Chapter 487 - 321: Going Hungry is Unacceptable

"No, you're wrong."

Seeing her rare expression of embarrassment mixed with disappointment, Lin Chen hurriedly explained.

"I'm not indifferent. I'm forcing myself to exercise restraint."

"For you Westerners, maybe following your heart and being happy is the most important thing, doing whatever you want. But for us Da Xia People, restraint is what's most important."

"In our culture, giving in to indulgence is easy; it takes no effort at all. But that's being irresponsible to yourself and to others. When faced with temptation—and not just this kind, but any kind, like power, money, or status—the hardest thing is to remain steadfast and stay true to yourself."

"So what you're saying is... you're forcing yourself to hold back?"

Erica raised an eyebrow. Her expression instantly softened, and a look of eager anticipation appeared in her eyes.

Her gaze lingered on Lin Chen's face for a moment before she suddenly looked down.

"?"

Lin Chen's expression changed. "Where do you think you're looking!"

"Tsk, not very convincing. Looks like I was being too conservative. I get it. Next time, I'll see just how much you can take."

"???????"

Lin Chen swallowed hard and waved his hands. "Uh, that's not what I meant. Don't go testing me like that."

"Doesn't matter. I already know what you're thinking now. As long as it's not because I'm not attractive, that's all that matters. Hmph, hmph."

Sensing that the coming days were going to be tough, Lin Chen knew that once this girl made up her mind, he probably couldn't talk her out of it. It might even backfire. So he simply shut his mouth tight, picked up his taco, and started unwrapping it.

'If words don't work, looks like I'll have to try a different method.'

'I'm about to enter a very busy period anyway. I'll just use that to my advantage and keep myself so busy my feet don't touch the ground. That way, she won't have a chance to 'test' me!'

After quickly devouring his taco, he took his laptop over to the dining table and sat down.

"You've been editing video all day. Take a break and study some Chinese. I'll take over the editing. If you don't understand something, just ask me."

Erica didn't want to look at that damned editing software a moment longer anyway. She immediately saved her work and closed it. Then, she opened a basic Chinese tutorial video from her bookmarks, repeating the pronunciations in the video as she opened a beginner's character tracing book.

"A... a..."

"O... o..."

"E... e..."

"Yi... yi..."

As Lin Chen edited videos at the dining table, his ears were filled with the sound of Erica's recitations, tinged with her English accent.

It was fine when she was just learning the pronunciation of the alphabet. But later, once the girl thought she had it all figured out, she tried to leap straight to pronouncing words and even attempted to repeat the occasional Chinese sentences the teacher in the video would say.

"Ni... chi... fan-le... ma?"

"Wo... tsi... chi... guo... le~"

Listening to those clumsy, heavily accented Chinese phrases, Lin Chen couldn't help but smile. He lowered his head and pressed his hand firmly over his mouth, afraid that even the slightest sound might crush her confidence.

'Now that I think about it, when I first came abroad, I probably sounded just like that to foreigners, didn't I?'

'Then again, North America is a melting pot. There are people from all over the world, so they're probably used to hearing clumsy English with all sorts of different accents every day.'

As she continued practicing, Erica gradually realized that the characters she was tracing were Chinese numerals. She then found the part of the video that taught how to pronounce numbers and began reading along as she wrote.

Surprisingly, this method was highly effective. After tracing a few pages, she could not only fluently read from one to ten but also remember what the characters looked like.

For the next few days, Erica mostly stayed at home editing videos and studying Chinese, while Lin Chen had to go out every day to handle various matters, mainly supervising the construction of the road and the restaurant.

Given the precedent of the last group of foreign workers slacking off, he didn't dare to be too complacent, even though these workers were his countrymen.

Sometimes, the most dangerous people you encounter abroad aren't foreigners, but your own countrymen.

He had been screwed over by a countryman on his very first day abroad. It was after ten at night when the person picking him up from the airport took him to his pre-arranged rental. The room didn't even have a window, and they wanted to charge him over a thousand dollars for it.

'Back then, he had no concept of the cost of living, but he wasn't stupid. The room was as small as a storage closet and had no window, yet they wanted to charge him over a thousand dollars—nearly six thousand RMB. Do you fucking take me for an idiot?'

At the time, he just said he wanted to chat with the young man who picked him up for a moment. It took no more than two minutes, but the landlord's expression completely changed. "I'm not renting to you anymore," he'd said. "Get out."

It was eleven o'clock at night in a foreign country where he didn't speak the language. On the verge of being stranded on the street, he was ultimately taken in by the airport pickup driver, who couldn't bear to leave him. He ended up temporarily staying in the driver's basement.

Basements here were actually just normal floors, mostly underground, with small windows near the ceiling through which you could see the dirt outside and people's feet.

The driver's family was about to move, so the basement only had a mattress on the floor—no blankets, no pillows. To make matters worse, the central air was set to 18 degrees, leaving him shivering from the cold.

The room next door was rented to an Indian guy, and the bathroom was so filthy that a single glance was enough to make him gag.

He went hungry for two whole days before he finally couldn't take it anymore. He ran out to a convenience store to buy a drink and then to a Subway for a sandwich, communicating purely by pointing. When it came time to pay, he would just hand over his money and let the cashier make the change.

He was young back then, a total shut-in. It was only after this series of blows that he realized if he didn't change, he would be the only one to suffer. So, he spent the night online searching for a new place, moved out, and began his journey of learning the language.

Fortunately, the crew Wang Jun brought over was a group of simple, honest men. He heard they were all poor souls who had come abroad to earn more money because of hardships back home.

The base salary in Canada was a little under 2,500 dollars. After taxes and currency conversion, that was around 10,000 RMB. Since labor was a scarce resource here, their wages were even higher. With food and housing covered, they could save almost all their earnings, making it no problem to send fifteen or twenty thousand RMB home each month.

After a few consecutive days of construction, he'd gotten to know many of the workers, and he finally felt at ease enough to leave the project in their hands.

As the person in charge, Wang Jun should have been extremely busy. The location was remote; just the trip back to Victoria took three hours, meaning a round trip was at least six hours.

Yet, he showed up at the construction site on time every day to supervise the workers, sometimes arriving even earlier than Lin Chen.

Although Lin Chen knew he was being so attentive because he saw the potential of this property and Lin Chen's own popularity, it was undeniable that the man was extremely dedicated.

But soon, he discovered a very serious problem.

There was no Chinese food in Albion Town, so Wang Jun could only order sandwiches for the workers.

The things were just bread, vegetables, and processed meat. For men doing intense physical labor, a fully loaded footlong sandwich was barely enough to fill the gaps between their teeth—it wasn't filling at all. But buying two would exceed the food budget.

It was a novelty at first, but after two days, things started to go wrong.

Without enough carbohydrates and protein, the workers' morale and energy levels clearly dropped. They wanted to work hard but lacked the strength, having to sit down and rest for long periods after just a short while, sweat dripping from their foreheads like rain.

It wasn't until he saw an uncle in his forties, who was carrying a bag of cement, suddenly sway and nearly collapse, clutching his forehead, that Lin Chen couldn't sit still any longer.

"General Manager Wang, we can't go on like this," Lin Chen said. "At this rate, the workers will get sick from exhaustion before the road is even half-finished."

Wang Jun, who was scribbling on a blueprint, looked up with an expression of helplessness and worry. "There's nothing I can do. There are too few fast-food places around here, and it's all just salads and sandwiches. Buying burgers would be too expensive. With something like McDonald's, one worker would need at least a dozen burgers for a single meal."

"Four of the big beef burgers might do the trick, but the food allowance is only about fifteen dollars per person. That's enough for one burger and maybe some fries, at most. We can't be expected to pay for the rest out of our own pockets, can we?"

"Fifteen dollars per person for food?"

Lin Chen thoughtfully counted on his fingers. "How many workers are there in total?"

"Ten for the road, and another ten at the restaurant. And that's just the first batch. Another twenty or so will be transferred over later; their current project is wrapping up in the next couple of days."

"So, we're talking about close to fifty workers? Which makes the food budget seven hundred and fifty?"

Lin Chen patted his chest and waved his hand magnanimously. "Alright, I'll take care of the food. Rice and flour are cheap, and meat and seafood are inexpensive here too. Isn't that guy Zhao Pengfei in the trade business? I'll have him send a few truckloads of grain over. I'll cook myself!"

"This... I don't know about that."

Wang Jun's face lit up with joy at first, but then he scratched his cheek, looking a little embarrassed.

"After all, you're the employer, and a big star at that. You have a lot to do every day. Won't this interfere with your filming?"

"Then I'll just film myself cooking for the workers, simple as that. Let the foreigners see what our Great Xia construction crews eat. I can also post it on domestic video sites. I've noticed videos with this kind of theme are pretty popular recently. I might even get a brand sponsorship out of it."

"Huh? People actually want to watch that kind of thing?"

Wang Jun was stunned. He clearly hadn't expected that people these days would be interested in watching someone cook for construction workers.

'What a strange hobby.'

He didn't understand short videos and all that, but since Lin Chen said it would work, he was of course all for it.

The man was a professional chef, after all. Even if he didn't specialize in Chinese cuisine, making a few simple home-style dishes would surely be no problem for him.

'Instead of spending fifteen dollars on expensive sandwiches or burgers, it's better to buy some rice and flour. That's enough to feed a man until he bursts.'

"How about this, General Manager Wang? Don't try to save any of that seven hundred-something dollars. It's all for the workers' food budget anyway. I'll do my best to max out the quality of every meal for them. If we can spend it all, we'll spend it all."

"Only when they're well-fed can the workers have the energy to work hard. It also gives them something to look forward to each day. When they send videos back home, their wives and families will be less worried. And for me, it makes for interesting video content."

"Yes, yes, of course, that's great," Wang Jun nodded repeatedly, pulling out his phone's photo album. "You don't have to tell me; I wasn't planning on skimping on the money. Food is the most important thing for the people, after all. How can you not let manual laborers eat their fill?"

"Okay, I'll tally up the headcount right now and send it to you. I'll transfer the food budget for the next couple of days over to you in a bit. I'll also check when the other crew is coming over."