Chapter 80

“Retracing the Road to Poverty Alleviation” is back with a new arc!

Word on the street is, this time they’re going somewhere especially fun?

Old fans had already spotted the livestream teaser on the official Weibo. And once they saw the time—10 p.m.—they lit up. Eh? Could it be that our Chef Wei Sheng is back with another round of midnight cooking?

Sure, watching a mukbang in the middle of the night isn’t exactly waistline-friendly, but… who cares!

We work so hard to earn our money—if it doesn’t go into our own stomachs, are we just supposed to die and let someone else enjoy it?

So set that alarm, order the late-night takeout, and sit tight for Chef Wei’s midnight feast.

Ten minutes later…

“Holy sht sht sht sht—”

“AHHHHHHHHH!”

“Activate barrage shield!”

“□□ body shield!”

“Deploy Yellow River Chorus!”

Not even ten minutes into the livestream and the comment feed was blowing up.

The warm, cozy late-night food fest they’d expected? Nowhere to be seen. The livestream was nothing but a pitch-black corridor that looked like the path to the underworld, filled with the eerie sounds of stray cats and god-knows-what else. And in the distance, the bone-crunching sounds of wild dogs gnawing in the night.

You could practically feel the suffocating horror movie atmosphere through the screen.

Come on, it’s the middle of the night—can the production crew show some basic human decency?

I’ve already ordered my food and this is what I get to watch?

Then suddenly, someone in the chat dropped a comment—

“Is it just me, or did anyone else hear someone’s teeth chattering behind the camera?”

The fans paused. Right. If they were getting this scared through a screen, imagine the poor guests actually filming there. Must be terrified out of their minds.

Yep—happiness really is relative.

Watching a horror flick at midnight is scary, sure. But once you compare it to Wei Sheng and the others sneaking through a haunted town… hey~ doesn’t seem so bad anymore, does it?

In fact, not only was the fear gone—it was suddenly fun to watch them squirm.

As if to break the eerie silence, Wei Sheng’s voice came through the stream—

“What you’re seeing now is Jiangdong Town, our current filming location.”

“This place used to be a major coal mining hub, with over a hundred years of mining history. At its peak, there were more than a thousand mining companies operating here.”

He gave the viewers a brief rundown of Jiangdong Town’s background and was just about to explain their plan to turn the place into a massive immersive murder mystery base when—

A bloodcurdling scream rang out ahead!

“AHHHHHHH!” Chen Mengjie immediately latched onto the nearest person—Zhang Zexuan.

Even Zhang Zexuan dropped his aloof rich-boy act and clung to her, the two second-gen elites shivering in each other’s arms.

“Could it be someone snuck into the mine to scavenge coal again?” Ouyang Xia guessed.

“No way. From what I heard, there’s no wood to chop around here, and the villagers can’t afford bottled gas. So for cooking, they just head to abandoned pits and pick up leftover coal. But that stuff isn’t worth stealing—especially not in the middle of the night, right?”

Wei Sheng and Ouyang Xia exchanged a glance and quickly called Wang Qun. Once the production team’s security arrived, they cautiously followed the direction of the scream.

In Jiangdong Town, especially if you’re an outsider, never walk too fast—because you never know when the ground might just open up into a bottomless mine pit right in front of you.

Since the coal ran out, the town sees several “mine pit swallowings” every month. Outsiders unfamiliar with the terrain often vanish mid-step.

If they’re lucky and the fall’s not too deep, they might be rescued.

If not… well, let’s just say no body, no trace.

The town’s underground is a maze of tunnels—some even flooded, turning into underground rivers. If someone falls in and gets swept away… only the King of Hell would know where they end up.

Back in the livestream, the viewers were watching in stunned silence as Wei Sheng and the others poked the ground ahead of them with long sticks, inching forward like blind men. The crowd practically lost it.

Was this hilarious way of walking a planned skit?

Sadly, Wei Sheng didn’t have time to check the comments, let alone explain. Following the scream, they crept past a half-collapsed red brick wall and finally found the source of the sound—

An elderly snake catcher with graying hair.

Wei Sheng instantly guessed the man’s profession—he had a snake clamp by his side and a wriggling snakeskin bag that clearly held live catches.

Nowadays, snake catching is illegal in many places, especially since many species are protected. But when Wei Sheng had traveled to the countryside in the past, he’d often seen people sneaking around to catch them. It’s risky—but incredibly profitable. A lucky day’s haul could net hundreds of yuan, enough to support a rural couple for a whole month.

No wonder the old man was out here at night.

After a checkup, they found he hadn’t been bitten. He’d simply stepped into a sunken pit and twisted his ankle.

The scream? That was from trying to grab a wall for support—only to press his hand onto a cactus hanging down from it.

Anyone who’s ever been pricked by cactus thorns knows the pain.

This old man, Jiang Weiguo, was almost sixty but looked closer to seventy or eighty.

In his youth, he worked the mines to feed a family of five. He had a daughter and a son. His daughter, Jiang Wan, was the pride of the family—she got into a medical university and now works at a public hospital in the provincial capital. Her husband’s also a city native.

His son, Jiang Chen, didn’t quite measure up. He struggled with academics, refused to learn a trade, and had little ambition.

Thankfully, Jiang Wan’s in-laws had connections and helped Jiang Chen land a cushy security job at a fancy resort hotel—decent pay, meals and lodging included.

For someone with no education from the countryside, this should’ve been a blessing, right?

Nope.

Watching rich guests come and go in luxury cars, staying in rooms that cost thousands per night, then thinking of his sister’s city apartment—Jiang Chen grew bitter.

He wanted a city apartment too. He wanted to marry a city girl. He wanted to be a city guy.

But his dad, Jiang Weiguo, was just a laid-off coal miner who couldn’t even afford to renovate the family house, let alone fork out tens of thousands for a down payment.

So, just like before, Jiang Weiguo called his daughter, asking her for 300,000 yuan to help Jiang Chen buy a house.

Jiang Wan couldn’t help but laugh bitterly on the phone: “Dad, even if I could give you that kind of money—which I can’t—do you think a down payment is all it takes? With mortgage payments in the thousands every month, do you know how much your son makes? Even if we paid the down payment, how’s he supposed to afford the rest?”

Jiang Weiguo didn’t even hesitate before saying to his daughter, “If your brother can’t pay it back, don’t you, as his older sister, have a responsibility? You and Dongliang make tens of thousands a month between you, right? What, you can’t even take out a few thousand to help your brother with his mortgage?”

Jiang Wan was so furious she couldn’t speak for a long time, and she hung up on the spot.

From that day on, Jiang Weiguo couldn’t get through to his daughter anymore. When he asked his wife to call her, Jiang Wan gave only two responses:

“First, forget the 300,000. If her brother really wants to buy a house and get married, as his big sister, she’s willing to offer a goodwill contribution of 20,000 or 30,000. No more than that. And don’t talk to her about IOUs—her brother won’t pay it back anyway. It’ll end up being a bad debt.”

“Second, she absolutely won’t help her brother repay the mortgage. Want a house? Earn the money yourself!”

Jiang Weiguo was nearly driven mad with anger by what he considered his unfilial daughter.

This girl had always been obedient, from childhood through graduate school. She hadn’t taken much from the family and even worked part-time jobs to help out. After she started working, the hospital she worked at offered good benefits, and she basically covered all the household expenses.

So you see, giving without complaint only leads to entitlement.

Selfless giving, in the end, becomes something others take for granted.

At first, Jiang Weiguo and his wife only asked their daughter for money to support their son. Later, it became a given—Jiang Chen’s well-being was naturally his sister Jiang Wan’s responsibility.

Big sister has skills and connections? Then she should find her brother a good job.

Big sister earns a high salary and married well? Then she should pay for her brother’s house and wedding.

Jiang Weiguo’s proudest achievement in life was having such a capable daughter. Just look around the village—other couples were practically losing their minds trying to build new houses or gather dowries for their sons. But their family? No worries. With a daughter like Jiang Wan, she’d handle everything: the house, the money—she’d take care of it all.

He was even scheming: after Jiang Wan bought a house for Jiang Chen, a couple of years later when he got married, she should’ve saved another hundred thousand or so by then. Then they’d ask her to buy him a new car, so he could drive to pick up his bride in style.

Who knew that this wretched girl had completely changed, like she’d taken some bad medicine or something? Not only had she stopped sending money home for the past six months, but now she wasn’t even going to help her one and only brother?!

Jiang Weiguo was livid, but all he could do was smash pots and pans alone in the old house, helplessly furious.

Jiang Wan was no longer the girl who would obey no matter what they said.

Now, she was the most promising young doctor at the hospital. Her husband, Qiao Dongliang, was a government official, and the Qiao family wasn’t some nobody clan either. Jiang Weiguo’s only leverage had been his daughter’s kind nature.

But if Jiang Wan truly decided to cut ties, Jiang Weiguo didn’t dare cause trouble at the Qiao family home in the provincial capital. The man had spent his life bullying the weak and fearing the strong. When his daughter was easy to manipulate, he exploited her ruthlessly. Now that she had married into a powerful family and didn’t answer his calls, he didn’t even dare show up at her door.

After hearing Jiang Weiguo’s suffocating speech, Wei Sheng and Zhang Zexuan exchanged a look—they really wanted to toss this sexist old fossil back onto a cactus.

But before they could even get angry and act, what Jiang Weiguo said next gave them such a satisfying rush it made up for everything.

This is why people love fast-paced revenge stories—face-slapping or scum-crushing, it needs to happen immediately!

Apparently, Jiang Wan had truly given up on her family. Not only did she refuse to give her brother money to buy a house or repay his loan, she even reduced her parents’ monthly living allowance from 3,000 yuan to 1,000.

Don’t ask why—she just said, in Jiangdong Town, many elderly people live off pensions of barely over 100 yuan a month.

If others can survive on 100 a month, why can’t you live on 1,000?

Soon after, Jiang Wan changed the fingerprint lock on her home and explicitly told her brother Jiang Chen to stay away unless it was a holiday gathering at their hometown.

“That damn girl! She’s grown wings and wants to abandon the family now! If she’s so tough, let her never come back!” Jiang Weiguo growled.

Next to him, Wei Sheng silently muttered in his heart: Maybe your daughter really never wants to come back.

If it were him in her shoes, why would he come back to a family like that? Fulfilling the basic duty of caring for elderly parents was enough. Weren’t you always saying daughters are outsiders and only sons are the ones to rely on in your old age?

Fine then. Rely on your son! As for me, the “outsider,” I won’t interfere with your warm little family anymore~

So how did Jiang Wan go from a loving little sister to a ruthless “anti-PUA queen” overnight?
No one knew. It all started with a dream.

One day, Jiang Chen was on leave and went over to his sister’s place, as usual, to freeload. The housekeeper had to go out for groceries and, thinking Jiang Chen was the child’s uncle, asked him to watch Jiang Wan’s not-quite-three-year-old daughter for a bit.

But as soon as the housekeeper left, Jiang Chen got annoyed with the noisy kid. He grabbed Jiang Wan’s exercise jump rope and tightly tied the little girl to a dining chair. Then he stuffed a toddler’s sweat towel in her mouth to keep her quiet.

It lasted for over an hour. Jiang Wan couldn’t believe her daughter had survived…

What Jiang Chen didn’t know was that Jiang Wan, wary of the new housekeeper, had secretly installed a hidden camera in the house.

She didn’t catch the nanny abusing the child—but she caught her own brother.

That night, Jiang Wan had a terrifying nightmare.

She dreamed her father had asked her for money to buy Jiang Chen a house. She couldn’t refuse and secretly took 300,000 yuan from home, hiding it from her husband. Jiang Chen bought the house, then went around bragging shamelessly about it.

When her husband found out, he was devastated and asked for a divorce.

In the dream, she and her husband had a huge fight, and in the end, they divorced. She returned to her family home with her daughter, intending to bring her back once she got settled and hired a new nanny.

But then, a phone call from home came—her daughter had gone missing.

A child under three, how could she just disappear?

In the dream, Jiang Wan saw what happened—her parents had gone out to pick up coal and couldn’t bring the child. So they had Jiang Chen, who happened to be home, watch her.

Jiang Chen was busy gaming and didn’t want to babysit. Once the parents left, he locked the little girl in a second-floor room.

She woke up from her nap crying so hard she lost her voice. No one came. She fumbled her way to the window, opened it—and fell from the second floor…

By the time Jiang Weiguo and his wife got home and found her behind the house, she was already gone.

Fearing their daughter would blame Jiang Chen, the old couple snuck out that night. They stuffed the child’s body into a suitcase and carried it to a faraway, abandoned mine shaft—then dumped the suitcase, with her inside, into the bottomless pit.

They told Jiang Wan the child had wandered off and disappeared, never mentioning Jiang Chen had been home.

Her daughter died alone in that dark, bottomless hole. She had been so afraid of the dark…

This nightmare was far too real. Even after waking up, Jiang Wan lay dazed in bed for a long time. It wasn’t until she heard her daughter’s cries that she scrambled out of bed and rushed into the nanny’s room, scooping her daughter into her arms.

Jiang Wan knew—it was just a nightmare. But from that day on, she never wanted to see her younger brother Jiang Chen’s face again.

And that included her own biological parents.

Because she understood that everything in the dream hadn’t come without signs. She had no doubt—if something like that really did happen one day, her parents would definitely choose to save Jiang Chen without hesitation.

After all, he was their only son.

But to continue helping her family and her brother without limits like before? That was impossible now.

Even if it had only been a nightmare.

As a mother, Jiang Wan was more willing to believe it was some kind of divine warning.

But things didn’t end there.

It became clear their daughter had no intention of supporting her parents anymore, and Jiang Weiguo and his wife were out of options. Only then did they realize that the daughter they had always regarded as an “outsider” was actually the true pillar of their family.

Meanwhile, their son Jiang Chen—the one they expected to rely on for the rest of their lives—couldn’t care less whether they lived or died. Even knowing the two elders had long lost the ability to work, he still pushed them to scrape together 300,000 yuan for a down payment on a house.

Jiang Weiguo had spent his youth mining coal, which had wrecked his body. He couldn’t find work even if he tried, and every month, he relied on the allowance his daughter gave him just to buy medicine. His wife had never worked a day in her life, just a housewife who knew nothing of the outside world. The only money the old couple had were the tens of thousands they’d saved over the years—money that had all come from their daughter.

Then came the moment when their son gave his “brilliant idea”:

“No money? Why can’t you and Mom go find jobs? Sweeping streets or picking up trash in the city still earns you two or three thousand a month!”

“I haven’t even married or had kids yet, and you two are already thinking about retiring?”

His words, dripping with selfishness, chilled Jiang Weiguo to the core.

After Jiang Chen hung up, that same night, Jiang Weiguo had a nightmare too.

In the dream, their eldest daughter cut all ties with the family after the death of her own daughter. She even stopped giving them the 1,000 yuan monthly allowance. On holidays, she didn’t come home—didn’t even take their calls anymore.

At first, Jiang Weiguo didn’t feel it was such a big deal without that “outsider” daughter. But soon after, Jiang Chen came back, saying a coworker had an old house up for sale. The down payment was only a bit over 100,000 yuan. The couple were delighted and even a little smug, thinking their son was finally making it—buying a home in the city without needing help from his sister.

They gave him every cent of their savings, and it still wasn’t enough, so they sold the old family home too—barely scraping together enough for the down payment.

“This old house is no big deal. From now on, you’ll be living the good life with me in the city!” Jiang Chen had said.

But in the dream, after they sold the house and moved to the city with their son, they found out the coworker had disappeared with all the down payment money.

The house? It was never for sale. It was just a rental. The title deed Jiang Chen had shown them was a fake.

Jiang Weiguo’s wife couldn’t take the blow and passed out on the spot.

Only then did they think of their daughter. They borrowed a phone to call Jiang Wan, but as soon as she heard their voices, she hung up. They waited outside her hospital, trying to catch her on her shift—only to find out she’d quit her job long ago, and after the divorce, had emigrated overseas…

Their last hope was gone, but life still had to go on.

In the dream, Jiang Weiguo “saw” the two of them living in a makeshift shack near a city landfill, surviving off scavenged trash. Their son didn’t care about them at all and even came by occasionally to ask for money. One day, as he and his wife fought over scrap in the pile, a garbage truck suddenly unloaded right on top of them—burying them both alive beneath heaps of rotting waste.

When he woke from the dream, Jiang Weiguo was a changed man.

First, he took the family’s savings card from his wife.

Then he called Jiang Chen and told him, they were old and couldn’t work anymore. From now on, he needed to give them 1,000 yuan a month—just like his sister did.

“1,000?! I only make a little over 4,000 a month!” Jiang Chen shouted over the phone.

“That’s your problem. Not enough money? Go deliver food. Be a ride-hailing driver. Either way, you owe us 1,000 a month. If you don’t, I’ll take you to court!” Then Jiang Weiguo hung up without hesitation.

After waking from the nightmare, the thing that made Jiang Weiguo happiest was that—even though his daughter clearly didn’t want to get involved with the family anymore—she hadn’t blocked him or his wife.

He took the bank card and went to the provincial capital to find his daughter. He handed the card to Jiang Wan.

Jiang Wan thought her dad was up to some scheme again. But to her surprise, he actually gave her all the money in the account!

“Your mom and I did the math. Over the years, apart from the furniture and appliances you bought for us and the food you provided, you’ve given us around 150,000 yuan in cash.”

“We were wrong, your mom and I. All these years, we only cared about your brother. There’s just over 70,000 left on this card now.”

“Girl, you take it first. As for the rest, your mom and I will repay it slowly.”

Jiang Wan didn’t say a word. This time, she wanted to see clearly—were her parents just pretending to retreat in order to advance, still putting on an act for her? Or had they truly realized their mistakes?

What she never expected was that Jiang Weiguo, having come to his senses, actually went out in the middle of the night to catch snakes—just to scrape together money to repay his daughter.

(End of this chapter)

—————

—Mukbang is a video where someone eats a lot of food while interacting with viewers, popularized in South Korea.

—In Chinese slang, “Yellow River Chorus” means a group of people emotionally ganging up or defending something in unison, often exaggerated or patriotic.

—An anti-PUA queen is a confident woman who sees through emotional manipulation and fights back with strength and clarity.