Su Bingzhang's voice came to an abrupt halt.
His cloudy old eyes widened as he stared fixedly at the mountains of meat and seas of wine before him.
"This... this isn't right..."
Li Wencheng collapsed straight onto the ground. He pointed forward, his finger trembling so violently it looked like he was having a spasm.
"Where is the swill? The sand? The bloody leather whips?"
Right at that moment.
At the table closest to them, a miner with a face covered in coal soot suddenly slammed his chopsticks down onto the table.
Smack!
The sharp crack made all three men jump in fright.
The miner furrowed his brow, using his chopsticks to pick through the pile of braised pork. Finally, he pinched a piece of perfectly marbled meat and tossed it onto the discard plate with a look of utter disgust.
"Damn it! Braised pork again!"
The miner complained, his voice booming like thunder.
"We had it yesterday, and we are having it again today! Does the head chef in the canteen only know how to cook this one dish?"
"I want something lighter! I want a cold bitter melon salad! I want stir-fried choy sum!"
"Stuffing myself to death with all this heavy meat and fish every single day has made my waist two sizes thicker! When I go home, my wife is going to complain that I look like a pig!"
The coworker next to him roared with laughter and planted a kick on his backside.
"Wang Lao'er, you ungrateful bastard! You have food to eat and it still cannot shut your mouth?"
Song Yubai stood in the wind, completely bewildered.
He looked at the braised pork that had been tossed aside in disgust.
That rich color, that glistening fat...
In Qinghe County, this was a delicacy that not even the county magistrate would dare dream of eating every day.
Yet here, it was being rejected by a miner for being too rich?
"This is what you meant by... only giving them a bowl of swill?"
Song Yubai slowly turned his head to look at Li Wencheng, who was still slumped on the ground. There was a murderous glint in his eyes.
Li Wencheng shrank back, trembling all over. "Young... Young Master, this... this might be an illusion! A trick of the eye!"
Right at that moment.
A piercing, furious roar suddenly erupted from the high platform.
"Stop what you are doing, all of you!!!"
The voice was incredibly loud, carrying a hysterical, frantic edge.
Song Yubai jolted to attention.
Here it comes!
It is finally here!
That foul temper, that vicious tone—it had to be the legendary wicked woman, Xu Qinghuan!
She must not be able to stand seeing these workers eat and is coming to abuse them!
Song Yubai jerked his head up to look.
Standing on the high platform was a young woman dressed in an exquisite red brocade dress.
With her hands on her hips and her delicate eyebrows arched in anger, she waved a thick ledger in her hand. She looked exactly like a man-eating demoness.
"Xu Qinghuan..."
Song Yubai clenched his fists.
Su Bingzhang, as if grasping at a lifeline, shouted, "Look, Young Master! The wicked woman is showing her true colors! She is about to throw a fit! She is definitely going to snatch all that meat away from them!"
They watched as Xu Qinghuan stormed down from the high platform in a huff.
Like a red whirlwind, she charged straight up to the miner named Wang Lao'er.
Wang Lao'er trembled in fear, nearly dropping the bowl in his hands.
"E... Eldest Miss..."
Xu Qinghuan snatched a pickaxe right out of the hands of another worker nearby who was just getting ready to head back to work.
Clang!
She ruthlessly slammed the fine steel pickaxe onto the ground, sending up a shower of sparks.
"You are all rebelling against me, aren't you?!"
Xu Qinghuan pointed right at the worker's nose, practically spitting in his face as she yelled.
"Who told you to work? Huh? Who gave you permission to pick up that pickaxe?"
"Look at the time! It is a quarter to noon! Is this the time to be working?!"
Song Yubai was dumbfounded.
Was she... scolding the workers for being too diligent?
The more Xu Qinghuan spoke, the angrier she became, her chest heaving violently.
When she had checked the ledger just moments ago, she had nearly passed out.
These miners were absolutely ridiculous!
To squander her family's fortune, she had deliberately established the bizarre rule of a mandatory four-hour lunch break and provided unlimited braised pork. Her entire goal was to turn these men into lazy slobs and slow down the project's progress.
And the result?
After eating the meat, these men were as pumped up as if they had been injected with adrenaline! With too much energy to spare, they had been secretly starting their shifts early!
The amount of ore they had mined just this morning was more than what they used to mine in three whole days!
At this rate, not only would her mine not lose money, but it would also make an astronomical profit!
"I am so mad! I am so incredibly mad!"
Xu Qinghuan shrieked, pointing at the crowd of dumbstruck workers.
"Are you trying to kill me? Are you trying to make me earn... I mean, lose every last penny of my family's savings?"
"I will say this one more time! This is an order! An ironclad rule!"
Xu Qinghuan pulled a wad of silver notes from her dress. They were originally meant to be given out as overtime pay, but now they were going to be used as penalty fines.
"From this moment on, everyone is to sit on their benches, and your backsides are not to leave those seats!"
"Your only task right now is to finish all the meat in those basins! If anyone dares to leave even a single piece of meat behind, I will dock their pay by ten copper coins!"
"And those lychees! You must finish them all! You even have to suck the pits clean!"
"Anyone who dares to pick up a pickaxe before one o'clock in the afternoon can pack their bags and get out! My Xu family's enterprise is far too small to accommodate such disobedient workers!"
A dead silence fell over the area.
Hundreds of burly, hulking men were so thoroughly scolded by a young girl that they did not even dare to lift their heads.
With tears in their eyes, they picked up their massive bowls and began desperately shoving the incredibly fatty, greasy braised pork into their mouths.
They were tears of profound gratitude.
"Eldest Miss... boohoo... it is so delicious... I am so full..."
"Shut up! Keep eating! Swallow it down!"
Xu Qinghuan supervised them fiercely, acting like a ruthless overseer.
Yet, as this exact scene unfolded before Song Yubai's eyes...
His entire world shifted.
The filter of misunderstanding was automatically replaced by a special effect of saintly light, conjured up by his overly sensitive and perceptive heart.
What did he see?
He did not see a prodigal daughter throwing a tantrum because she was failing to lose money.
Instead, he saw a strict mother who was willing to play the villain and shout abuse, all for the sake of the workers' health!
"This... what tremendous love this is!"
Song Yubai's voice trembled, and his eyes instantly grew red.
"To prevent the workers from overexerting themselves, she actually came down here to stop them in person!"
"To ensure these laborers, who are too frugal to eat meat, regain their strength, she even resorted to threats of docking their pay just to force them to eat!"
"That desperate anxiety of wanting better for them, that heartache of treating the workers like her own brothers..."
Song Yubai clutched his chest, feeling as though his heart were breaking.
"What have I done? How could I have listened to such slander and mistaken a living saint for a wicked woman?"
"The way she scolds them... it may be fierce, but why does it radiate such compassion?"
"How is this a mine? This is clearly a big, happy family in a utopian paradise!"
Su Bingzhang and Li Wencheng had gone completely limp on the ground, their faces ashen.
It was over.
It was completely over.
Was this Xu Qinghuan out of her mind? What kind of boss actually forced her laborers to rest and eat meat?
This completely defied the laws of economics!
Having exhausted herself from yelling, Xu Qinghuan pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
She was just about to turn around and head back to her tent for a sip of herbal tea to cool her temper, when out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a few people standing at the edge of the mining site.
A richly dressed pretty boy covered in mud splatters.
And two men collapsed on the ground.
Xu Qinghuan's eyes lit up.
Su Bingzhang? Li Wencheng?
What are these two hapless fools doing here? And did they really bring along a wealthy-looking sucker?
This pretty boy might look a bit clueless, but his clothes were tailored from premium tribute silk. Not even the crude straw overshoes he wore could mask his distinct aura of having more money than sense.
"Oh my, has a big client arrived?"
A smile curled the corners of Xu Qinghuan's lips.
It was the smile of a capitalist spotting a plump sheep ready to be fleeced.
It was the sheer joy of someone who had just been stressing over the funding for her next money-squandering mission, only to be handed exactly what she needed on a silver platter.
But in Song Yubai's eyes.
That faint smile was a sign of gentle tolerance toward him, an uninvited guest. It was a display of pure, saintly elegance maintained even amidst exhausting toil.
Their eyes met.
One was thinking: Just how much money can I squeeze out of this fat sheep?
The other was thinking: With a true saint standing before me, how shall I ever atone for my sins?
A conversation on two entirely different wavelengths was about to begin.
