January 1st, New Year’s Day.
Liu Yue had just finished her new resume and habitually opened a recruitment app, refreshing the interface.
The circle at the top spun for a few seconds, and after it finished reloading, the message column remained the same—nothing had happened.
“I’m really being silly…”
Liu Yue muttered to herself, “If an HR rep actually replied to me today, that would be the terrifying part.”
If a company was working even on New Year’s Day, she wouldn’t dare go there even if they offered her a job.
She turned off her phone and went to take a nap.
Perhaps it was because she wanted a job so badly, but she actually dreamed of an interview scene during her nap. The interviewer in the dream wasn’t even human, but a glowing ball of light.
The light orb claimed to be a Spending System from the Space-Time Administration, currently searching for a suitable host.
It asked Liu Yue if she was willing to help spend money, saying there would be rewards for completing tasks. Liu Yue was amused when she heard this—could such a good thing actually exist in this world? She accepted the offer immediately; even a second of hesitation would have been a sign of disrespect toward money.
Since it was a dream anyway, Liu Yue didn’t even bother reading the contract carefully. She coolly pressed her thumbprint on the signature line and signed her name.
Then she sat down in front of the light orb and heard it say things like “matching successful,” “identity background verified,” “currency unit confirmed,” “Reality Logic Chain automatically generated”… and so on.
In the dream, Liu Yue received a Black Card. The light orb said there was no upper limit to the wealth in this card, but she had to check in every day to receive a spending quota. Any unspent portion would be reclaimed by the system and would not accumulate, while any overspending for the day would have to come out of her own pocket.
Note: The money provided by the system could only be used for consumption. It could not be used for economic activities such as investment or lending, and charity was also prohibited. Items purchased with system funds could not be traded to others. If she wanted to give a gift, the system would consider the value of the item and the relationship between the two parties.
The “reward” mentioned earlier was a cashback rebate after successfully completing the day’s task, ranging from 10% to 100% of the task amount. This money could be deposited into Liu Yue’s other accounts and spent however she liked without system restrictions.
Whoa, this dream was quite elaborate, as if she really did have a Spending System.
Liu Yue nodded as she listened. Afterward, she saw the light orb turn into a floating transparent panel, showing that the system was loading, along with a particularly long progress bar.
Liu Yue waited for a while. Seeing that the progress bar wasn’t changing much, she yawned out of boredom.
How much longer was this dream going to last? she still had to work on her graduation thesis this afternoon…
—Wait, can a person feel so clearly that they are dreaming?
Realizing this, Liu Yue woke up instantly. She opened her eyes to see the bed curtains above her, feeling a slight sense of disorientation.
That was truly a strange dream…
She was about to stretch, but a cold sensation came from her right hand, as if she were holding something.
Liu Yue’s body stiffened.
At first, she felt the object in disbelief. Its size and shape were very familiar. She brought it before her eyes and even pulled back the blackout curtains to ensure she could see clearly and wasn’t hallucinating.
It was a Black Card.
The Black Card that had just appeared in her dream, which she had seemingly brought into reality.
At past eleven o’clock at night, Liu Yue was still sitting at her computer desk.
She had finished her resume at noon and was currently refining and modifying it repeatedly, purely because she had nothing else to do.
When she first discovered the Black Card and saw the transparent “Loading…” panel before her eyes, Liu Yue had been extremely excited.
As someone who read a lot of web novels, she had a high acceptance for this kind of supernatural existence. Furthermore, she simply couldn’t resist the temptation of someone asking her to help spend money and giving her rewards for it. For a stroke of luck like binding to a Tycoon System—something that usually only happened in novels—to actually fall upon her!
And then… came the long wait.
Several hours of loading time were enough for Liu Yue to cool down from her initial excitement. She glanced at the progress bar again, which was stuck at the very end and refused to move forward, making her wonder if she had encountered a Pinduoduo-style scam.
—Would the system tell her that she needed to get friends to help “boost” her before she could unlock the spending quota?
No way, surely no system would actually do such a thing?
As if it could hear the skepticism in her heart, the progress bar that Liu Yue had urged internally many times finally moved.
Liu Yue held her breath and watched the changes on the panel.
Once the loading was complete, the page turned into a beginner’s guide, and Liu Yue listened to the rules of the Spending System once more.
During the process, she originally wanted to record it with a mobile phone video, but the camera couldn’t capture anything. She recorded it anyway, but there was no sound when she played it back.
“It really is a miraculous system,” Liu Yue remarked. She then saw a robot avatar appear on the panel, with a string of numbers displayed below it.
A mechanical voice filled with an AI feel rang in her ear: “42937 at your service.”
“Hello, Host. It has been detected that you have not checked in today. Would you like to jump to the check-in page immediately?”
Liu Yue already knew she had to check in to get the money. She nodded without hesitation and clicked with her finger when the check-in button popped up.
[Check-in successful. Reward: Base check-in amount of 10,000 yuan.]
Ten thousand yuan! Just like that?
Liu Yue swallowed and couldn’t help but ask the system: “Where is the reward amount?”
System: “A ten-thousand-yuan quota has been unlocked for the host’s Black Card. However, please note that the check-in quota is only valid for the day. The calculation of the calendar day is based on UTC+8 time. It will expire if not used.”
“I know, I know.” Liu Yue couldn’t help but rub her hands in excitement. “Only ten thousand… I don’t mean the money is little. I’m just saying, you should have confidence in my ability to spend money.”
Although her ability to earn money was average, she was definitely great at spending it! Especially when it was free money from the system—it felt even better to spend!
It was only ten thousand yuan; it would be a breeze.
System: “The host misunderstood. Ten thousand yuan is only the base reward. After the daily check-in, a multiplier must also be drawn.”
“The multiplier ranges from one time to one million times. The product is the task amount the host needs to spend.”
One time was easy to understand, but one million times?
How much was ten thousand times one million? Liu Yue opened her phone calculator, and the result was “1e10.” This was scientific notation, representing a 1 followed by ten zeros.
Liu Yue counted slowly on her fingers: ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand… one billion, ten billion!
Ten billion! The result of ten thousand times one million was ten billion!
Although the “one million times” occupied a very narrow, almost invisible spot on the multiplier wheel displayed on the panel, Liu Yue’s heart still raced, her breathing grew heavy, and her outstretched hand trembled.
She clicked the center of the wheel. The pointer spun rapidly and then gradually slowed down.
The pointer was already about to stop at a place very far from the one-million-times mark. Although Liu Yue was disappointed, she also knew that ten billion wouldn’t be that easy to hit.
This was only the first day of binding to the system; there was no rush. There would always be chances in the future.
The pointer finally landed on the “ten times” area. Liu Yue could do this simple math problem: she could spend a hundred thousand yuan today.
With a hundred thousand in hand, the regret of missing out on ten billion vanished instantly.
Under the system’s guidance, Liu Yue bound the Black Card to her payment app.
“Is this enough?” Liu Yue couldn’t help asking. “Is this hundred thousand yuan really mine to spend? I can buy whatever I want? No other restrictions?”
System: “As long as it is used for consumption, you can spend it however you like.”
“A reminder to the host: it is currently 23:55. There are five minutes left before today’s check-in reward amount expires. Please hurry.”
Liu Yue: !!
What! She hadn’t even been paying attention to the time. Was it already this late?
With only five minutes left, Liu Yue didn’t even think. She opened Taobao and searched for iPhones.
iPhone 16 Pro Max, Desert Titanium, 1TB, 13,999 yuan. Added to cart instantly.
At this moment, Liu Yue didn’t consider at all whether she needed the performance of a Pro Max or if 1TB of storage was overkill. With the budget maxed out, just brainlessly buying the most expensive, top-tier configuration was the right move!
As for the color, she really didn’t have time to choose. They all looked the same once she put a case on, anyway.
Liu Yue didn’t leave the Apple flagship store and continued to open categories and add to her cart.
First, a computer—she clicked into the Mac category, chose to filter by price from high to low, skipped the first few desktops, and decisively added the MacBook Pro M4 Max, 1TB SSD + 48GB RAM, for 31,999 yuan. Again, top configuration. For the color, she chose Space Black.
Liu Yue continued to repeat the above steps. In the iPad category, she added the 13-inch iPad Pro with nano-texture glass and 2TB storage. Seeing that the cellular version was more expensive, she chose it without hesitation.
Now that she was in a hurry to spend money—spending a hundred thousand in five minutes—the more expensive the product, the better.
Space Black, 22,499 yuan. Added to cart.
She used the same method to buy herself an Apple Watch Ultra 2 with a natural titanium link bracelet for 7,499 yuan, and AirPods Pro 2 for 1,899 yuan.
Phone, computer, tablet, watch, headphones… the Apple ecosystem was preliminary in place.
Liu Yue switched back to the shopping cart page and found that the total price was 77,895 yuan, leaving a gap of over twenty thousand from the hundred-thousand target.
It was already 23:57. Adhering to the principle of securing what was already in hand, Liu Yue chose to pay first.
Checkout, confirm address, submit order, pay now…
The whole process was very smooth. Liu Yue looked at the little red dot above “To be shipped” in the order column, feeling a bit dazed.
Was it really this easy? Over seventy thousand yuan worth of items now belonged to her? Was she sure she wasn’t dreaming?
The system reminded her: “Host, you have two minutes left for your task.”
Liu Yue snapped out of it instantly, remembering the “expire if not used” rule the system had mentioned. Then she thought about how she still had over twenty thousand yuan unspent today—twenty thousand!
If those 22,105 yuan disappeared right before her eyes, how could she possibly sleep tonight!
Liu Yue didn’t usually have the habit of piling many items in her shopping cart, and the things in her favorites were too cheap—forgive her, she was just a poor college student and never imagined there would be a day she would be bound to a Spending System.
Items worth over twenty-two thousand… Argh, stupid brain, think of something expensive!
Her peripheral vision caught the bottle of SK-II Miracle Water on her roommate’s desk, and her eyes lit up.
Even though she couldn’t afford the stuff, she knew it was expensive—extremely expensive!
Liu Yue searched for SK-II Miracle Water and directly added the 230ml version to her cart.
A single bottle of this stuff cost over a thousand yuan. The old Liu Yue would have cried out that it was a robbery, but now she just kept clicking the plus sign in the shopping cart while constantly watching the change in the order total.
Two bottles, three bottles… By the time she added the thirteenth bottle, the shopping cart showed 21,830 yuan, which included a new customer discount.
She couldn’t add more. The system had said she would have to pay for any overage herself. She would rather spend a little less of the system’s money than spend too much of her own.
Liu Yue immediately chose to pay. The system thoughtfully displayed the remaining task amount: 275 yuan.
One minute left. She could still keep spending!
She hurriedly opened the search bar and typed in chocolate with flying fingers, adding the first item, Lindt chocolate, to her cart.
One bag was 600g and the price was over a hundred yuan. Liu Yue changed the quantity to 2 and found the price was 272.23 yuan.
Only two yuan left. This was right in Liu Yue’s favorites comfort zone.
She quickly found a simple bow hair tie priced at 2.88 yuan, a mixed-color five-pack. Now the shopping cart total was 275.11 yuan, and the system’s daily countdown had only ten seconds left.
Ten seconds was enough for Liu Yue, with her fast internet speed, to complete the payment.
She didn’t know how the system managed it, but the order showed that she first paid 275 yuan with the Black Card, and then paid 0.11 yuan from her account balance.
Seeing the task completed while the system time was still 23:59, Liu Yue let out a long breath.
She looked at her “To be shipped” orders again, then at her Alipay balance.
It was true. She had really spent only 0.11 yuan to get the Apple ecosystem, thirteen bottles of Miracle Water, and two bags of Lindt…
Actually, choosing three bags of Lindt directly earlier would have been faster, but Liu Yue simply couldn’t bear the cost. Over a hundred yuan was enough for her to eat for several days.
Liu Yue pinched her leg to confirm it really wasn’t a dream. Her grin almost reached her ears.
But the surprises the system had for her today weren’t over yet.
System: “The host has completed the January 1st spending task. Please draw your cashback income.”
Cashback! Liu Yue remembered!
There was indeed such a rule, she had just forgotten about it.
The system had said that the cashback income was the money that truly belonged to her. The quota in the Black Card was task funding, while the cashback was the task reward.
Liu Yue said impatiently, “Where do I draw it? Let me see, quick!”
The author has something to say:
*This work is entirely fictional and categorized under “Fantasy Modern Romance.”
*All brands mentioned in the text are for writing purposes and do not guarantee quality, nor do they represent endorsements or recommendations (the author is very obscure and cannot get advertisements).
*All product prices are based on information found by the author at the time of writing. The text will not be revised due to changes in real-world prices; the workload for that would be too great. Please forgive me (bows).