Su Shi walked into the livestream studio expecting to debate classical verse, but got handed a retort-pouch of mystery meat instead. The overhead glare burned his retinas, the camera blinked on, and his operations assistant shoved a scrolling script right under his nose. He took a cautious bite of the rubbery block and immediately dropped his calligraphy brush. The texture felt like damp parchment soaked in cheap soy sauce, completely missing the slow-simmered soul of traditional Huangzhou kitchens.
Instead of panicking, he grabbed a brush and started auditing the situation on scrap paper. He ran the numbers through a mental 均输 and 衰分 framework, treating manual scrubbing as a depreciating labor asset. Three minutes of microwave heating saved exactly forty-five minutes of elbow-deep cleanup. That reclaimed window translated directly to drafting half a ci poem or securing a solid quarter-hour nap. The assistant kept waving at the dropping viewer count, so Su Shi looked up and delivered a deadpan academic verdict. Traffic decays linearly, he noted, while dish-free time compounds exponentially.
The assistant finally stopped pacing, so Su Shi climbed onto his rolling chair and held up the plastic packet like a royal edict. Heavy glaze splashed across his pale cuffs, but he didn't even blink. He wasn't pitching factory food anymore. He was conducting a rigorous field test on time-energy conservation. His expression carried the grim satisfaction of a scholar who finally balanced an imperial treasury deficit. He tapped the monitor glass and sketched a geometric growth curve right over the product specs.
He dropped back into his seat, gripped a disposable utensil, and forced a grin that looked like it owed him three months' salary. The viewer count turned bright green and started climbing at a ridiculous speed. He swallowed another rubbery bite and leaned into the microphone. Turns out the greatest literary breakthrough isn’t about moonlit rivers or wandering cranes. It’s just the quiet triumph of never touching a greasy wok again.