“Mom, how could I possibly be reaching too high for him?” Bai Tang wrinkled her melon-like face in anger. “Our family’s conditions are so good. Besides, I heard he lost a fiancée not long ago. That girl seemed pretty poor, and in the end, no one even knew her name.”
“Little brat, we just need to keep these things to ourselves. You must not go around talking about it everywhere!” The woman gently tapped Bai Tang on the head.
Bai Tang turned to Gu Qingjiao and sneered, “Sister, you should just stop coveting him. People have a fiancée, it is just that she is gone now.”
Her aunt felt awkwardly out of place for no apparent reason. “Yeah, we should be a bit more realistic. Shushu, you are around the right age now, you should find someone. Auntie is doing this for your own good.”
Gu Qingjiao wore a cold expression as she swallowed a piece of bitter tea leaf into her stomach. “Yeah, Auntie is so great, then your own marriage must be very happy.”
The woman was left speechless.
If she had been happy, she would not have had to bring her child to the Gu family alone to take temporary refuge.
Witnessing her parents’ arguments firsthand, Bai Tang felt a sudden tightening in her chest. She cautiously glanced at her mother and stopped talking altogether.
After dinner, the two adults were busy celebrating Bai Tang’s birthday, while Gu Qingjiao returned to her room alone.
The sound insulation in the small room was poor, so even with the doors and windows closed, she could still hear them singing birthday songs in the garden. The stage set up by the two adults was very pretty. Gu Qingjiao sat by the window and counted; there were a total of seven strings of colored lights and eighteen hydrogen balloons around.
How could they be this happy?
It seemed that the death of “Gu Qingjiao” did not mean much to her mother at all.
Just like before, the system screen instantly flashed a chat dialog box, except the content inside was no longer related to “Gu Qingjiao.”
Sugar: [So boring. The Gu family really turned poor, even the cake they bought tastes so bad. To think my mom sent so many New Year goods to their family, and they do not even give lucky money. These two mother and daughter are really something.]
Cannonball: [Do not be angry, hurry home after the birthday.]
Sugar: [We still have to stay here for a few more days, so annoying. Their house is small, ugly, and someone even died here.]
Cannonball: [Gosh, that is too terrifying! Tangtang, go to sleep earlier tonight.]
Sugar: [Whatever, things are wrapping up on my end soon, I will just take a shower and make do with sleep.]
Late at night, the girl’s footsteps stopped in the stairwell. She was hesitating over which bedroom door to enter. Her mother wanted her to go to Gu Qingjiao’s small room, but she did not want to sleep there. It might turn out to be haunted in the middle of the night. She felt that Sister Shushu’s room smelled better and the bed was more comfortable.
Half a minute later, the door to the large bedroom was pushed open. Pitch darkness met the girl’s eyes. She tiptoed inside, resting her right hand on the light switch beside the doorframe. “Sister, are you in? Can I sleep in here tonight?”
With that, she turned on the room light, and something appearing abruptly before her eyes startled her.
Realizing that thing was merely a hydrogen balloon, Bai Tang breathed a sigh of relief. Then she spotted a red envelope taped to the balloon string. Opening her eyes wide in pleasant surprise and seeing no one around, she hurriedly stepped forward to detach the red envelope.
“Looks like Gu Qingshu is not that stingy after all,” Bai Tang said happily while unwrapping the red envelope.
However, the moment she opened it, the girl’s smile froze. Three seconds later, a piercing scream tore through the night sky.
“Ah!”
Hearing the commotion, the two mothers rushed upstairs in a flurry, only to find Bai Tang trembling with a pale face, looking as though she had seen something horrifying.
“What is wrong, Tangtang?” The woman picked up the red envelope Bai Tang had dropped on the ground, took out what was inside, and was equally shocked as a result.
Folded inside the red envelope was a piece of joss paper meant for the deceased.
“This, this.” The woman did not know what to say either, since that family had indeed lost a daughter.
“Mom. Mom, I am scared.” Bai Tang cried aggrievedly, hugging her mother.
Seeing this, Mother Gu’s expression darkened. She immediately went over to the small room next door and called her daughter out, raging right in front of them, “Tell me! Did you do this on purpose?”
Gu Qingjiao rubbed her sleepy eyes and said lazily, “Is there a problem?”
“You scared your sister to death! Shushu, how old are you, why are you so insensible!”
“Sister?” Gu Qingjiao groggily glanced at the red envelope and joss paper in her aunt’s hand. “Right, that is indeed the lucky money I prepared for Jiaojiao, what about it?”
The scene suddenly fell silent, leaving only Bai Tang’s intermittent sobs.
Gu Qingjiao said, “I saw you guys having fun downstairs and did not want to disturb you. Mom, today is Jiaojiao’s death anniversary, did you know?”
A trace of sorrow flashed across Mother Gu’s face, but she quickly recovered and said softly, “I know the two of you were closest since childhood, and her passing has been a huge blow to you, I know that.”
Gu Qingjiao asked, “You are not sad?”
Mother Gu sighed. “Sadness changes nothing, Jiaojiao is not coming back.”
Hearing the original owner’s mother say this, Gu Qingjiao responded with a flat “hm.”
The other pair of mother and daughter in the room instead looked somewhat redundant. Today’s birthday girl, Bai Tang, refused to accept that the matter would be glossed over so easily. Opening her mouth to argue further, she was promptly and tightly gagged by the woman.
The incident came to an end, and the large bedroom was ultimately given to Bai Tang, while Gu Qingjiao voluntarily moved into the small room.
Days passed, but the wealthy cousin still refused to rest. She kept blowing out of proportion and complaining repeatedly about being “cursed” on her coming-of-age birthday.
Gu Qingjiao was frequently kept awake by her chat notifications flashing.
Intending to figure out how to mute notifications, she instead spotted a magnifying glass icon in the top right corner. Having never noticed the little thing before, Gu Qingjiao curiously tapped it, and suddenly the screen began to shake.
System: [Congratulations to the host for unlocking the search function. You can view all messages related to a keyword by searching for it.]
Gu Qingjiao was somewhat pleasantly surprised. Continuing to tinker while asking, “Little card machine is impressive, why was this feature never available before?”
System: [There used to be too many bugs so we did not dare use it. It is slowly getting fixed now, but this feature is currently just in the test phase and bugs might still appear, so you need to be mentally prepared.]
“It is fine, reading other people’s logs is not exactly an honorable thing anyway.”
Despite saying it was not honorable, her fingers were already poking at the keyboard.
Eagerly, she typed [Gu Qingjiao], but the results page came up completely blank.
“What is going on?”
System: [Gu Qingjiao is no longer in this world. To protect the privacy of the deceased, this system does not provide search capabilities for her.]
Gu Qingjiao: …
Was she being indirectly offended?
System: [You can try searching for living figures, like an ex or something.]
Gu Qingjiao: “Where would I get an ex?”
System: [None? Didn’t you call someone husband quite smoothly before?]
Gu Qingjiao chuckled twice. “Sorry, it just slipped out, I will pay attention next time.”
With that, she genuinely typed [Shi Lijin] into the search box.
After waiting a few seconds, the results page displayed a bunch of chat contents. Gu Qingjiao gave them a quick scan and indeed found some shocking conversations:
[It is over, the one in the X family’s Nanzhuang has truly gone mad!]
[His older brother used to only get soothing medicine from me, but the other day he switched directly to anesthetics, so scary.]
[Professional doctors do not even dare go near him, and I heard he still guards a dead person’s clothes all day.]
[How does a normal person just go crazy? And people were still hoping to marry a daughter in.]
[No way! His stepmother sent one in before, and she got tortured to death, so pitiful.]
[Do not spread rumors, that person died in a car accident on the Lantern Festival.]
Gu Qingjiao: …
She did recall the original owner’s aunt mentioning that Shi Lijin had gone mad.
Yet there was nothing particularly surprising about it, as this was ultimately Shi Lijin’s ending in the original novel.
She was far more concerned about how Shen Kewen was doing. However, when searching for that name, the system happened to bug out and failed to load, much like a senior citizen struggling to shake a phone for steps only to shake the battery loose.
Gu Qingjiao commented calmly: “If you used this feature to watch adult films, wouldn’t you drive people frantic?”
System: [Host, please watch your language!]
Unwilling to be looked down upon by her host, the system paused for a moment before deciding to spoil the plot for her directly: [Shen Kewen did not die.]
“Good then, I am going to sleep, good night little card machine.” Gu Qingjiao wrapped herself tightly in the blanket to sleep.
System: [Aren’t you going to ask why? Why are you so calm?]
“If you had died twice, you would be calm too.”
Gu Qingjiao fell asleep quickly. As long as the system did not pop up chat boxes to bother her, she could easily skip tomorrow’s lunch.
However, after Gu Qingjiao fell asleep, the system worked overtime frantically fixing the bug. Finally, the page loaded successfully, and the system excitedly shook Gu Qingjiao’s head.
System: [Host, I fixed it! I fixed it! Look, look quickly!]
Gu Qingjiao perfunctorily opened one eye.
Yet with just that single eye, she refreshed her worldview.
Early morning, the Shi family’s Nanzhuang.
Shen Kewen woke up from a dream, clutched the pillow beside her to her chest, and walked out of the room barefoot.
As soon as she stepped into the villa’s main entrance, a foot from inside kicked her right back out.
“Crazy woman, how many times do I have to say it? Our Er-shao will not see you! Get lost!” Jason’s insults did not vent his anger, so he snatched the pillow from her arms and threw it far away. “You get a place to live and food to eat, do not push your luck!”
“Son. Son.”
The woman ran about in a desolate daze to retrieve her “son,” the scar on the side of her face threatening to tear apart in the wind and snow.
“If it were not for you, how could our Er-shao have become like this! You still dare call him son? You are not even worthy of shining his shoes!”
“Stop!”
Jason was about to deliver a second kick when he was stopped by Shi Feng, who arrived from afar.
Shi Feng motioned for the girl behind him to stop her wheelchair. “Wanshu, please help pull Aunt Shen up.”
The girl addressed as “Wanshu” nodded gently, walked out into the snow, and pulled Shen Kewen up. “Auntie Shen, apologies.”
Shi Feng held up a small bowl, testing the temperature. “The medicine is getting cold. Wanshu, I will go inside to check on Xiao Jin first, please take Auntie Shen back to her room.”
Upon hearing the name “Xiao Jin,” Shen Kewen began to tremble as if electrocuted. She ran up to Shi Feng in a disheveled state and asked, “How is your younger brother? Did I hurt him? Shi Feng, I am sorry, yesterday. Yesterday I accidentally cut his hand and made it bleed. He must be in a lot of pain.”
Shi Feng smiled indifferently and beckoned to her. “Auntie Shen, squat down, I will tell you.”
Shen Kewen nodded and squatted down before him.
Following that, Shi Feng raised his right hand and poured the entire bowl of warm herbal medicine right over her head.
Shi Feng: “The medicine was getting cold, Xiao Jin does not like drinking it cold. Jason, could you trouble yourself to go get another bowl for me?”
Jason long since stopped finding such scenes strange. Agreeing with a nod, he left.
Shi Feng: “Auntie Shen, those were all things from the past, Xiao Jin does not blame you, otherwise he would not have told me to keep you safe and sound here.”
The last half-sentence carried deep meaning. The woman bit down on her knuckle, mumbling incoherently, “Shi Feng, Mom did not mean to.”
The girl beside them hurriedly stepped forward to support her. “Alright, alright. Shi Feng, you go inside first, I will take care of Auntie Shen.”
With a cold face, Shi Feng fully digested the word “Mom” just uttered before turning his wheelchair and entering the main gate.
Fifth floor.
A knock sounded outside Shi Lijin’s room.
“Xiao Jin, are you awake? Open the door and drink your medicine.”
No response.
Shi Feng continued, “Jason and I discussed it yesterday and decided to restore Nanzhuang to how it used to be. The house is too desolate and oppressive; having a bit more liveliness might actually help your condition.”
With that, the door inside clicked open, and Shi Feng immediately let out a sigh of relief.
Yet when he saw Shi Lijin’s state once more, the smile hanging on his lips inevitably fell.
“Xiao Jin.”
“Where is the medicine?” Shi Lijin’s voice was exceptionally cold.
“The medicine will be here shortly,” Shi Feng said, lowering his head.
He dared not look any longer.
That bloodless face, he dared not look at it again.
A few minutes later, Jason hurried over frantically, but Shi Feng noticed he was not holding medicine; instead, he was hugging a tablet to his chest. Just as Shi Feng was about to scold him for being careless, his voice was drowned out by the other.
“Er-shao! Er-shao! Look what I found!”
Jason aimed the screen directly at the doorway, his finger tapping frantically on a small dot within the software as he said excitedly, “Er-shao! She is back!”
The atmosphere fell silent for a moment before a slender, fair hand finally reached out from inside the room and pulled the tablet inside.
Medicine.
This was truly the best medicine.