Super Zoo

Like many young people of her age, Li Xiaomao's leisure life each month was clearly divided into two parts.

The first half of the month, right after she received her salary, she would spend her days shopping, dining, and buying things with her besties, taking beautifying selfies, and receiving likes in her social media circle; the latter half of the month, after she ran out of cash and maxed out her credit card, she would stay in her apartment surfing the internet, playing video games, watching web series, and participating in or watching various fan wars on forums and social media.

That afternoon, Li Xiaomao returned to her apartment after work, tip-toed out of her high heels the moment she entered, tossed her bag onto the bed, and headed to the bathroom to strip off her crisp office lady attire. She roughly stuffed her stockings into the washing machine, leaned on the washbasin, and with one hand reached into her tank top to twist and pull out a pink-patterned bra, hanging it on a rack on the wall.

"Ah, I'm so tired!"

Free from these constraints, Li Xiaomao felt completely relaxed. She changed into a loose-fitting cartoon pajama set, vigorously rubbed her hair in front of the mirror, and the woman in the mirror, devoid of any sharp professional image of a career woman, instantly transformed into a homebody and a dried-up girl.

Shuffling in her Hello Kitty slippers, Li Xiaomao yawned as she returned to the bedroom. She flopped onto her big, soft bed face up and pulled over a large pillow with a cat's face printed on it to cushion her back.

"Ah, I'm so bored, so bored. Having a boyfriend is more annoying than a dog, but without one, I get so lonely..." Li Xiaomao muttered to herself while she turned on her laptop to browse the internet.

She had been following a few web series recently, and one of them titled 'Never Would've Guessed' updated today. She clicked on the official website and saw the latest episode had been released.

This series was originally recommended by a colleague at work. There were many young people in her office following this series. After watching the first episode, Li Xiaomao was immediately attracted to the funny plot, the exaggerated character performances, and the unexpected plot twists.

Be it regular TV shows or movies, they generally tell a complete story. Regardless of how well they are made or how thrilling the plot is, watching them can be very tiring. 'Never Would've Guessed' broke away from the traditional format. It relied on nonsensical, dry-humor segments patched together, presented in a sketch-like manner, offering a stress-free viewing experience without any heart-wrenching content. It was perfect for relieving stress after a day's hard work, suiting the fast-paced modern lifestyle.

However, such series have a fatal flaw: the lack of a central storyline. Unlike traditional dramas that continuously pique the viewers' curiosity, keeping them eagerly awaiting the next episode, and since the humor tends to be more or less the same, it's easy to experience aesthetic fatigue once the novelty wears off.

Li Xiaomao belonged to the category of casual fans. She wasn't a hardcore one; she'd watch the series when she had free time to kill and to cheer herself up. After binge-watching the first season, she indeed started to feel some aesthetic fatigue during the second season. Although she would follow each new episode, she wouldn't wait in front of the computer for the release of the next one.

"La la la la la, la la la la... Never Would've Guessed... la la la la..." A familiar intro music played from her computer speakers, and every time Li Xiaomao heard this tune, she felt very relaxed. Discover exclusive content at empire

"I wonder what fun stuff will be in this episode..." Li Xiaomao said to herself with a smile.

Next, the screen turned black, and a man's voice that tried to sound serious, yet was clearly full of goofiness, promised the 'personal reading':

This episode is sponsored by Yangchuan City Dasheng Liquor Industry. Da Sheng Liquor, the drink of youth, friendship, and health, brewed by a monkey!

At the same time, a cheesy WordArt-style subtitle appeared on the screen.

"What the hell is Da Sheng Liquor? Sun Wukong, huh? What's this about a monkey brewing liquor? Do monkeys even know how to brew?"

Just from the first line, a string of questions popped up in Li Xiaomao's mind, and her curiosity was piqued as she continued to stare at the screen.

The screen quickly flashed an outline of the episode's story.

Like every episode, this summary zoomed by so fast that viewers hardly had time to read it, and Li Xiaomao could only catch a few keywords from the screen full of white text—

Father-in-law, brewery, Jumping King...

Following that, the melancholic face of the male lead filled the screen as he introduced himself with a voice goofier than Jiao Shou's:

"My name is Copper Hammer. To the outside world, I'm just a suffering construction worker, but my real identity is that of a professional fitness guy. Since my growing years, I've been training my fiery hot biceps every day..."

Just as Copper Hammer was showing off his fiery hot biceps, a bright red brick came out of nowhere and hit him squarely in the back of the head.

"Copper Hammer, come and move bricks!"

"Well, after five years of hard labor for eighteen hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year with no break, I finally saved enough for a down payment on a house. Today, I can walk with my head high into the upscale and luxurious community where my girlfriend, Xiaomei, lives, and propose to her parents... Hehe, just thinking about it gets me a bit excited..."

The scene shifts to a shabby shack on a construction site. A line of words appears above the shack, typed in Word: The High-End Hao Hua Community's Xiaomei's Home.

Copper Big Hammer was stunned, "Holy fork, did I remember it wrong? This is clearly just a little store in the shack. When did Xiaomei's place fall to such a state? And this is too sloppy, they even mistyped the luxurious 'hao'! No matter, I must get Xiaomei's parents' consent today, marry the white and wealthy beauty, and reach the pinnacle of life. I'd wager my fiery hot biceps if needed!"

Just as he was feeling proud of himself, Xiaomei, dressed in rags, rushed out of the shack and threw herself into Copper Big Hammer's arms, bursting into tears, "Big Hammer bro, I can't marry you!"

"Ah! Ah! Why is this happening!" Copper Big Hammer was as if struck by lightning.

Then, as expected, five crudely drawn lines appeared in the sky using Windows Paint.

Worried that the audience wouldn't understand what it was, they deliberately accompanied it with a few crookedly written large characters on the side: Five Thunderbolts. An arrow pointed to Copper Big Hammer's head, with 'struck his apex' written beside it...

The picture cuts to inside a room, where Jiao Shou, playing Xiaomei's father, is in bed coughing violently. With each cough, an irregular polygon created using Word's drawing tool bursts onto the screen, with 'blood' written inside in bold red letters.

"Indeed, a bloody scene! Uncle, what's wrong with you! Why haven't you died—no, why do you look like you're about to die!"

"Cough cough cough, Big Hammer, the situation is like this..."

The scene changes to a beautiful, secluded mountain area.

"Who could've thought, Xiaomei's dad has a terminal disease, and only the Da Sheng Liquor produced in Qinling can treat it. So now I must sneak into the Great Sage Liquor Industry to obtain the legendary item: Da Sheng Liquor for Marrying Xiaomei! Though I'm sure it's just an advertisement, for Xiaomei, I'd wager my biceps and more—what's a mere ad in comparison?!"

But I heard that the Great Sage Liquor Industry is full of dangers, with terrifying monsters lurking. Nobody has ever successfully stolen Da Sheng Liquor from there. Even the thief saint, Bai Yutang, failed and left the underworld to become a waiter... What a joke, am I, a man with fiery hot biceps, scared of a few brewers and watchful old men?! Beating up elders over sixty years old and children under eight is as easy to me as reading the lines on my palm, muahaha..."

The camera glides through the misty mountains, switching to Copper Big Hammer's perspective as he searches for the Great Sage Liquor Industry.

When the frame settles on a classical, idyllic building halfway up the mountain, Li Xiaomao's eyes light up, she mutters to herself in a daze, "Huh? This looks so familiar…"

At the same time, countless viewers watching this episode express the same sentiment: "This distillery, it's so familiar!"

As a casual player of World of Warcraft, Li Xiaomao almost immediately realizes that this distillery is strikingly similar to the exterior of a new level 90 dungeon in World of Warcraft called 'Storm Brewery'.

What's meant by 'strikingly similar' is that at first glance, it makes one think of the distillery inside the game, because the styles of both are virtually identical. However, if one were to look closely, they'd find quite a few differences in details, and it's not a carbon copy.

At the entrance of the distillery, the six bold characters written in powerful brush calligraphy read: Yangchuan Dasheng Liquor Industry!

The screen shows a distillery in surreal style, completely different from the ordinary image of factories bristling with chimneys and reinforced concrete. It looks like it could only exist in cartoons or period dramas, complemented by nearby springs and streams, and the swaying water wheel, creating an entirely serene, otherworldly scene.

"Huh? Since when did the special effects get to be so amazing? Could it be that Jiao Shou finally fired the head of the special effects team?"

Li Xiaomao first thought it was done using animation, but upon a closer look, she realizes it's an actual building.

"Wow, such a big budget? Just this building alone must have cost millions!" Li Xiaomao thought, surprised. She also worked in the animation industry and knew that although web dramas were popular, they didn't make as much money as outsiders might think. Spending millions on background for a single episode would be beyond extravagant.

It's not just low-budget web series; even big budget movies worth hundreds of millions rarely build a real set. They usually opt to rent film studios to save costs.

In the scene, Copper Big Hammer bursts into laughter upon seeing the Great Sage Liquor Industry from afar: "Muahaha, so it's just an ancient ruin, no security, no city management, not even a doorkeeper, what could possibly stop me from stealing the Da Sheng Liquor! Fiery hot biceps, let's set off with me!"

******

PS: For Labor Day, a holiday for work, of course, I have to work hard on my writing. It's necessary to have an outburst. I'll post three chapters of 9K in the morning, then roll back to sleep, and continue writing after getting up~~

Of course, asking for monthly tickets, subscriptions, and all kinds of support is also necessary. Cast your fiery hot biceps in the vote!!