At the recruitment scene, each shows their own talents like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea Wait, bro

“Started studying literature at three, martial arts at four. By five, I’d beaten every kid in my village without breaking a sweat. At six, Emperor Zhenwu came to me in a dream while I slept and passed down his ultimate teachings. At seven—”

The recruitment fair was packed solid, like a wet market. Every last applicant was a young, able-bodied man. At the moment, quite a few people had gathered around one guy, listening to him brag.

“Not to brag or anything, bros, but what are you even going to use to compete with me? You should leave while you still can. Otherwise, don’t blame me for crushing your confidence and becoming the nightmare—and inner demon—you’ll never shake for the rest of your lives!”

Everyone: “…”

So that was what he’d been waiting here for?

A wave of jeers rose from the crowd, along with plenty of muttered curses. If he hadn’t added that last line, they might actually have been fooled into thinking he was some kind of big shot. Turns out he was just here to steal their jobs.

Just as the crowd was about to disperse, another voice rang out.

“Understood human speech at three months, spoke at four months, learned to walk at five, started jumping at six, and at seven—”

Everyone: “???”

Holy shit, there’s an even bigger master here!

The crowd turned toward the sound and fixed their eyes on Ye Cheng. He was still recounting his legendary life story, arriving at the crucial milestones:

“By the time I was three, I’d already mastered the Four Books, the Five Classics, and the Six Arts. At four, I had fully absorbed their teachings and composed three hundred original poems. At five, I was undefeated under heaven. At six, the Mamba Emperor passed down his true teachings to me in a dream, and I mastered the power of the elbow strike…”

Everyone: “…”

Damn. Impressive!!!

The pay and benefits for this opening were just too good, so every eligible person in the area had shown up. That was why the place was now packed wall to wall.

They knew the competition would be brutal, but they hadn’t expected it to turn into this. Fuck, this wasn’t a job fair—it was a monster spawn point.

Come on, man… if you’re really that amazing, you’re here competing with us for a caregiver job? Seriously?

Hey, buddy, how about leaving the opportunity to people who actually need it?

If you’re so incredible, why not go find some high-paying job? Why come here to fight them over a caregiver position… what a bastard.

“Come on, man, you’re just talking shit. Why don’t you say you can fly while you’re at it?” The guy who had been bragging earlier couldn’t stand having every part of his résumé utterly outdone by Ye Cheng, so he stepped forward.

He looked Ye Cheng up and down… Huh. Pretty fair-skinned, actually. Too bad. In the war for a caregiver job, there could be no mercy!

The man sneered, a scornful smile curling across his lips. This time, victory was guaranteed. He had it in the bag—because the chief interviewer was his brother-in-law!

“Flying? Is that even something you need to brag about?” Ye Cheng clicked his tongue and looked at him with an expression of pity, as though to say: I can’t blame you for being so sheltered.

The man: “???”

Everyone: “???”

Holy shit, had they run into the King of Bragging?

With Ye Cheng around, everyone else’s bragging suddenly seemed pale and insignificant. They could barely hold their heads up. They had wanted to attack him from some other angle, only to realize…

Ye Cheng was actually kind of handsome?

Come on, man, you’re that good-looking and you’re applying to be a caregiver? Seriously?

With looks like that, why not go work as a male model at some upscale karaoke club and shamelessly flirt with the customers? You could make a year’s salary in a single month…

“All right, everyone line up. Keep quiet. No talking. Anyone who breaks the rules will be disqualified!”

Before long, a middle-aged man stepped onto the platform. His voice was strong and resonant. He was dressed in civilian clothes, but even so, there was still a certain steely toughness about him.

A trained fighter.

Generally speaking, military nursing aide positions were never openly advertised. They were usually filled internally—someone recommended a person here, someone pulled strings there—and the openings were gone before they were ever officially announced.

But this place was different.

This was the far northwest.

The conditions were harsh. The people recommended through internal channels all had connections; they were precious sons and daughters, the treasures of their families. Who would send them out here?

Forget female nursing aides—there weren’t even any females around, unless you counted nuts and bolts...

On top of that, the unit had recently run into some unexpected problems. They were desperately short-handed, and the staffing gap had grown too large. That was why they were recruiting nursing aides from outside.

The requirements weren’t complicated: they had to be educated, strong, and... well, not too ugly. Everything else was negotiable. It would be best if they were at least somewhat good with words.

It didn’t sound overly demanding, but taken together, those requirements had already eliminated more than ninety percent of applicants. Even so, there were still over a hundred people left.

The courtyard was practically too crowded to hold them all.

The assessment consisted of three parts: strength, intelligence, and speaking ability. In practical terms, that meant weightlifting, a written test, and an interview.

In front of them sat a fifty-kilogram barbell. They had to bench-press it and see who could manage the most repetitions; every two reps earned one point, with a maximum score of thirty points—meaning ninety reps.

Weightlifting was worth thirty points, the written test thirty, and the interview forty... Only the weightlifting portion couldn’t be manipulated behind the scenes. The other two could be rigged.

It was hard to imagine that even a nursing aide job could involve under-the-table dealings.

You wouldn’t dare write something like this in a novel... No, no—reality was far more absurd than fiction.

The man who had been bragging earlier was so confident because he already had seventy points in the bag. With his uncle’s help, getting full marks on the interview and written test would be easy.

All that remained was the weightlifting test. It was the only part that couldn’t be tampered with, since it was completed in full view of everyone. If they rigged even that, it would be downright blatant.

Being too obvious wasn’t good, after all.

Soon, the weightlifting began.

With a fifty-kilogram barbell, an ordinary person with no training could generally manage fewer than three reps. Someone who worked out regularly could do around ten. Someone who was visibly well-trained might manage around twenty. A martial artist, or someone who had served in the military, could probably do somewhere between thirty and fifty.

There were more than a hundred people in the courtyard. Anyone who could manage twenty reps was already extremely impressive—in other words... ten points.

Before long, the results were in. Almost everyone scored below ten points. A rare few managed around fifteen. As for anyone scoring above twenty...

Not a single one.

This was only the first round. Anyone who failed to score ten points was eliminated immediately. After all, one of the interview’s hard requirements was physical strength. If they couldn’t even reach ten points, they had no business claiming to be strong.

They were naturally weeded out.

Just like that, sixty percent of the applicants were eliminated.

Little by little, everyone finished. Soon, only the last two people remained: the guy who had just claimed that Emperor Zhenwu had appeared in his dream…and Ye Cheng.

Emperor Bro gave a sinister smile, his eyes full of confidence and composure. “Watch closely. I’ll show you what twenty years of training can do. How are you going to beat me?”

One, two, three, four… The first ten were effortless, at most making him break a little sweat. By the next five, the veins and tendons on his arms were becoming increasingly prominent. During the final five, every repetition pushed him to the brink of exhaustion. He was using every ounce of strength he had!

Forty reps. Twenty points.

He was the only person in the entire venue to accomplish that. The moment Emperor Bro finished, the entire place fell silent before erupting into an uproar.

The corners of Emperor Bro’s mouth lifted slightly, but he quickly put on a regretful expression and shook his head repeatedly. “I’m not in the best shape today. Normally, I should be able to do around forty-five…”

Everyone: “…”

Damn, what a show-off!

Ye Cheng nodded. “Yeah, that’s true.”

Emperor Bro: “???”

Everyone: “…”

Damn, there’s another expert!

What were these two even here for? It was just a caregiver’s job. Was all this really necessary?

Soon, it was Ye Cheng’s turn. Emperor Bro was still lying on the equipment, showing no intention of getting up. The crowd let out a collective gasp…

Could the two of them be about to have another showdown?

After all, this looked very much like a provocation aimed at Ye Cheng!

“Um…could someone help me up? Thanks. I can’t get up.” Emperor Bro finally spoke after a somewhat awkward silence. He had been lying there for quite a while now. Why hadn’t some thoughtful, kind-hearted person come over to help him?

Everyone: “…”

Oof…

With the assistance of a kind soul, Emperor Bro finally got off the equipment. Both his arms were as limp as noodles. Otherwise, he would have folded them across his chest by now and watched Ye Cheng like a classic villain.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t do that at the moment. All he could do was put on a villainous expression, let his noodle-like arms hang limply at his sides, and taunt Ye Cheng.

“I’d like to see how many you can do!”

Under everyone’s watchful eyes, Ye Cheng stepped up. He sat down, briefly familiarized himself with the equipment, and then began…

One, two, three, four, five… Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen… Fifty, sixty, seventy…

Everyone: “???”

Emperor Bro: “???”

No, seriously, bro!!!

This script seemed to be going completely off the rails!

So you really hadn’t just been talking big earlier?!

The barbell, which had felt unbelievably heavy a moment ago, was as light as a foam board in Ye Cheng’s hands. He couldn’t feel even the slightest bit of weight. From start to finish, he did one rep per second without pausing once.

Keep in mind, Emperor Bro had taken nearly five minutes to complete forty-five reps. Ye Cheng, on the other hand, was approaching a hundred reps in less than two minutes.

Everyone: “…”

Emperor Bro: “…”

After doing roughly two hundred reps, Ye Cheng stopped.

He hadn’t read the rules and only knew that each rep seemed to be worth 0.5 points. If the full score was…well, it should be two hundred reps.

Doing more wouldn’t earn him any additional points. It wasn’t worth it, and there was a good chance they might drag him away for research or something.

Yeah…knowing when to stop was probably for the best.

The moment he set down the barbell, everyone present looked noticeably more clear-eyed. Ye Cheng rolled his neck and looked toward Emperor Bro, who was standing off in the distance, seemingly trying to make himself invisible.

“Hey, you. You looked pretty unhappy with me just now. Do you have some kind of issue with me?”

Everyone: “...”

Emperor Bro: “...”

How would I dare? If I’d known you could bench-press two hundred reps, I wouldn’t have been talking all that trash earlier...

Everyone there had witnessed Ye Cheng’s strength firsthand. Two hundred reps with fifty kilograms on the bench press... There was no need to say anything more. They were all afraid Ye Cheng might punch them to death.

So what, a ridiculously handsome guy born with superhuman strength had come to compete with them for a caregiver position?

Holy shit!!!

What kind of absurd matchmaking system was this? Damn it, give us our money back!!!

There were only two openings in this round of recruitment... With Ye Cheng’s outrageous performance, never mind the bench press—just that bit about having mastered the Four Books, Five Classics, Six Arts, and Three Hundred Tang Poems by the age of three was enough to show how terrifyingly strong he was in an interview.

The two openings had effectively become one. In other words, dozens of people were now competing for a single spot... Quite a few people immediately dropped out at the thought.

Damn it, if they didn’t fix this matchmaking system, it was doomed sooner or later!

Their hearts sank.

In the end, fewer than twenty people remained for the second round. They were given a test covering nursing-related knowledge and common-sense questions, with two hours to complete it. Ye Cheng finished in ten minutes and handed it in.

After what had happened earlier, not a single person could laugh anymore. Before, they might have thought Ye Cheng was just putting on airs and pretending to be better than he was. But now...

Bro, please, put away your divine powers. Why are you even taking the test? They should just give you the job!

...

Meanwhile, on a road outside a forest, a coach bus slowly pulled to a stop.

Notably, a massive yak was tied to the bus...

Click.

The doors opened, and a huge, shit-yellow dog climbed down from the vehicle. Sniffing as it went, it headed into the forest, with Du Wanyi and a group of ginseng children following close behind...

They gradually made their way deeper into the woods...