The Self-Cultivation of a Reborn Massage Therapist

Chapter 498 Reading and the Night

The spacious mansion was now empty, devoid of children's playful laughter and his wife's nagging. His wife had been sent to Switzerland for medical treatment under various pretexts, and his children were scattered across the country running their businesses. This magnificent palace now echoed only with the sound of his footsteps.

He stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and took a sip of red wine, the glass reflecting the newly grown white hairs at his temples.

Only then did Spiegel begin to vaguely sense that something was wrong.

Despite the faint smell of rust in the air, he calmly finished his glass of red wine, walked slowly to the mirror to complete his daily skincare routine—patting on serum three times, combing his sparse silver hair meticulously, and finally changing into a custom-made silk nightgown.

When he pushed open the bedroom door and walked into the living room, a strong smell of blood hit him. Dark red, viscous liquid was splattered on the carpet, and there were hideous marks on the walls, as if a silent massacre had just taken place.

He walked straight to the center of the living room, as if he had lost his sense of smell.

Anran sat calmly opposite the young man who was engrossed in reading a book. What a person he was!
As if pulled from a pool of blood, his tattered clothes were soaked with thick, dark red blood, and his congealed hair clung to his forehead, still dripping crimson droplets. A deep, bone-revealing wound tore from his collarbone to his abdomen, and faintly pulsating blood vessels could even be seen between the rolled-up flesh.

Even more horrifying was the unnatural angle of his left arm – white bone pierced through his elbow, exposing it, with bits of flesh hanging on the bone fragments and swaying gently in the wind.

Yet this blood-soaked man sat upright, his blood-stained fingers firmly gripping the book, as if he had just returned from an academic salon rather than having experienced a life-or-death battle.

Zhao Xiaochui learned a lot from the animals on that hellish escape route in South America. This allowed him to evade drones and thermal imaging, and infiltrate the ranks of security personnel.

Unfortunately, he was facing a top-tier, elite team. These players had their fighting instincts ingrained in their very bones; even in their sleep, their muscles could react before their minds could process them. In the end, although he defeated all his opponents, Zhao Xiaochui himself paid a heavy price.

By the way, the soundproofing in Mr. Aaron Spiegel's room is really good; Zhao Xiaochui gives his construction team a thumbs up.

The only sound in the room was the rustling of pages turning; even the smell of blood seemed to have solidified.

Cold sweat quietly soaked Spiegel's back. He crossed his legs seemingly calmly, but his knees under his suit trousers were trembling slightly and uncontrollably.

“Child, things are different here than in South America. If you kill me, you won’t get a single penny. In South America, people may not be held accountable for their ill-gotten gains, but all my assets are from legitimate sources, and the heirs are clearly identified.”

After he finished speaking, he tried to pick up the teacup, but found that his fingertips could not hold the handle firmly, and the porcelain made a series of soft, crisp sounds as it hit the tray.

The noise startled Zhao Xiaochui. He raised his blood-stained face, grinning to reveal his gleaming white teeth:

"I didn't expect you to have this person's original English book here."

He waved the book in his hand:
"Zigmund Bauman, the greatest sociologist writing in English today, was also Mr. Spiegel's compatriot."

"What's particularly interesting is that after escaping persecution during World War II, he wrote this thought-provoking book!"

Spiegel looked at the book, his initial tension and fear suddenly dissipating. He shook his head with a wry smile, slumped onto the sofa, and was no longer the image of a top financial predator. Zhao Xiaochui paid no attention to his lapse in composure, his eyes burning as he traced the pages of the book:
"I've never understood what a person really is in an era that encourages 'buying, buying, buying' to define oneself?"

"After reading this book, I realized that we have already shifted from a 'producer society' to a 'consumer society'."

He looked up at the well-dressed old man:
"In the past, you provided education, healthcare, and housing to the poor, merely to train assembly-line livestock; now you don't even need livestock anymore..."

Zhao Xiaochui smiled and looked down at the book: "The claim that the United States has a literacy rate of over 70% that is circulating on the Chinese internet is a rumor and a joke. Is it a joke that your consistently high literacy rate of 99% means that 54% of adults have reading and writing skills below the level of proficiency in modern society?"

He continued reading from the book, his voice growing deeper:

"The temporary employment system has profoundly affected those who suffer from it, making the future even more uncertain through the Gate of Eight. It has stifled all rational expectations, especially extinguishing people's basic beliefs and hopes for the future. However, people need this belief and hope to resist (especially collective resistance) this most intolerable status quo!"

Zhao Xiaochui raised his head again, looked at the old man, and said softly, "Through educational reforms, you are making modern people increasingly ignorant, so they cannot realize this."

"The personal value of ordinary people like us is defined by you as a tool for consumption, to buy, buy, buy."

At this point, Zhao Xiaochui seemed to remember something and smiled happily, gesturing wildly as he said:
"At this point, people like Evangeline Foster come into the picture. She has the power to define aesthetics in consumer society and constantly stimulates people's desire to consume by defining changes in aesthetics."

"They also redefined the aesthetics of work. Different jobs no longer all have a bright future. They magnified the differences and divided different jobs into different classes. Some were given exquisite aesthetic connotations and required good taste, sufficient cultivation, and unique vision... while other professions that were just for making a living were considered worthless..."

"They successfully suppressed moral considerations completely..."

“So those who are abandoned by society,” his voice suddenly turned icy, “are legally injected with drugs, have their jobs taken by illegal immigrants, and are ultimately labeled ‘criminals’ and thrown into prison…”

Zhao Xiaochui glanced at the old man opposite him, lowered his head, and read aloud the last part of the book word by word:

"NC's atrocities are not because they enjoy violence, but because of a sense of responsibility; not for sadism, but for virtue; not based on pleasure, but on method; not out of unbridled, savage impulses, but in the name of excellent values, using professional competence to persistently complete the tasks before them..."

"Snapped!"

Zhao Xiaochui closed the book and slowly stood up. He approached the old man, looking down at him with a condescending gaze:
“You,” he said in a voice as soft as a sigh, “have begun to slaughter the ‘useless.’”

"Child, let me explain—it's not like that..."

"boom!"

The manor sank back into the deathly silence of night, as if the bloodshed just moments before had been nothing but an illusion.

(This chapter is excerpted entirely from the formal publication "Work, Consumption Attention and the New Poor," and we hope you will review and acknowledge this.)
(End of this chapter)