The year 2024 dawned bright and sunny.

Model employee Shen Yi took a rare weekend off to undergo hemorrhoid surgery. Anesthesia was already administered when his boss called, demanding he work overtime.

Bosses worldwide are cut from the same cloth.

When you’re at work, your presence is negligible; the moment you take leave, the company grinds to a halt without you.

Over the phone, his boss spoke with a tone of earnest persuasion, implying that hemorrhoids were hardly a grave illness and questioning why Shen Yi chose the company’s busiest period for surgery.

In essence, the message was: “If you can endure the hemorrhoids, endure them. If you don’t show up today, don’t bother coming back at all.”

Before even reaching the operating table, Shen Yi was so enraged it killed him.

He died at the age of 24.

>>

It turns out there really is a soul after death.

Shen Yi felt himself become weightless, like a gust of wind, or poplar fluff drifting gently on the breeze, then floating into water, transforming into a fish, with ripples spreading in undulating waves.

But it wasn’t just a feeling.

Shen Yi truly sensed a viscous fluid surrounding him.

He tried to open his eyes, only to let out a silent scream the next second.

Literally.

He screamed, with all his might, but no sound escaped.

In his “field of vision,” a bizarre scene unfolded.

A narrow, cramped cylindrical space, at the bottom of which curled a C-shaped worm.

Pale and plump, with a pointed head, and it was wriggling.

Shen Yi froze, and the worm stopped moving too.

Within seconds, Shen Yi’s brain short-circuited.

Good news: He had been reborn.

Bad news: He had turned into a—maggot?

Something worse than being angered to death by his boss’s overtime call on the operating table had just happened.

Ten thousand “f*ck my life’s couldn’t describe Shen Yi’s feelings at that moment.

He froze completely, not daring to contemplate what the yellow liquid surrounding him actually was.

Murky, sticky, with suspended particles.

The most devastating part was that he actually found it damn sweet and enticing.

—Dammit, just end me already.

No species discrimination intended—he simply had no desire to eat sh*t.

Whoever wants to eat this crap can go ahead; he absolutely couldn’t live like this.

But…

—Hiss, what kind of crap is this? How does it smell so good?

In that fleeting moment, fate posed him a soul-searching question—which would you choose: chocolate that tastes like sh*t or sh*t that tastes like chocolate?

Shen Yi snapped back to reality, too afraid to move.

—He had actually been thinking that sh*t smelled good!

Shen Yi completely broke down, questioning his existence.

—Heaven above, earth below, bear witness.

—Becoming a maggot was beyond my control, but eating sh*t is absolutely out of the question.

—He, Shen Yi, would rather starve to death, wither into a dried-up insect, than take a single bite!

—He wouldn’t even open his mouth!

Shen Yi resolutely “closed his eyes,” determined to starve himself to death and expedite his reincarnation tenfold to begin his next life.

One second, two seconds… sixty seconds… His stomach felt like a bottomless pit, desperately signaling for food, as if a devil was luring his soul with seductive whispers.

Shen Yi’s willpower gradually weakened, and biological instinct took over his body.

In the end, it was determined that Shen Yi’s limit was only three minutes.

By the time his intelligence reclaimed dominance, most of the sticky liquid around him had already disappeared.

Shen Yi: …

—Such fragrant food definitely couldn’t be sh*t… right?

Absolutely not! No way.

Then again, if an ugly duckling can become a swan, why can’t a maggot baby transform?

They’re both winged creatures—why should there be a hierarchy?

When the time comes, the world will be vast, and he’ll soar freely.

With human memories and the experience of flying with wings, he dared say no one in history had ever been so blessed!

He couldn’t choose his origins, but he could define his own future.

Even if he was just a fly, he would be the most unique and dazzling one.

At worst, he could change his diet and become a little fairy fly that eats leaves and drinks dew.

Thus, the pioneer of inspirational chicken soup in the insect world was born.

Inspirational chicken soup exists for a reason, and today Shen Yi fully experienced its wondrous use in self-deception.

The effect was immediate—he was fully revived.

The trauma of being surrounded by sh*t was already a thing of the past, not even worth mentioning.

Only a warrior who dares to face a life of eating crap is a true man—he now fears nothing.

With a blazing fire ignited in his chest, the true man Shen Yi squirmed and struggled, clumsily adapting to his unfamiliar new body as he laboriously crawled out of the pit.

Once he reached the top, the sight before him left him stunned.

As far as the eye could see, countless small pits were densely packed together, each containing a plump white grub curled up at the bottom.

—Do maggots even get private digs these days?

Just as the thought crossed his mind, he suddenly felt a weight press down above him, followed by an unexpected force sweeping him back to the bottom of the pit.

A pair of enormous black compound eyes blocked the pit’s opening, their slender feelers gently exploring and brushing over his body.

He should have been terrified, but the gentle pressure felt oddly soothing, like a silent, gentle soul massage.

To his surprise, he felt an unexpected sense of intimacy and comfort, as if his very soul had melted.

In his dazed state, he caught a glimpse of a fuzzy striped yellow-and-black behind that looked strangely familiar.

Was that—a bee?

Shen Yi suddenly understood.

Thank God.

Besides maggots, plump white wriggling creatures could also be bee larvae.

Maggots are scavenger-style, crowded together with their siblings, piled on top of each other, wriggling densely through filth, surviving on their own.

But bee larvae are born with their own private quarters, living a life of ease, cared for round-the-clock by dedicated nurse bees, fed purely on pollen and honey—natural, pollution-free, and impeccably clean.

Oh, so he was still a clean little guy who had never eaten waste.

As his fortunes reversed, Shen Yi hugged his chubby body, shedding tears of relief.

So much so that he didn’t even realize how bizarre it was for a human to feel grateful and delighted about being reborn as a bee.

But there’s no such thing as a free lunch in life—every gift fate bestows comes with a hidden price tag.

Free-range maggots grow up to be self-employed, responsible for their own gains and losses, deciding how much or how little they work. Hive workers with room and board, on the other hand, spend their entire lives laboring, and if something goes wrong, it’s not considered a work injury—it’s just natural loss.

That damn familiar vibe…

Shen Yi recalled his past life dominated by overtime, and his resentment instantly grew deeper than a ghost’s.

Working from dawn to dusk, yet his pockets were empty—even the turtle in the wishing well probably earned more than he did.

Good news: His resume in this life was clean, with no history of eating waste.

Bad news: In this life, he was a bumblebee, a famously hardworking workhorse in the bee world.

Dedicated, efficient, and adaptable, he could put in 18-hour days without a peep.

It was as if he was born for labor.

As long as it didn’t kill him, he’d work himself to death—a worker among workers.

His only saving grace was being cute?

Did this mean that even after rebirth, he was still stuck being a worker?

Please, no.

A human laborer reborn as an even more diligent worker bee.

God, your methods of toying with people are quite unique.

>

Still, compared to the possibility of becoming a maggot, anything else seemed wonderful.

Shen Yi devoured the delicious royal jelly in large mouthfuls, not breathing a word about his earlier swearing to high heaven.

—He had only thought it in his mind, never spoken aloud. Heaven and earth didn’t know, and what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

—So delicious.

Shen Yi had never been as laid-back in his previous life as he was now. Lying in his cell, eating pollen and honey when hungry, sleeping when tired—life was sweet.

But when a person has too much free time, their mind tends to wander, and Shen Yi’s thoughts began to stir.

After he finished the fragrant royal jelly in his cell, it was gone. The nurse bees caring for him now fed him only pollen and honey.

Since realizing he was a bumblebee larva, Shen Yi had scrambled his memory to scrape together bits of educational bee videos he’d watched in his past life.

The queen bee lays two types of eggs: unfertilized eggs develop into drones, while fertilized eggs develop into worker bees and queen bees.

All larvae are fed royal jelly at birth, but those in ordinary cells later switch to a diet of pollen and honey. These larvae, having only tasted royal jelly once, eventually metamorphose into worker bees—essentially, all-purpose, jack-of-all-trades, expendable tool bees.

Larvae in queen cells, however, continue to be fed royal jelly and develop into queen bees—the bee-world royalty.

The eggs are the same; the key to becoming a queen lies in the diet.

In other words, theoretically, Shen Yi could also become a queen bee.

But only larvae laid in queen cells are the chosen lucky ones. Clearly, Shen Yi had drawn the short straw from the start.

Still, one must have dreams—what if they come true?

If luck wasn’t on his side, he’d bank on grit.

And when it came to skill, Shen Yi glanced at the chubby white grubs curled up in the honeycomb around him. Not to boast, but every one of them was a lightweight compared to him.

While the nurse bees were away, Shen Yi stuck his head out to peek outside his cell. The combs on this level were neatly arranged, uniform in size, with no specialty cells resembling queen cells.

Was the colony not planning to raise a new queen bee? Or were the queen cells not on this level?

Shen Yi was getting antsy. It was already his second day awake, and he didn’t even know whether, even if a queen cell appeared now, he still had a chance to become a queen bee. He had already been on pollen for a day.

If he ended up as a worker bee, would he be swayed by the queen bee’s pheromones?

Would he still be himself?

No one could give him the answer.

Shen Yi balled up worriedly in his cell. Perhaps in response to his prayers, Lady Luck finally turned his way.

On the third day of his grub life, the worker bees built three downward-curved, cup-shaped queen cell bases on each side of the comb’s edges.

Shen Yi stared intently at the six queen cups at the edge of the honeycomb, finally realizing that queen bee cells were built temporarily.

The Queen Bee would soon lay eggs in these cell bases, and he had to get into one of them before she took action.

This was his only chance.

Although his size was clearly abnormal, the single-track-minded nurse bees would most likely be driven by instinct to care for him as if he were a queen cell larva.

A bee that doesn’t aspire to be a queen isn’t a worthwhile human.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

He had had enough of the hardships of being a worker bee. If he couldn’t become the Queen Bee, he might as well die trying!

“Ding! Detected that the host’s desire intensity has exceeded the threshold. The ‘Good Deeds Bring Good Rewards’ System will fulfill your wish. Loading the Queen Bee assistance program to help you become the strongest Queen Bee.” Shen Yi wondered, “???”

“The Queen Bee assistance program has been loaded. The system is disconnecting. Have a nice life!” Shen Yi stared in disbelief, “!!!”

“Wait! Don’t go!”