Chapter 406 - 176: Countermeasures
Stayed up the whole night.
For Chen Zhou, who was accustomed to a regular schedule, this was undoubtedly a torment.
It’s worth noting that after nearly three years on the island, he was now approaching his thirties. Although his body was robust, his energy wasn’t what it used to be and was showing signs of declining.
However, Sunday and Saturday, both in their prime, stayed up the whole night and were still full of vigor, showing no signs of fatigue.
Despite being physically and mentally exhausted, Chen Zhou dared not rest.
He still needed to delegate the day’s work, and he had to explain the native management process to Sunday and Saturday clearly.
Sunday was too rough when dealing with issues sometimes; he should be gentler.
Saturday, on the other hand, was not decisive enough, which could lead the natives to think of him as weak and easy to bully; he should be more fierce.
There was also the "zebra" who received a chocolate reward; Chen Zhou saw him as a promising individual and wanted Sunday and Saturday to focus on observing him.
As long as he didn’t act excessively, he could be prioritized for cultivation in the future, becoming the first small leader among these natives.
The sudden arrival of the natives disrupted all plans.
The fields, the sheep herds, the cane fields on both sides of the mountain stream, and the trivialities of life couldn’t be disordered.
Whatever method was used, they first had to stabilize the situation and then tackle issues one at a time.
...
Aside from living problems, Chen Zhou had to quickly sort through the collected information, identify any gaps, and think about overlooked details or better response strategies.
Of course, because he had been up for too long and thought about too many things, his mind was not as clear as it usually was.
Before sleeping, Chen Zhou focused on organizing the intelligence to ensure that nothing was missed.
As for making plans, it was better to do it when he woke up and his mind was clear.
...
He stacked pages filled with native "testimonies" on the desk.
Before organizing them, Chen Zhou specifically left the kiln to give instructions to Sunday and Saturday in front of the wooden house about what to do after he slept.
...
By this time, the sky was already bright, and the anxious natives were curled up on the wooden planks, still not asleep.
Fear, exhaustion, and drowsiness intertwined, preventing them from sleeping and staying awake, tormenting them to the point of misery.
However, if the natives were pitiful, there was actually someone even more pitiful on the wooden planks —
Werner, who had just returned to the plank, was roughly stripped of his clothes by Sunday and Saturday.
As a "civilized man," he naturally refused to live naked like the natives, instinctively resisting a bit, but ended up getting a beating.
When Chen Zhou saw him again, he was covering his lower body, lying on the plank, displaying body hair as thick as pig bristles, with purplish-red whip marks on his back, arms, buttocks, and even his face.
...
For this cunning brown-haired fellow, Chen Zhou felt no sympathy.
He waved Sunday and Saturday over, arranged for them to rest in shifts, and watch over the natives in turns, explicitly stating to them that if any native tried to escape, they could be killed directly without hesitation.
He then emphasized keeping an eye on the brown-haired fellow, not letting him escape, but also not treating him too harshly so that he wouldn’t die too soon, and instructed to take care of the "zebra" by observing his performance at work.
After seeing that both of them earnestly remembered his words, Chen Zhou assigned Saturday to rest first.
Once he ensured there were no important matters forgotten, he finally returned to the kiln, ready to organize information and get a solid sleep.
...
Saying he was relieved, but since it was the first time Sunday and Saturday managed subordinates,
Chen Zhou had taught them a lot of knowledge but had never considered teaching them the art of managing people.
After all, he never thought that these two would get a group of subordinates so early on.
Lying in bed, he had a fragmented sleep, dreaming many times about the two not managing the natives well, leading to riots or overly harsh punishments, only waking up to find all the natives dead.
...
Around one in the afternoon on the eighth of July.
After what felt like countless interruptions of his dreams, the suddenly awakened Chen Zhou finally couldn’t control his restless heart, quickly washed his face, and stepped outside to take a look.
At this point, Saturday had finished resting and replaced Sunday in watching over the natives alone.
As Chen Zhou descended from the platform, he saw Saturday standing at the edge of the field, instructing the natives on how to distinguish between crops and weeds and how to weed properly.
It was apparent that when Saturday demonstrated, he was trying hard to act stern and aloof, but his naturally friendly round face still undermined this facade.
It’s unclear if it was due to inherent closeness from being on the same island or fear of Sunday, the tyrant, and the more terrifying Chen Zhou. Regardless, even when facing the relatively gentle Saturday, the natives didn’t dare to act out of line.
Whether they could understand or learn it, they were all standing in the crop field, heads slightly raised, like students sitting upright at a desk, listening attentively.
Among them, the big guy "zebra" was listening intently, his somewhat square face showing an unpretendable honesty, making him seem particularly well-behaved standing among the other natives.
However, among a line of light brown-skinned natives, there was one who stood out conspicuously — Werner.
Since being stripped of his clothes, this guy not only had to adapt to living naked but also lost the high status he once had in the natives’ minds —
You bullied us when you wore clothes, and you still bully us after taking them off, so weren’t your clothes for nothing?