WRA CH26

Chapter 26: Zhou Sicheng’s Day Two as Customer Service

The sun was scorching, immense, and eternal. Whether piercing through dense cloud cover or sinking behind distant peaks, it remained unfailingly fierce and vigorous.

Loving the sun meant accepting the consequences of turning toward it. It could not stay gentle forever; it would march into June, step straight into the sweltering heat, and become a tyrant, searing the sunflower’s head until it was scorched and its leaves drooped limp.

Xiang Zhen’s fingers weakly slipped from their embrace of the sun. Fortunately, he was a heat-tolerant species capable of enduring intense glare, so long as he didn’t suffer from dehydration and severe exposure at the exact same time.

Torrential rain battered the city.

The floor-to-ceiling windows rattled furiously in the wind, rain lashing against the glass. Everything outside was drenched in the downpour, drowning out the tiny whimpers of the little sunflower.

Moisture rolled in from all directions, replenishing the sunflower’s excessive transpiration.

Lightning ripped through the sky like tearing silk, followed by rolling thunder that rumbled overhead like a monstrous freight train.

Frightened, Xiang Zhen shrank deeper into Zhou Sicheng’s embrace. Compared to lightning capable of sparking a wildfire, he would much rather hide in the blazing chest of the sun, confirming that the sun was still there.

Zhou Sicheng noticed that Xiang Zhen was terrified of thunder. Even when pushed past his limits and desperately trying to crawl away, the moment lightning flashed outside, Xiang Zhen would obediently curl back to wrap around him, sinking deeper down as though seeking protection by taking in every inch of his presence.

Zhou Sicheng never missed a single moment his wife needed him.

The storm cooled the daytime stifling heat, yet the air in the room remained sticky. The entire sheet was soaked through—half by Zhou Sicheng’s sweat, half by Xiang Zhen’s water.

“Hubby, I want water…” Xiang Zhen whispered softly.

Reaching out with a long arm, Zhou Sicheng grabbed the straw tumbler from the nightstand and offered Xiang Zhen a sip.

Xiang Zhen felt as if he were cycling through the four seasons orbiting the sun. First, spring warmth coaxed the blossom open; then came the midsummer tyrant. After trembling from the scalding heat, Zhou Sicheng would wipe him clean, granting a comfortable stretch of crisp autumn air before settling into the tender warmth of a winter sun.

Yet almost immediately, Zhou Sicheng slipped back into spring.

Day after day, year after year, repeating the cycle endlessly.

To Xiang Zhen, every day felt like an eternity.

After two full cycles of this, Xiang Zhen hugged his limp leaves and said pitifully, “Hubby, I don’t even have the strength to drink water anymore.”

“I’ll feed you.” Zhou Sicheng was not engaged in a cruel plunder; he was fully capable of judging his wife’s condition.

Xiang Zhen’s condition was remarkably fine. The faster the friction, the softer and slicker he became. How on earth should he describe his wife’s unique gift? Zhou Sicheng had no intention of describing it to anyone else, so there was no need to dwell on the phrasing.

Ding-dong, ding-dong.

More customer service messages chimed.

Xiang Zhen opened his eyes: “I need to work!”

Without replying to the inquiries, he couldn’t rest easy; the chime of customer service notifications was etched into his marrow.

Zhou Sicheng let out a soft laugh, seizing control of the laptop. He doesn’t even have the strength to drink water, yet he still has the energy to handle customer support.

Zhou Sicheng kissed him: “It’s fine. I’ll reply for you.”

[Customer: How on earth did you pack and ship this order?! The box is crushed! How do I know if mice crawled over the packaging?! How am I supposed to eat this?!]

[Sunflower Customer Service: Full refund issued.]

Xiang Zhen didn’t trust Zhou Sicheng’s customer service skills at all. Whenever Zhou Sicheng took rideshare passengers, Xiang Zhen always had to follow behind him to placate the riders.

“Hubby… we can’t get a bad review.” Xiang Zhen’s eyelids were flushed red, resembling two rose petals blown onto a sunflower’s face by the wind, fluttering faintly.

His negative feedback threshold for the month was already tapped out.

“Don’t worry, we won’t.” Zhou Sicheng was fully confident. Scooping up his wife, he took blatant advantage of the moment. “Wifey, hang in there a little longer, and I’ll give you a good review.”

With very little rationality left, Xiang Zhen instinctively replied, “Thank you, darling.”

Zhou Sicheng: “Good boy. Five-star review.”

Ding-dong.

[Customer: This wrapper is really hard to tear open.]

[Sunflower Customer Service: Full refund issued.]

Ding-dong.

[Customer: Screenshot of 5-star review for 3 yuan cashback.]

[Sunflower Customer Service: Full refund issued.]

Each chime was like a dangling carrot teasing Xiang Zhen’s fraying sanity, leaving him with no choice but to let this surrogate representative have his way with him.

While Zhou Sicheng indulged himself passionately on this end, the customer service supervisor on the other end realized something was terribly amiss. Why were there full refunds across the board tonight?

[Supervisor: Xiang Zhen!! What do you think you’re doing?! Just because Yu Yueyue left, do you want to get fired too?! If you mess around, you’ll have to compensate the company!]

[Sunflower Customer Service: I have money.]

CEO Zhou was nothing if not generous. Tonight, he was treating every customer with whom fate had crossed paths to free sunflower seeds.

Spending pocket change to accomplish great things.

Meanwhile, a trending post popped up on a social media app:

[Is this shop’s customer service having a breakdown? No matter what I ask, they just issue a full refund! Are they a bot?!]

Others in the comments section had encountered the exact same thing and chimed in:

[No idea, but I genuinely got a refund.]

[Did someone misconfigure the keywords on the AI bot?]

[No, this is a real human. I checked. I asked if they’d gone crazy, and they said: ‘Because I feel like it.’]

[Hahaha, the rep seems super concise with their words. I asked several times why, and only when they got annoyed did they reply: ‘Because of marriage.’]

[What else can I say? Since you treated me to sunflower seeds, I can only wish you an early arrival of a precious son.]

[Early arrival of a precious son +1]

[Did they switch shifts? I remember this rep. Their usual tone isn’t like this at all—they used to be naturally oblivious and passive-aggressive, with a weirdly detached, ethereal charm.]

[A burned-out wage slave taking revenge on their boss.]

[On the bright side, it brought a ton of traffic to the store.]

A wave of curious netizens poured into Sun Youzhi’s livestream. Completely bewildered at first, he soon discovered that Xiang Zhen was the one stirring up the commotion. His assistant suggested seizing this traffic to introduce Xiang Zhen to the curious onlookers, as Xiang Zhen’s face was more than capable of catching this sudden deluge of views.

Recalling that Xiang Zhen had repeatedly turned down becoming a host, Sun Youzhi shook his head: “Forget it.”

Xiang Zhen had been issuing full refunds nonstop, and Feng Chujun was notoriously stingy. Without explicit permission to drum up traffic this way, Sun Youzhi was worried Xiang Zhen would end up paying out of pocket for working, so he revoked his customer service access.

Although most netizens were just enjoying the spectacle, a few tried to claim refunds on holiday gift box orders purchased during Lunar New Year.

Fortunately, Zhou Sicheng still had his wits about him when dealing with those.

For small orders of a few dozen yuan, he gave out refunds without hesitation. But for people trying to score a free lunch on gift boxes worth one or two hundred yuan from months ago, Zhou Sicheng was neither foolish nor overly spendthrift—he was in a good mood tonight, not losing his mind.

Besides, if he kept the refund channel open, how was he going to sleep with his wife?

Unaware that a post had gone viral, Zhou Sicheng was suddenly inundated with incoming messages.

Xiang Zhen assumed Sun Youzhi’s stream was blowing up with orders. Determined not to drop the ball for Brother Youzhi, he struggled to reply.

Zhou Sicheng wouldn’t dare let his budget-conscious wife know what he had done, so he patiently handled the responses for him.

Why are netizens so annoying, prying into the reason?

Xiang Zhen asked frantically, “Did you reply?”

Zhou Sicheng replied calmly: Marriage.

Netizens: Wishing you an early arrival of a precious son.

The tide of refund requests abruptly turned into a screen full of blessings, with passersby who hadn’t bought anything chiming in.

Watching the comments flood in, Zhou Sicheng got swept up in the mood. Suddenly overwhelmed by his addiction to his wife, he gave away ten thousand password red packets on Alipay.

Shedding the label of a cheapskate felt incredible.

Tonight was simply satisfying on every front.

When the storm finally passed and the clouds parted, Zhou Sicheng picked up his wife, firmly supporting his bottom with one strong hand while stripping away the soaked sheet with the other, grabbing a clean one from the closet to lay down.

It was entirely because this rental apartment was too small to change locations. The bathroom could barely hold two grown men standing, and Xiang Zhen was too exhausted to stay on his feet, so Zhou Sicheng had to stay in bed with him.

He grew increasingly irritated by the sunflowers sitting by the window, feeling as though his territory had been encroached upon. If it weren’t for them, they could have moved by the floor-to-ceiling glass instead of being confined to the bed the entire time.

Taking advantage of his wife’s weakest moment to compete with the sunflowers for household dominance, Zhou Sicheng nuzzled him closely: “Wifey, can we move the sunflowers somewhere else?”

Xiang Zhen: “No, hubby…”

These sunflowers had been planted late to begin with; they could only grow quickly and catch up with the others by staying close to him.

A dark gleam flashed in Zhou Sicheng’s eyes at losing the battle for favor. “Didn’t you say you’d move them to the rooftop once they grew bigger?”

He had looked forward to that day previously because the space was cramped and he couldn’t stand growing vegetables in the bedroom. Now, he couldn’t tolerate it even more because he had other uses for the window.

They’re already taller than my knees, haven’t they been weaned yet?

Xiang Zhen was completely indulgent toward his sunflower crop. Lying in Zhou Sicheng’s arms, he whispered with barely any breath left, “They’re still little.”

Cradling his wife, whose fair skin was flushed pink, Zhou Sicheng glanced over at the lush green plants. They truly were getting a bit too tall. The sixteenth floor wasn’t immune to mosquitoes, especially by the lake. Once the foliage became dense, mosquitoes would arrive, followed by stem borers.

He didn’t want to wake up holding his naked wife at night only to find him covered in mosquito bites.

It would break his heart.

He had plenty of ways to handle it.

Xiang Zhen fell asleep from pure exhaustion.

Zhou Sicheng’s adrenaline had yet to wear off. Once he regained a cool head, he spent money to smooth over the customer service incident and scrubbed the posts from the internet.

He pushed all the blame onto Fan Hao, claiming Fan Hao had done it because he had no brains and loved throwing money around.

In any case, Xiang Zhen had been half-asleep and in a daze, so he wouldn’t be able to verify whether the account had been handed over to someone else.

The next day.

Xiang Zhen woke up feeling sore all over. Thinking back to the night that had felt like enduring five whole years, a blush instantly spread across his cheeks.

Using his sunlight power to dissolve the soreness throughout his body, he sat up. Thank goodness Zhou Sicheng wasn’t an S; otherwise, with how fierce and capable he was, if Xiang Zhen had fought back, they definitely would have ended up brawling all the way to the police station.

Though it wasn’t much better as it was.

Because Zhou Sicheng wasn’t an S, he could only accommodate and endure it instead.

Aiya, hubby really is too fierce.

Good thing I’m a Yao.

“You’re awake? Come drink some porridge.” Zhou Sicheng had stewed pork rib and Chinese yam porridge, carrying it to the bedside along with toiletries.

He squeezed the toothpaste and cupped Xiang Zhen’s chin to help him brush his teeth.

Xiang Zhen felt a bit shy: “The sun is nice today. Did you wash the clothes and bedsheets?”

No one knew how many previous tenants had used the rental’s washing machine, so Xiang Zhen usually hand-washed his own clothes.

Later, Zhou Sicheng had claimed his company had a washer-dryer combo, taking his dirty laundry every morning and bringing it back clean every evening.

Zhou Sicheng: “Washed them.”

Xiang Zhen’s eyes fluttered. After such intimacy, once their clothes were back on, he felt too bashful to look straight at his husband. Letting his gaze wander, he said, “The sunflowers are growing so well.”

Xiang Zhen suddenly noticed that one of the shorter sunflowers had already developed a flower bud.

It was likely a dwarf sunflower variety that had gotten mixed into the seeds.

“It’s still just a baby, but it’s already blooming.”

Zhou Sicheng narrowed his eyes: “Are you sure you won’t move the sunflowers away?”

Xiang Zhen: “Not moving them.”

Zhou Sicheng: “Fine. Eat your rib porridge first.”

Waiting until nighttime when it was his turn to eat Xiang Zhen, he deliberately gave his wife plenty of water to drink.