[System: And so, unable to bear the pressure, the Real Heiress took her own life.]
[System: Yet, not a single member of the Jiang family mourned her passing. Upon hearing the news, Jiang Yu gently comforted the bereaved parents, Father Jiang and Mother Jiang. She even announced her engagement date with the Fu family ahead of schedule, finally bringing a smile back to their faces.]
After reading out Jiang Ning’s original ending, the System expressed its concern: [Host, there is less than a month left until the Original Host’s destined time of death in the plot.]
[Your power has been significantly reduced. You must find a way to recover your strength. Otherwise, it will be difficult to resist the formidable force of the World’s Rules. We went through so much trouble to leave the Survival Game; we can’t just die here.]
Jiang Ning looked down at her hands. They were pale and slender, but they looked healthy enough—completely different from her old hands, which were so translucent you could see the veins beneath the skin.
Jiang Ning was originally a BOSS in the Main God’s Survival Game. Like most BOSSes, she initially had no consciousness of her own, merely obeying the Main God’s commands and waiting for each game session to begin.
She completed tasks assigned by the Main God, rewarded players who successfully cleared the levels, and exiled those who failed. She spent countless years within the game.
However, the arrival of the System shattered this cycle. It gave Jiang Ning self-awareness. No longer willing to be the Main God’s puppet, she seized an opportunity and fled.
She didn’t really know why she wanted to leave. She just felt like it, so she did. The Main God had made her work for so many years without ever asking if she wanted to, after all.
“How can I change the plotline?” Jiang Ning asked.
[System: As long as the Host can recover a portion of your power, it should be fine.]
The System offered a suggestion: [The rules of this world are robust. If the Host wants to recover power, the best way is to create works that gain recognition from the humans of this world to earn “Heartbeat Points.” These Heartbeat Points can be converted into lifespan.]
It paused, then added: [Approximately 1200 Heartbeat Points can extend the Host’s life by one day.]
The System was a bit worried. Could its Host actually write a novel?
Jiang Ning, however, remained calm. “Okay, I understand.”
After speaking with the System, she began reviewing the summary of the world’s future development provided by the System.
The Original Host was a “Real Heiress” from a wealthy family, but she was switched at birth and grew up in the countryside. It wasn’t until two months ago that the Jiang family found her and brought her back.
But after bringing her home, the Jiang family found fault with her at every turn. They gave her the cold shoulder, and even the servants looked down on her.
Meanwhile, the “Fake Heiress,” Jiang Yu, constantly set her up.
The Original Host never expected that her return to the Jiang family, filled with a longing for familial love, would result in such treatment. She became increasingly extreme and unhinged.
The Jiang family grew more and more disappointed in her, feeling that she really was just a country bumpkin who had been completely led astray by that old rural woman who raised her.
Last week, the Fake Heiress framed the Original Host for pushing her, which enraged the youngest son of the Jiang family, Jiang Shu.
In a fit of rage, the hot-tempered Jiang Shu stormed home and decided to apply “an eye for an eye,” pushing the Original Host down from the second floor.
Now, the Original Host had been lying in the hospital for a week. Not a single person from the Jiang family had come to visit. They evidently felt she “got what she deserved” and were leaving her alone to reflect on her sins.
[System: Host, today is the day Jiang Ning is discharged in the original plot. You should go straight back to the Jiang residence and see if you can find an opportunity to earn Heartbeat Points.]
The Fake Heiress, Jiang Yu, had a metaphysical constitution: passersby near her were prone to bad luck. Light cases involved serious injury; severe cases resulted in death without a corpse.
Jiang Ning couldn’t figure out why.
She was a human, not a monster. Why did people always die around her?
There was no point in hiding. Without Heartbeat Points, the plot would proceed as destined no matter where she ran.
Sure, she might die a different way, but dead is dead. It made more sense to go directly to the Fake Heiress and see if she could fleece some points off her.
Besides, she had just come out of the Survival World and didn’t know what else to do. Looking around casually seemed like a good start.
Suddenly, the door to the hospital room opened. In walked a young man with red hair and a studded cross earring.
His exquisite face was filled with impatience and hostility toward Jiang Ning. His concert had just ended, and he had been dragged here by his older brother, Jiang Liu, to apologize to Jiang Ning and invite her home. He was holding back a bellyful of fire.
Jiang Shu had debuted as an idol at a young age. He was proud and unruly, acting like a simp only for Jiang Yu. Even his parents couldn’t really control him.
Right now, he was fuming. “You fell from a height of two meters and stayed in the hospital for a week—isn’t that enough? How much longer do you plan to play the victim?”
He scoffed disdainfully. “Do you think acting pitiful will make me apologize? Keep dreaming!”
He swept his gaze over Jiang Ning, secretly relieved that it wasn’t Jiang Yu who had tumbled down the stairs. If it had been her, he would have been too worried to even hold his concert.
If this were the Original Host, her heart would have turned cold once again. But Jiang Ning was unmoved. In fact, she found it somewhat novel.
After becoming a BOSS in the Survival Instance, very few people dared to yell at her like this. Screaming in terror, however, was quite common.
She looked Jiang Shu up and down and asked, perplexed, “Do you hate me that much?”
This attitude didn’t seem like how one would treat a sister; it was more like how one would treat an enemy.
If it were due to later misunderstandings about her character, it might be excusable.
However, Jiang Shu had treated the Original Host like trash from the moment she arrived at the Jiang house.
Jiang Shu didn’t expect Jiang Ning to lack such self-awareness to ask a question like that. His face twisted with resentment as he snapped, “Of course I hate you! If it weren’t for you, why would Sister be so depressed these days?”
His wonderful sister was constantly anxious, giving in at every turn, and suffering grievances, all because of Jiang Ning. If he weren’t afraid of making things difficult for his sister, he would have beaten Jiang Ning up long ago.
Jiang Ning looked confused. As a Survival BOSS, this was her first time being human. She genuinely didn’t understand how human minds worked.
She thought for a moment and asked, “Is she depressed because she feels guilty and thinks she wronged me?”
Jiang Shu choked. Since when did this woman become so sharp-tongued after a few days in the hospital?
Jiang Ning didn’t wait for his reaction. She nodded to herself. “Makes sense. There are so many urban legends in Xiaonan Village. If I hadn’t been tough, she would have died there long ago.”
Jiang Shu was furious. “What kind of nonsense are you spouting? Sister doesn’t owe you anything! And she doesn’t need to apologize to you. She did nothing wrong. It was your own bad luck that you were switched. Why blame it on Sister?”
With a simple phrase, “bad luck,” he lightly brushed aside decades of the Original Host’s suffering.
At this moment, Jiang Ning felt that Jiang Shu might be less human than she was. She looked at him, her pitch-black eyes devoid of any emotion.
Jiang Shu shivered under her gaze.
Why are Jiang Ning’s eyes suddenly so terrifying?
Cold sweat broke out on his back, and his confidence wavered. “…Jiang Liu is waiting for you at the entrance.”
He dropped that sentence and walked away, completely disregarding Jiang Ning’s difficulty walking.
In the end, a kind nurse wheeled Jiang Ning out.
Jiang Liu had been waiting outside for a long time. Seeing Jiang Ning emerge, he was about to help her into the car, but in the blink of an eye, she was already inside.
Jiang Shu didn’t want to look at Jiang Ning’s face, so he took the passenger seat, leaving only Jiang Liu outside.
Jiang Liu: “…”
These two never ceased to worry him.
He got into the car and buckled his seatbelt. “Your injuries are better, right? I saw you moving around just now; it seemed okay.”
Jiang Ning spoke truthfully. “I can barely walk. It just hurts a bit, and I can’t walk for too long.”
After that sentence, Jiang Ning fell silent.
Jiang Liu gradually felt awkward and tried to find a topic.
He actually didn’t like Jiang Ning either. He felt she was inferior to Jiang Yu in every way and acted pettily.
But as a CEO for so long, he liked to keep up appearances, so he expressed concern: “If there’s anything inconvenient when you get home, you can tell me.”
He paused, thought of Jiang Yu, and added, “Your sister was frightened badly by you. If you have time when we get back, remember to apologize to her. She hasn’t slept well for days because of this incident. She was afraid you’d be angry, so she didn’t dare visit you in the hospital.”
“She really wants to get along with you. Don’t always hold a grudge against her.”
Jiang Ning, on her first day as a human, was increasingly confused. “I didn’t push Jiang Yu, yet I have to apologize to her. So why doesn’t Jiang Shu have to apologize to me?”