Chapter 43: The King of Overworking

Even without the fried egg, they still had to eat.

Auntie Wang picked up her chopsticks. Just as she lifted a mouthful of noodles and put them in her mouth, she couldn’t help but sigh in admiration: these were definitely handmade noodles, and the person who made them was quite skilled.

The noodles were slightly cool entering the mouth and wonderfully chewy. Biting down gently, the noodles practically sprang back against her teeth. They also carried a faint, uniquely sweet taste of wheat flour, clearly different from machine-made noodles.

The tomato meat sauce was also excellently prepared, carrying a hint of sweetness and a hint of sourness, neither too strong, but perfectly balanced together.

If it were a little more sour, it might be even more appetizing, but as it was, it was also very good.

While Auntie Wang ate happily, the other players were also deeply moved. They carefully savored the deliciousness of the noodles. But after only a few bites, they saw the five figures—two large, three small, all women—staring blankly at them. The pressure from Sister Cui and Big Ya, in particular, was immense.

The players glanced at the bowls in those five sets of hands, which were now completely empty.

At that moment, they understood. They weren’t staring at them; they were staring at their bowls!

Because they’d already finished their own portions and were now itching to take the players’ place and snatch the noodles right out of their hands!

Huang Chengcheng, Big Ya, and Little Ya genuinely had the heart to do it. After all, they were children and wouldn’t mind that someone else had eaten from it; they only knew the noodles were delicious. Big Ya and Little Ya especially, having never eaten anything so tasty before, their four eyes sparkled as they fixed their gazes on the bowls—and the noodles—in the players’ hands.

Cheng Luyun wouldn’t go that far; she still had some sense of cleanliness. These people had already eaten from them; how could she touch it now? It was just that the noodles were so good, she felt she could easily eat another giant bowl.

Sister Cui, constrained by being an adult, blushed when she saw the players looking at her and averted her gaze. Seeing that both Big Ya and Little Ya had finished eating, she took one in each hand and prepared to leave, tugging the two children along. First, she bid farewell to Cheng Luyun. Big Ya and Little Ya waved at Huang Chengcheng and even said to her, “What your dad made is seriously so good.”

Huang Chengcheng puffed out her chest proudly. “Of course! My dad’s cooking is the best!” And like any child her age, she made a promise without parental consent: “I’ll let you come eat again next time!”

Cheng Luyun glanced at Huang Chengcheng. Though the gentle smile on her face remained unchanged, Huang Chengcheng shivered. She jumped down from her chair and ran out to the courtyard to find Huang Wei. Huang Wei was sunbathing in the courtyard. Seeing Huang Chengcheng come over, she scooped her into her arms. Looking up, she saw Sister Cui preparing to leave with her two children.

“Brother Wei, we’ll be off first. We’ll head over to the guesthouse to help out in a bit.”

Huang Wei called back an acknowledgment. After Sister Cui left, she went back inside and told the players they’d be staying at the guesthouse tonight. The players looked at each other, the captain hesitating a moment, but still asked, “Staying there is one thing, but can you guarantee the safety?” In front of the players, Huang Wei wouldn’t do anything to expose Cheng Luyun. Without even looking at Cheng Luyun, she directly nodded.

Only then did the captain sigh in relief. He quickly finished his bowl of noodles and then called on his team members to hurry up and eat too. Once they were done, they planned to leave and continue scouting around the village.

Huang Wei watched Cheng Luyun carry the bowls out to wash. She explained her plan: she’d head over there soon. She also said she’d be back soon to make dinner, preparing their family’s meal first before making food for the workers. Cheng Luyun nodded without saying much, only requesting that Huang Wei come back home to eat in the evening.

Huang Wei didn’t know whether the food truly required her presence to have flavor, or whether there was actually a tiny place for her in Cheng Luyun’s heart. But she was still overjoyed and agreed on the spot.

She reached out and picked up Huang Chengcheng, ready to go out. Before leaving, she exchanged some points for a bag of sunflower seeds and placed it beside Cheng Luyun. Cheng Luyun paused. She saw Huang Wei smile. “I saw there were sunflower seeds at home; you probably like eating them too. These were exchanged with points fleeced from the players; you should be able to taste them.”

Huang Wei still wasn’t entirely sure if the key for ghosts to taste food was eating with a living person. She’d just heard Cheng Luyun call her back home for dinner earlier and felt a surge of joy. Her hopeless romantic side sprouted again, thinking maybe Cheng Luyun cared just a tiny bit about her, too. In a good mood, she left with Huang Chengcheng.

After the person was gone, Cheng Luyun set the bowls and chopsticks aside and picked up the sunflower seeds Huang Wei had given her.

She reached out, grabbed a single seed from the bag, and gently placed it in her mouth. She parted her nicely shaped lips, bit down with her teeth. Crack. The shell split open, and the seed kernel inside entered Cheng Luyun’s mouth.

To be honest, the seed entering her mouth had absolutely no taste at all. Without Huang Wei accompanying her, nothing had any flavor.

But still, Cheng Luyun recalled what sunflower seeds tasted like. And now, eating this tasteless seed also seemed to carry a great deal of flavor.

Cheng Luyun spat out the shell and sealed the bag of seeds. She planned to wait until Huang Wei came back to sleep at night and sit beside her, cracking seeds. If Huang Wei woke up in the middle of the night, she’d probably be scared silly by the sight. But Huang Wei had already run off, and Cheng Luyun didn’t feel like dragging her back right now. So she’d just wait until Huang Wei was asleep at night to enjoy her seeds.

Huang Wei currently had no idea what her wife had in store for her, or else she’d certainly regret giving her that bag of seeds. The image of someone sitting at her bedside in the dead of night, not sleeping, just cracking sunflower seeds—no matter how you imagined it, it was eerie.

Right now, she’d arrived at the guesthouse with her very useful Little Boss, Huang Chengcheng, and found quite a few people already busy at work.

Huang Wei even spotted some very elderly villagers, several of them the same old grannies she’d seen earlier under the village entrance’s old locust tree, cracking seeds and gossiping. For a moment, Huang Wei felt a headache coming on. Subconsciously, she still felt that older people doing this kind of work wasn’t good. But she had a feeling that if she opened her mouth to say so, the villagers would simply do an on-the-spot transformation for her.

Huang Wei looked over the people, then divided them into two groups based on the difficulty of the tasks. One group would go to the open space next to the guesthouse to build the new house, the other to tidy up the guesthouse itself. The guesthouse really was small, just two or three tiny rooms, with only one actual sleeping room. No wonder players had no choice but to bunk together when staying there.

Now, cleaning up the guesthouse wasn’t for the purpose of housing people, but at the very least it could serve as a storage room for some things. Ideally, it could also be remodeled to serve as a kitchen and dining area.

As for the living quarters, they’d just use the newly constructed building next door.

Huang Wei arranged it properly. The young lads would build the house; the older folks would clean up the guesthouse. But as she stood there at the guesthouse with Huang Chengcheng, she realized the latter group’s work wasn’t light either. However, all the aunties and sisters were incredibly capable—especially Sister Cui. With a large sledgehammer in hand, one swing punched a hole straight through a wall. Then she immediately called over the other village women and rapidly began renovating and integrating the guesthouse space.

Before arriving at the site, Huang Wei had figured the work would take at least ten days to half a month. But at this rate, she felt it might all be done by this afternoon. She found a moment to leave the guesthouse and go to the neighboring empty lot. Huang Wei was still thinking that if worse came to worst, she could ask a villager to let the players stay overnight today, when she discovered that in just twenty-some short minutes, even the foundation for the new building next door had already been laid.

Huang Wei couldn’t help but widen her eyes. Her gaze swept over the construction site. She noticed that the young lad from the village chief’s house was being especially hardworking. He wore a hard hat and held a shovel, his speed in shoveling mortar astonishingly fast. Furthermore, he didn’t even seem to take a break. She looked at the other villagers and found they weren’t just ordinarily serious.

In the countryside, men of a certain age generally knew some construction work. There were masons, painters, carpenters—just call out and you’d always find people who could build a house, all experienced hands.

Huang Wei knew all about these things. Her adoptive father had also loved helping fellow villagers build houses. The food was good, and there was money to be made. Whenever someone called saying they were short-handed, he’d rush over faster than anyone.

But Huang Wei hadn’t expected that when these experienced workers became ghosts and lost their physical limitations, their speed would become this fast.

Huang Wu, having been revived through the instance reset, saw Huang Wei and trotted over eagerly. “Brother Wei, look how hard all us brothers are working! How about an extra bite to eat tonight?”

Huang Wu wore a fawning smile on his face. His inherently somewhat sleazy triangular eyes now looked even more nauseating.

Huang Wei’s mouth twitched. Looking at his expression, he was like a beggar who had been starving for ten days or half a month; if she just gave him a bite to eat, he’d wag his tail at her. Huang Wei wasn’t some rich landlord; seeing someone act like this didn’t fill her with any sense of satisfaction. She just felt a bit disgusted and took a slight step back. “If you all do a serious job, I certainly won’t shortchange you.”

Huang Wu’s smile grew even brighter. “Got it! With those words from Brother Wei, nothing else matters more.”

He finished speaking and ran back to the construction site, hollering at everyone to keep working hard.

“Get moving! Brother Wei said so! As long as the work gets done well, there’ll be good food to fill your bellies tonight! Everyone put your backs into it! Anyone who slacks off, I, Huang Wu, will be the first to have a problem with them! Don’t you dare hold up the progress!”

Seeing the villagers’ pace increase even further, Huang Wei couldn’t help but sigh in admiration: Such simple, honest villagers.

Back when she was working before transmigrating, she’d spend all day thinking about slacking off. Mainly because the boss paid too little, and she had to take other part-time jobs on weekends. If she didn’t slack off, she didn’t know how she’d survive. Looking across the entire company, everyone shared a similar mindset of wanting to just coast along. When you could be a slacker, who wanted to become a king of overworking?

Now Huang Wei was witnessing it firsthand. Huang Wu was truly goading the villagers into working themselves to death.

If her former bosses had seen a group of employees like this under them, they’d probably laugh themselves awake.

Overwork. Overwork. As long as overworking doesn’t kill you, then overwork until you drop.

The current villagers had carved this motto into their very bones. The simple, honest villagers had absolutely no intention of slacking off. Huang Wei watched it all, sighing inwardly. Seeing them work so hard, she could only do her best to make more delicious food in the evening to reward them.

The power of good food was truly terrifying. As the saying goes, money can make a ghost turn a millstone. In reality… food could too.

Huang Wei stayed at the worksite for a while. It looked like there wasn’t even any need for Huang Chengcheng to step in.

Over at the construction site, Huang Wu was hollering and working like a maniac. Back at the guesthouse, Sister Cui was taking the lead as the top hand. After smashing down a wall, she was already tidying up and preparing to build an earthen stove. Huang Wei stopped Sister Cui. “I’m not planning on installing a traditional stove.”

Sister Cui was puzzled. “If not a stove, then what?”

Huang Wei thought for a moment and described the kind of kitchen she had in mind to Sister Cui. After hearing her out, Sister Cui smacked her own forehead. “Oh! A city-style kitchen, huh!”