Chapter 4
The billboard fell amid a rush of wind and the crowd’s horrified cries.
By the time Ye Mingchen noticed it, it was too late. He shoved his girlfriend aside and took the impact on his own shoulder. He crashed face-first to the ground and coughed up blood…
I learned the rest from the news.
In the pictures, Ye Mingchen looked wretched. His head and face were covered in blood, and he lay sprawled on the ground with all four limbs pinned. He looked like a still from a famous movie scene.
I smiled, savoring a trace of satisfaction. It felt as though I had reclaimed a little of the dignity his slap had taken from me.
Countless commenters praised Ye Mingchen as a wonderful man who had pushed his girlfriend to safety and sacrificed himself when disaster struck.
[Matchmaker God, did you hear that? Remember to tie my red thread to a man like him.]
[In my next life, I absolutely must date someone like this.]
[Another day of envying someone else’s love.]
[Other people’s love often moves me to tears. My own usually leaves me drowning in regret. o(╥_╥)o]
[Look at her boyfriend, then look at my husband. If danger came, he’d probably push me in front of it.]
[Is this sweetness trying to give me diabetes? ┭┮_┭┮]
[I came in full of righteous fury and left stuffed with public displays of affection. Praying this handsome guy recovers and gets his happily ever after with his beautiful girlfriend.]
Ha.
I tossed my phone aside.
I did not want to see Ye Mingchen being praised. To me, he would always be my abuser.
At that moment, my system told me Ye Xiaoxiao had succeeded.
She had formed a connection with Ren Zeyu, the crown prince of domestic entertainment.
While he wiped her arm, she accidentally let out another soft moan. It sounded delicate yet naturally innocent, making Ren Zeyu, who had a weakness for beautiful voices, pause.
Only then did Ye Xiaoxiao whisper, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean your touch was too rough. It’s just that I broke my arm a while ago, and it only recently healed…”
Ren Zeyu’s interest sharpened, and he listened closely.
In Ye Xiaoxiao’s version of events, I was her deranged older sister. Unable to bear seeing her succeed, I had broken her arm the moment a famous director recognized her talent, costing her the role.
She claimed she had come to this dinner only because she heard several directors might be present.
Ren Zeyu shot his friend a look but made no promises on the spot.
He added Ye Xiaoxiao as a friend, drove her home, and chatted with her throughout the journey. After she went inside, he lingered outside the Ye residence for a while, an enigmatic smile on his lips.
Not long after returning home, Ye Xiaoxiao rushed out again in a panic.
She did not see Ren Zeyu in her distress. She hailed a cab, and he followed behind. One after the other, they entered the hospital.
There, he saw Ye Xiaoxiao collapse over Ye Mingchen in disbelief, weeping as she cried, “How could this happen? Mingchen, are you all right?”
At last, Ren Zeyu’s sympathy stirred.
He sent Ye Xiaoxiao a message saying he happened to know a director and would take her to meet him when she had time.
She was too busy to see it.
At that moment, she was furiously berating her system.
“System, what happened? Why did the Fortune-Transfer Target change to my brother? Wasn’t it supposed to be Ye Shengsheng?”
The Koi System emitted a piercing shriek of its own.
“Impossible! How could this happen?”
It fiddled desperately with the interface. At last, the name in the target field changed back to Ye Shengsheng.
It sighed with relief. “There. Fixed!”
Ye Xiaoxiao nearly exploded with rage.
“What good is fixing it now? It already happened! My brother was crushed! My brother got hurt, not that bitch Ye Shengsheng. How could you fail when it mattered most?”
The system had no answer. Only after she had vented every bit of her anger did it say quietly, “Does it matter to you who suffers the misfortune? Either way, you achieved your goal.”
Ye Xiaoxiao went still. Remembering something, she hurriedly took out her phone and saw Ren Zeyu’s message.
She laughed, then cried.
Her wild expression, caught between laughter and tears, was terrifying.
The system was baffled.
Through her tears, Ye Xiaoxiao snapped, “No wonder people say AI can never replace humans. You’re a heartless machine. You’ll never understand human feelings!”
The system was unmoved. “Exactly. I don’t understand them, so I have to collect them. Otherwise, you would be just as useless to me.”
Struck speechless, Ye Xiaoxiao was so angry that she refused to speak to it for three days.
Perhaps out of guilt, she remained beside Ye Mingchen and attended to his every need.
The billboard had fractured his collarbone and left abrasions all over his body. Wrapped in bandages like a ridiculous mummy, he could not even use the bathroom without help. Every day, he struggled between humiliation and pain.
My system told me that because Ren Zeyu was an exceptionally fortunate benefactor to Ye Xiaoxiao, Ye Mingchen had been forced to pay an equally steep price.
I fell silent. A chill crept over me, and I had to put on another layer before I stopped shivering.
Ye Xiaoxiao had been young when she bonded with her system. Her ambitions had still been small, so my misfortunes had not been quite this severe.
But things were different now. Her ambitions were enormous, which meant the person funding her luck would pay an enormous price. I only wondered whether our father, our mother, and our brother could endure it.