December 1st, Saturday.

Another pleasant weekend.

Pei Qian slept until he naturally woke up, then got out of bed and ate breakfast while contemplating how to spend this wonderful holiday.

The GOG and ioi world championships were still ongoing, but there were no matches at this time—the earliest would be in the afternoon.

So how to spend the morning hours became a question.

Pei Qian thought about it and realized there weren’t any games he particularly wanted to play.

So he silently opened the AiLiDao website and refreshed the feed.

The refresh gave him a shock—Qiao Laoshi had actually posted a new update!

Pei Qian’s heart immediately skipped a beat. “Qiao Laoshi, you wouldn’t be causing trouble for me in the middle of your suffering journey, would you?”

“Did you edit a video on your phone? Or is this scheduled content you prepared earlier?”

“If you keep this up, I’ll have to raise your threat level in my notebook again!”

“If even a suffering journey can’t satisfy you, I’ll have to find ways to develop other, more stimulating projects!”

Considering that the roller coaster project at Terrifying Lodge was almost complete, and larger-scale “wonders” could be built next, Pei Qian wouldn’t mind expanding Terrifying Lodge further. On the foundation of the “Ultimate Horror” project, he could create an “Ultimate Ultimate Horror” to optimize Qiao Laoshi’s experience.

However, after clicking into the post, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a new video—just a simple text update.

“Don’t keep asking, dear viewers—I’m streaming today! Same place as usual.”

The post had been made at 7 AM this morning.

Pei Qian checked the time—it was already past nine.

By all accounts, the stream should have started by now.

But where exactly was it streaming? On the AiLiDao website, Qiao Laoshi’s streaming icon wasn’t lit up.

Clicking on the replies to the text update, he finally found the streaming location through the fans’ responses.

“Finally streaming? Great! I thought Old Qiao was going to ghost us again!”

“The suffering journey started almost a week ago, right? And you’re only streaming now? What’s your intention?”

“Exactly! You didn’t let us see the most miserable days? You’re treating us like outsiders. Unfollowing!”

“So where’s the stream? It’s not on AiLiDao.”

“New viewer? You don’t even know where Qiao Laoshi’s stream is?”

“We can’t name the rival platform, just know it’s that one platform that’s most unconventional.”

“Oh! Got it, it’s the one where you have to study for an hour, and can seamlessly connect to GOG matches, right?”

AiLiDao was developing its own streaming business, but currently its scale was far behind Wolf Fang Streaming, still in a niche state.

Qiao Laoshi mostly streamed on Rabbit Tail Streaming.

Of course, with Qiao Liang’s popularity, if he wanted to go to platforms like Wolf Fang Streaming, he could secure a decent streaming contract, but he hadn’t.

Because he was lazy.

Signing a big contract meant guaranteed streaming hours, and occasionally having to participate in PK battles, rankings competitions, and begging for gifts—Qiao Laoshi found it too exhausting.

In his heart, he still considered himself a video creator, an uploader. Making videos was his main job.

His fans already complained about him being a “pigeon” (constantly missing upload schedules) with his current video production efficiency. If he further divided his attention with streaming, what would happen? He’d have even less time for videos!

Signing contracts was easy, but if he couldn’t meet the streaming hours, his salary would be reduced to nothing. And if he wanted to change platforms, he’d face huge penalties. Wouldn’t that be awkward?

So Qiao Liang felt Rabbit Tail Streaming was just fine.

Plus, the atmosphere on Rabbit Tail Streaming was quite good, with noticeably fewer trolls.

Perhaps it was because people who watched streams there had endured the one-hour learning requirement, making them less impulsive. The comments they left were particularly polite.

Of course, another important point was that Rabbit Tail Streaming didn’t bind streamers. Qiao Laoshi could casually stream there, collect some gifts, and leave whenever he wanted without any burden.

Pei Qian didn’t know Qiao Laoshi’s thought process for choosing Rabbit Tail Streaming and found it quite perplexing.

“I’ve messed with Rabbit Tail Streaming so much, and you still want to stream there?”

“Is something wrong with Rabbit Tail Streaming, or is something wrong with you?”

“Fine, if you insist on streaming there, I can’t stop you. I can only tell Bao Xu to make you and Chen Yufeng practice more.”

Pei Qian silently opened Rabbit Tail Streaming, wanting to find Qiao Laoshi’s stream, but discovered he first had to spend an hour in learning mode or focus mode before he could watch any streaming content.

“Damn it!”

Pei Qian was speechless. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

No choice but to dutifully watch an hour of educational videos.

As the boss, Pei Qian could have asked Rabbit Tail Streaming to make an exception for him, bypassing this one-hour restriction, but he didn’t.

Mainly because it would set a bad example.

This one-hour restriction was his own idea. Now circumventing it seemed inappropriate.

As the saying goes, even the emperor is subject to the same laws as ordinary people. Mr. Pei had to follow his own rules, otherwise, wouldn’t everything fall into chaos?

Fortunately, an hour of learning time was actually acceptable. Now Rabbit Tail Streaming had many experts posting videos or stream recordings about news, current events, finance, history, and specialized knowledge across various fields, all counting as content in the learning section.

These videos generally ranged from 20 to 30 minutes each, so watching two or three would be enough time.

Pei Qian casually browsed and found that the learning section of Rabbit Tail Streaming truly had diverse content. There was even a lot of automotive content, such as driving techniques, vehicle maintenance, car reviews, and even some car reviewers had joined the platform—though their view counts weren’t particularly impressive.

Pei Qian wasn’t very interested in this and didn’t pay much attention. He found a finance video to watch and quickly completed the required hour.

When he saw the countdown end and the streaming section unlock, Pei Qian inexplicably felt a sense of liberation.

This feeling was somewhat like an elementary school student finally completing homework and being able to play happily.

Pei Qian immediately located Qiao Liang’s streaming room.

The stream had quite high viewer numbers. Obviously, not only had Qiao Laoshi’s fans arrived, but many Rabbit Tail Streaming viewers had also been attracted!

After all, it was Saturday morning, with matches starting in the afternoon, and there wasn’t much particularly interesting content on the platform. Qiao Laoshi’s stream was probably unique.

Being able to see Qiao Laoshi suffering alongside other experts, while unveiling the mysteries of the suffering journey—who could resist such temptation when it was free to watch?

In the streaming room, Qiao Liang was filming the massive climbing wall in the training base’s main hall.

Everyone was climbing one after another, with clean, agile movements and athletic skill.

After a week of special training, although their physical fitness couldn’t improve dramatically in such a short period, their climbing techniques had improved significantly.

Rock climbing isn’t just about physical strength; it often relies on technique. Tenda’s employees, who regularly worked out, already had good physical condition. Now with professional guidance, they were making rapid progress.

Only Qiao Liang was falling further and further behind the group…

The stream comments were basically polarized.

One group was saying: “Damn, everyone’s so good at climbing! Weren’t most people in this training camp Tenda employees? Each one is unexpectedly skilled!”

Another group was saying: “It doesn’t look that difficult. They’re not required to climb to the top, just climbing this short distance is easy for anyone with hands!”

Since most people had never tried rock climbing in real life, they didn’t have a clear concept of its actual difficulty—either thinking it was too hard or too easy.

Bao Xu stood to the side supervising, like an impartial, evil overseer.

“Qiao Liang, you’re up!”

Qiao Liang reluctantly stood up from the ground and handed the recording equipment to Bao Xu.

Bao Xu smiled slightly and reached out to take it.

Qiao Liang approached the tallest artificial rock wall and silently sighed.

After climbing the entry-level wall on the first day, he was the only one who hadn’t completed it—definitely the team’s weak link.

Then Bao Xu said he would definitely provide special training for him to help him catch up with the main group quickly.

But it was completely useless!

He had indeed improved, but others improved faster. How could he even complain about this?

Seeing everyone progressing so quickly, the training naturally had to increase in difficulty. In just one week, they had already advanced to this tallest natural-style artificial rock wall.

Of course, currently, no one could climb all the way to the top in one go, but at this rate, reaching the top was just a matter of time.

As for Qiao Liang, he hadn’t even mastered the other climbing walls yet, but still had to grit his teeth and tackle this tallest one.

Actually, according to Bao Xu and Sa Ziran’s intentions, Qiao Liang could have been exempted from climbing this tallest artificial rock wall. He could have continued practicing on the other climbing walls and come back when he was ready.

But Qiao Liang firmly rejected this suggestion.

There was no choice—he had his pride.

It was like going to a swimming pool where everyone else was happily swimming in the deep end, while you were still splashing around in the children’s area. How could any normal person bear such humiliation?

Moreover, he had to livestream!

Qiao Laoshi couldn’t lose face like that.

Of course, forcing himself to climb the tallest artificial rock wall would be embarrassing too, but at least it showed his courage.

If he was going to be embarrassed either way, he might as well choose the less embarrassing option.

Seeing Qiao Liang clumsily start climbing, the comments became unified and normal.

“Ah, so this is what rock climbing really looks like for ordinary people? Excuse my ignorance!”

“This suffering journey seems a bit off. Why does it seem like only Qiao Laoshi is suffering? Everyone else is adapting quite quickly?”

“Not necessarily. Although others are adapting quickly, their expressions clearly show they’re suffering too. Except for Boss Ruan and Yao Bo who seem to be enjoying themselves, the others have only physically adapted to the suffering journey, not mentally…”

“Shouldn’t this be banned from streaming? After this stream, plus the previous documentary, who would sign up for this in the future?”

“But obviously streaming isn’t prohibited. Look, traveler Bao Xu is even actively holding the camera for Qiao Laoshi. It’s like he’s afraid people won’t know about it.”