“Three days ago, the Chinese Academy of Sciences officially established the ‘Interstellar Navigation’ Academy, marking the formal beginning of China’s strategic deployment for future deep-space exploration…”
“China’s richest man, Wang Fugui, announced yesterday that he will establish a biopharmaceutical company in the near future and is inviting top-tier talent from all fields to apply.”
“We interrupt the broadcast with a new report. Recently, alarming rumors have been spreading online about so-called ‘hidden sects’ and ‘reclusive cultivation families.’ They claim that the world is about to undergo a ‘spiritual energy revival’ and that the entire world order is about to change…”
“…”
The television embedded in the wall cast a faint blue glow, the news anchor’s voice carrying clearly through the enclosed space.
The living room, concealed behind heavy curtains, appeared to be empty. Only upon looking closer at the sofa could one spot the slender figure curled up in the middle of it.
Long black hair hung loosely and messily behind her head, partially concealing her face.
Her slender, pale fingers moved slightly as she casually brushed aside the strands blocking her vision. The woman raised her head, her bright eyes fixed intently on the images playing on the television.
“So, you’re saying that because the entire world is about to experience a spiritual energy revival, you, a System, came looking for me?”
The woman’s sweet, clear voice rang out, though there was an inexplicable chill in her tone that made the System in her mind shudder involuntarily.
It hurriedly answered, “Yes, Host! I awakened from chaos three days ago and randomly bound myself to you according to my programmed procedures. You are now my first Host. Everything I said is true.”
Its tone was urgent, as though it were desperately trying to prove its authenticity, yet its explanation sounded rather weak.
After hearing this, Xie Zhiyu’s expression remained completely unchanged. However, a thoughtful glint flashed through her bright eyes, illuminated by the electronic light.
She had merely fallen asleep in her living room. Who would have thought that when she woke up, there would suddenly be a System inside her head?
According to the unknown System, because the world was about to undergo a spiritual energy revival, it had awakened in advance and, through a series of coincidences, had bound itself to her.
At first, Xie Zhiyu thought she had suddenly started hallucinating. But the System was extremely attentive. In order to prove that it was real, it had even asked her to turn on the television and switch to any channel she wanted, then accurately predicted the news that would appear over the next several minutes.
While making its predictions, it repeatedly emphasized the matter of the “spiritual energy revival.”
Its behavior was so obvious that Xie Zhiyu felt as though she had encountered some charlatan con artist.
The woman frowned slightly. Knowing that television programs followed predetermined schedules, she did not immediately believe the System.
She picked up her phone, randomly entered a livestream hosted by someone she did not know, and coldly instructed the System to make another prediction.
After repeatedly testing it for nearly half an hour and listening to the System accurately predict every single thing the streamer would say, Xie Zhiyu finally, albeit reluctantly, believed the nonsense it had told her earlier.
“So you really are a System? What kind of System did you say you were?”
Coming back to her senses after all the chaotic chatter the System had predicted, she vaguely remembered that it had taken the opportunity to subtly introduce itself along the way.
“I am a Livestream Sales System,” it quickly promoted itself.
“There are quite a few useful products in my shop that will become useful after the spiritual energy revival. Host, believe me, I’m very useful!”
Although it had only just awakened, from its brief half-hour interaction with the woman, it could already sense her vigilance. Its tone therefore became somewhat ingratiating.
It was completely unlike those cold and ruthless Systems from novels.
Xie Zhiyu fell into an inexplicable silence.
Something felt wrong.
As though it had noticed her inner doubts, the System suddenly sighed and confessed everything in one breath.
“It’s like this. Actually, I didn’t bind myself to you completely at random. Let me think… According to the way you humans would put it, you’re basically cannon fodder in a novel. You’re going to die in a few days.”
“Cannon fodder?” Xie Zhiyu struggled to process those words.
Ten minutes later, after listening to the System’s explanation, Xie Zhiyu gradually began to understand.
The world she lived in was actually the setting of a romance novel. The female protagonist was her cousin, Xie Wenning, while she herself was an important cannon-fodder character in the story.
According to the novel’s plot, the world underwent a spiritual energy revival, and her cousin awakened a top-tier spiritual root. Her life took off from there, and she ultimately broke through the barrier separating worlds, becoming an existence comparable to an immortal.
And what about her?
She barely received any description in the novel. There were only a few sentences about her—
“Xie Wenning’s cousin had always hated her and targeted her constantly since childhood. Fortunately, evil was eventually repaid with evil. After the world’s spiritual energy revival, her cousin awakened the lowest-grade, unranked spiritual root. Before she could even adapt to this new world, she was killed when a flowerpot from a neighbor’s home fell and struck her in the residential complex.”
“…”
Looking at the passage the System had specifically pulled up for her, Xie Zhiyu felt a deep sense of exhaustion.
Whether it was the fact that she was a vicious cannon-fodder character in a novel or that her ultimate cause of death was being killed by a falling flowerpot—
There was a faint, absurd sense of humor to it all.
But the key issue was that, from childhood until now, the one who had constantly been targeted was not Xie Wenning, but her—the so-called vicious cannon fodder.
She couldn’t exactly allow the other party to bully her, so naturally, she fought back.
Perhaps she had fought back a little too hard.
But heaven was her witness—she had always been a model citizen with excellent morals.
Xie Zhiyu expressionlessly closed the floating text box.
“What does this have to do with you binding yourself to me?”
The System replied quietly, “When I awakened, I also gained knowledge of the novel’s plot. At the time, I didn’t have enough energy, so I could only randomly bind myself to someone from the novel. Who knew I’d end up binding myself to you? I don’t have enough energy to change Hosts now. If you die, I’ll disappear as well.”
By the end, even its electronic mechanical voice carried a hint of tears.
Case solved.
No wonder it had been so attentive earlier. If she died, it would disappear completely as well.
For a System that had only just awakened, that kind of destruction was no different from the heavens collapsing.
It cried so hard that it could barely catch its breath, occasionally letting out a sob. It sounded just like a crying child, utterly pitiful.
Its crying echoed continuously in her mind.
Xie Zhiyu was becoming increasingly irritated by the noise. She rubbed her temples and finally interrupted it.
“Alright, alright. Stop crying like I’m dead. I’m still alive.”
It was crying so miserably that anyone unaware of the situation might have thought something had actually happened to her.
The System sniffled and gradually stopped crying. Hearing her words, it let out an involuntary hiccup and secretly examined her.
That long black hair almost completely covered her body, and she was so thin that she looked as though she could snap with a single squeeze…
Honestly, if her complexion had not still looked fairly rosy, it would have thought Sadako had crawled straight out of a television drama.
It felt even more miserable.
“You don’t look very healthy either…”
How unlucky could it be?
It had actually ended up with such a sickly Host.
“…”
Xie Zhiyu’s silence was deafening. The disgust on her face was impossible to conceal.
“You expect someone who just quit her job to sit at home looking like a normal human being?”
As she complained, she finally reached up to straighten her messy hair. Shuffling over in her slippers, she casually pulled open the heavy curtains.
Brilliant sunlight streamed through the glass windows, illuminating the enormous living room.
Standing beside the window, the woman lazily turned her head to the side.
A moment ago, she had looked like a female ghost.
But the next moment, with sunlight falling across her face, she was breathtakingly beautiful.
“Wow.”
The System instinctively exclaimed, “Host, no wonder you were someone the original female protagonist was always jealous of.”
She was so beautiful. No wonder the original female protagonist in the novel was always comparing her own appearance with Xie Zhiyu’s.
Because Xie Zhiyu really was beautiful.
How had someone like her become cannon fodder in a novel?
The System vaguely sensed that something about this was strange, but before it could think further, Xie Zhiyu had already opened the System panel and begun examining it.
The initial panel provided by the System was extremely simple. It contained only her personal Host information and a shop section.
She first checked her personal panel.
[Name: Xie Zhiyu]
[Age: 25]
[Luck Value: 33]
[Spiritual Root: ???]
[Cultivation: 0]
[Number of Livestreams: 0]
[Popularity: 0]
The lines of text were perfectly clear. Xie Zhiyu merely glanced at them before turning her attention to the other section.
The previously clean panel was instantly filled with flashy lettering.
The four enormous characters “Redemption Shop” occupied nearly the entire screen. Only after several seconds did they shrink back to their original size, revealing the products inside.
There were two rows, with three products in each row, making a total of six products per page. However, the total number of pages displayed below was an unknown question mark.
“What does this mean?”
Xie Zhiyu pointed at the unknown page count and asked.
The System explained, “The number of products available in the shop is determined by your livestream popularity. The higher your Popularity Value, the more products will become available.”
Therefore, no specific number of pages was displayed.
Xie Zhiyu nodded in understanding and glanced at the six products on the first page.
There weren’t many products, and they were all of the same type, so she quickly finished looking through them.
Before opening the shop, Xie Zhiyu had made some guesses about what kinds of products it might contain. Now that she saw them, however, she couldn’t help but feel a little surprised.
Every single product on this page was actually related to spiritual roots.
—Spiritual roots.
The meaning of those two words wasn’t difficult to understand. What was difficult to comprehend was that something like a “spiritual root”—a common concept in cultivation novels used to determine a person’s innate talent—could actually appear in a shop.
Spiritual roots could actually be sold?
As though it knew what Xie Zhiyu was thinking, the System said proudly, “Host, you didn’t see it wrong. You can buy absolutely anything in my shop!”
“Even if you’re an ordinary person without a spiritual root, as long as you purchase one from my shop, you can immediately become a cultivator.”
“My livestream shop upholds the principle of equality for all. There’s absolutely none of that hierarchy and discrimination you see in cultivation novels.”
It smugly made this promise, clearly quite proud of the products in its shop.
Those words genuinely surprised Xie Zhiyu.
She didn’t show it on her face, but her eyes quietly softened.
That said, while the System made it sound impressive, these products actually had conditions for unlocking them.
For example, these spiritual-root products required her to start a livestream once before she could unlock them.
She continued flipping through the pages and discovered that she could only browse as far as the fifth page at most. The products on all five pages were related to spiritual roots. As for the products beyond that, she couldn’t open them at all.
“Currently, the shop only has spiritual-root products available,” the System explained. “Aside from spiritual-root products, which require you to start a livestream, the other locked products require different conditions to unlock. That’s why you can’t see them yet.”
In other words, if she started a livestream and sold products right now, the only things she could sell were these spiritual roots.
“Selling spiritual roots… Is that really going to work?”
Having never sold anything this bizarre—something that practically screamed scam—Xie Zhiyu couldn’t help hesitating.
She was worried that the moment she started streaming, it wouldn’t be long before the platform moderators discovered her and banned her livestream room.
It wasn’t as though she had never seen things like that happen before.
Xie Zhiyu lowered her head slightly and looked at the livestream she had randomly stumbled upon on her phone.
Her finger moved up and down. With a casual swipe, the livestream in front of her changed again, and an energetic voice came from the screen.
“It’s true! I really am a disciple of a hidden sect. I grew up in the sect from a young age. About a month ago, our Sect Master told us that the world was about to undergo a spiritual energy revival and instructed us to descend the mountain and recruit disciples for the sect. That’s why we started this livestream to promote our sect.”
“Huh? You’re saying we’re scammers? Of course not! I already told you it’s real. You want me to demonstrate a spell? Hmm… I suppose I could, but—”
In the livestream room, which had only nine viewers, the voice of a young-looking man dressed in peculiar clothing suddenly cut off.
A moment later, the entire livestream room displayed a banned notice.
Xie Zhiyu fell silent.
Recently, the phenomenon known as the “spiritual energy revival” had swept across the entire country, sparking considerable controversy.
At first, someone had started a livestream and vaguely hinted that the world was about to undergo tremendous changes.
Then more and more inexplicable people began livestreaming as well, claiming that the world was about to experience a spiritual energy revival.
Initially, the authorities had taken no measures to stop it and had even tacitly allowed it. But unexpectedly, as the popularity of the topic exploded, many streamers who were jealous of the traffic began jumping on the bandwagon.
Quite a few viewers were consequently deceived. On top of that, a series of streamers claiming to represent hidden families, hidden sects, and the like suddenly began publicly recruiting disciples.
Only then did the authorities finally step in to crack down on the situation.
As a result, whether it was entertainment news or official news, all the anchors now had exactly the same message:
—“Spiritual energy revival? That is nothing but nonsense. Citizens are advised not to panic. The Anti-Fraud Center has already established an automatic interception system for such messages. At the same time, we welcome members of the public to actively report criminals in order to eliminate fraudulent activities…”
Under normal circumstances, Xie Zhiyu might not have noticed anything unusual.
But now that she had the System, she could see that there was clearly a deeper meaning behind all of this.
The System had appeared at an inconvenient time, and she didn’t dare court trouble during such a sensitive period.
Besides, even if she really started a livestream now and the authorities didn’t ban her, that didn’t mean anyone would actually watch it.
All things considered, now was not a good time to start streaming.
Perhaps she should wait until the waters became even muddier. Once she blended herself into the chaos, she wouldn’t attract attention so easily.
She pondered this for a while. Thinking of the Chinese authorities, Xie Zhiyu cautiously asked, “Then can I tell other people about your existence? For example, the authorities?”
The moment she finished speaking, the System immediately refused.
“No! I’m only bound to you, Host. If you reveal my existence, you’ll be affected by the power of the rules and directly erased by them.”
Xie Zhiyu pressed further, “Then what happens once I start livestreaming? What about the things I sell in the livestream?”
“You’ll have to explain that yourself, Host. I’m only responsible for accurately delivering the products you sell into the hands of the buyers,” the System replied with complete confidence, utterly unconcerned about whether she lived or died.
“Your after-sales service is way too ruthless,” Xie Zhiyu muttered. “You’re even more heartless than my former company.”
Although she said it casually, there was clearly a great deal of resentment toward those three words—“former company.”
Xie Zhiyu had originally been a game concept artist at a major corporation. Unable to tolerate the endless overtime and her supervisor constantly targeting her, she had officially left the company just one day earlier.
The moment she resigned, she immediately went home and slept like the dead. In the morning, her mother woke her up for breakfast, after which she went back to the sofa and slept until past four in the afternoon. When she woke up, she encountered the System.
Even after something like this happened, despite having been awake for less than an hour, she already felt tired again.
She curled up on the sofa, her body enveloped by its softness, listening to the System ramble on and on about starting a livestream. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
She responded absentmindedly until she accidentally heard something the System said.
“Host, can we really do this?”
The mechanical electronic voice sounded somewhat dry this time, revealing a hint of anxiety.
The room was so quiet that even the sound of a needle dropping to the floor could be heard.
The System’s uneasiness grew increasingly intense. It remained silently on the verge of tears in its System Space until it finally heard Xie Zhiyu’s voice.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let you die.”
Her voice was extremely soft, yet the System heard every word clearly.
After saying that, she fell asleep. But those words gave the System immense courage.
It said nothing more and silently switched to standby mode. The living room completely fell into silence.
Two days later, Xie Zhiyu sat in her study and used her phone to open the most popular livestreaming app currently on the market. In the end, she selected “Start Livestream with One Click.”
“Starting the livestream! Starting the livestream!” The System in her mind immediately began celebrating as though it were beating drums and gongs.
Curiously, it looked at her phone screen and watched her slender fingers fly across it. A few seconds later, she entered the title of her livestream.
[Spiritual Energy Revival Live in 3 Minutes]
She placed her phone on a stand and then set up a timer.
Inside the livestream, half the screen displayed the timer, while the other half showed the window of the study that the phone camera was pointed at, dividing the screen into two sections.
Then she quietly waited for people to arrive.
The three-minute countdown on the timer was exceptionally eye-catching.
Even the viewers who had been drawn in by the title couldn’t help but stare at it again and again.
And so, the first comment appeared in the livestream chat.
[An’an Eats Watermelon: A countdown to the spiritual energy revival? Host, is this legit? You’re not just trying to ride the hype and get some traffic again, are you?]