[So, your wish here is for your adoptive parents to be able to start over from the beginning?]
[As long as you agree to complete the missions properly, I will submit an application for your adoptive parents over at the Reincarnation and Restart department so they can experience life all over again from infancy. Can you do that? Can you? Please, I am begging you.]
Lin Zhaoyang slowly opened his eyes. His head felt so noisy; he could not just lie quietly like a corpse.
“Can you hear what I am thinking in my head?”
Although he already knew the other party possessed supernatural powers, this kind of direct reading of his thoughts was still rather uncomfortable.
[Ahhh, I did not mean to! It is just because you are inside my system space right now that I am able to read it. Once you enter the game, this connection will disconnect.]
“Let us put that aside for now. Even if you do nothing and just tell me you have taken care of it, I will not be able to tell if it is true or false. Drawing a big pie in the sky does not mean much.”
“You might as well just let me stay dead. If there is an afterlife, I will go get reincarnated; if there is not, then my soul can just scatter into nothingness.”
[Ahhh, no way! This is the first time I have ever been rejected. We do not even have this kind of procedure on our end; I am going to have to file a report now. Ahhh, my supervisor is super fierce.]
[Ahhh, I can let you watch videos of them the whole way through! If you hope that they can still be a loving couple in this lifetime, I can apply for that too. Please do not reject me.]
Lin Zhaoyang rolled his eyes and rested his chin on his hand to think. If his adoptive parents could really live happily once more, then it was not completely out of the question for him to agree: “Can my adoptive parents be born into a wealthy family?”
If they had to go through another impoverished life, it would not have any meaning. He was terrified that his adoptive parents would not have picked him—Lin Zhaoyang—up, and instead picked Lin Xuyang. What if that person was not as sensible as he was? What would they do then?
[As long as you can agree to me, there will not be any problem at all. Rich second generation, childhood sweethearts, growing close over time, accompanying each other as they grow up, and living a happy life. How does that sound?]
To put it bluntly, is that not just a sweet pampering romance plot? That certainly was not difficult. An ordinary person’s life has no audience, but the lives under their system do. They could even turn this kind of romance, which felt too beautiful to exist in reality, into a television drama; they definitely would not be operating at a loss.
“If you can really do what you said, then I agree.”
It sounded like a dream existing only in fantasy. Although he should not make decisions for his adoptive parents regarding their lives, just as the other party had always hoped that he would live, he also hoped they would find happiness.
[Yay! Yay! I love you so much!]
999 was genuinely overjoyed, because there had never been a player who refused a second chance at life. Furthermore, Lin Zhaoyang was a player he had personally chosen; if the other party refused, he felt that his troubles would go far beyond just having his vacation ruined.
“Then when they start their second lives, can you let me watch the videos first? I want to see what my adoptive parents looked like when they were little.”
When Lin Zhaoyang was not speaking, he looked like a quiet sculpture devoid of much vitality.
Even when he spoke, he did so softly and slowly. Although his sentences were not short, his tone remained even, and the two of them had spent quite a long time just chatting.
[Yes, yes! You can tell me whatever requests you have. As long as they are not too excessive, I can agree to them.]
The matter regarding Lin Zhaoyang’s parents actually required consuming 999’s points to accomplish. Everything in life had a price, except 999 considered this an investment. Moreover, he was terrified that this player would just throw in the towel and quit, which was why he had not brought it up.
“Thank you.”
“What price needs to be paid?”
“There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world. Unconditional love only exists because parents are bearing the cost on your behalf.”
Though Lin Zhaoyang had consistently referred to them as his adoptive parents from beginning to end—doing so to remind himself that he was not biologically related and thus always keep their sacrifices in mind—he had always treated them as his real, biological parents.
[Ahhh, no need, no need! It is just some points; I can cover them for you, it is fine.]
“For things I want to do myself, I should bear the cost myself. Besides, I do not want to bully a child.”
Lin Zhaoyang had believed this ever since he was little. He hoped that regardless of poverty or pain, the price that ought to be paid by him should be borne by him alone, rather than torturing his adoptive parents.
[I can just pay for it at the beginning, it is not very much. Afterward, if you want to watch videos of your adoptive parents, you will need to spend your own in-game points. Don’t worry, how could we possibly let ourselves operate at a loss?]
The system was not a real child; setting its voice to sound like one in the past was merely a tactic to win the players’ sympathy and make them reluctant to refuse. It never expected that it would backfire today.
Greeting the reincarnation and restart department would probably cost a few thousand points and that was already with the friend discount. Wanting Lin Zhaoyang’s adoptive parents to live a sweet, pampered life would probably require over a hundred thousand points, something a player at this stage could never afford.
“All right, thank you.”
Lin Zhaoyang did not entirely believe it, but he still chose to accept this kindness. As long as a person is alive, they can always pay back their debts. The first thing he needed to repay was his adoptive parents’ debt of upbringing, and after that, he could slowly pay back the system.
As long as his body could truly remain healthy until the day he died, he would eventually be able to pay it all off.
“A rather sturdy hole-ridden little wooden cabin, a thatched shed that collapses at the first gust of wind but remains intact for now, and an adobe house with plenty of room for growth.”
As Lin Zhaoyang recited them, he could not help but chuckle. Each of the three dwellings had its own unique flaws: the little wooden cabin had a massive hole in the roof; the thatched shed—as he himself stated, would blow over at a single gust of wind; and the adobe house had a huge hole in the wall with a few missing roof tiles.
[Don’t worry, the first ten days will be sunny weather! As long as you manage to repair or upgrade your house within these ten days, you will be able to live securely. You can choose whichever one you like.]
999 was very lively, popping up to answer the moment Lin Zhaoyang showed even the slightest hint of worry.