Mastering the Sword Manual, sweeping across the globe

Chen Yuan put down his phone and continued revising the plan.

After editing two lines, I suddenly felt something was off, so I picked up my phone again to take a look.

Yes, it's that line, "I might be a little late."

In the past, a friend might have said, "I'll try to be on time" or "We'll see," and then at 1:50 pm on Saturday, they would send a message saying, "Sorry for the traffic."

Now, my friend is saying, "My sister is moving, and it's uncertain when she'll be finished."

That one sentence, devoid of any emotional value, made Chen Yuan feel very comfortable.

At 3 PM, Chen Yuan went to a meeting with a client.

The client's company is located in the High-tech Zone, about a 20-minute taxi ride away.

He hailed a car, and after getting in, the driver asked him whether to follow the navigation or take the highway. Taking the highway would be five minutes faster but would cost an extra five yuan in toll.

Chen Yuan said, "Let's go downstairs, there's no rush."

The driver agreed, but added, "If we go down there, the road ahead is under construction, so it might be a little bumpy. Hold on tight."

Chen Yuan agreed.

The road construction section was longer than Chen Yuan had imagined, and the ride was bumpy for at least ten minutes.

We arrived at the destination seven or eight minutes later than expected. The driver pressed the meter and said, "Sorry, we didn't repair this far yesterday... Here, I'll waive the odd amount and just round it up to you."

When Chen Yuan got out of the car, he thought the driver was quite interesting.

In the past, when encountering this situation while taking a bus, the driver would usually say, "This lousy road has been under construction for half a year and it's still not fixed" or "I wish I hadn't taken this route"—all of which pushed the problem to objective reasons. But today, the driver said, "I didn't expect that either," admitting that his judgment was wrong.

The negotiations with the client went fairly smoothly.

As I was leaving, the person in charge saw me to the elevator: "...By the way, I didn't go to your company's event last time not because I had any complaints about you, but because I was too tired that afternoon and didn't want to move."

Chen Yuan paused for a moment, then smiled: "It's okay, I'll come again next time."

The elevator arrived, and Chen Yuan stepped inside. As the door closed, he saw his own face reflected in the mirror, still smiling.

It wasn't because what the other person said was funny, but because the feeling of "speaking directly" was so good.

You don't need to guess, you don't need to interpret, and you don't need to ruminate on the fact that "he didn't come" for three days, wondering if you've offended someone somehow.

They're just tired and don't want to move; it's none of your business.

This sense of ease was something Chen Yuan wouldn't have dared to imagine just two months ago.

On his way home from get off work, Chen Yuan stopped by the farmers' market.

He stopped in front of a stall to pick out tomatoes, and an older woman was also picking them out next to him.

The older woman was very careful in her selection, picking up each item and turning it over to examine it. The stall owner, a woman in her thirties, stood beside her without urging her to hurry up.

After picking through the tomatoes for a while, the older woman suddenly looked up and asked, "Are these leftovers from yesterday?"

The stall owner paused for a moment, then nodded: "The ones on the outside are indeed the ones that weren't sold out yesterday afternoon, while the ones inside are fresh."

The older woman wasn't angry. She put the one back in her hand, rummaged around inside a couple of times, and picked out two fresh ones.

While paying, she chatted with the stall owner for a bit: "You're such an honest person. The stall in front of me last time said they picked all the fruit this morning, but when I cooked it, it was all soft."

The stall owner smiled but didn't say anything.

Chen Yuan bought a few tomatoes and a pound of eggs.

On his way home, he recalled going to the market with his mother when he was a child, and how buying vegetables always required a battle of wits.

The stall owner said the vegetables were just picked from the field this morning, so his mother turned them over to look at the cut on the vegetable stalks; the stall owner said the fish was alive and just killed, so his mother pried open the gills to check the color; the stall owner said the scale was accurate and wouldn't shortchange you, so his mother stared at the scale until it reached the bottom.

At 8 p.m., Chen Yuan was sitting on the sofa in the living room scrolling through his phone.

My roommate walked in with a gloomy face.

"Oh," Chen Yuan suddenly perked up, "This is... being completely drained?"

"She's had dinner, bought clothes, and watched a movie, but she says she has to go home tonight!"

"Tsk, she's a good girl, we should cherish her!"

“Cherish your B! I asked her, ‘You don’t like me?’”

"Impossible, you tidied up so neatly!" Chen Yuan shook his head, indicating disbelief: "I checked the water meter, you took at least half an hour to shower this afternoon."

She said: I am definitely not her ideal type.

Well... if everyone tells the truth, it might not all be a good thing...

"And then?" Chen Yuan asked.

"Then... I asked her to pay for the meals and movie tickets, and give me back the money she spent on clothes."

"Did I return it to you?" Chen Yuan asked curiously.

"Give it back my ass!" my roommate muttered, scoffing.

"Oh."

Chen Yuan went to take a shower.

Ten minutes later, Chen Yuan came out and saw his roommate typing rapidly.

"What are you doing?" Chen Yuan asked.

“I asked her friend and got her mom’s Douyin account…” My roommate continued typing rapidly.

"...You're awesome! And then what?"

"Go ask her mother for the money!"

"Holy crap, that's awesome!" Chen Yuan quickly moved closer and saw on his roommate's phone screen that "Blooming Fortune" replied: How do I know if what you said is true or not?

Seeing the reply, the roommate paused for a moment, then suddenly his eyes lit up, and he turned to look at Chen Yuan: "Send me the video you watched last night."

Chen Yuan sent it.

My roommate promptly forwarded it to "Blooming Fortune":

"I swear to Doflamingo!"

181 Civilization Office

The county town is not big.

It takes less than twenty minutes to ride an electric bike from the county government compound to the farthest subdistrict office.

In such a small place, three agencies have been abolished, two departments have been merged, and countless "leading group office" signs have been removed in the past two months.

For various reasons, the finances are tight across the board, and the higher authorities are investigating past irregular expenditures, so all units are tightening their belts.

Only the Civilization Office managed to expand its staff against the trend.

The number of people has increased from two and a half to double digits.

Li Xuewen is thirty-seven years old this year. He has been a deputy section chief for four years. He was hoping to be transferred to a substantive position during last year's reshuffle, but he was transferred to the Civilization Office instead.

On the day the appointment was announced, he drank three cups of tea in the Organization Department's conference room without saying a word.

Civilization Office.

The full name is the Office of the County Spiritual Civilization Construction Steering Committee.

Its main function is to cooperate with higher authorities in carrying out various initiatives and activities; its actual function, well… to freeload meals at various units.

As for what exactly the six characters "spiritual civilization construction" mean, Li Xuewen flipped through three years' worth of work summaries but couldn't find a single sentence that he could remember.

This time is different.

Along with this expansion, the Finance Bureau allocated a special fund to the Civilization Office.

The quantity is small, but the purpose is clear: to mediate disputes and discourage uncivilized behavior.

Li Xuewen stared at the funding approval document for a full five minutes.

The wording above is very deliberate: "exploring innovative paths for building grassroots spiritual civilization" and "enhancing the public's sense of gain and satisfaction."

Not a single word was mentioned about any particular app.

Li Xuewen put down the document and made a phone call to a college classmate.

My classmate works in a certain department of the provincial government. Regardless of his rank, he is certainly more well-informed than I am.

After the call connected, Li Xuewen only asked one question: "Is it related to that?"

The classmate was silent for a moment, then replied softly, "All levels are trying to reduce the burden at the grassroots level. Your approach is correct; it costs less money, is effective quickly, and looks good on the surface."

Li Xuewen said okay, I understand.

Within two days of the expansion, Li Xuewen turned the old files in his office upside down.

The Civilization Office has handled quite a few complaints over the years, including noise pollution, littering, neighborhood disputes, and square dancing taking up space. There are at least a hundred such cases a year.

The handling methods are highly uniform: the matter is transferred to the subdistrict office, then transferred to the community, the community visits and says a few words, both sides are equally blamed, and the matter is left unresolved.

A few days later, another complaint came in, and it was forwarded again. I talked about it again, and I was still indignant.

Like a washing machine that never stops, it keeps turning the same pile of dirty clothes over and over again.

"That won't do."

Li Xuewen said to the young people around him.

The young man, Xiao Wang, had just passed the civil service exam this year. When he was assigned to the Civilization Office, he felt a little uneasy. It wasn't that he thought the department was bad; after all, the Civilization Office was under the Party Committee, which meant it had a high position and often dealt with leaders from big departments like the Publicity Department, so there were actually quite a few opportunities.

Of the few people who joined at the same time, one went to the Organization Department and another went to the Development and Reform Commission. He walked alone into the small office of the Civilization Office, which was filled with old files. It would be a lie to say that he didn't feel a little disappointed.

Seeing his dejected appearance, Li Xuewen said to him, "Work hard with me, this department may become the busiest in the whole county in the future."

The first case was a noise complaint.

The apartment is on the fourth floor of Building 3 in the Sunshine Community. The homeowners are surnamed Zhou, a couple, and their five-year-old son.

An elderly couple lives downstairs. The old man's surname is Qin, and he is a retired teacher. His wife is not in good health and suffers from neurasthenia, so she needs to take a nap in the afternoon.

The kid upstairs is ridiculously energetic. Every day at noon, he runs around the living room, and his footsteps echo through the floorboards. When Teacher Qin lies on the bed, the chandelier on the ceiling vibrates along with him.

Teacher Qin went upstairs to look for her three times.

The first time he was very polite, but the second time his tone became a bit harsh.

The third time, the two families started arguing. Zhou's wife slammed her hand on the table and said that it was the child's nature to run, and if you didn't want him to run, you should put shackles on him.

Ms. Qin was so angry that she was trembling all over. After going downstairs, she made a complaint call.

The neighborhood committee came once. The mediator asked both families to sit down together, and in less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, they realized that this was a conflict that couldn't be resolved with words. In the end, the mediator could only say a few words like "Let's all try to understand each other" before leaving.

The next day, the children went about their business as usual, and Teacher Qin still suffered from insomnia.

Teacher Qin complained again, but to no avail. In a fit of anger, he and his wife mobilized their relatives to cast eight votes for malpractice at the county government office. They also wrote a letter to the county committee, using extremely harsh language and ending with the threat: "If no one does anything, I'll write to the city government, the provincial government, and even Quedexia!"

The complaint letter was forwarded to the Civilization Office at lightning speed.

Li Xuewen read it twice, then called Xiao Wang over, and they rode their electric bikes to Sunshine Community.

Before going upstairs, Xiao Wang asked, "Should we talk to the neighborhood committee first?"

"Why bother if it's connected?"

"Ask them to cooperate; after all, they've been here before and are familiar with the situation."

Li Xuewen shook his head: "People are about to write to Brother Ming, but the neighborhood office is just not up to their standards."

As they were talking, Li Xuewen had already knocked on the door on the fourth floor.

The man who opened the door was from the Zhou family, in his early thirties, wearing work clothes, probably just coming back from working outside.

The man paused for a moment when he saw two strangers standing at the door.

Li Xuewen introduced himself and said he wanted to talk to him about his child.

The man's expression changed, and he silently moved aside to open the door.

Li Xuewen walked into the living room and glanced around. The child was watching cartoons on the sofa, and the volume wasn't very loud.

Li Xuewen didn't mention Teacher Qin at first. He chatted with the Zhou couple for about ten minutes, asking how old the child was, whether he went to kindergarten, and what he liked to play.

As they chatted, Zhou's wife took the initiative to steer the conversation downstairs.

She said she knew the downstairs neighbors had complaints, but she felt really wronged. The child wasn't making a fuss in the middle of the night; it was broad daylight. What was wrong with the child running around in their own home?