Chapter 74

Netizens these days aren’t so easily fooled anymore!

Especially the younger generation who firmly believe in staying single and child-free to keep life peaceful—just one glance and they saw right through Wu Jun’s family’s scheme.

“Their abacus is so loud, I can hear it all the way from Hainan across the sea!”

“Don’t tell me some people still haven’t realized this is the legendary ‘inheritance leech’? Teacher Wu, whatever you do, don’t give in to these shameless people!”

“This hits way too close to home—I’m already fuming! No wonder! These past few years, my relatives back home have stopped setting me up and suddenly started complimenting me on how I seem good with kids. So this is what they were plotting all along?”

“I swear this isn’t some scripted performance by the show. My wife and I are currently being pressured by our families to adopt my younger brother’s kid! The thing is, neither of us even likes children. If we did, wouldn’t we have had our own? We’re child-free because we don’t like kids!”

Others came forward to share real-life stories, backing up Wei Sheng’s proposal and standing in support of Wu Ping and his wife—

“I joined our local neighborhood eldercare service center just last year. Wei Sheng is absolutely right. All those horror stories about nannies abusing seniors are just clickbait—don’t be fooled!”

“Our center is managed by the subdistrict office—it’s a legit, government-run institution. Most of our doctors and supervisors are civil servants. Think about it—we undergo audits from upper-level authorities every year. Who’d dare to mistreat the elderly?”

“And we don’t just offer basic services like meal delivery, bathing, and house cleaning like Wei Sheng mentioned. If the elderly need more help, we can accompany them to medical appointments, pick up their prescriptions, arrange home checkups, even provide psychological counseling for those who live alone.”

“If their children live far away, we’ve even developed a mini-app. Download it, and you can view real-time health data, exam reports, service logs—anything, anytime.”

“Oh, and regarding elder abuse—besides having an emergency call button, seniors can now apply for electronic wristbands, kind of like kids’ smartwatches. If there’s danger, no matter where they are, as long as there’s a signal, they can immediately connect to 110 (the police emergency line).”

No way—Wei Sheng wasn’t just bluffing to scare off that awful family?

A ton of netizens who were planning to stay single but worried about elderly care jumped into the comments section to chat excitedly.

Within hours, eldercare service centers run by local subdistricts across the country saw their consultation hotlines skyrocket!

So many young people these days have money and assets, and all they want is to make more—they just don’t want marriage or kids.

Turns out the country had already started preparing a safety net for their retirement?

Tears! So moved! Long live our great motherland!

Just then, someone who knew the inside story finally came forward with some serious tea—

“Y’all are yelling at the wrong person. I’m from the village next to Wu Jun’s. His daughter-in-law is the real villain here!”

“A while back, word got around the village that Wu Jun’s daughter-in-law went back to her family, bragging nonstop about how rich her grand-uncle is, saying that since the old couple has no kids, all those millions and their city home will eventually go to her son!”

“She even said that when her son gets married, they’ll ship Teacher Wu and his wife off to the countryside. After all, there’s already a house there, and old folks don’t spend much in rural areas. That way, their combined monthly pensions—seven or eight thousand yuan—can go straight to subsidizing her son!”

Good grief!

Netizens were floored.

No wonder Grandpa dropped the kid off at the street market and the kid’s mom didn’t say a word. People had been feeling sorry for her, thinking she had no say in raising her own child—but turns out she was fully in on the inheritance scam from the start!

The whistleblower kept posting follow-ups—

“Teacher Wu’s cousin’s whole family is no good! Didn’t y’all hear during the livestream that his relatives once urged him to divorce Auntie Yuan and marry someone who could bear children?”

“Let me tell you! The woman the cousin wanted to introduce was his own sister-in-law! And I heard from people in the village that this sister-in-law has already been divorced three times. Now, that’s not a big deal—everyone has a right to seek happiness, right? But guess what? She’s been fooling around with her brother-in-law!”

“Word is she secretly had an abortion at the hospital two years ago. If you line up the timeline, that baby was probably his! He knocked up his sister-in-law, didn’t want to take responsibility, and now wants to pawn her off on his rich cousin?”

People were shook! Online gossip lovers nearly dropped their snacks in shock.

So basically, this cousin was trying to shove both his mistress and her illegitimate child onto Wu Ping. That way, he could (1) keep his mistress quiet and still maintain a sneaky relationship through the guise of “relatives,” and (2) pass off his own love child as his cousin’s, so the kid could inherit Wu Ping’s fortune without anyone knowing the truth.

Tsk tsk! Isn’t this the kind of plot you’d only expect in some scandalous ancient political drama?

Turns out those wild stories on “1818 Golden Eye” might be more real than we thought?

Way more thrilling than any celebrity feud!

As soon as the livestream ended, the reality show “Working” went viral before even officially airing. It shot up multiple trending lists, with clips flooding short video platforms. Commentary creators were scrambling to jump on the trend before it passed.

In the blink of an eye, Wu Jun’s whole family and his notorious sister-in-law had become a laughingstock in their community—basically, socially dead.

At this point, Wu Jun couldn’t care less about trying to smear Wei Sheng online.

His wife may be older and not internet-savvy, but she sure loves watching videos—and their mess was now all over the local trending feeds. Open the app with local GPS on, and bam—there it is!

So the moment he walked through the door, Wu Jun’s wife lunged at him with a shriek, clawing at him furiously!

Chaos reigned inside the house—and it wasn’t much quieter outside either.

See, after failing to pawn his sister-in-law off on Wu Ping, and with her pressuring him to divorce and marry her instead, Wu Jun had no choice but to introduce her to a divorced friend.

But now that everything had blown up, all the short video accounts were blasting his scandal with the sister-in-law. The friend realized he’d been duped into being a backup plan—and flipped. He kicked his new “wife” out that very night—thankfully, they hadn’t officially registered the marriage yet.

The sister-in-law returned home in tears, but hadn’t been there long before her older sister dragged her in by the hair and slapped her across the face.

“You seduced my husband?! I’ll beat you to death, you ungrateful little snake!”

“I treated you so well! Every time you got divorced, I let you crash at my place. And this is how you repay me—by sleeping with my man?”

The two households descended into chaos, fighting tooth and nail, with no time left to scheme against Wu Ping and his wife.

At that moment, as the livestream content continued spreading, the eldercare service center under Changle Subdistrict, where Mingzhu Garden was located, officially extended an invitation to Wu Ping and Yuan Fang—

Their center was launching a “Mutual Aid Eldercare Points Program,” designed especially for childless, bereaved families like Wu Ping’s.

In simple terms, Wu Ping and Yuan Fang, while they’re still young and capable, can take on tasks within their ability via the service center’s app—things like delivering meals or medicine to elderly people living alone, doing laundry, cooking, or other similar services.

These tasks don’t come with a salary, but they do earn points in the app. Users can accumulate these points and redeem them later for equivalent services when they get older, or exchange them for daily necessities at convenience stores run by the service center.

This initiative is primarily aimed at alleviating the backlog of elderly care tasks at the center. It also helps familiarize citizens with elderly care services ahead of time, easing some common concerns.

The leadership at Changle Subdistrict only found out why the elderly care center had suddenly gone viral after seeing a local news push notification.

Coincidentally, they were just about to implement a “mutual-aid eldercare points program,” which seemed like a perfect fit for Wu Ping and his wife. The subdistrict wanted to seize the momentum of the online buzz and invited Wu Ping and Yuan Fang to come experience the public eldercare center’s services. If they could capitalize on this moment and attract more participation in the mutual-aid initiative, it would significantly ease their labor shortage.

Wu Ping and Yuan Fang were tempted by the offer, but they were still busy filming a TV show. Could they volunteer at the subdistrict while still doing the show?

“Of course! Why not?” Director Jin Yannan’s eyes sparkled. If circumstances allowed, she’d have already started developing a new program focused on the eldercare industry.

This topic was even hotter—and more socially meaningful—than the usual “reemployment of the jobless.”

Now that she thought about it, wasn’t Wei Sheng absurdly lucky?

He randomly picked a pair of guests and just happened to unearth such a great program concept? Jin Yannan decided to keep things quiet for now and secretly prepare a show proposal. Once the first episode aired and gained traction, she’d strike while the iron was hot and push out the next program!

Whatever else happened, she had to lock in Wei Sheng’s schedule for the upcoming eldercare-themed reality show.

Now she finally understood why every in-house program at the station was bending over backwards to win over Zhou Mingxing—it was all because of Wei Sheng!

Wu Ping and Yuan Fang were both cultured retirees. Wu Ping, in particular, had worked at a theater and was well-versed in arts and cultural work. At first, he only went to the eldercare center for part-time work and to get a feel for the place. But after a few visits, he somehow ended up working there full-time!

The eldercare center happened to need someone to organize cultural events for the elderly, so the couple were both made permanent staff—Wu Ping as the instructor, Yuan Fang as his assistant. While the pay wasn’t much—about 5,000 yuan a month for Wu, and 3,000 for Yuan—their combined pensions already added up to 7,000 or 8,000 yuan.

In other words, as long as they could still work, they were pulling in a solid 16,000 yuan a month!

The eldercare center also provided three meals a day. Working on holidays came with extra bonuses. This part hadn’t shown up during the livestream, but Jin Yannan made sure to include it in the edited version by sending a crew back for a revisit.

No one expected that this short video clip would go even more viral than the show itself!

Is it any wonder so many young people today are choosing not to marry or have kids? Being single isn’t scary—it’s the constant worrying from nosy people around them that’s the real pain. They’re always worried that no one will take care of you when you’re old, or that you’ll die alone and no one will even collect your body. But come on—if I’m already dead, what, finding me will magically bring me back to life?

And if I rot away at home, does it really matter whether I decompose naturally or get burned to ash in a crematorium? What, is becoming ashes more “dignified” than turning into a skeleton?

Now, thanks to that clip from “Working”, the single crowd was delighted. They screen-recorded the segment and eagerly shared it in family group chats and on social media, telling their nosy relatives: Look! I may not have kids, but my retirement could still be sweet and fulfilling.

Then they’d throw in a real-life example: that relative who had two sons, strutted around like a big shot when he was young… But now both sons got married and had second kids—two nuclear families, five grandchildren total!

To help his sons settle down, the old man and his wife spent every cent they had and even went into debt. Now, with five grandchildren, they had to give red envelopes every holiday, babysit constantly, and help cover the enormous costs of childrearing. They ended up working odd jobs in old age just to support their sons.

All those years chasing sons? Now turned into nothing but bitter regret.

Meanwhile, parents of only children in the city were enjoying their pensions, traveling, dancing, playing sports… and these two? Still busting their butts for their grown kids.

So yeah—maybe not getting married or having kids isn’t such a bad idea after all?

What’s more, even though it didn’t make the final cut, those who saw the livestream remembered clearly what the guest said:

If you have children, even if they don’t care for you, you still count as having kids. The state won’t help you no matter how bad things get.

But if you’re childless and your pension isn’t enough in old age? Then you qualify as a Five Guarantees Household. The state will take care of everything—food, clothing, housing, medical care, and funeral expenses. You don’t even need to pay for a burial plot.

Parents were left stunned. As outrageous as that sounded… the more they thought about it, the more sense it made.

All of a sudden, waves of young adults proudly embracing a childfree life flocked to “Working”, completely unaware that Wu Ping and Yuan Fang were never intended to be regulars—they only filmed two episodes.

In fact, the show wasn’t even about eldercare—it was about the brutal hustle of the working class.

This harsh truth was only discovered when new fans went back to rewatch the show.

Aside from Wu Ping’s chill segment, the other three families on the show were killing themselves to earn a living—paying off mortgages, supporting families, surviving.

Yang Junyao, who followed Ma Xiuyuan’s family for a day, almost had her legs run off!

That couple was truly hustling. Every day before dawn, they rode a tricycle to the nearby wholesale market to buy groceries, came back to prep lunchboxes and the food for their night market stall, filmed videos, looked after the kids, and Ma Xiuyuan even delivered takeout during the lunch break…

Think they got to rest at night?

Nope. One drove for a rideshare service, the other ran their stall at the night market with two kids in tow. They didn’t get home until after 10 p.m., then helped the kids wash up and go to bed—and Qiu Qiu still had to edit and upload the day’s videos.

Yang Junyao used to think the saying “poverty makes every marriage bitter” was an exaggeration. A bit of a romantic, she believed love could conquer all. No money? Just spend less.

But after just one day with Ma Xiuyuan and Qiu Qiu, her rock-solid view on relationships began to waver.

Unmarried women following this segment were flooding the comments in solidarity:

“No marriage, no babies, forever young!”

“No kids, no stress, long may we live like immortals!”

“I really admire this Qiu Qiu—how does she know how to do everything? And it seems like she doesn’t even need to rest. I did the math: from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m., she only sleeps four hours a day?!”

“Even though I admire her, I would never let myself become the next Qiu Qiu!”

“It’s terrifying. What does marriage even bring women? Working multiple jobs every day, raising kids, doing housework, filming short videos, live-streaming at a night market… If it were me, I’d rather stay single!”

Some netizens, however, found this couple inspiring and left supportive comments for Ma Xiuyuan and Qiu Qiu—

“Honestly, the guy’s already doing great. He bought into a failed housing project, then lost his job, but didn’t give up. He’s working hard with his wife to earn money, support the family, and pay off their mortgage. That’s way more responsible than most men.”

“This show is so real! This is what life is actually like for ordinary working-class families—no dramatic betrayals or miracle plot twists. Just working hard, brick by brick, to survive another day.”

That last comment really struck a chord with viewers from similar backgrounds.

The only thing people seemed to complain about was the show’s title.

“Workers, Charge Ahead!?” At first glance, you’d think it’s some hot-blooded workplace anime. Was the production team trying to trick young people into watching just to ambush them?

The young viewers who were lured in by the title all admitted: “Well played!” Sure, the name sounds cheesy and childish, but the content? Surprisingly addictive.

And filming on location at a massive unfinished real estate project? Props to the production team—666!

(End of Chapter)

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—”1818 Golden Eye” is a popular Chinese TV program on Hangzhou TV, known for covering quirky local news, consumer complaints, and social oddities. Its humorous, down-to-earth style and viral interviews have made it a cult favorite online.