]

[Third strike the head so they can’t resist.]

[Power in every whip crack, precision in every kick.]

[Raise your hand with confidence, swing your whip with perfect angle.]

[Every lash has conviction; every move has style.]

The barrage of comments had practically become an organized army marching in lockstep.

The comments section below was even more entertaining.

[This combo is insane. The guy knocks one down with a staff, then the woman lashes them back onto their feet with the belt, they spin around, and then—bam!—another staff strike…]

[Is it really this smooth? Sis should consider teaching ballet. Even the Dance of the Little Swans doesn’t have this many spins.]

[Is the skinny guy in black the leader? Look at his expression. Doesn’t he look like the friend who tags along in every group fight but has never actually enjoyed any of them…?]

[Can someone who knows martial arts analyze this? Did these two come down from Wudang Mountain? They’re taking on eight people with just the two of them like it’s nothing.]

[I don’t know martial arts, but I do know physics. Watching those guys get whipped into spinning tops is making Newton’s coffin lid rattle.]

[Holy crap, how far has this spread? My Nepali roommate watched it and insisted I demonstrate the whip technique for him.]

[These two are so ridiculously strong that everyone forgot they’re fighting with a belt and a crutch.]

[The belt I get… but what’s the crutch for?]

[To beat someone lame, then let them use it to hobble home? Very honorable martial ethics.]

[These have to be stunt actors, right? The guy’s hair is so long—they must be filming something. If this is real, I’ll eat my phone.]

[I think they’re stunt actors too. They’re way too good-looking. The woman’s got to be around 175 cm tall, and the guy totally looks like an actor. Two traffickers stacked together still wouldn’t be as tall as him.]

[Who cares if they’re stunt actors? Even if they are, pulling off a fight scene like this takes real skill. Did the actors playing the traffickers get spun around on wires? This is incredible.]

[No idea. But if they’re actors, somebody tell me who they are so I can follow them. Every single person in this scene, from the leads to the extras, is amazing.]

The comments section was in complete chaos.

Some argued it had to be a staged production.

Some were fixated on the pair’s looks.

Others wanted to know where Xiang Yu had gotten the belt.

Still others couldn’t stop asking what was going on with Shen Jiu’s crutch.

Amid the lively discussion, a new wave of bullet comments suddenly began flooding the screen:

[Teacher Xiang, what happened?]

[Teacher Xiang, what happened?]

[Teacher Xiang, what happened?]

[You’re a fake Yu Ji, I’m the real Xiang Yu.]

[Introduce yourself!]

[Say the line! Say the line!]

[Here it comes—!]

In the video, Xiang Yu switched to a different whipping technique. Reusing her previous “Five Consecutive Whips” move, she cupped her fists in a martial salute toward the trafficker in front of her and said:

“I am Xiang Yu, head of the Mixed Whip Xingyi Sect. Just now, a friend asked me, ‘Teacher Xiang, what happened?’…”

Then she shouted with each strike:

“First whip! Second whip! Third whip, then fourth whip!”

“Fifth whip!”

“Followed by Flash!”

(The last line is a reference to Flash, the teleport ability from games like League of Legends, used jokingly because she suddenly darted forward.)

The Five Consecutive Whips routine was so ridiculously catchy that the bullet comments marched across the screen in perfect unison, as if in a military parade, echoing every count:

[First whip! Second whip! Third whip, then fourth whip!]

The chant appeared not only in Chinese, but also in English, Japanese, Spanish, and several other languages. Some viewers even used special bullet-comment effects to draw whip-shaped patterns across the screen. The entire thing looked as festive as Chinese New Year.

After Xiang Yu finished her Five Consecutive Whips, Liu Bo and Ning Qiaoqiao’s little three-wheeled utility vehicle finally came roaring into view. Moments later came Xiang Yu’s exasperated shout upon seeing them:

“Why did you bring the customers here?!”

The bullet comments erupted again:

[I swear, when the boss yelled, “Why did you bring the customers here?!”, her entire mental state collapsed.]

[But if they hadn’t brought the customers over, we wouldn’t have gotten to watch this masterpiece. LMAO.]

[So what was actually going on? Weren’t they supposed to be putting out a fire?]

[Obviously not. “Put out the fire” meant “go get more people.” Our video crew really did bring several buckets of water, though.]

[The young guy and the streamer may be a little dumb… but they’ve got good hearts.]

Then came the funeral procession joining the fray, swinging pickaxes like a torrential downpour, followed immediately by Pingping’s mother arriving with her ladle of manure.

The bullet comments reached their absolute peak.

After finishing the video, viewers flocked to the comment section:

[Is this in this year’s Lunar New Year movie lineup? If not, I’m not watching.]

[I’ve never seen a video with zero dull moments—it’s nonstop highlights.]

[I refuse to watch it a second time. I’m saving it to watch during the Spring Festival Gala.]

[Even if it’s scripted, I don’t care. Whoever wrote a script like this is a freaking genius.]

[If it is scripted, how did they convince the actors to let themselves get drenched in manure? They really opened their mouths and swallowed it?]

[When I first saw the ‘two-person performance’ (actually: two people fighting while a whole crowd spins around), I thought they were filming a staged video. The moment the manure ladle came out, I knew it had to be real.]

[Holy crap, I think the police officer searching the van is my cousin!]

[Seriously? Isn’t this just a skit?]

[A skit? Go ask the film crew how much they’re paying. Then you’ll have your answer to “How much would someone have to pay you to eat manure?”]

[If this is real, that’s horrifying… My God, these are actual human traffickers.]

[Near the end, when the camera shakes a few times, I think there’s still someone inside the van.]

[??? We’re all just here to have fun on the internet. Don’t scare us like that.]

[Then… that chubby little boy they carried out at the beginning was real too?]

[I was laughing when his mom knelt to thank the police and when his great-grandfather told him to kowtow to the coffin… Wait, are you telling me that was real? That’s way too dark.]

[Stop laughing… I think I spotted my uncle too. Holy crap, was this video filmed in cooperation with the police?]

No one had ever seen a video packed with so many twists.

At first, the accounts reposting clips had given them lighthearted titles such as:

“The Human Spinning-Top King”

“Chinese Kung Fu”

“Sea of Manure, Swarming Maggots”

“A Belt Dipped in Povidone-Iodine—Every Beating Is Extra Disinfected”

Since the situation had been successfully resolved, the “hostages” in the video had all been rescued, and the good guys had taken control of the scene, viewers on Xyin instinctively assumed it was just another comedy video.

Then more and more people started recognizing acquaintances in the footage.

As one of the people actually present, Ning Qiaoqiao immediately sensed the shift in public opinion.

The account that had reposted the clip was decent enough to pin a comment tagging her, and her own account quickly gained a huge amount of exposure.

Watching her numbers climb higher and higher, she suddenly tossed her phone aside, sat down at her computer, and opened a blank document.

She knew exactly what she needed to do.

Other than the people who had been taken away by the police, she was the only firsthand witness at the scene.

Every piece of information she possessed could bring her an overwhelming flood of traffic.

Whatever the internet wanted to know…

…she could answer it.

 Of course…

Of course she had to put everything she’d learned to use—and add a little emotional punch to the information she held.

Half an hour later, the person who had filmed the “Human Spinning-Top King Incident” published a long post.

Its title read:

“Please, everyone, help the hot spring owner who bravely stood up to the human traffickers. She might be facing prison.”

<< _ >>

**TN

“Teacher Xiang, what happened?” is a meme adapted from the viral “Teacher Ma, what happened?” internet clip featuring martial artist Ma Baoguo. Whenever someone displays unexpectedly impressive fighting skills, netizens often spam this phrase.

“You’re a fake Yu Ji; I’m the real Xiang Yu” riffs on Xiang Yu’s name (向榆, Xiang Yu), which is pronounced the same as the famous historical warlord Xiang Yu, while Yu Ji was his legendary consort. It’s another layer of internet wordplay built around her name.

Mixed Whip Xingyi Sect 浑扁形意门 (Hún Biǎn Xíngyì Sect) is a parody of 混元形意门 (Hunyuan Xingyi Sect), the fictionalized martial arts school associated with the internet-famous Ma Baoguo. The author replaces 元 (yuan) with 扁 (biǎn, “to whip/flatten”), turning it into a joke about Xiang Yu’s belt fighting style.

The post Scenic Area Ch.17 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

The group coming down from the mountain looked exactly like a traditional funeral procession.

Leading the way were vividly colored paper effigies, carrying a two-story Western-style house complete with a courtyard and a paper sedan. Close behind came the funeral band, the booming drums shaking the heavens while the cymbals and suonas blared louder than one another. On both sides walked the mourning sons and grandsons dressed in coarse hemp mourning clothes, while in the center seven or eight sturdy men carried a coffin on their shoulders.

Women carrying baskets of spirit money walked at the front and rear of the procession, scattering white paper coins as they went. The fluttering paper filled the road like falling snow.

Ji Kailang stood among the mourners, white mourning bands tied around her head and arms. Holding her bright-red loudspeaker, she shouted toward Xiang Yu,

“Where’s the child trafficker?!”

“On the ground!!!”

Xiang Yu shouted back. She was completely dumbfounded herself. She had asked Liu Bo to call for reinforcements, and he’d somehow summoned an entire funeral procession.

Were they here to bury the trafficker?

Then she witnessed one of China’s oldest forms of collective strength—the solidarity of a village clan.

The two burly men at the front, their heads wrapped in white mourning cloths, grabbed their carrying poles and charged forward. The old man holding the suona remained perfectly calm, switched from Hundreds of Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix to a rousing military bugle call:

“Doo↑ doo↓ doo-doo↑↑ doo-doo-doo↑↑↑!”

To the sound of the charge, the coffin bearers worked together flawlessly. With synchronized shouts of “One! Two!” they gently lowered the coffin to the ground, seized the iron shovels they’d brought for digging graves, then lowered their heads and charged like enraged bulls.

“May it land! May it take root!”

Setting a coffin on the ground during a funeral was considered inauspicious, but an energetic old man in his eighties immediately took charge of the situation. Raising his voice, he declared,

“May the departed remain attached to their homeland and bless their descendants!”

The entire funeral procession exploded into action like a disturbed hornet’s nest.

A pale-faced woman rushed out, screaming hoarsely,

“My son! My son!”

Xiang Yu was quickly squeezed out of the center of the melee. Watching several powerfully built men swarm onto the van, she opened her mouth, only to find herself speechless. She turned to Ji Kailang.

Ji Kailang rubbed her hands together and said, “The moment I saw Liu Bo’s message, I knew something had gone wrong.”

“Then… who are all these people?”

“Grandpa Liao passed away a couple of days ago. Today the whole village is helping carry him up the mountain for his funeral. He was good to everyone, so those of us stationed in the village joined the procession too. We’ve also been making sure it’s a civilized funeral—stopping people from setting off firecrackers or burning the mountain. Then Pingping’s mom called me, and Mrs. Liao said her little grandson had disappeared…”

So that was it.

All the adults in the village had been occupied with the funeral, and some blind fool of a child trafficker had taken the opportunity to kidnap their grandson.

Xiang Yu couldn’t help feeling a little impressed by the traffickers.

They had an incredible talent for picking the absolute worst possible moment.

Xiang Yu, Shen Jiu, Liu Bo, and Ning Qiaoqiao—who had only come to soak in the hot springs—couldn’t even squeeze into the encirclement.

On the outskirts, Ji Kailang was shouting herself hoarse, “Don’t beat them to death! Don’t beat them to death!”

Meanwhile, the center had descended into utter chaos.

The man with the bronze cymbals simply swung them straight at the traffickers’ foreheads, each strike producing a ringing clang powerful enough to echo through the mountains and intimidate tigers. Those with iron shovels smashed away with heavy bang! bang! blows. Others provided “support”—two women grabbed handfuls of imitation copper coins used as funeral offerings and flung them into the traffickers’ faces and eyes.

In the middle of it all, one man bellowed,

“I’m earning merit for the old man!”

He ripped off the white hemp mourning sash from his head and used it to tie up one of the traffickers as tightly as if trussing a pig for New Year’s slaughter. Then fists rained down from every direction.

Xiang Yu: “…”

Grandpa Liao was definitely going to have more merit in the afterlife than he could ever spend.

Outside the crowd, Ji Kailang was still screaming at the top of her lungs, “Don’t hit their heads! Tie them up! Stop beating them…!”

A little while later, a chubby little boy was carried out of the van.

The child’s crying instantly pushed the atmosphere to a whole new level.

For a moment, curses, the blaring of suonas, people using a trafficker’s head as a gong, and the little boy crying desperately for his mother all blended together into an intensely dramatic soundtrack for this righteous group beating.

Ji Kailang and the other village officials had completely lost control of the situation and hurried off to the side to call the police.

“Who the **** is setting off firecrackers?! Everyone calm down! Calm down!”

By the time the police arrived, this was the scene that greeted them.

…

Early that morning, Hama Valley was hit with a top-priority emergency.

First came a call from a village cadre reporting that a child had gone missing. Moments later, another call came in saying they’d found a child trafficking ring. Then yet another reported that gunshots had been heard.

The severity of the situation kept escalating.

The police officers on morning duty had still been slurping rice noodles for breakfast. They immediately holstered their pistols, tossed them onto their belts, and rushed out.

From a distance, all they could see was complete chaos. They couldn’t even tell how many people lying on the ground were traffickers and how many were villagers.

Ji Gang, the deputy police chief, a man well into his fifties, hitched up his trousers, rested one hand on his holstered pistol, and jogged toward the crowd.

Shouting loudly, he called, “Where’s the gun?! Where is it?!”

For some reason, the moment the villagers heard the police sirens, the punches started falling even faster.

Probably because they were afraid that once the police arrived, they wouldn’t be allowed to keep beating the traffickers.

Several officers pushed their way through the crowd, trying to restore order.

“Everyone, make some room! Please cooperate with the investigation! Is anyone injured…?”

“Officer!”

Mrs. Liao, clutching the chubby little boy in her arms, rushed over and dropped to her knees in front of Ji Gang, tears streaming down her face.

“Those bastards tried to kidnap my son! Officer, you have to stand up for ordinary folks like us!”

The way she addressed him—as if he were an official from another era—made Ji Gang’s legs nearly give out.

His body camera was still recording.

He hurriedly knelt halfway himself to help her up, stumbling over his words.

“Please, don’t say that! Get up, hurry and get up! That’s exactly why we’re here—to stand behind everyone! Xiao Liu! Xiao Liu! Help her over to rest. Bring the first-aid kit and bandage the little boy!”

The chubby child in her arms was bawling his eyes out, crying, “Mama! Mama!”

The terror of almost losing her son completely overwhelmed the woman. She beat her chest with all her strength and sobbed, “My son… If you’d really been taken today, how could I go on living…”

“Moooom! Waaah! Waaaaah—!”

Mother and son cried together, one high-pitched and one low, like a tragic duet.

Ji Gang’s head was buzzing.

Grabbing his radio, he shouted,

“Team Two! Team Two! Check the van! See if there are any more hostages inside! Protect the hostages!”

The police surged forward, and under the direction of Ji Kailang and the other village officials, quickly made their way into the center of the crowd.

The traffickers had already been tied up in a neat row.

Every one of them had been beaten beyond recognition. Their faces were covered in blood, marked with welts from whips, bruises from carrying poles, and all sorts of other injuries. One man’s face had been caved in, and he’d even lost control of his bowels. He lay on the ground with his mouth hanging open, making only incoherent “ah… ah…” sounds, unable to speak.

Ji Gang sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of their injuries.

“Who did this? What happened here?”

He looked around.

Men and women, young and old, tall and short, thin and heavyset—every kind of villager was present.

They all smiled with utterly honest, guileless expressions.

Then they all started talking at once, indignantly explaining that they had been in the middle of a funeral procession when a gang of child traffickers tried to steal one of their children. Worse still, they had targeted a young boy and a young girl. The old man’s coffin hadn’t even been buried yet.

That was simply more than anyone could tolerate.

“Hold on, hold on—one at a time,” Ji Gang interrupted. The villagers already spoke with a strong local accent, and all of them talking over each other was giving him a headache. “What funeral? You mean… you were holding a funeral for the traffickers?”

“No, Officer. We’re the ones who restrained them.”

The elderly man who had shouted “May it land, may it take root!” stepped forward. He straightened the white mourning cloth on his head, stood respectfully before the deputy chief, cleared his throat, and spoke solemnly.

“My elder brother, Liao Hongwen, ninety-three years old. Today was the day of his funeral. We brothers were carrying his coffin, with music and ceremony, to send him on his final journey.”

“These heartless beasts!”

“They took advantage of our family’s funeral—in broad daylight—to kidnap the little great-grandson my brother treasured most!”

“If it hadn’t been for those kind people who stopped them… if it hadn’t been for the old man watching over us from above… I’m afraid the child would have been lost.”

With that, Elder Liao pointed toward the coffin behind him, then called to the tearful woman who had nearly lost her son.

“Liao Juan! Bring the child before your grandfather’s coffin and have him kowtow to his great-grandfather!”

Then he turned back to the police, cupped his hands in a respectful salute, and bowed with dignified righteousness.

“We ask the police to uphold justice for us.”

“Elder, please, you’re giving me far more respect than I deserve.”

Ji Gang was a broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned deputy police chief, famous for being a tough-as-nails officer. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been the first to lead the team after hearing reports of gunfire.

But now, staring at the pitch-black coffin before him, he felt like his composure was falling apart.

This callout hadn’t been nearly as dangerous as he’d expected.

But it had taken years off his life in an entirely different way.

He’d weathered plenty of storms in his career, yet the heartfelt sincerity of these villagers—from the young wives to the elderly patriarchs—had unexpectedly brought him close to tears.

The villagers all chimed in at once again.

“It wasn’t just Old Master Liao’s family! Little Pingping was almost kidnapped too!”

“Oh, heaven have mercy! Poor Widow Wang… if she’d lost Pingping, how could she have lived?”

“Exactly! Her husband’s already gone. If she’d lost her daughter too, she’d have gone completely mad!”

“Those monsters… absolutely heartless…”

Ji Gang took off his cap and rubbed his forehead. Turning to Ji Kailang, who seemed a little easier to talk to, he asked, “And what happened with Pingping?”

“Oh, Officer, it’s like this…”

Before they could exchange more than a couple of sentences, Ji Kailang’s expression suddenly sharpened.

She grabbed Ji Gang and yanked him sideways.

An overpowering stench swept toward them at astonishing speed.

The next instant, someone charged into the circle like a whirlwind, rushed straight at the traffickers, and dumped two full buckets of manure from a shoulder pole directly over them!

Ji Kailang: “…”

Ji Gang: “…”

A notification sounded in Xiang Yu’s mind.

[Achievement Unlocked: “Smearing on the Fertilizer to Grow Strong”.

[Reward Obtained: Pure Lotus of Cleansing Waters.]

Xiang Yu quietly tugged Shen Jiu backward.

The two of them had been among the people beating the traffickers the hardest…

But right now, they wanted to get away from the scene more than anyone else.

The thin woman—Pingping’s mother—had somehow summoned astonishing strength.

Wielding a long-handled manure scoop, she repeatedly smashed it onto a trafficker’s head while cursing through gritted teeth,

“I’ll teach you to steal children!”

“I’ll teach you to cover my little girl’s mouth!”  

The traffickers had already been trussed up like pigs awaiting slaughter, each one howling with their mouths wide open.

Now, with manure slurry being poured straight into those open mouths, the crazed woman kept scooping fresh manure off the ground and splashing it over them. Like basting a half-cooked steak with melted butter, she made sure the yellowish-brown muck coated every inch of them—their hair, eyebrows, clothes… everything.

Even the ones who had already been beaten unconscious started writhing awake under the assault of the overpowering stench.

It was truly a scene of maggots squirming in a sea of manure.

Everyone present—dozens of villagers and even the fully armed police officers—was so stunned that not a single person stepped forward to stop her.

Xiang Yu silently gave a thumbs-up in her heart.

*A mop smeared with feces is like Lü Bu reborn.

For a slight woman like Wang Guixiang, bucket after bucket of manure was probably the smartest—and most devastating—weapon she could think of in retaliation.

“Uh… Sister Wang… Pingping’s okay, right?”

Ji Kailang awkwardly tried to greet Pingping’s mother.

“You were just… fertilizing the vegetable patch, weren’t you? Then you accidentally slipped… and, well… the manure got spilled everywhere.”

Pinching his nose shut, Ji Gang gave the seemingly reasonable young woman a long, meaningful look.

His eyes plainly told her: My body camera is still recording.

Now that someone had finally “played dirty” with the traffickers, everyone very orderly backed away from them.

The funeral procession also returned to lifting Old Master Liao’s coffin.

“We can’t delay the auspicious hour,” they said.

Then a police officer searching the van suddenly shouted.

“Chief! There’s someone hidden in the back!”

Ji Gang immediately forgot about the mountain of manure before him. Taking three quick strides, he rushed over to help open the van’s rear compartment.

It was a concealed compartment built beneath the seats.

When they opened it, they found an unconscious young woman lying inside.

Watching from the sidelines, Ning Qiaoqiao let out a scream.

She hurriedly hid her camera and phone behind her back, grabbed Xiang Yu’s arm with trembling hands, and looked ready to cry.

“Boss… this… this isn’t something we can livestream, is it?”

Xiang Yu stared at her.

“…You…”

“You’re still livestreaming?!”

<< _ >>

**TN

“A mop dipped in feces is like Lü Bu reincarnated” – This jokes about the Chinese meme, meaning that even an ordinary object becomes terrifying once coated in something so disgusting that no one wants to touch it.  

Smearing on the Fertilizer to Grow Strong (A pun on 发奋图强 (“strive to become strong”)—here written as 发粪涂强, replacing “奋” (strive) with “粪” (manure/feces) and “图” (seek) with “涂” (smear), suggesting “getting stronger by smearing on fertilizer.”)

The post Scenic Area Ch.16 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

“Just trying to make a living, big brother.”

Xiang Yu smiled faintly.

There were too many people in front of her. If they all rushed her at once, they might very well beat her to death.

But that was fine.

She had cheats.

In fact, she still had two of them.

The system’s Skill Card Roulette began spinning.

“Rip Devils Apart Bare-Handed.”

“Lightning Five-Strike Whip.”

“Spinning Top Mastery.”

“Thunder Hidden in the Crotch.”

“What’s the Point of This Iron Staff?”

…

Every single skill sounded like the kind of thing that would utterly destroy a person’s dignity the instant they used it…

But at a time like this, Xiang Yu no longer cared about pride or shame!

Even if it turned out to be Thunder Hidden in the Crotch, she’d have no choice but to pull it out and use it!

The pointer slowly came to a stop…

Lightning Five-Strike Whip.

Xiang Yu’s entire body shuddered.

Inside her mind, it was as though an invisible thunderclap exploded.

An overwhelming torrent of sounds and images poured through the crown of her head in chaotic disorder, crackling down her spine and into every limb.

Then…

An utterly unfamiliar power possessed her body.

She instinctively shifted her footing.

Her legs seemed to move with an ethereal martial art, filling her with absolute confidence that she could effortlessly dodge, kick, evade, and take on eight opponents by herself.

So this is what an empowerment feels like…

Understanding dawned on her.

Yet another question surfaced.

Why does the person demonstrating these techniques seem so familiar?

Could it be… that after transmigrating, I inherited a hidden family martial arts legacy? Was this body secretly that of an unparalleled martial arts prodigy?

No…

That familiar face…

It seemed she’d seen it years ago…

…in the “Guichu” meme section of a certain video-sharing website.

Like every fantasy novel protagonist who receives a supreme martial art through mystical initiation, Xiang Yu clutched her head in agony, desperately trying to remember which ancient internet meme this technique came from.

Unfortunately…

Time wasn’t on her side.

The gaunt man had already raised his knife.

It wasn’t an ordinary kitchen cleaver.

It was a narrow boning knife, its blade polished until it gleamed silver in the light.

At that moment, it was gripped tightly in the man’s dark, sinewy hand, thick veins bulging across the back of it.

He advanced toward Xiang Yu one step at a time.

The others closed in as well.

Surrounded from all sides, Xiang Yu stood rooted to the spot, just like Pingping had moments earlier, seemingly frozen with fear.

When the encircling group was less than half a meter away, she suddenly sank her qi into her dantian and slowly declared,

“I am Xiang Yu, head instructor of the Hunbian Xingyi School… Just now, a friend asked me, ‘Master Xiang, what happened?'”

“Well, just a moment ago… there was a man in his thirties. One weighed just over ninety jin (about 45 kilograms), the other weighed over ninety kilograms—a real powerhouse.”

Taking a deep breath, Xiang Yu shifted her gaze from the gaunt man to Sun Qiangyou, who was sprawled on the ground weighing close to two hundred jin (around 100 kilograms), her mind racing.

Every movement from the demonstration replayed itself in her head.

The secret martial art had already been imprinted into her mind.

A power that wasn’t her own coursed through her body.

Those half-familiar, half-forgotten lines poured from her mouth like water gushing from a spring.

But at this critical moment, one fatal requirement remained unmet.

Lightning Five-Strike Whip needed… a whip.

Setting aside the absurdly long wind-up, the skill’s activation requirements were ridiculously strict.

The gaunt man was already closing in.

She had no idea when reinforcements would arrive.

But somehow…

She needed to find a whip.

The skinny man was clearly experienced.

He paid no attention to her incomprehensible chanting or lengthy “casting animation.”

Knife raised, he charged straight at her.

“…The moment I said it, bang! He stood right up! So fast! He came prepared!”

Xiang Yu continued reciting the lines at machine-gun speed.

“And then… a left front kick!”

At last, the technique reached its climax.

Xiang Yu suddenly dropped her center of gravity.

With astonishingly smooth footwork, she slid backward, narrowly avoiding the knife’s edge.

Her right leg rooted itself firmly to the ground like a mountain.

All the power she’d accumulated exploded through her left leg as she drove a solid front kick directly into the junction of the man’s chest and abdomen.

His ribs are broken.

She knew exactly how much force that kick had carried.

The gaunt man had never expected her to fight back.

Caught completely off guard, he took the sudden kick squarely in the torso. His eyes bulged, and a muffled groan escaped his throat as his body instantly folded over like a cooked shrimp.

The other men froze in shock.

For a brief moment, Xiang Yu’s sheer momentum intimidated them into keeping their distance.

Then—

“Heh… heh-heh-heh-heh…”

Xiang Yu let out a villainous cackle.

Ignoring the numbness creeping into her left leg, she withdrew it and immediately whipped her right leg toward the leader’s side.

“A right roundhouse kick!”

Another fool lunged at her from the left.

Xiang Yu clenched her left hand into a fist and launched a punch straight at the man’s jaw.

“A left jab!”

The man didn’t even manage a grunt.

Blood spraying from his mouth, he turned and fled, howling in pain.

So these are the desperate criminals?

Nothing but paper tigers.

“I blocked all of that.”

Xiang Yu drew back her fist and laughed, exhilarated by the system’s sudden “divine possession.”

Standing upright with effortless swagger, she clasped one fist in her opposite palm in the traditional martial salute and bowed politely to those around her.

“According to traditional martial arts etiquette…”

“I stop when the point is made.”

“You’ve already lost.”

The battered gang of traffickers: “…”

Ridiculous as the whole thing was—and incomprehensible to any sane observer—the feeling of overwhelming power surging through her body was undeniably intoxicating.

Xiang Yu had completely synchronized with this inexplicable martial art.

At this point, she no longer cared whether she’d still get to be human in her next life.

If the system had granted her Lightning Five-Strike Whip…

There was no way she wasn’t going to use it.

She suddenly bent over—

Swish!

—and yanked the leather belt straight off Sun Qiangyou’s waist.

Then she turned and began lashing the men who had finally worked up the courage to rush her again.

“First strike! Second strike! Third strike! Fourth strike!”

“Fifth strike!”

“Followed by Flash Step!”

The Septwolves leather belt whistled through the air in Xiang Yu’s hands.

With a twist of her arm and a snap of her wrist, the belt cracked again and again, striking in rapid succession.

Its tip rained down upon the men’s necks, thighs, beer bellies, groins, and other vulnerable spots.

The blows, however, were nothing like raindrops.

Each strike tore through the air with a sharp whistle.

A lighter hit split skin and left bloody welts.

A heavier one bit deep into flesh.

Every lash was aimed squarely at ending the recipient’s hopes of ever fathering children again.

The leather belt lashed through the air like a relentless storm.

Crack after crack echoed as it struck flesh in an unbroken rhythm.

And while Xiang Yu unleashed this absurdly domineering martial art, she maintained a perfectly icy expression as she continued reciting its mandatory lines:

“Easy! Easy! Receive! Neutralize! Counter! Easy!”

She couldn’t help it.

It was the passive effect of Lightning Five-Strike Whip.

If her opponent failed to surrender during the “traditional martial arts—stop at the point” portion of the technique, she was required to recite every move’s name while completing the entire combo.

What most people didn’t know was that they actually had one opportunity to admit defeat and stop the sequence.

Of course…

Xiang Yu herself had absolutely no idea that rule existed either.

All she knew was that if these traffickers ended up beaten into the consistency of hand-pounded beef balls, then that was simply their fate.

The eight traffickers, now being driven into a panicked rout by a single woman, were nearly in tears from both the beating and her nonstop verbal assault.

Meanwhile, their leader, the tall, gaunt Sun Quanyou, had fallen into complete bewilderment.

Normally, human traffickers were greedy, not bloodthirsty.

They preferred to keep a low profile.

Today they had valuable “goods” in the van and had planned to leave as soon as possible.

While stopping near the village to rest, they’d decided they might as well abduct the little girl picking mushrooms too.

Everything had gone smoothly…

Right up until that woman came charging at them on an electric scooter like Zhao Zilong charging through enemy lines, sending Sun Qiangyou flying with one savage impact.

Sun Qiangyou was his younger brother.

Sun Quanyou had only gotten out of the van intending to scare the girl into silence with a knife.

If possible, capturing this unusually tall young woman as well would have been an even bigger profit.

But no one had warned him…

This wasn’t a mule.

No.

Calling her a mule no longer did her justice.

She was a donkey.

A horse.

A hippopotamus.

A heavy battle tank.

Like the Monkey King rampaging through Heaven itself.

She looked completely unhinged, muttering incomprehensible nonsense to herself the entire time—

Yet every punch and every kick landed with terrifying precision and brutality.

She looked exactly like the sort of person who could beat all of them to death…

…and somehow still be the one acting in lawful self-defense.

Meanwhile…

All the evidence of their crimes was still sitting inside the van.

“I got careless!”

“I didn’t dodge!”

Just as Sun Quanyou was desperately trying to figure out what to do, that devilish battle cry rang out beside his ear once more.

The belt came crashing down from above.

This time, it was the heavy brass buckle leading the way.

Without the slightest feint or hesitation, it came straight at his face.

The blow hit so hard that, for one glorious instant…

Sun Quanyou thought he saw his great-grandmother welcoming him into the afterlife.

“Boss! Boss, let’s go!”

One of the gang members crawled frantically toward the van, covered in blood and bruises, wailing as he ran.

“She’s a martial arts master! We can’t beat her!”

Someone shouted.

The traffickers, who had been beaten into utter disarray, immediately scrambled back toward the van, crying out in panic.

The middle-aged woman was already in the driver’s seat, starting the engine.

“This woman’s a freak! Don’t waste time fighting her!”

Sun Quanyou had taken the worst beating of all. Spitting out a mouthful of blood, he stumbled into the van and slammed the door shut.

“Go! Go! Drive!”

The driver floored the accelerator, steering the van toward the mountains.

Clearly, this was a retreat route they’d planned countless times before.

[Achievement Unlocked: Martial Arts Master

Reward Obtained: Shennong Jade Grain]

So defeating enemies can make equipment drop now?

The loot rate’s surprisingly generous.

Xiang Yu had only just finished her belt technique and still wasn’t satisfied.

Sun Qiangyou was still lying on the ground groaning like a pig awaiting slaughter.

Since she was still in rhythm, she canceled her recovery animation and casually gave the poor man another lash.

To her surprise, the traffickers simply abandoned him and sped away.

The moment Xiang Yu saw the direction the van was heading, her expression changed.

If they got deeper into the mountains, there would be no surveillance cameras.

Even if they abandoned the van halfway and fled on foot, the police might never find them.

There could still be victims inside!

Clenching her teeth, Xiang Yu used the second Skill Card she’d received for “Kicking a Child from Beihai Kindergarten.”

Please…

Anything that lets me fly or chase them down…

The roulette wheel spun…

…and stopped on:

Spinning Top Mastery

[Spinning Top Mastery · Tyrant of the Park

Upon activation, you automatically enter “Retired Grandpa Who Dominates the Park’s Spinning Top Circle” mode.

You gain the unhurried composure of someone with a guaranteed pension.

Your gaze becomes calm and detached.

Every whip movement flows as naturally as drifting clouds and running water, full of rhythm and artistic grace.

Special Bonus: You may choose the background music while using the skill.]

Instantly, an energetic electric guitar riff exploded inside her head.

“The boundless horizon is my love…”

(The opening line of the famous Chinese song “The Most Dazzling Folk Style.”)

I give up.

What the hell is this skill supposed to do?

We’re in the middle of a fight!

Grinding her teeth, Xiang Yu forcibly shut off the imaginary soundtrack in her head.

She watched helplessly as the van full of traffickers sped past her…

…

Wait.

Why had they stopped?

Had they not been beaten enough?

A tall figure was standing directly in front of the van.

It was the textbook pose of someone trying to stage a traffic accident.

The person was even using a cane, making him look like the perfect disabled victim.

The only unusual part was that people normally pulled this stunt in front of a Porsche Panamera or an Audi A8.

This beat-up Wuling van had probably never imagined it would receive such an honor in its entire existence.

It looked as though, at any second, the man would flop onto the ground and demand hundreds of thousands in compensation.

Then—

The roaring van suddenly stopped.

But Xiang Yu saw exactly what had happened.

It wasn’t because the heartless traffickers had suddenly grown a conscience and hit the brakes.

The man had simply raised his cane…

…and thrust it into the front of the speeding vehicle.

Then he pressed downward.

Sun Quanyou, who had been thrown headfirst into the windshield by the sudden loss of momentum, was already numb from the day’s endless stream of impossible events.

Ignoring the pain in his head, he stomped on the accelerator again.

And again.

The engine roared furiously beneath his foot.

Yet the four-wheeled machine—

which moments ago had been charging forward—

didn’t move even a single centimeter.

Then something even more unbelievable happened.

The front wheels, pinned beneath that simple wooden cane, began to flatten with soft pff… pff… sounds, as though crushed beneath an irresistible weight.

A moment later, the entire vehicle lurched violently.

With both front tires blown, the van collapsed forward into an almost kneeling position.

Shen Jiu withdrew his cane.

Then, with complete nonchalance, he flicked the engine oil from its tip, as casually as someone shaking rainwater off the end of an umbrella.

Xiang Yu: ∑(°□°)!!

“…F*ck.”

At long last…

Sun Quanyou’s mentality completely shattered.

They’d finally gotten their hands on some valuable “goods.” The plan had been simple: stop at the edge of the village, have a good meal with the boys, throw some wild mushrooms into a soup, maybe even snatch another victim before leaving.

Who could have imagined that first a lunatic on an electric scooter would appear—babbling about being a “manager,” shouting about “traditional martial arts” and “stopping when the point is made”—and then proceed to take on seven men by herself?

He’d already admitted defeat, abandoned his own younger brother, and fled.

Then, halfway through their escape…

A cripple with a cane showed up.

The guy could barely walk properly.

Yet with one casual lift of that cane…

He’d disabled the van.

Dear God…

If You want to punish me, just send me to prison.

Don’t send these supernatural freaks to torment me!

Have I finally started seeing ghosts because I’ve done too many evil things?

Consumed entirely by panic and rage, Sun Quanyou reached beneath his seat and pulled out an old hunting shotgun.

Bracing it against the open window, he fired at the man outside.

“They’ve got a gun! They have a gun!!”

Xiang Yu shouted at the top of her lungs.

But she was too late.

The barrels of the old double-barreled shotgun jerked upward with the recoil.

A puff of white smoke and sparks burst from the muzzle.

Loaded with old-fashioned black powder, it went off with a deafening BOOM, almost as though it had exploded.

Yet something miraculous happened.

The pellets did not continue toward Shen Jiu’s face according to any recognizable law of physics.

Just before they would have struck him…

They curved away.

Skimming past a few strands of his hair.

Like a slow-motion shot from a movie, the shockwave lifted the long hair draped over his shoulders.

Only after the echo of the gunshot had completely faded did those strands gently settle back into place.

Shen Jiu hadn’t even tilted his head.

He simply stood there with perfect composure…

Calmly lifting the lid off King Yama’s coffin. (As if casually inviting Death itself to come back out.)

Then—

The unruffled Shen Jiu drove one kick with his lame leg.

Bang!

The driver’s door crumpled inward.

He reached in and effortlessly seized the shotgun.

The traffickers scrambled out of the van like a flock of panicked ducks.

One man in the passenger seat stubbornly clung to the vehicle, refusing to get out.

Shen Jiu grabbed him by the collar as easily as picking up a chick.

Then he casually threw a punch.

The man’s face visibly caved inward.

Newton’s Third Law still applied.

The force of that punch was so tremendous that…

King Yama quietly slid the lid back onto his coffin.

(No need to come out after all.)

Xiang Yu: ???

The sheer violation of classical mechanics before her eyes left Xiang Yu’s pupils trembling.

This is way too violent.

She hurriedly changed what she was shouting.

“Don’t kill them! Don’t kill them!”

If anyone died, there was no telling how the case would be judged.

Besides, this gang almost certainly had accomplices and leads the police would need.

Shen Jiu paused.

He lowered his fist.

Then, instead of punching, he simply resumed using his cane.

Xiang Yu also jumped back into the fight.

A skill card was a terrible thing to waste.

Gripping Sun Qiangyou’s leather belt, she began whipping anyone within reach.

And she had to admit—

Spinning Top Mastery was absurdly effective.

One crack of the Septwolves belt, and whoever got hit would spring upright as though an engine had suddenly been bolted onto their backside, immediately spinning in circles.

The belt sliced through the air with one sharp crack after another.

The victims staggered over their own feet, turning and wobbling exactly like spinning tops.

The skill card wasn’t single-use, either.

Once Xiang Yu got into the rhythm, she even mixed in a few moves from Lightning Five-Strike Whip.

Every shout of “Ha!” and “Hah!” came with another mandatory voice line:

“Traditional martial arts—stop when the point is made!”

“Easy!”

“Easy!”

“I got careless!”

“I didn’t dodge!”

Before long, the entire vanload of traffickers had been whipped into running frantic circles, making complete fools of themselves.

She and Shen Jiu worked together with astonishing chemistry.

One knocked people down with a cane.

The other lashed them back to their feet with a belt.

A trafficker would be flattened by two strikes from Shen Jiu—

Only to be immediately spun upright again by Xiang Yu’s Spinning Top Mastery.

The two of them cooperated like adjacent stations on an assembly line.

It almost felt like they were seasoned partners fighting side by side.

By the time Xiang Yu had completely entered the zone, she no longer cared how Shen Jiu’s bad leg or mysterious cane worked.

She was fully immersed in combat.

Then—

A booming shout came from behind them, accompanied by the rumbling engine of a three-wheeled cargo bike.

“Boss!! I’m here!!!”

Liu Bo came roaring over in the three-wheeler, drenched in sweat, his face flushed bright red.

The cargo bed was packed with large barrels of water.

And wedged between them…

Sat a young woman with a camera hanging around her neck.

It was the same girl from that morning—

The one who had insisted on soaking in the hot springs as soon as they opened.

The aspiring content creator who had come at dawn to film the hot spring and review the place—

The very customer Liu Bo had welcomed when the day began.

Xiang Yu yelled,

“Liu Bo! Why did you bring a customer here?!”

Sitting in the back with her camera hugged tightly to her chest, Ning Qiaoqiao was just as stunned.

“I came to help put out the fire!”

Without pausing her top-spinning belt assault, Xiang Yu shouted back over her shoulder,

“…I meant for you to go get people! Did you call anyone?!”

If he’d shouted that there were vicious traffickers kidnapping people, not everyone would necessarily have come.

But if he yelled that there was a fire…

That would bring the whole village running.

Instead, this idiot had actually loaded up barrels of water and rushed over.

“They’re coming!!”

No sooner had Liu Bo finished speaking than another booming voice echoed down the mountain road opposite him.

It was Ji Kailang.

Her naturally thunderous voice carried all the way across the valley.

Behind her came a vast crowd of villagers.

And in the middle of the crowd…

They were carrying a coffin.

<< _ >>

**TN

Guǐchù is an internet slang for a highly popular genre of remix/parody videos.

The post Scenic Area Ch.15 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Early the next morning, Xiang Yu was jolted awake by a phone call.

Still half asleep, she held the phone to her ear as the person on the other end—a random customer she’d never met—chattered excitedly. The gist of it was simple: Open up already, I want to soak in the hot springs.

Where did this die-hard fan come from? It’s only seven in the morning and they’re already waiting for us to open…

With a helpless sigh, Xiang Yu dragged herself out of bed and replied groggily, “We open at eight. Eight o’clock. I’m on my way.”

The caller was a young woman, sounding about the same age as the two college students from yesterday. She chirped away like an excited little bird.

“Boss? Are you the boss? Your employee’s already here, so hurry up and get out of bed.”

What the hell? What kind of young person shows up for work an hour early? Did I accidentally recruit an overachiever?

Convinced she’d misheard, Xiang Yu asked, “What employee?”

“Your shop’s employee! He’s really… well…”

The girl spoke with genuine admiration, but after struggling for several seconds, she still couldn’t find the right word. Finally, she sighed dramatically.

“He’s just… really something! I can’t even describe it. I even asked if he’d get in the hot spring with me, and he said no.”

Xiang Yu mentally reviewed the “talented bunch” working at her shop. She’d never hired based on looks—Xiao Du, Xiao Shan, Xiao Tian, and even the accountant were all perfectly ordinary-looking people. Surely it couldn’t be Liu Bo, built like Schwarzenegger, who had caught this girl’s eye.

It didn’t take long to prove her wrong.

From the background over the phone came Liu Bo’s voice as he greeted the customer.

“Welcome, welcome. Here for the hot springs? That’s quite a big camera you’ve got there.”

“Yep! I saw an online review. It’s okay to film here, right?”

“Of course, no problem. Come on in.”

“The person opening the door is here. Thanks, Boss!”

After exchanging a few more words, the young woman hung up briskly. Evidently, in her eyes, Liu Bo had earned nothing more than the title of “the guy who opens the door.”

A customer first thing in the morning—and from the sound of it, someone visiting specifically to review the place.

That had to be a good omen.

Today’s schedule was still packed. She had to head into the city to sign a promotional contract. She had already hired professionals from a media agency to create a publicity campaign, determined to make the hot spring famous before her remaining lifespan ran out. At the very least, if she was going to die, she’d spend every last cent first.

The mornings and evenings in Hama Valley were chilly. At this hour, the valley was still draped in silken white mist.

After washing up, Xiang Yu threw on a jacket and was about to ask Liu Bo what this “new employee” business was all about…

Wait.

Don’t tell me the new employee is the special employee?!

The icy spring water she’d splashed on her face cleared her mind instantly.

She hurriedly opened the staff group chat. Right then, Liu Bo had just sent a couple of messages.

Liu Bo: Boss, you’re amazing. You actually managed to find someone like this.

Liu Bo: Is he a model you hired for the boating attraction? I invited him inside to sit down, but he said he’d just wait outside.

!!!

With a slice of bread clenched between her teeth, Xiang Yu bolted out the door.

The local family’s house wasn’t far from the hot spring. Just around the corner, the bathhouse came into view.

She spotted him from a distance.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and long-legged, dressed in nothing more than an ordinary button-up shirt and slacks. Yet somehow, what should have looked like a standard office-worker outfit fit him with the sharp, tailored elegance of a custom-made suit.

The only unusual thing about him was his rather long hair, giving him the air of a handsome young man from a historical drama.

He didn’t have three heads or six arms, nor a fearsome face with protruding fangs. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t missing any body parts either. The anxiety Xiang Yu had been carrying eased a little.

Heaven knew that all through the previous night’s dreams, she’d imagined the hot spring welcoming some aloof immortal, an unruly divine beast, or an invincible god of war. It had been a thoroughly exhausting night’s sleep.

“Hello! Excuse me… are you the, um… employee with special qualifications for Hama Valley Hot Springs? My name is Xiang Yu. I’m the manager here.”

After binge-watching too many videos about small business owners the night before, and feeling a bit nervous, calling herself “the boss” had seemed too overbearing. She’d spent half the night wondering how to address a disabled employee without sounding insensitive, but the moment she opened her mouth, the trendy title “manager” slipped out instead.

Xiang Yu suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to bury her face in embarrassment.

“My name is Shen Jiu.”

“The specially assigned disabled employee from Hama Green.”

The man bent down slightly and extended his hand, lowering himself until they were looking each other directly in the eye.

His eyes were the dark color commonly seen among East Asians—deep, ink-black, and unfathomable.

Oh… no wonder they’d made special requests for him. He really is easy on the eyes.

He was simply, undeniably handsome.

His bone structure did most of the work: prominent brow ridges, deep-set eyes, a high nose bridge, and brows that cast a slight shadow over his eyes. His jawline was sharp and clean, tapering neatly without a trace of excess softness.

Although his hair was long, it didn’t look messy. Loose strands fell casually across his forehead and shoulders, adding a relaxed, lively charm. It wasn’t the cold, intimidating “straight black hair” often seen on aloof beauties, either. Instead, it looked soft, fluffy, and surprisingly touchable.

Even if one was accustomed to seeing men with short hair, there was nothing strange about it. It suited him so naturally that it felt as though he’d been born that way.

And somehow, he looked familiar.

That vague sense of déjà vu was similar to the feeling she’d had after eating those strange mushrooms and seeing things.

She couldn’t quite remember. After all, attractive people often shared the same textbook-perfect facial proportions. There wasn’t much novelty in that.

For a moment, Xiang Yu found herself staring blankly.

Shen Jiu patiently allowed her to look.

Only after several seconds did she snap back to reality and finally take his outstretched hand.

Wait.

What had he just said?

A specially assigned disabled employee?

As their hands met, Xiang Yu’s gaze naturally followed downward and noticed that Shen Jiu was holding a cane in his other hand.

The cane was made of heavy, dark ebony, striking enough to attract attention. Yet Shen Jiu stood so straight and carried himself with such calm composure that most people’s eyes never landed on the cane at first glance.

So he really did have difficulty walking.

Xiang Yu was still trying to figure out how to continue the conversation without sounding insensitive when her phone suddenly croaked.

Then it croaked again.

And again.

And again and again and again.

The sound was the notification tone of the Hama Green App, and it sounded unusually urgent.

The corners of Xiang Yu’s mouth twitched slightly. After apologizing, she pulled out her phone.

[Emergency Humanitarian Mission Issued]

[Location: 2.3 km ahead, North Hama Village

Target Vehicle: Silver-gray van (license plate ending in 8K9)

Mission Objective: Ensure that law enforcement intervenes in time, prevent the victim from being transported away, and guarantee the victim’s safety….

Note: This event is not related to business operations. Your highest priority is ensuring your own safety. No rewards will be granted upon completion.]

!!!

The notice claimed there would be “no completion rewards” and emphasized “your own safety comes first,” yet the entire screen was surrounded by a glaring, flashing crimson border. The mission text blinked in bright yellow, while the phone speaker croaked frantically without stopping.

None of the previous missions had ever looked like this.

A van… a victim… law enforcement…

And in a remote village like Hama Valley, dozens of kilometers from the city.

North Hama Village…

That was Pingping’s home.

Could this be… a kidnapping? Human trafficking?

Xiang Yu’s eyes slowly widened.

She sucked in a sharp breath.

2.3 kilometers ahead.

She quickly looked around.

Under the large banyan tree was the electric scooter Liu Bo rode to work. It hadn’t even been locked.

Without another thought, she swung herself onto it and shouted toward Liu Bo, who was peeking out from inside the hot spring building—far more interested in gawking at the handsome newcomer.

“Liu Bo! Go get everyone! Something’s happening in North Village! Call the police! Call the police!”

There was no time to worry about whether the newcomer was some aloof celestial immortal or rebellious divine beast from the heavens. Besides, the man had an injured leg—she couldn’t drag him into danger.

She twisted the throttle.

The scooter shot forward like an arrow released from its bow.

Xiang Yu nearly lost control.

She glanced at the speedometer.

Its starting speed was already 40 km/h, and as she kept accelerating, it climbed higher…

60 km/h.

Holy crap.

A factory electric scooter is supposed to be limited to 25!

Liu Bo, you sneaky bastard—you actually modified it!

You beautiful genius!

She silently awarded Liu Bo a mental chicken drumstick.

Meanwhile, the croaking notification from the phone in her pocket grew louder and more frantic, like a death knell urging her onward.

The system hadn’t explicitly said so, but she knew the window for rescuing the victim was incredibly short.

The criminals were only stopping here briefly after leaving the city—not making a delivery. Hama Valley might be an impoverished backwater, but it still had poverty-relief officials like Ji Kailang stationed there.

Anyone reckless enough to commit something this monstrously evil here would be skinned alive by Director Ji.  

Even if they weren’t afraid of Ji Kailang—a young woman with yellow-dyed hair—she was still a legitimate government official. Did they really think they could conduct this kind of business right under the nose of a state employee in broad daylight?

Then that meant…

They weren’t here to deliver someone.

They were here to pick up new stock.

Against a single opponent, Xiang Yu wasn’t worried. Most men in southern China weren’t as tall or as strong as she was. Growing up poor had left her tough and resilient. She’d trained in Sanda (Chinese kickboxing) at a martial arts club, worked part-time in an orthopedic clinic, delivered takeout as a gig worker, hauled packages for courier companies, and she still had a skill card she could use as a trump card.

But if it was a whole van full of people, charging in alone wasn’t likely to work.

She’d have to stall for time.

If a fight broke out, she’d fight.

If she couldn’t win, she’d run.

And even in the absolute worst-case scenario…

With barely ten days of life left anyway, dying while saving someone was a far better end than getting run over by a truck because of bad luck.

Besides, with the endurance she’d built from running at least twenty kilometers a day around campus, even if the kidnappers could beat her, they definitely couldn’t outrun her.

When she was still over a hundred meters away, she spotted exactly what the app had described.

A silver-gray van.

A short, heavyset man was talking to Pingping, who was carrying a woven basket on her back.

Xiang Yu twisted the throttle all the way.

She saw the man reach for Pingping’s basket.

Pingping clung tightly to it, refusing to let go, but her tiny body was dragged toward the van along with it.

Holy fucking shit!

There was no time to brake.

Still traveling at 60 km/h, Xiang Yu aimed the electric scooter straight at the van—and the squat man standing beside it.

From a distance, Sun Qiangyou saw something barreling toward him.

He turned, his face instantly twisting with terror.

He tried to dodge sideways—

Too late.

A huge, unstoppable force slammed violently into his waist.

The rider didn’t show the slightest hint of guilt.

For a split second, as everything happened in a flash, Sun Qiangyou thought he saw a feral grin spread across the rider’s face.

The next instant, his body was airborne.

Using nothing but his body fat to absorb the full impact of a 60 km/h collision, he was sent flying. For a brief few seconds, he even experienced the surreal sensation of weightlessness…

Bang!

Xiang Yu didn’t come away unscathed either.

The moment she hit him, the scooter was flung away by the tremendous momentum, skidding a long distance across the ground.

But she’d prepared herself mentally.

As she fell, she rolled several times, using her arms to absorb the impact. After only a couple of rolls, she was already scrambling back to her feet—

Much faster than Sun Qiangyou.

The people inside the van heard the commotion.

Another tall man stuck his head out to look, while several male voices shouted from inside.

Pingping was still standing where she was.

She looked completely frozen in fear.

She wasn’t even trying to run.

Damn it.

Still stumbling and barely steady on her feet, Xiang Yu lashed out with a flying kick—straight into the basket on Pingping’s back.

The little girl was sent stumbling several meters away before tumbling to the ground. The basket burst open, scattering wild termite mushrooms all over the road.

Planting herself between Pingping and the van, Xiang Yu put her hands on her hips and exploded in anger.

“Get lost!”

“You little thief! Last time you stole my family’s radishes, and now you’ve stolen mushrooms from my mountain!”

She deliberately stood in front of Pingping, then gave the fallen basket another hard kick.

“You’re still crying? You’ve got the stolen goods right here, and you’re still trying to deny it?!”

She reached as though she were about to grab Pingping by her braids.

Only then did the little girl finally snap out of her shock.

Forgetting all about the basket, she burst into deafening sobs and ran as fast as she could back toward the village.

[Achievement Unlocked: Kicked a Child from Beihai Kindergarten]

[Reward: One Skill Card.]

It was an incredibly timely reward.

But at a moment like this…

System, please.

This is really not the time for jokes.

The moment Xiang Yu finished her furious tirade, that notification popped into her mind.

When she turned around, she met the cold, sinister gaze of the gaunt, dark-skinned man sitting in the van.

She gave him a stiff, awkward smile, nudged the scattered termite mushrooms with her foot, then bent down to help the fat man she’d just rammed flying.

The heavyset man lay on the ground groaning miserably, squealing like a hog waiting to be slaughtered.

“Brother—big brother, I’m so sorry!” Xiang Yu wiped her face and babbled nonstop as she helped Sun Qiangyou to his feet. “The moment I saw that damned little brat, I just couldn’t stop in time. I didn’t even see you standing there!”

“That little thief stole radishes from my field last time too. She’s a repeat offender! The second she gets caught, she runs! Those mushrooms in her basket are all from my mountain—I recognize them! See the dirt stuck to them? That’s my dirt!”

“Big brother, I’m really sorry. Please take these mushrooms. I’ll take you to the hospital right now. We’ll go to the hospital immediately…”

As she spoke, the people inside the van climbed out one after another.

Nine men.

One woman.

The men came in all shapes and sizes—tall, short, fat, thin. The middle-aged woman, meanwhile, was neatly dressed and wore the kind of warm, kindly smile that made her look like an ordinary, respectable auntie.

The gaunt, dark-skinned man appeared to be the leader of the group.

After watching Xiang Yu perform her little act for a while, he raised a hand to stop her.

“You’re from this village?”

He smiled faintly, spat on the ground, then reached behind his lower back and drew a knife.

“So young…”

“Why are you growing radishes in a village like this?”

<< _ >>

The post Scenic Area Ch.14 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

“That hot spring—your wife and kids will definitely love it. It’s completely natural. You can even see the spring source with your own eyes.”

“The environment is great too. You walk in on stone slabs all the way—barefoot and your feet don’t even get dirty. Soaking in it is incredibly comfortable… If I hadn’t booked a beauty appointment I wouldn’t have wanted to leave. I’m telling you, sis knows how to enjoy life—you can trust my judgment.”

“It’s definitely the level of a high-end club. The decor is tasteful, newly opened, spotless inside, and it smells really nice—not the kind of smell that gives you a headache.”

“If your wife goes, I’ll tell the girl there. After soaking, she can do a facial too. Their technique is really good, and that volcanic mud treatment is excellent. After applying it, you can immediately feel your skin tightening. After washing your face, it feels like you’ve turned back time. Honestly, I’m already this age and I look like the Eternal Youth Mistress from Mount Tianshan…”

The driver couldn’t hold it in at the mention of “Eternal Youth Mistress from Mount Tianshan.” While carrying peaches, he accidentally let out a laugh and nearly choked.

Kan Haoli didn’t mind at all. As she spoke, she even turned on her phone’s front camera and admired herself with satisfaction. “This money was spent exactly where it should be. Not wasted at all.”

“And those eggs are good too. Only people like our generation, who’ve lived through hard times, really appreciate eggs—ah, every time I eat them I think, how can something so plain, with no oil or salt, taste this good?”

Xiao Wang listened in a daze, instinctively giving a respectful smile. “There’s actually such a good place near the city? I just worry we couldn’t afford it.”

He wasn’t trying to sound pitiful on purpose—most of the places Kan Haoli usually went to had minimum spends in the tens of thousands, so this was a practical concern.

“A few dozen yuan per person,” Kan Haoli said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t make it sound like I don’t pay your salaries properly.”

“Oh, that’s great.”

Xiao Wang was startled by the price and couldn’t quite believe that President Kan would go somewhere so affordable.

“I went mainly to support that little girl’s business. I originally just planned to top up a membership card and leave,” Kan Haoli said, growing more and more convinced she had discovered a hidden gem, a little carried away with her excitement.

“I was thinking before that if the environment was really bad, I wouldn’t do the facial there. Since it’s kind of out of the way, I even asked Xiao Du if I could just go to my house instead—but once I got there, I’m telling you, it really had something going on.”

People recommending stuff are always like this: no matter whether the listener is paying attention, they still go through their entire thought process in detail, rehashing it until they’ve convinced themselves of how good it is.

President Kan, who was usually somewhat composed, spread her hands wide and gestured like she was describing a great river:

“Just that Cangjiang River—you cross it, and once you step onto the hot spring walkway, the whole atmosphere is different! You can smell the natural mineral scent of the hot springs, full of negative oxygen ions from the virgin forest!”

“The hot spring lobby has a whole wall made of rock jade. The columns are all golden silk nanmu and huanghuali wood. The grain of that wood made me practically drool—some parts were like flowing gold, shining brightly, and the non-golden grain looked like ink-wash landscape paintings. Even the reception desk had something like honey-colored yellow jade, like beeswax, right next to the computers. I don’t know which supplier they got it from, but it was seriously high-end.”

“I originally wanted to ask about the interior design, but after soaking in the hot spring I completely forgot about it. When I came out, I saw the owner was just a young girl about the same age as my daughter.”

Kan Haoli wore a confident expression of “I knew it,” “this is an undiscovered gem,” and “I’ve still got taste.” With the unmistakable authority of a successful businessperson, she delivered her final assessment:

“She’s probably the daughter of some real estate tycoon. Rich!”

She said that “rich” with real force, so much so that her mouth was getting a bit dry by the end. She took a sip from her thermos and suddenly remembered something.

“Guess who else I saw at the place?”

“You know that guy who runs that Sheraton hotel, Liu Yu? His son works at that club.” Her eyes darkened slightly. “Is he involved in it? He’s got that kind of taste?”

“Impossible—he’s busy fooling around with his mistress. Liu Bo’s own mother has been trying to push things along all day and still hasn’t gotten anywhere. Would he have spare money to open such a big club for his son?”

Those were not topics a working-class employee should be hearing about. Xiao Wang silently nodded while carrying the last box of peaches.

“Alright, leave a box for yourself later,” Kan Haoli said, walking around to the trunk and pulling out a few bottles. “Here, take these two bottles home too. You worked hard coming out so late.”

The garage was pitch dark. Xiao Wang couldn’t see clearly what he was holding—only that they were two oily-looking jars. They probably were some kind of local specialty, like the peaches.

Refusing would make him seem ungrateful, so he grinned readily. “Got it, President Kan. This really worked out for me today.”

“Everyone gets a share,” Kan Haoli said, rummaging through the trunk again and handing a few more bottles to the driver. “Come on, take the peaches and the jars home. Thanks for your hard work, both of you.”

“That’s enough, that’s enough—you only have one bottle left yourself, Sister Kan!”

“Just take it when I tell you to! I don’t like pickled stuff!”

After a bit of back-and-forth, both Xiao Wang and the driver ended up with fully loaded trunks. Xiao Wang then followed Kan Haoli back to her home to pick up the fried dough balls she wanted to send to her daughter.

Kan Haoli pulled several large boxes of frozen tangyuan from the fridge and reminded Xiao Wang to use extra insulation and choose the most expensive courier service—don’t try to save money. While looking at the oily jars in the entryway, she started complaining again:

“This matsutake mushroom oil jar is something a little girl from the village sells. She says she goes up the mountain early in the morning to pick it. And my girl, Xiao Le’er, has such good conditions but still doesn’t appreciate anything—always asking for this and that, even making me send her parcels…”

It was the usual cycle of complaining on the surface but clearly praising underneath. Xiao Wang kept smiling politely, but under the light, he suddenly froze when he looked at the jars.

“President Kan, this is matsutake mushroom oil, right? That’s expensive stuff.”

Kan Haoli gave a vague “mm.” At the time, she had only been focused on chatting with the girl and hadn’t really paid attention to what was in her hands.

She only remembered hearing that it had to be dug up in the mountains at three in the morning—and when she saw the girl’s thin face and watery big eyes, she couldn’t help herself and went all in.

Kan Haoli wasn’t from the south. When she was young, she had never eaten wild mushrooms. Now that she had money, she was afraid of dying young and took health preservation seriously, so she didn’t eat anything risky like that.

“This one’s been deep-fried properly, it won’t poison you. It’s really fragrant.” Xiao Wang’s mouth curled up as he spoke, almost drooling as his tone became animated.

“I’ve got relatives living deep in the Xihai mountains who used to get this for me. It’s unbelievably fragrant—just a little bit mixed into noodles or rice is enough to make you eat a whole big bowl. Even plain noodles can turn into a full meal.”

He swallowed hard, struggling to contain his excitement. Matsutake was already expensive, and after frying and oil-sealing, it shrank even further. Fresh ones on the market cost nearly 200 yuan per jin. Wild mountain ingredients like this were like wild honey—you couldn’t get the real thing unless you knew the right people.

And from what President Kan said, this came straight from the mountains. That alone made it feel priceless. Even better, there were still three jars left in his trunk—President Kan had said each of the three people in his household could take one.

That’s almost a thousand yuan worth!

The boss is generous.

Watching Xiao Wang leave happily, as if he had just received an early year-end bonus, Kan Haoli frowned in confusion and picked up the dark jar again to inspect it.

She had only bought it because she was helping out that little girl, Pippin. She’d bought peaches as company welfare, and as for the matsutake mushroom oil, she was worried employees might get stomach issues, so she only gave it to Xiao Wang and the driver.

She lived alone after her divorce, and her daughter was abroad, so she only kept one small jar and two peaches for herself—just a little taste of something new. The rest she had given away.

She vaguely remembered that the two little girls in the lobby said the peaches were very sweet…

She had originally planned to find a peeler, but after rubbing the soft peach skin in her hand, she decided it wasn’t necessary. She carefully bit into it instead.

The peach was so juicy it felt like it was wrapped in water. With the slightest pressure, juice burst out from the opening and rushed into her mouth.

She quickly closed her lips to contain it, and along with the juice came the soft, melt-in-the-mouth flesh of the peach.

The sweet peach pulp flowed from her tongue down her throat, filling her entire mouth with the rich, sugary flavor of fruit juice.

…To maintain her figure, Kan Haoli hadn’t eaten anything this sweet for a long time.

But when that intense, almost domineering sweetness flooded her mouth, she still couldn’t help letting out a soft sigh. Sugar—something humans had desperately pursued since ancient times—was not something so easily controlled.

Reluctantly, she pulled the shriveled peach away and took a closer look. Most of the flesh inside had already turned into nectar-like juice; only a small amount of pale yellow pulp clung to the skin, with a faint amber-colored pit visible in the center.

It felt like drinking a beverage—she had finished an entire peach in just a few bites.

Her hand unconsciously reached for the next one. The taste of peach still lingered in her mouth, but there was no sour aftertaste that usually came after overly sweet candy. Natural fruit sugar had a clean, unprocessed purity that additives could never replicate.

The peach in her hand was soft and full of moisture, covered in a fine white fuzz. Its skin was pink-white, its flesh a gentle pale yellow—the flavor was tender and sweet in the most delicate way.

At her age, she already had to control sugar intake and resist aging. It took considerable effort for Kan Haoli to put the peach down and open the matsutake mushroom oil instead, picking at it with chopsticks to taste it.

…She immediately regretted it.

She should have sent it to Xiao Le instead—didn’t her daughter always say the food abroad was terrible?

If she had known, she shouldn’t have given so much away. She should have had Xiao Wang send it all out.

Forget it. She could always go back to the hot spring place again—she could buy more next time.

The empty mansion felt lonely when she was alone. Leaning against the entryway, Kan Haoli sighed while touching her well-maintained, smooth skin.

She took out an old family photo and looked at it. She gently touched her daughter’s face, then glanced at her ex-husband on the other side—despite living comfortably at home, his face looked wrinkled like tree bark. The more she looked, the tighter her brows became.

At that moment, a WeChat notification popped up.

“—Hey Sister Kan, I heard you went out to have fun this weekend? Why didn’t you bring your little brother along? I could’ve driven for you.”

Kan Haoli, who was already thinking about when she could go soak in the hot springs and apply volcanic mud again, frowned and casually deleted the greasy message with a flick of her finger.

She toyed with her jade pendant, growing more and more regretful.

“I should’ve gotten the boss’s contact information… I wonder if they’d be willing to host company team-building events. I’ll ask Xiao Du later.”

——

Xihai University

“Still not sleeping?”

Li Qian climbed onto the upper bunk and looked at the light still glowing behind the bed curtains with some surprise.

She had just come back from the hot springs and felt completely refreshed, so she’d gone to bed early, ready to enjoy a high-quality, blissful sleep.

Among their roommates, Gu Xiaoshuang had the weakest health—an extremely delicate stomach and poor qi and blood. She was basically their “gold standard” for testing whether takeout food was safe.

It was said that a fortune teller once declared she wouldn’t live past fifteen. Her parents had raised her with extreme caution, and she had somehow made it to university under careful protection. Even skipping a little sleep could make her dizzy, breathless, or even cause chest pain. During exams, she would rather fail courses than stay up late.

Yet now, almost midnight, she was actually sitting there typing away on her computer.

“Did I disturb you?” Xiaoshuang peeked out from behind the curtains and dimmed the desk lamp slightly. “I’m writing a review for the campus wall post. I promised the boss.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Li Qian quickly waved her hand. “It’s just rare seeing you stay up late. You usually lie down before ten. Why are you working so hard just for a review?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Gu Xiaoshuang said, crossing her legs and starting to chat with her.

“My family actually used to consult a very skilled expert. I’m feeling really good today. After the hot spring, I’ve got a lot of energy. I even chatted with my friend just now.”

“What the TCM doctor told me before was that my body had cold-dampness, and I should exercise a bit to sweat it out and expel the ‘dirty stuff’ inside my body. But I can barely climb stairs. Last year I went to the gym and ended up spraining my foot and straining my back…”

“And then it turned into a vicious cycle—the less I exercise, the weaker I get; the weaker I get, the less I can exercise. Even in the hottest days of summer I break out in cold sweat, and the more I try to ‘tonify’ myself, the worse it gets.”

“A so-called master told me I should ‘connect with the earth’—some kind of natural healing energy therapy. In TCM, the ‘earth element’ corresponds to the spleen and stomach, responsible for digesting grains and nourishing the whole body. The earth has energy, and walking barefoot in rural mud can cure illness by absorbing the earth’s geopathic energy…”

“I thought about it and realized—this is basically the same thing as that hot spring. Soaking in natural pools lets you absorb and balance your body’s energy. Isn’t that the same idea?”

Li Qian, who had been raised under the red flag and in the spring breeze, had never heard such theories before, and showed a slightly stunned expression.

“Hey, don’t just dismiss it,” Xiaoshuang said. “Energy fields and magnetic fields are within the realm of science, right? Even rich foreigners believe in manifestation—it’s basically the same thing.”

Seeing that Li Qian didn’t agree, Gu Xiaoshuang huffed.

“I think it makes sense. That place’s energy field just really matches me. I’m going to post it like that.”

“Go ahead, go ahead, Your Highness,” Li Qian said, pulling her blanket up comfortably and wrapping herself in it.

“Next time we should go again. It’s actually closer than going into the city anyway. We can eat eggs, roasted marshmallows, and do face masks.”

“I think it’s the earth’s energy field that made the acne and inflammation on your face go down.”

“That’s a bit too far, isn’t it? Besides, you also used the volcanic mud the boss gave us. That’s the mud doing the work.”

“The volcanic mud is just the earth’s energy.”

“Maybe they just mixed antibiotics into the mud. Didn’t you say before that some places used to mix metformin into ‘blood sugar lowering’ herbal medicine, or even lead powder into face masks?”

Even while saying that, Li Qian still pinched her soft, smooth cheeks and felt instantly happy again.

“But come to think of it… even if they did add something, I’d still accept it. Hey, should we get an annual pass? Do they even have annual passes there?”

“Of course it’s fine!” Gu Xiaoshuang, who had been hesitant to apply the volcanic mud mask in the hot spring earlier, had now completely turned into a devoted believer of volcanic mud. Her hair almost seemed to “stand on end” in excitement.

“Don’t talk nonsense! If they really added anything, my face would’ve already swollen into a pig head by now!”

“True… and you’re such a sensitive-skin type. You used it and you’re totally fine.”

The two chatted casually back and forth. After Li Qian fell asleep, Gu Xiaoshuang organized her “grand essay” and gave it an imposing title:

“A Study on the Effects of Surface Thermal Flow Bio-Electromagnetic Storm Energy on the Human Body: A Case Study of Hama Valley Glacier Hot Springs”

She then submitted it to the Xihai University campus wall group chat:

— “Admin, admin, please post this hot spring review for classmates’ reference (^▽^)”

— “Okay~”

— “Wait a second… classmate, what exactly is this you sent? Is electromagnetic storm and hot springs the innovation point of your graduation thesis?”

<< _ >>

The post Scenic Area Ch.13 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

[Current remaining lifespan of Tianbai Snow Mountain Hama Valley Glacier Park: 19 days]

[[First Opening] quest completed. Special project collaboration staff have been dispatched. Please proceed to the Three Realms Talent Exchange System to sign the labor contract as soon as possible.]

[[Earn satisfaction from 50 customers] Gain 5 days of lifespan. Current progress: 6%]

[[Earn satisfaction from 20 employees] Gain one skill card reward. Current progress: 25%]

After seeing off the guests, the hot spring closed for the day. The employees gradually finished work as well. Lying on a small wooden bed in a villager’s home, Xiang Yu stared at the “Hama Green App,” a faint melancholy rising in her heart.

Only three customers came on opening day, yet satisfaction was 100%. Each of them left with extravagant praise. The two college students were already polishing their promotional copy while roasting marshmallows in the lobby.

The wealthy “sister” even patted her chest, saying she would promote the place within her high-society circle, and suggested that Xiang Yu should launch premium services in the tens of thousands range so it would be easier to break into the market. Rich people didn’t really want to soak in a bathhouse that cost only a few dozen yuan.

If it weren’t for the fact that she only had 19 days left to live, this rushed opening could be considered a pretty good start.

But time waited for no one. Right now, it was the classic case of “good wine fears a deep alley.”

If Liu Bo’s borderline-shady marketing actually worked, he wouldn’t even need a job—he’d just spend all day filming videos and pushing them across platforms. Unfortunately, the trend now wasn’t the Schwarzenegger type anymore; girls preferred lean, lightly muscled physiques.

Xiang Yu bought promotions on several local platforms, but the more popular ones had schedules booked months in advance. The employees were also anxious—this ragtag team somehow had a surprising sense of ambition.

Perhaps because they were all the same age, it felt less like working and more like a university club. After Liu Bo’s “edgy marketing plan,” they even took the initiative to go distribute flyers, stuffing postcards into hotel door gaps like crazy.

She didn’t dare imagine what the people who received those little flyers would think when they picked them up and saw:

Front: “Welcome to the Hospitable Hama Valley”

Back: “So close, so beautiful—spend your weekend at Hama Valley”

She still had a few local influencer accounts under negotiation. They were clearly trying to take advantage of her desperation—like they were trying to squeeze her dry while she was already down. If no customer flow came in soon, she’d have no choice but to burn money and buy traffic outright.

Her funding hadn’t been released yet. Fortunately, she had saved some money from part-time jobs during university. At this point of survival-or-death stakes, she could only grit her teeth and spend it.

Feeling the looming pressure of fate like a speeding truck, Xiang Yu forced herself into survival mode. She rummaged through the Hama Green App and clicked through every red-dot notification in her inbox.

All she had in her backpack were volcanic mud and hot spring eggs—and one skill card she hadn’t drawn yet. It didn’t look like it would be of much help.

The system had said new employees would arrive, but she had no idea whether she could even afford their wages. The boss was now so broke she was seriously considering going back to food delivery.

She took out the labor contract again to look it over.

Thankfully, these new employees weren’t part of any traditional employment relationship and didn’t follow normal human labor procedures.

The employer (Party A) did not need to pay wages, social insurance, or any labor compensation. They only needed to provide lodging and a place to operate, and allow the employee (Party B) to interact with customers within their job scope.

Any special food provided by Party A was considered charitable care and did not count as salary or employment compensation.

Employees must obey the basic rules of the premises—actively cooperate with business operations, not intentionally harm or frighten customers, and avoid endangering the safety of the site due to excessive negativity, irritability, or other adverse states (see Appendix S1). Otherwise, the contract could be terminated early and the employee returned.

Looks like the ones they were sending over… were going to be troublemakers.

Xiang Yu clicked into the appendix and read it carefully.

The entity responsible for the appendix was the Office for Resource Allocation and Wounded Personnel Resettlement after the Fourth “Myriad Paths War.”

In short, not long ago, the Three Realms had just gone through a massive, earth-shaking war. It had left countless people severely injured. Even after nearly a hundred years of recovery in the Heavenly Court, the number of wounded remained extremely high. To address this, they were now providing qualified severely injured personnel with work opportunities in specific locations in the human realm, allowing them to gather “faith value” as a form of special therapeutic resource.

Faith value—in simple terms, was exposure.

Xiang Yu began to vaguely understand what this app was for. If traffic and visibility could be converted into cultivation power or healing resources, then in an era dominated by livestreams and short videos, this system was practically made for it.

Things that in ancient times required shamans performing rituals and elaborate acts of mysticism just to secure a single temple’s worth of offerings could now be achieved through MCN-style traffic pushing and viral marketing.

This truly was a mutually beneficial project. Xiang Yu got free staff, the injured received employment placement, the Heavenly Court solved its resource shortages, and all three realms were keeping up with the times.

The system even used very modern bilingual terminology. Special employees were labeled “Differentiated Ability Users / Differently Abled,” a respectful phrasing for “disabled employees.”

Not a single word explicitly said they were injured—just that they had “different abilities” and “abilities,” all wrapped in a polished, internationally aligned tone of correctness.

No wonder employment was so competitive now. Even demons, gods, and all sorts of strange beings had to find jobs—and your competitors might not even be human.

The résumé of the first “Differentiated Ability User” had already been sent to her email.

Xiang Yu squinted at it. It was just one line:

“A cornerstone of the vast Heavenly Realm’s guardianship, an immovable monument of order—patrolling the heavens, expelling evil, sealing calamities.”

It gave off a feeling like… a mythic war god trying to ride a beat-up electric scooter.

That line of “cornerstone,” all that talk of “order,” “guardianship,” and “immovable monument”—and in the end, the guy is coming to work at a tiny private shop. It had the overwhelming vibe of the eldest son playing it safe and becoming a security guard.

The headhunter-style introduction below it was even more outrageous, describing him like this:

He is the embodiment of two great laws—“All Sources Returning to Origin” and “Sealing Calamity.” His status is transcendent; wherever his true form rests, evil retreats. His existence itself is a symbol of the Heavenly Realm’s ever-flowing wealth and unbreakable gates—he breathes the cosmos, carrying supreme majesty.

That restrained, heavy kind of “aura” was overwhelming… everything from heavenly mandate, to fundamental laws, to being above ordinary divine positions. The more Xiang Yu read, the more her phone felt like it was burning in her hand. She scrolled all the way to the end.

Job placement: attracting wealth, warding off evil, securing the household.

……

Oh no. So this was basically an application to become a door guardian stone lion?

Faced with these unfamiliar special-assignment employees, Xiang Yu proceeded with extreme caution.

These dispatched employees were not being given out as “benefits,” but rather as “problems.”

Helping the Heavenly Realm solve unemployment was the exchange condition for the assistance she received from the system.

The appendix explained that the injured personnel had highly specialized skills, mostly combat-oriented, and were severely mismatched with the human world’s ordinary job market in services, manufacturing, and administration. The cultural gap between the two sides was significant, so the employer had to carefully arrange suitable positions.

And more obviously, these employees were basically a group of “education system dropouts” in practical terms—she couldn’t expect them to handle accounting, maintenance, engineering, or other technical jobs either.

Finding work these days was really too hard. A month ago, it was just her own joblessness. Now that she had a “golden finger,” she was suddenly responsible for the employment of a whole group of people.

She had gone from criticizing Old Hao… to becoming Old Hao… and then surpassing Old Hao.

She closed the app.

No sooner had she done so than her worries deepened.

Lying back on the creaky wooden bed, she turned over and stared at the night sky through the gaps in the roof tiles.

The night in Hama Valley was very comfortable. When the city was under a heatwave warning, this place still kept temperatures that required a jacket to sleep through the night. Through a small crack in the wall, one could see seven or eight stars.

If one had the leisure to lie in the courtyard, they could see the sky stretching soft and deep like a silk curtain, and the Milky Way shimmering brightly.

That night when she had been overwhelmed by hallucinations from wild mushrooms, she had looked up at the sky and seen its light so dense it resembled fireflies. The galaxy drifted through the darkness like scattered silver fragments, flowing and rotating gently. The entire starfield was in quiet motion—truly no different from Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Outside the window, quails and cuckoos called intermittently. Their “gugu” and “guaguaji” sounds strangely resembled frog calls, not at all annoying. What was more irritating, however, were the rustling noises under the bed—maybe mice, maybe cockroaches.

The hot spring’s starter package renovation only covered customer-facing areas. Xiang Yu was currently staying in a villager’s mud house, and when she turned over, she was facing an uneven earthen wall.

Still, it was comfortable enough to sleep. She had taken the system-provided straw mat and pine needle bedding—it was soft, thick, and carried a faint clean fragrance.

Only the indoor hot spring area was unlocked on the app’s map. All other icons—canteen, dormitory, town, glacier—were greyed out. She wanted a canteen selling mushroom dishes, and a better employee dormitory.

According to the planning map, those two areas were in the town section. But survival required traffic, unlocking the map required traffic, and new employees also required traffic…

The night was cool as water. For a moment she thought about how she absolutely needed to spend money on promotion tomorrow to break the deadlock. Then she thought the noises under the bed were too annoying and she should raise a cat. Slowly, lulled by the faint scent of pine needles, she drifted into sleep.

—

Meanwhile, in the city, nightlife had only just begun.

Kan Haoli stepped out of her Bentley and instructed her assistant to unload box after box of peaches from the trunk.

“Xiao Wang, put them in your car. Bring them to the company pantry tomorrow and let everyone have a taste. Be gentle with them.”

The assistant Xiao Wang helped the driver lift boxes, sweating profusely as he worked. While carrying them, he chatted:

“Such good peaches! Life’s good working under Ms. Kan. Where did you go for a trip that you brought back so many local specialties?”

“I went to get my face washed,” Kan Haoli said lazily, standing nearby with her arms folded, idly turning her jade bracelet as she sighed.

“Don’t even get me started. That place was really good. Didn’t I have a membership at RuiMei before? That little girl quit her job. Before leaving, she sent me a long message apologizing, saying she couldn’t wash my face anymore after she resigned, and even said sorry for wasting my money on the membership. Tell me—wasn’t she adorable?”

Xiao Wang immediately understood what she meant.

“Oh, that girl from Xihai University, right? That’s why people say university students really are more cultured.”

A competent assistant always knew his boss’s preferences. He secretly studied Kan Haoli’s face again and felt it looked brighter than before. She must’ve gone through some kind of “advanced treatment” this time.

He said sincerely, “What kind of treatment did you do this time? The effect is amazing—Ms. Kan, your skin looks like those early-twenties girls in our office building.”

“Oh my, I think so too. Students from proper universities really are different.”

No woman disliked hearing that. Kan Haoli touched her face, smiling so widely she couldn’t close her mouth. Then she stamped her high heel lightly on the ground, her fingers resting loosely on her arm as she sighed:

“That girl is about the same age as my daughter. Very diligent, very polite. Even apologized to me—so innocent. When I first entered society, I was just like that too, always careful not to upset clients. Now life’s better, I can help where I can.”

“Now that I’m older, I still feel sorry when I see young girls like that. My daughter, isn’t she at some university in California… Johns Hopkins or something? She applied herself, I don’t really understand it. Kids these days—she’s never short of money, yet she still says she doesn’t eat well. I even told her she can eat at Michelin restaurants whenever she wants. Guess what she said?”

“She said she’s getting anorexia soon, and all she wants to eat are the fried glutinous rice balls I make. Tell me, what does she even know?”

“So I’m telling you, compared to those kids who still do part-time jobs during holidays, she’s just had too easy a life. Xiao Wang, come upstairs with me later and help me pack some fried dough balls and dumplings to send to her.”

That overwhelming display of “humble-bragging” left Xiao Wang no choice but to catch the underlying message and put on a flattering smile at just the right moment.

“Our Xiao Kan is just acting spoiled with you. She even told me before that she misses her mom terribly and keeps waiting for you to visit her.”

“I’m not going,” Kan Haoli said bluntly. “I don’t understand what she says half the time, and I can’t eat properly over there. It’s way more fun here domestically—the hot springs today were really something.”

Talking about leisure again, Kan Haoli perked up. She straightened slightly and said enthusiastically:

“Your daughter is entering middle school this year, right? Are you planning to take her somewhere to travel?”

Xiao Wang froze for a moment, then gave an honest, slightly awkward smile.

“Not yet. She’s been insisting on going to the Maldives or something… kids nowadays see everything on the internet. I think traveling within China is already good enough. Plus I still have work. If we go anywhere, it’ll probably just be her and her mom.”

For an ordinary salaryman, overseas travel really wasn’t something you could decide on a whim. Especially not in front of your boss.

When the boss herself was only doing day trips within the province, talking about Singapore, Malaysia, or Thailand would feel… a bit presumptuous.

Xiao Wang very tactfully added, “Ms. Kan, you know my situation. House prices dropped these past few years and I still haven’t finished my mortgage. I’ve basically lost two or three hundred thousand yuan. Every morning my wife and I wake up and talk about money… we really don’t have spare energy for the Maldives.”

Kan Haoli clapped her hands, looking rather pleased, and said proudly:

“I’ve found a great place for you!”

<< _ >>

The post Scenic Area Ch.12 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.