“Uncle, why don’t you work for me?”
Bai Ji descended the stairs from the other side with a leisurely stride, brushed past the bustling crowd, and walked straight toward Yan Xingli.
For the party, Yan Xingli, who usually wore casual sportswear at home, had changed into a tailored suit.
The bespoke suit showcased his physical advantages to the fullest: long legs, a narrow waist, a tall and straight figure, and the chest muscles beneath his shirt were full and undeniably sexy.
A handsome man easily aroused the envy of another man.
Bai Ji clenched his molars, cursing the pretty boy under his breath.
He tried his best to straighten his back, glad he had come prepared, puffing out his chest with the help of his seven-centimeter height-increasing insoles.
Finally, he was only a few steps away from Yan Xingli.
Bai Ji stopped and looked at him with a half-smile.
Yan Xingli frowned slightly.
Bai Ji curled his lips slowly, waiting for the other to speak first.
Who would have thought Yan Xingli would merely give him a cold, indifferent glance before looking away and brushing past him without a word?
Bai Ji was stunned. It took him a few seconds to realize he’d lost face.
He turned around angrily, “Yan Xingli, didn’t you see me?”
Yan Xingli paused for a moment, quickly sizing up the situation.
He turned back and said coldly, “Sorry, I don’t give autographs to haters.”
Bai Ji: “???”
Who asked for his autograph!
“You don’t recognize me?” The other’s tone was incredulous, tinged with anger.
Yan Xingli: “I don’t.”
Bai Ji shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped forward, his eyes scanning Yan Xingli’s body as he spoke in a sarcastic, cold voice:
“No wonder so many people want to be big stars these days. Once you become one, you can be arrogant and completely sever ties with your past.”
“What’s going on here? Is this a drama??”
“LMAO, this hater actually tracked him down offline? That’s some serious dedication.”
Yan Xingli had a bit of face blindness. Unless he interacted with someone daily, even after meeting them two or three times, he’d file them under “random passerby A, B, or C.”
Besides, this guy’s face was utterly unmemorable.
Even wearing expensive custom-made clothes, he couldn’t hide his sleazy demeanor. The nice clothes ended up looking like street stall knockoffs on him.
Having been in the entertainment industry for a while, Yan Xingli was pretty good at reading people.
Since this guy was clearly here to cause trouble, Yan Xingli wouldn’t hold back.
“Come on, come on, film him. Those are his words; I didn’t say anything.”
Yan Xingli faced the cameraman, raising his hands with an expression of firm innocence, distancing himself:
“I don’t know what this guy’s deal is; he just came out swinging. If anyone knows him, feel free to introduce him in the bullet comments. Oh, and since you’ll be roasting him, maybe go easy on me.”
The cameraman reacted swiftly, zooming in for a close-up on Bai Ji.
Bai Ji’s eyelid twitched. He was about to explode, but caught himself.
Wasn’t his goal in approaching Yan Xingli to expose his facade? The more camera time, the better.
Bai Ji reluctantly suppressed his anger, gave a faint smile, and softened his tone:
“You’re still as fond of joking as ever.”
“Even though you came between my fiancée and me back in university, after all these years, I’ve long since let it go.”
“You don’t need to act so tense, like a cat seeing a mouse. Relax.”
Netizens who were dozing off perked up, their eyes wide open. Those slacking off at work suddenly exclaimed in surprise.
“Homewrecker?!”
A single stone stirred a thousand ripples. The bullet comments are flooded with question marks. “Oh my god, a huge scandal? If it’s this kind of gossip, they were definitely awake now.”
Had Yan Xingli really done something like that in university?? Nothing was better than gossip for waking you up.
Yan Xingli himself was bewildered. Had he stolen someone’s girlfriend?
His university life was a straight line: work, class, back to the dorm to sleep. He barely even joined any clubs. Who could he have stolen from?
He certainly wasn’t going to admit to something he hadn’t done.
“Who is your fiancée?”
Yan Xingli’s attitude was cold. “I’ve never been in a relationship.”
Bai Ji had anticipated his denial. He sighed faintly, like a magnanimous, forgiving saint who’d been cheated on, radiating grace.
“That’s terrifying. You’ve even forgotten her name. Perhaps hearing this poem will remind you who she is.”
Without missing a beat, Bai Ji recited an English poem with clear, precise pronunciation.
He subtly and overtly implied that Yan Xingli was cold-hearted, a villain who’d succeeded, a modern-day Chen Shimei. At the end, he threw in a personal insult, calling him a stinking rat in a gutter.
“??? Why did he randomly start reciting?”
“Pfft, hahaha, dude, did you learn that from that gorgeous actress, the one with the ugly husband who never goes home?”
“Ah, Zamen~.”
“Hello, this is a reality show, not a poetry recital. Please take a left out the door.”
“His pronunciation is really good. It sounds pleasant.”
The poem’s vocabulary was obscure, filled with difficult, long sentences. Bai Ji was certain that with Yan Xingli’s Elementary-level English, he wouldn’t understand a word.
And things seemed to be going as he’d predicted.
Yan Xingli remained silent, his face dark enough to drip water.
Bai Ji’s smile grew wider. “Just as I thought. His mind is empty; he can’t even formulate a response.”
“Uncle.”
A tug on his pant leg. Yan Xingli looked down. Qi Youyu waved a lollipop at him.
The sharpness in Yan Xingli’s eyes softened unconsciously.
“Uncle doesn’t want any.”
“Help me unwrap it.”
“…Okay.”
Yan Xingli obediently unwrapped the lollipop and put it in the child’s mouth.
Left standing there, Bai Ji watched and sneered. “Born to serve, isn’t he?”
Yan Xingli’s ear twitched. His expression calm, he pinched the child’s chubby cheek and leaned down.
“Yuyu, let’s play a game. I’m going to cover your ears for five minutes.”
“If you can stay still, Uncle will reward you with a big feast.”
Yuyu, with the lollipop in her mouth, nodded vigorously and pressed her ear against him. “Let’s start now!”
“Okay.”
Yan Xingli’s large hand covered Yuyu’s ears. All surrounding noise vanished.
Qi Youyu leaned against her uncle’s leg, twirling the lollipop stick in her mouth, discovering a new way to enjoy her candy.
Hunting time began,
Swearing in the live chat would be censored, but as long as he spoke a foreign language quickly and obscurely enough, the moderators couldn’t keep up.
Yan Xingli gathered his energy and began: “I you ” you his “!” (Zhongyuan Yayin, an ancient Chinese dialect)
After opening with Zhongyuan Yayin, he cordially greeted Bai Ji in authentic London-accented English, mocked his storytelling ability in French, and concluded in Spanish and Russian.
“You big idiot!!”
Bai Ji was dumbfounded, his smile completely gone. The accent, the vocabulary, the fluency… it was impossible to achieve this level without having lived abroad for over a decade!
He had practically memorized Yan Xingli’s profile. There was no record of him studying overseas!
The bullet comments went wild.
“I have no idea what he said, but that guy’s parents are probably flying high right about now.”
“Did he even take a breath in between?? I don’t think he did. No wonder something just ran through my brain.”
“Yan Xingli, fess up! How many foreign teachers did you eat? Did you have them for a meal?!”
“So being a hater has benefits like this? Ahahaha, please insult me! Curse me in five languages!”
“The British accent at the beginning instantly reminded me of Downton Abbey. Amazing! That aristocratic accent, even my professor can’t pull it off, and he just did it effortlessly!”
“Y-you, ”
“Did you not understand?” Yan Xingli mocked him directly. “If Shakespeare heard you butcher his poem like that, he’d come back to life just to slap you silly.”
“Do yourself a favor and read more books.”
Bai Ji’s face alternated between red and white. He trembled with rage. All his superiority and carefully prepared mockery were shattered in an instant.
After the perfect counterattack, Yan Xingli ignored Bai Ji entirely. Under the astonished gazes of all the guests, he took Qi Youyu’s hand and turned to leave.
The live stream captured the entire crushing process from start to finish.
At the same time, the topic “Yan Xingli Roasts Hater in Livestream” shot to number one on the trending searches. Clips of his impromptu multilingual “speech” went viral across the internet.
“Wait, I just got off the night shift. What happened??? How did Yan Xingli become a warrior of five languages?”
“This is obviously fake! It’s definitely a PR stunt by Yan Xingli’s team. They hired a plant to act this out, treating netizens like fools.”
, Yan Xingli’s Two Gaokao Scores!
Just as netizens were heatedly debating, the biggest gossip account in the industry leaked Yan Xingli’s two Gaokao (college entrance exam) score sheets. Everyone realized he had taken the exam twice.
The previously widely mocked scores were from his first attempt.
He had performed poorly the first time, failing English and Math. He then repeated his final year of high school and successfully got into a university on his second attempt.
Everyone was just an ordinary person; geniuses were rare. The label of “empty-headed pretty boy” stuck to him was torn away overnight.
Netizens knew in their hearts: someone capable of verbally eviscerating another person in five languages could hardly be called an empty-headed pretty boy.
ʕっ•ᴥ•ʔっ
The phone in his pocket kept vibrating, but Yan Xingli seemed not to notice, showing no intention of checking it.
A wage earner facing unemployment was always a bit melancholic, needing a moment of gloom.
Running his mouth felt good for a moment, but after today, he’d probably be kicked off the show.
What a day of both brilliance and darkness.
Yan Xingli calculated how to scrape together the two hundred million yuan penalty fee. No matter how he figured it, he couldn’t come up with that much money.
“Cough. I’ll have to borrow from Yan Shanyi.”
If the ultimate fate of being a wage slave was selling himself into servitude anyway, he should have just sold himself to Yan Shanyi from the start. At least he might be able to slack off a bit.
“Uncle, what’s wrong?” Qi Youyu, hanging from his neck, grabbed his head and pressed her ear close, worried.
Yan Xingli shifted the child’s hands a bit higher and said with a tinge of sadness, “Yuyu, Uncle might lose his job.”
“Oh. What does ‘lose his job’ mean?”
“It means losing your work.”
Qi Youyu said, “That’s a good thing!”
What was worse than losing a job was paying to work. Unfortunately, Yan Xingli was about to experience both.
Once he paid the penalty, he’d be so poor he couldn’t even afford underwear. All his work from the last few years would be for nothing.
Yuyu, with a three-century generation gap, didn’t understand why her uncle was so keen on working. She gave Yan Xingli a “I guess I have to handle you” look.
“Uncle, do you really like working?”
The hamster-like uncle who enjoyed saving money said, “Working makes me happy.”
“Then work for me!” Yuyu declared. “I’ll give you money every day.”
“Oh my, daily pay.”
Yan Xingli perked up. “How much will you pay me a day?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
That worked out to six thousand a month. Pretty fair. These days, college graduates are a dime a dozen; some couldn’t even make three thousand a month.
“Deal.” Yan Xingli pretended to be touched. “Once Uncle loses his job, I’ll come work for you, Boss Yuyu.”
This flattery hit exactly the right spot for Yuyu.
The child grabbed his ears and happily shook her head. “Boss Yuyu! I’m a boss now! Hehe.”
She needed to exchange a lot of Earth money to pay her uncle!
When they got home, “Empresses in the Palace” was playing on TV. Xiao Hua hadn’t come to greet them, which was unusual.
He paced anxiously in the living room, muttering nonstop:
“How can one man have so many wives?”
“Unbelievable! So many of his wives are underage! That’s illegal!”
“Oh, poor children! How can I save them?”
Compared to modern dramas, the two little aliens preferred historical costume dramas, but they were often baffled by the unrealistic plots, questioning their own existence.
Yan Xingli touched the TV and found it hot.
“You’ve been watching for a while. Take a break. Empty your mind, don’t let everything in.”
Xiao Hua’s green mechanical eyes dimmed slightly. Yan Xingli could almost feel a sense of powerlessness emanating from him, like being unable to reach into the screen.
“Yes, I think I need to calm down for a bit.”
Yan Xingli asked Qi Youyu, “Is he okay? Does he need counseling?”
A robot watching a human palace intrigue drama and glitching out… was that considered a workplace injury?
Yuyu picked up her tablet. “Xiao Hua is strong! He has a powerful mechanical heart!”
Yan Xingli decided not to worry. He glanced at his phone, saw a ton of missed calls from Li Zhi.
After some thought, he sent a brief WeChat message, then went back into hiding. He’d deal with everything after the live stream ended.
When Li Zhi received Yan Xingli’s message, she was already at the airport, about to board.
“Hahahaha, Uncle Yuyu, look behind you! Yuyu is doing something big behind your back!”
A torrent of bullet comments from those eager to watch the drama scrolled by. Amidst the countless calls, Yan Xingli intuitively sat down on the sofa. He turned his head, and his pupils dilated in shock.
“Ahahaha, borderline softcore! So many borderline softcore guys! Exposing abs, exposing chests! What indecency!”
Yuyu was liking them as fast as if she were reviewing official documents.
This was corrupting a child!
“Stop watching this!” Yan Xingli slammed the tablet shut.
The little one, who had been busily ‘reviewing documents’: o.o
“Why not, Uncle?”
Yan Xingli’s face twisted, like a heartbroken father whose daughter had been lured away by a delinquent.
“Does any decent person dress like that?” he gritted out. “Watching that will give you styes and nightmares.”
Qi Youyu dug deeper. “Uncle, are you a decent person?”
“Of course I am!”
The child had seen clips of her uncle in TV dramas where he practiced martial arts shirtless. She pulled up a clip of his character from her “My Likes”:
“Uncle doesn’t wear clothes either!”
Yan Xingli was indignant. “That’s different! That was for professional reasons! Besides, your uncle has abs! Dressing like that is art!”
Qi Youyu’s eyes lit up. “What kind of chicken is ‘art chicken’? Why are you only telling me now?”
“…”
“Sigh.” A foodie kid.
Yan Xingli pointed to his stomach.
That’s also called art chicken.
“Knowledge point added.”
Yuyu understood immediately. She grunted and lifted her own shirt, revealing her round, soft belly, patting it with a “pia pia”. “Uncle, look! I have art chicken too!”
Yan Xingli’s face twitched. He quickly pulled the child’s shirt down and scolded with a stern face, “Little kids don’t have abs!”
“You can’t just show your body to anyone, even your uncle.”
It was the first time Yan Xingli truly felt the difficulties of raising a child, especially a man raising a little girl. There were so many inconveniences.
For instance, sometimes Yuyu would come to him right after a bath and ask him to dry her face. No matter how much he cared for his hands, they were never as soft and delicate as a woman’s.
A child’s skin was so tender that he often ended up hurting her.
He never reflected that the problem might be his technique.
That night, Yuyu lay comfortably in bed. Yan Xingli sat by the bedside, massaging her feet. The child’s chubby little feet were soft and springy, like stress-relief toys in his hand.
Qi Youyu fiddled with her light-brain.
She had gathered a lot of emotional energy at the party today, increasing her light-brain’s charge from 10% to 20%.
Xiao Hua was right. The more people there were, the more emotional energy there was.
The child was full of anticipation. Once the light-brain reached 60%, she could call her parents!
Both were preoccupied with their own thoughts, but it didn’t hinder their routine. After the foot massage, Yan Xingli skillfully patted Yuyu’s back to help her sleep.
The child was drifting off. She turned over and mumbled, “Uncle, can you stop hitting me?”
“I’m trying to sleep.”
Yan Xingli: …
ʕっ•ᴥ•ʔっ
Inside the wealthy villa district.
Queen’s Cape Instructions.
“This is the control. Press the button on the collar and say “Switch to flight mode,” and you can fly~.”
“You can also say “fly higher” or “fly lower.””
The wobbly, childish handwriting was clearly that of a child.
Holding the instruction sheet, Xiaofu spent a long time flipping between a Chinese dictionary and an English dictionary. She looked up with a blank expression.
Chinese mixed with English. Her head was spinning. QAQ
With no other choice, Xiaofu took a photo of the birthday card and sent it to her Chinese teacher for help.
Xiaofu’s Chinese teacher thought it was written by a student, praised her for her rapid progress, and then began to explain each word’s meaning.
After hearing the teacher’s explanation, Xiaofu immediately tried to recite the phrase with the phonetic symbols her teacher provided, stumbling over the words.
The cape remained silent.
Chinese is too hard, Xiaofu thought. It must be because she recited it poorly, so the cape didn’t respond.