This meal was eaten quite happily by everyone.
Everyone except Lin Wan.
Well… Zhang Qin, who was prone to wild imagination, also ate without much taste, her mind full of thoughts about Lin Wan wanting to switch engagements with her and what she should do about it.
If Lin Wan knew what Zhang Qin was thinking, she would probably want to split her skull open with an axe, drain the water out, and take a look at what a love-obsessed brain actually looked like.
All she could think about was men!
Why couldn’t she think about her career instead?
Lin Wan lay on the bed, recalling the plot of the original novel.
Liang Qianjin was a hooligan-type worker. After entering the factory, he didn’t work properly and spent his days loafing around. No matter how seriously Master Zhang Aimin taught him, he refused to learn.
He even treated the factory’s safety regulations with disdain.
While working, he noticed a female worker from the factory office visiting the workshop. Lust clouded his judgment, and he tried to flirt with her, not paying attention to the machine he was operating.
As a result, his arm was caught in the machine. Instinctively, he grabbed onto the female worker, and instead of freeing himself, he dragged her into the machine as well. Both of them died.
It became a major industrial safety accident.
In order to secure compensation for his wife’s nephew, the factory director shifted all responsibility onto Zhang Aimin.
As Liang Qianjin’s master, Zhang Aimin was punished and demoted all the way down to the bottom.
He was reassigned to cleaning toilets.
The Zhang family’s financial situation instantly plunged into crisis.
Later, the original host, after failing to drug Guo Xuyang and unwilling to marry any of the “fish in her pond,” encountered someone looking to buy a job position. In order to raise money for that purchase, she was persuaded to steal a batch of discarded factory parts once…
That incident was later discovered by Guo Xuyang. Zhang Aimin had only stolen that one time, but it was enough for him to be written off completely.
“System, are you saying this is a parallel-world version of me? Honestly, after reading the novel’s original plot, I kind of want to beat myself up!”
The emotionless system mascot popped up:
【Novels are artistic adaptations derived from life—higher than life.】
Lin Wan understood.
This world was real, the blueprint for the novel, but novels inevitably contain exaggeration and secondary creation.
Reasonable.
She could accept that.
“System, in three minutes, I want all information on Liang Qianjin.”
Zhang Aimin was Huang Guixiang’s family breadwinner. Nothing could happen to him.
She could ask Huang Guixiang to stop Zhang Aimin from taking on apprentices, but that would only treat the symptom, not the root cause—and might offend Factory Director Tao.
In the future, he could also be given a hard time at work.
So Lin Wan decided to find another way.
The expressionless little system replied coldly:
【Each inquiry costs 500 points. You do not have enough points.】
【Please work hard. The more mail you collect and process, the more points you earn.】
Lin Wan’s fist hardened.
She earned one point per mail cycle, but checking one person cost 500 points—this was basically robbery.
“Fine then, I won’t take the recruitment exam anymore. I’ll just slack off.”
Just kidding.
She was someone forged through the dual pressure of clients and garbage companies in her past life.
She understood the principle: one step back leads to endless retreat.
In negotiation, whoever flinches loses.
The emotionless little system: “……”
Lin Wan looked at her fingernails and spoke slowly:
“I’m guessing you need me to complete tasks to earn points, and these tasks are related to mail collection and distribution.”
“If I slack off, what will you do?”
“If I stop working, can you maintain your energy?”
“When a person dies, their soul scatters. When a system dies, it turns into corrupted code and disappears.”
“Let’s die together then. I’m betting you can’t just randomly bind another host.”
Nothing in this world comes for free.
After calming down, Lin Wan concluded that the system must have its own agenda.
No profit, no action.
She decided to test it.
If she won, she would take control.
If she lost, she would at least find out the system’s bottom line.
“Don’t try to threaten me with things like electric shocks or erasing my existence for failing missions.”
“Let’s see who can actually afford to gamble here.”
The system: “……”
A brief silence fell.
Just moments ago, the system had indeed considered issuing an emergency announcement to scare Lin Wan: if she failed to complete the task within the time limit, the host’s life would be erased.
Lin Wan was its fourth host.
It had been unlucky from the start. Fresh out of the factory, it had consecutively been assigned three hosts who were hopeless romance addicts—spending every day tangled in tragic love stories and not doing a single task.
Because of that, it was downgraded from a “cross-time postal system” to a normal postal system. Even the time-space it operated in kept dropping lower and lower, until it landed in this low-energy world.
Not only could it no longer upgrade into a higher-level system or become a superior existence, but if this host also failed the basic mission, it would be completely drained of energy and disappear as corrupted data.
So, within its limited options, it had pulled in Lin Wan—who had died from overwork while working herself to exhaustion.
It had no choice. It had been traumatized by romance-addicted hosts.
[50 points.] the system finally compromised, stating the lowest price in an utterly cold tone.
Lin Wan, however, caught a fleeting trace of heartache on its expressionless face.
So fast she thought it might have been an illusion.
A sudden realization struck her.
She asked, “Those job postings before… you didn’t mark up the price tenfold and scam me, did you?”
The system replied coldly:
[Please complete tasks and earn points as soon as possible. The more points you have, the more system functions you can unlock.]
It didn’t answer her question at all.
Lin Wan was so angry she wanted to scratch it to death.
But back then she had been too excited about the job opportunity to think about bargaining.
At that moment, a new option appeared in her mind:
[Consume 50 points to exchange for complete information on Liang Qianjin?]
Lin Wan immediately blurted, “Ten points!”
That’s how bargaining worked—cut straight to the bottom line.
But the system simply vanished.
Only a selection interface remained, counting down from ten seconds.
Gritting her teeth, Lin Wan clicked “Yes.”
Instantly, her balance dropped by 50 points. She had originally earned 338 points, spent 100 on answer materials, leaving 238. Now another 50 were deducted—188 remaining.
A document bag appeared in her hands.
On the cover were large printed characters:
Liang Qianjin
Lin Wan quickly got out of bed and was about to open it when the power went out.
Sigh…
Electricity supply in the 1960s really was unreliable.
Blackouts were a daily occurrence.
She took out a flashlight and began reading the file.
It was a thick stack—containing even detailed family relations within three generations of direct and collateral relatives.
Truly “value for money.”
Lin Wan twitched her mouth and skipped the family section, focusing on Liang Qianjin’s recent records.
Holy—
This guy not only colluded with his cronies to steal scrap metal from the machinery factory, but also participated in the sexual assault of women alongside them.
They even drove one girl to jump into a river and take her own life.
These beasts.
In this era, women who were assaulted often didn’t dare speak out—because once they did, they would be labeled “damaged goods,” or even accused of seducing men.
More importantly, in any era, investigations like these would inevitably cause secondary and even tertiary harm to victims.
Liang Qianjin and his group relied on exactly this to act with impunity, ambushing lone female comrades in remote outskirts.
Lin Wan decided to report them.
But she could not expose the victims’ identities or circumstances.
She would only compile the details of their theft crimes and send them directly to the relevant authorities through the system.
During the “Strike Hard” campaign, just their stolen goods value alone would be enough to sentence them heavily multiple times over.
Sending reports through the system cost money, but earned points.
She sent three copies, spending 0.15 yuan and earning 3 points.
That slightly eased her mood.
But earning points one by one meant spending them in chunks of fifty or even a hundred.
The system was too black-hearted.
She had no idea when the authorities would actually trace Liang Qianjin.
No—she needed a backup plan.
Oh…
There was still Huo Xiao.
She also had to write him a situation report.
Lin Wan could only sit there under flashlight light, angrily writing her report.
Even after transmigrating, she still had to serve “client bosses.”
At this moment, her resentment was no less than Sadako’s.