A live stream that dramatically transformed a depressed schoolgirl shocked netizens across the count

The wooden door of the Bai family's courtyard was open, and the door hinges turned halfway, the dull thud echoing into the blue brick courtyard.

Su Niannian stepped through the door and slammed the iron spatula onto the stove.

"Anyone object to stewing goose for lunch?"

No one in the courtyard made a sound.

Bai Weiwei, carrying a basket of green vegetables, peeked out from behind the pillars covered with vines.

"Where's the goose?"

"Buy it at the village entrance."

"Who's going to clean up?"

"The goose seller is packing it up."

Who's paying?

Su Niannian picked up the spatula, her gaze sweeping over everyone and landing on Gu Qingshang.

Gu Qingshang removed her pearl earrings and placed them in the velvet box. The lid closed with a crisp click, and she looked up.

"I'll do it."

"I heard everything." Su Niannian slung the spatula over her shoulder. "Boss Gu is treating, so nobody should pretend to have a small appetite today."

The event review page was still on Gu Qingshang's phone.

Applications for closed training, registration of water trucks, and lists of medical teams are displayed in rows on the screen.

She drew her thumb down, her tone steady.

"Xiao Yunlong has requested road closures for training tonight."

Bai Weiwei took a half-step closer, carrying a vegetable basket.

"Isn't the match in three days?"

"He tested the road in the rain beforehand," Gu Qingshang said. "The reason given for the application was road safety testing. Two training vehicles, one water truck, four sets of rain tires, and the rescue team was also registered."

Su Niannian's face darkened, and she twirled the spatula in her palm.

"He calls it a safety test to fill a mountain road with water using a water truck and then drive around the bends?"

Chen Lang stood by the door, looked down and unzipped his windbreaker, smiling casually.

"The paperwork is done, the road is closed, and the rescue team is ready. He likes to 'wash' the mountain roads, and nobody else can really stop him."

"Aren't you going to keep an eye on it either?"

"Let's talk after we finish eating."

Su Niannian lifted the spatula.

Chen Lang moved half a step to the side and pointed to her apron.

"Coach Su, keep the spatula away from me. The game hasn't even started yet, and the team is already short a driver. We don't even know who to contact for Black Knight's insurance."

"Stop being silly." Su Niannian put away the spatula. "Explain the winding road clearly this afternoon. If you try to fool people with your reverse parking trick again, I'll make you sleep with the spatula in your arms."

Ye Xingyu stopped outside the threshold, holding the notary custody terminal in her arms.

The screen is filled with green receipts.

The penalty for breach of contract is cancelled, the brokerage agreement is terminated, the ancillary claims are terminated, and the images and accounts enter the third-party verification process.

She read it from beginning to end, then went back to the first page to check the date and number before handing the terminal to Shen Qingci.

"Niannian, I'll do some work too."

Su Niannian glanced at her wrinkled skirt.

"Can you chop a goose?"

"Won't."

"Can you cook on a stove?"

"Never done it before."

"You know how to wash potatoes, right?"

"meeting."

A bundle of potatoes covered in yellow mud fell into Ye Xingyu's arms.

"Okay, the big star will start by washing potatoes."

Ye Xingyu hugged the potato tightly, looked up and asked her.

"Is there a salary?"

"Meals and lodging provided, plus a free wake-up call from Su Dapao. If you ever get stuck on something again, I'll be there to scold you back to the right path."

Ye Xingyu lowered her head and smiled.

"Then I've made a profit."

The kitchen is bustling with activity.

Water jets ripped through the cabbage leaves, and mud slid away down the trough. Bai Weiwei squatted by the wooden basin, plucking the old leaves, while Ye Xingyu rolled up her sleeves and carefully washed the potatoes one by one in the water. Su Niannian picked up a knife and began slicing the goose, neat chunks of meat falling onto the cutting board.

Chen Lang dragged over a low bamboo stool and blocked the kitchen door.

"Master Su, did you ask the goose's opinion before cutting it?"

A piece of scallion flew over.

Chen Lang turned his head to avoid it, the white part of his hair brushed against the shoulder of his windbreaker and fell into the bamboo basket at Bai Weiwei's feet.

Su Niannian held a kitchen knife and looked at him through the stove.

"It left a final message before it passed away."

"What were your last words?"

"I wasted my time not giving you a ride along the way."

Bai Weiwei bent down to pick up the white part of the scallion, washed off the dust, and put it back on the cutting board.

"Sister Gu spent her own money to buy it, so we can't waste it."

Beneath the bougainvillea, Gu Qingshang sat in a wicker chair checking the accounts. She didn't look up, but tapped the payment page with her finger.

Eat as much as you want today.

Su Niannian's cleaver stopped on the cutting board.

"Add two pounds of pork ribs."

"OK."

"Barbecue tonight."

"OK."

Seafood congee for tomorrow morning.

Gu Qingshang finally looked up.

"Su Niannian, are you planning to eat my wallet and wear my clothes?"

Su Niannian pushed the goose pieces into the basin.

"Just tell me whether you'll give it to me or not."

"Give."

Bai Weiwei laughed first, and Ye Xingyu, holding the pot of potatoes, also smiled.

Footsteps sounded outside the courtyard wall as the uncle selling geese brought in the cleaned geese. Su Niannian took the bag and turned to add oil to the pot. Star anise, cinnamon, and ginger slices fell into the hot pot, their aroma rising along the stove flames.

Chen Lang stopped teasing her.

He sat on a small stool, opened his phone, and pulled up a publicly available satellite image of the winding mountain road. On the screen, the road snaked along the Cangshan Mountains for twenty-seven kilometers, with several bends obscured by the shadows of clouds.

Gu Qingshang walked over to him with a cup of hot tea.

"Tonight's training clearance has entered the joint review stage."

"Um."

"I've had someone keeping an eye on them. Any changes they make, such as temporarily adding vehicles, altering training areas, or reducing rescue equipment, will leave a trace."

Chen Lang took the teacup but didn't drink it.

"Just keep an eye on the program."

Gu Qingshang looked at the screen.

"You suspect they're using training as a pretext for something else?"

"If someone who has run the course thirty-seven times suddenly wants to use a water truck to test the rain, it means he has more detailed information than the publicly available data."

Chen Lang zoomed in on the map to the third stage.

He marked the turns six, nine, and thirteen in that order.

"If he dared to release the water, he must know where the water would go."

Gu Qingshang looked down at the red dots.

"You want to work backward from the road structure?"

"We'll deduce as much as we can."

The goose meat in the iron pot tumbled, and the lid rattled softly from the steam. Ye Xingyu carried the washed potatoes to the stove, and Su Niannian took them and poured them into the pot.

"Stay away, everyone. Don't come crying to me if you get burned."

"Who asked you to cry?" Ye Xingyu replied, then turned to fetch the bowls and chopsticks.

When the food was set on the square wooden table, the courtyard was already filled with the aroma of meat.

The goose meat was stewed until tender, the potatoes were soaked in the broth, the cured pork ribs were piled on a large plate, and there were also tree flowers mixed by Bai Weiwei and a dish of sour and spicy dipping sauce on the side.

Ye Xingyu first served herself a bowl of rice, and after finishing it, she added another half bowl.

Su Niannian took a goose leg out of the pot and put it in her bowl.

"Eat more. We still have to settle accounts with Xingyao later. If we go on an empty stomach, we'll lose some of our momentum."

Ye Xingyu stared at the goose leg in the bowl.

"The contracts have all been put into trust."

"Contracts are contracts, and money is money." Su Niannian bit into a piece of cartilage. "The training fees, advance payments, commissions, and unpaid business balances they took from you all need to be accounted for. Terminating the contract is just opening the door; there's a whole room full of messy debts inside."

Ye Xingyu held her chopsticks, paused for a few seconds, then lowered her head and bit into the goose leg.

"Then I'll learn to calculate."

"That's right."

Su Niannian picked up the soup bowl and took a sip.

"From now on, anyone who tries to fool you with a contract should send it to Sister Qingshang first, then come to me. If they dare to play tricks, I'll give them a lesson in legal knowledge."

"You call that legal education?" Chen Lang took the last piece of pork rib. "You call that physical persuasion."

"Shut up, eat your food."

After the meal, Bai Weiwei carried her bowl into the kitchen.

Su Niannian picked up a spatula and followed behind, declaring she would teach Ye Xingyu how to wash dishes. Ye Xingyu, carrying a bamboo basket, chased after her, still trying to defend herself.

"I washed the potatoes very clean."

"Washing vegetables and washing dishes are two separate courses."

"Can I skip this?"

"cannot."

Only Chen Lang and Shen Qingci remained under the grape trellis.

The tie-dyed cloth drying on the wall was blown by the wind, sticking to the brick surface and then falling off the wall again. The clouds on the horizon were low-hanging, and the air was damp.

Shen Qingci stood by the pillar and looked towards the kitchen for a while.

Su Niannian's voice came from inside.

"Ye Xingyu, don't stack the bowls so high, or you'll get your goose leg kicked if they fall."

"Where did I get a goose leg?"

"Then I'll deduct your seafood porridge for tomorrow."

Shen Qingci lowered her head, unable to suppress the urge to smile.

Chen Lang dragged his rattan chair past her.

"Shen, what are you secretly gloating about?"

"I used to think that it was noisy when there were many people."

"And now?"

"It's noisy now too."

She watched the figures moving around in the kitchen.

"But if someone makes noise, the lights in the yard will stay on."

Chen Lang placed the rattan chair under the grape trellis and looked up at her.

"Today you helped Ye Xingyu review the agreement, and a few days ago you accompanied Gu Qingshang to go through old cases. Why are you pushing yourself so hard?"

Shen Qingci pinched the loose thread on the hem of her clothes, her shoe tips brushing against the grass sprouts in the cracks between the bricks.

"They need people."

"We need more people."

Chen Lang leaned back in his rattan chair, speaking casually.

"Tell the truth."

Shen Qingci fell silent.

Dishes clattered in the kitchen as Bai Weiwei called out to use less dish soap, and Ye Xingyu responded with a smile. The sounds drifted through the wooden window and fell into the shadows of the grape trellis.

"Because they are the friends I've made."

She raised her face, her back very straight.

"Bai Weiwei would pull me to dance, Su Niannian would shove a spatula into my hand, Ye Xingyu was willing to tell me what she was afraid of, and Gu Qingshang was also willing to let me stand by her side."

She paused.

"I used to be afraid that the kindness others showed me would be taken back. Now I know that when someone saves a seat for you, it's because they want you to sit down."

Chen Lang picked up the cooled Pu'er tea and took a sip.

Shen Qingci looked toward the kitchen.

"When Ye Xingyu signed the agreement, there were many things she couldn't say. Gu Qingshang taking the old case files to Old Zhou was also a gamble."

She gripped the hem of her dress with her fingers.

I can't help everyone.

"But I want to stay with both of them."

Chen Lang put down his teacup.

"Okay, the reason is acceptable."

"Who gave you permission to review it?"

"I'll be responsible for allocating the funds for your operation."

Chen Lang opened his tactical backpack, took out a heavy black laptop, and placed it on the wooden table. The power cord ran through the blue bricks and into a waterproof socket under a pillar.

"You take care of the friends, I'll take care of the racetrack."

The power-on prompt tone ends.

Chen Lang typed in the command, and the screen was filled with publicly available survey data of the Nine Bends Road, road maintenance announcements, historical remote sensing images, and meteorological bureau cloud maps.

Gu Qingshang came over carrying freshly brewed hot tea.

"Build the model from scratch?"

"The publicly available information is sufficient."

The code scrolls across the black box.

The 27-kilometer stage unfolds in the center of the screen, with contour lines at the bottom, and road surface elevation, longitudinal slope, and lateral slope stacked on top of each other. Drainage ditches, guardrails, shady hillsides, and shoulder widths are all replaced with different colored blocks.

More than 400 red dots lined up along the mountain road.

Chen Lang dragged the timeline and calibrated and overlapped satellite images of the same location over nearly three years.

"If you want to run fast, first find the places you can't run over."

Gu Qingshang leaned over to look at the screen.

"How many questions?"

"There are seventeen major problems, and the remaining thirty-nine are on file."

Chen Lang pressed Enter.

The mountain road model is flipped up, and the third stage is magnified. The continuous climbing section extends along the mountainside, with the outer shoulder perpetually shaded, and a dark red weather layer pressing down on the apex of the bend. The temperature difference between day and night is close to ten degrees Celsius, and the soil moisture content is shown as a blue dotted line on the outer side.

Chen Lang skipped several well-known hairpin bends and locked onto the outside of Turn 6.

"It looks flat during the day, but when it rains, the water will push towards the bend."

He cut out the road cross-section and then enlarged the three-year images of the guardrail posts side by side.

The program locks the cement base and compares it with the road surface baseline.

The three sets of data are staggered by six centimeters.

The cursor is positioned at the joint between the drainage ditch and the asphalt shoulder.

"Two meters and three inches."

Gu Qingshang stared at the area marked in red.

"What, two meters and three inches?"

Chen Lang raised his hand and tapped the screen.

"Width of the subsidence zone".