Chapter 31#
Day Eight Countdown#
The System wrapped Yu Lanyin in a coat, carried him into the hot spring hotel, and checked into a room.
The entire process drew many side glances.
The System didn’t understand what these people were looking at.
He was human now, didn’t accidentally grow antennas on his head, and wasn’t scattering data blocks everywhere.
He was just holding Yu Lanyin. The System looked down, parting the trench coat slightly. Yu Lanyin’s face was pressed against the heavy wool fabric, looking exceptionally pale in contrast, yet the corners of his eyes were tinged with red, and there was a glaring mark on his neck. The System watched for a while, then tightened its arms, supporting Yu Lanyin securely by the bend of his knees.
The room had a private hot spring, circulating clean hot water, and a chilled fruit platter. The System thought Yu Lanyin would like it.
He carried Yu Lanyin upstairs.
Stepping onto the creaking wooden stairs and reaching the corner, they encountered a man in a suit, slicked-back hair, and a powdered face, holding a scantily clad handsome boy. He suddenly stopped as they passed.
“President Yu?” The man recognized Yu Lanyin’s face, the corners of his mouth twitching meaningfully. “So you’ve finally ended up doing this?”
“Wouldn’t it have been better if you’d realized this earlier?”
“Did you need to suffer so much?”
The System frowned.
“Lin Yanghua.” The man introduced himself, even somewhat politely, looking up to size up the System. “And you are?”
The System said, “I’m his cousin.”
Lin Yanghua sneered, clearly not believing it, but too lazy to expose the lie. He just waved his hand and sauntered downstairs.
The System searched for this name. When the Yu family went bankrupt and the company was torn apart, Lin Yanghua was among the business rivals who had devoured and scavenged what remained.
Lin Yanghua had even once had designs on Yu Lanyin.
A face like that was too beautiful.
Many people coveted him.
The System detached a stream of data and tripped Lin Yanghua. The boy accompanying him cried out as Lin Yanghua’s left foot stepped on his right, and he tumbled down the last few steps, face-planting miserably and fainting.
The System took the opportunity to snap a few photos, wondering if they could make Yu Lanyin happy.
He carried Yu Lanyin to the room and gently placed him on the bed. Wrapped in the trench coat, Yu Lanyin was fast asleep and didn’t react even when his clothes were removed.
The System held him while soaking in the hot spring. Yu Lanyin’s physical problems were severe; the parts of his skin that had lost sensation hardly turned red, like corrupted data that had completely broken down. This condition would also spread rapidly, eventually consuming this body.
Yu Lanyin woke up in the hot water and tightened arms, slowly opening his eyes.
This time, it was Yu Lanyin, the breakfast shop owner.
His body memory made him wake up at exactly 2:30. The next step was boiling water and kneading dough. Yu Lanyin wasn’t used to it being so bright when he woke up, which meant he had definitely overslept. He hurriedly tried to stand up while reaching for the alarm clock.
The System immediately held him steady and reminded him softly: “Today is a holiday, Yu Lanyin.”
Yu Lanyin couldn’t stand up at all on his own. He fell into the misty water and was dazed for a while.
Then, he slowly remembered.
Yesterday was his last day running the breakfast shop.
Today he was free.
Eating BBQ pork buns to his heart’s content, playing games to his heart’s content, sleeping to his heart’s content, hot spring hotel, first class, luxury hotel, top-tier private compartment.
Yu Lanyin recognized at a glance that this was a hot spring hotel, his eyes lighting up with a “ding,” and he eagerly grasped the System’s arm: “One hundred chocolate-coated filled ice cream bars.”
He hadn’t eaten a chocolate-coated filled ice cream bar in three years. Every word screamed that they weren’t cheap. Yu Lanyin usually bought twenty-cent homemade sugary ice pops from street vendors.
No food safety guarantee.
Not recommended.
“Blueberry filled, strawberry filled, cranberry vanilla filled, melon filled, matcha cheese filled, pistachio filled.” Yu Lanyin pressed his chest. “Ah.”
Yu Lanyin said, “If I can’t eat them, I’ll be so sad I’ll die immediately.”
The System unconsciously smiled. Yu Lanyin was so infectious at times like this, as if he were hopping with vitality. It was clear he must have been pampered to a lawless extent as a child.
The System supported his soft head and neck and leaned down to touch Yu Lanyin’s lips.
Yu Lanyin immediately received a segment of data for a “Gourmet Cranberry Chocolate Coated Pistachio Matcha Cheese Filled Ice Cream Bar.”
The breakfast shop owner was shocked on the spot: “Is it this convenient?”
“It’s fake,” the System admitted, stroking Yu Lanyin’s hair. “Just to satisfy your craving for now.”
This was just the data-sharing function of the upgraded System. To humans, it was merely a hallucination that couldn’t replenish energy or provide nutrition.
But Yu Lanyin was already quite satisfied: “Fake is enough.”
Yu Lanyin found the knack and ordered a Gourmet Blueberry Strawberry Peach Orange Forest Fruit flavored one. He looked up to ask the System for data. What did the pampered young master know? He only knew how to bite and nibble, then went back in to scavenge.
The System was speechless. He adjusted the angle of his arm and taught Yu Lanyin how to kiss properly. As severe as Yu Lanyin’s physical numbness was, he was equally sensitive.
It was as if all those pure, lively, and curious nerve fibers were concentrated in the only remaining places that could still feel, touching here and there.
Yu Lanyin’s back trembled, yet he seemed very happy. In this rare opportunity to catch his breath, he squeezed in a question: “Are there any data dreams about traveling?”
The System stopped: “What?”
“Dreams,” Yu Lanyin fantasized while leaning on its arm, his expression full of anticipation. “I stay in a big hotel, ski on a snowy mountain, so fast no one can catch up, and I can even do a backflip.”
The System gently rubbed his hair and chuckled: “Why a backflip?”
But this dream wasn’t difficult. The System could let him have this dream tonight. Yu Lanyin had only slept for less than three hours and should continue to sleep.
Sleep until he was satisfied.
Yu Lanyin promised he would sleep, and they made a pinky promise. Then he didn’t immediately choose the next ice cream flavor, leaning on the System’s shoulder and watching the bright ripples of light on the water.
The System watched with him, seeing the fragments of light churned by the water, slowly merging and gathering into a single sheet before the water surface finally returned to calm.
Yu Lanyin asked, “Are there dreams about dying?”
The System tightened its arms. Yu Lanyin’s heartbeat was weak, hammering against the System’s data-manifested chest through his soft back.
In the end, it was Yu Lanyin who grasped its hand and looked up with a smile. He looked perfectly fine, his eyes bright as water: “I’m just kidding.”
“I want to sleep now,” Yu Lanyin said. “So sleepy, can you help me?”
His voice was cheerful, with a bit of fatigue, as if it were truly a sleep-laden nasal sound.
The System grasped this hand back: “How can I help?”
Yu Lanyin spoke softly, first telling the System that this wasn’t strange, it was because he was guilty, he was a villain, and should be punished. Then he led the System’s hand, placed it on his own strangulation mark, and taught the System to grasp it.
“Don’t use too much force either,” Yu Lanyin reminded. “Just until I stop moving. I still want to have that backflip dream.”
The System sat, data wrapping around Yu Lanyin’s throat, covering the warm carotid artery.
He successfully parsed the emotion humans named “anger” for the first time.
“Yu Lanyin,” the System said, “No one should be punished like this, even if that person is a villain.”
The System said, “Besides, you aren’t one.”
Yu Lanyin covered its mouth: “I am, I am.”
The breakfast shop villain owner pulled at the System, looking around warily and cleverly, lowering his voice: “What are you talking about? If I’m not a villain, won’t you be leaving?”
The System was a “Villain Redemption System.” Yu Lanyin had endured for three years, reaching 98 points, longing and waiting with all his might before finally getting it.
“You don’t like it, do you?” Yu Lanyin held the System to coax it, then took the initiative to apologize: “Sorry, I won’t say it next time.”
Yu Lanyin had other ways to sleep, but they were more difficult, complex, and prone to failure. He thought for a while, remembered how to do it, leaned into the System’s embrace, and placed the System’s arm behind his back.
This was a way of sleeping from his childhood. When Yu Lanyin was sick and so uncomfortable that he couldn’t sleep, crying constantly, he would be held like this by his family.
Yu Lanyin tugged at the System: “Can you pat my back? The gentle kind, one after another.”
The System was actually already doing so.
It was just that Yu Lanyin’s back no longer had any sensation. Stroking, rubbing, and patting were all like hitting a piece of unresponsive soft rubber.
So the System had to fabricate another data dream. He leaned down and fed this bit of a dream to Yu Lanyin. Yu Lanyin’s expression became comfortable, and his brows smoothed out.
The System kept holding him, gently kissing him until he fell asleep.
A person asleep shouldn’t stay in hot water. The System took the towel that was being heated on the side, wrapped Yu Lanyin, left the hot spring, passed through the entrance, and while walking toward the bedroom area, felt a warm dampness on his chest. Looking down, he found Yu Lanyin shedding tears in his sleep.
Yu Lanyin wasn’t having the “dashing backflip on a snowy mountain” dream.
Even though the System had given him that part of the data, Yu Lanyin still couldn’t have that dream. Yu Lanyin kept trembling, and his body, which had even lost sensation, seemed to remember the pain.
Yu Lanyin trembled violently while weeping: “Mom.”
The System kissed him, feeling helpless. Data dreams only included non-living entities; he couldn’t give Yu Lanyin a mother. Yu Lanyin’s parents passed away during his junior year in college, a pure accident—desperados had committed a reckless robbery and been ruthless.
Unscrupulous media maliciously sensationalized it, taking things out of context and inciting a hatred-for-the-rich mentality. Many people even cheered for it.
For instance, that second aunt of Song Baoxiao’s who had sent a bag of dried shrimp.
It was late at night, and Song Baoxiao was on a video call with his family, saying he couldn’t host them for now because something major had happened in Yu Lanyin’s family and he needed to accompany him.
The second aunt spoke sarcastically and loudly: “Rich people, is a person or two dying in the family even considered a big deal?”
Song Baoxiao was silent for a while: “Don’t say that.”
Hearing this weak and spineless reply, Yu Lanyin, standing at the door holding two cups of coffee, turned around, threw the mugs into the sink, grabbed his coat, and left to buy the nearest ticket home.
Yu Lanyin was so exhausted he was swaying.
He gritted his teeth and grew into an adult during this disaster, taking care of his grandfather and stabilizing his eldest and second brothers.
The Yu family’s business was an emerging technology company that had taken off overnight due to favorable trends. The entire family were nerds who only knew how to bury their heads in R&D. The eldest brother became so stressed he fell ill, his hands shaking so much he couldn’t do anything. Yu Lanyin had held him and desperately pulled him back from the rooftop, while he kept asking: “What bad thing did we do, Third Brother? What bad thing did we do?”
The Yu family had never done anything bad, nor had the company. They gave holidays when they could, provided full benefits, and donated money in times of trouble.
The second brother truly couldn’t swallow his pride, got into an argument, was provoked by a few words into getting physical, and was sentenced to two years.
The eldest brother could no longer do research; seeing words, his mind was full of spiders crawling.
Yu Lanyin became the last Young CEO Yu, but how could one person prop up a building that had already collapsed? The shareholders begged him for a way out—apply for bankruptcy, sell what can be sold, we can’t even pay the employees’ wages.
In the year Yu Lanyin was twenty-one, his grandfather stroked his back on his sickbed and breathed his last.
At twenty-two, the eldest brother was determined to earn money to help the family share the burden of debt. He went to a neighboring country and was tricked by a private pharmaceutical company into testing drugs. He didn’t return after a severe adverse reaction.
At twenty-three, the second brother had his sentence reduced for good behavior and was released early. He was too ashamed to face his family, so he left a letter and disappeared without notice or a phone call.
All of this never appeared in Song Baoxiao’s protagonist-view storyline—this was natural because Song Baoxiao hadn’t experienced or seen it. Song Baoxiao was also struggling, tired, and stretched thin to the point of collapse, having also lost relatives. In the endless revisions of papers and the resumes sent into the void, he had no time for anything else, which Yu Lanyin knew.
So Yu Lanyin didn’t ask anything of him.
That was probably where the problem lay.
The person who asked and didn’t get was betrayed, hurt, and had their body and heart wounded by a scumbag.
As for not asking.
Then “what is a mouth for”?
The System checked the outcome of the previous un-interfered round. After Song Baoxiao learned all this and chose to “forgive” Yu Lanyin, many people were still resentful and dissatisfied: Doesn’t that guy Yu know how to use his mouth? Why didn’t he tell you earlier? If he doesn’t say anything, who would know what he encountered?
…
The System lowered his head and fed Yu Lanyin a bit of a mint chocolate-flavored dream.
He tried to temporarily hide a part of Yu Lanyin’s memory, not to erase or alter anything, but simply because these things were too heavy, and Yu Lanyin shouldn’t have to bear them for so long.
Yu Lanyin’s back began to lose sensation from the day his grandfather’s withered hand slipped away and he breathed his last on the pillow, yet his clouded eyes didn’t close.
Yu Lanyin counted this as his own fault.
It must be because he was a villain.
Because he was a villain, he faced retribution, and this retribution affected his family.
Why did he have to date Song Baoxiao?
It must be because Song Baoxiao lost both parents and his grandfather, so the story had to be balanced, requiring him to understand Song Baoxiao’s feelings, which was why his father, mother, and grandfather were killed by him.
It must be because he had already been sentenced to reform, yet his eldest and second brothers still desperately tried to protect him.
The eldest brother refused to leave him to a jerk plot like “breakfast shop owner,” dazed and thinking of earning money to support his studies. The second brother heard Lin Yanghua advising him to enter the sex industry and wanting to take him to sell himself, and was so enraged he almost slit Lin Yanghua’s mouth.
He had dragged his whole family down.
Why isn’t he dead yet?
The System tasted the flavor of blood from Yu Lanyin’s mouth but saw no crimson. He frowned, intensifying the data analysis, only to see transparent things, which couldn’t be determined, slowly flowing away.
The System was a bit uneasy: “Yu Lanyin.”
He kissed the cold eyes: “Yu Lanyin.”
He used this method to enter Yu Lanyin’s dream. It was a boundless blizzard, with a lifeless, dull grey-blue in sight. Beneath his feet was a snowy mountain. Yu Lanyin stood amidst countless snowflakes sharp as knives, looking down into an ice crevice.
Seeing him, Yu Lanyin smiled and waved to him happily: “Eat chicken soup wontons with me.”
Yu Lanyin was wearing his favorite apron and oversleeves, one end of which was washed until it was pale. He held a steaming bowl of chicken soup wontons, drizzled with sesame oil and sprinkled with shredded seaweed.
The System walked through this dream, each footprint seeping blood. He created new snowflakes to cover them.
The System said: “Yu Lanyin.”
“I’ll eat wontons with you.” The System sat down. “Are there any stories to listen to?”
Confiding can alleviate pain.
Yu Lanyin rested his chin on his arm, thought for a while, and sighed: “It’s all over.”
“No.” Yu Lanyin was very regretful. “I don’t have a story.”
Yu Lanyin told him his entire plot, in exactly three sentences: “My family used to be very rich, I went bankrupt, and my breakfast shop closed.”
Yu Lanyin didn’t have his own story; he wasn’t the protagonist. His fate could be summarized in a few sentences, no need to waste more words.
The System looked into the clear, happy eyes. He stroked them, like trying to touch a sun in a mirage.
The System asked: “Can I kiss you?”
Yu Lanyin immediately became happy: “This is possible.”
Yu Lanyin remembered that the System tasted like ice cream before, but now he didn’t want to eat ice cream; he wanted to eat spicy malatang and braised beef noodles: “Is that okay?”
System: “Malatang.”
Yu Lanyin nodded.
The System let him think for himself: “You kiss a bowl of malatang.”
Yu Lanyin: “…”
Nothing was impossible.
The way Young Boss Yu drooped was also too infectious. The System chuckled softly, picked up Yu Lanyin, and cooperatively indulged him in his messy dreams. Yu Lanyin was able to eat top-tier thousand-layer tofu, fish balls, and tempura.
Later, it became a pure kiss. The System wanted Yu Lanyin to experience more; he didn’t want Yu Lanyin to just treat this as a way to faint.
Yu Lanyin cooperatively enjoyed it, tugging at the System to remind him to stay away from the bottomless ice crevice in the dream, lest he accidentally fall in.
In the dream, ice and snow melted under the heat.
Revealing black rocks.
Yu Lanyin shivered again and again. In the dream, he wasn’t disabled, and his body was very sensitive; even a stroke was very stimulating. Where had the breakfast shop owner seen such things? He was so comfortable he went soft.
They lay on the snow together. Yu Lanyin turned his face and asked softly: “How long have I slept?”
He was still thinking about his red-eye flight ticket.
He felt he had already slept for three days.
The System explained: “Only twenty hours. we haven’t boarded the plane yet. I took care of some things.”
He manipulated some data, added a bit more to Lin Yanghua’s injuries, and showed the photos to Yu Lanyin. As expected, it coaxed the bankrupt Young Boss Yu into venting a great deal of anger: “That’s exactly how it should be done!”
Yu Lanyin immediately conjured up a list of bastard capitalists he had a grudge against in his dream.
A full one hundred and eight of them.
System: “…”
Yu Lanyin pouted pitifully.
The System promised: “I’ll punch them one by one.”
System: “Hang them on streetlamps.”
Yu Lanyin was amused, rubbing his face with various expressions before returning to normal and stopping the nonsense: “Forget it, I later understood that business competition is just like that.”
It was a place where the law of the jungle prevailed; losers were meant to be devoured, and winners ate the meat and drank the soup. Only by adapting to this cruel rule can one gain a foothold.
To win, one needs foresight and decisiveness, the ability to command respect, cohesion, persuasiveness, to make opponents wary, and to make one’s own people believe implicitly…
…All of these.
Young Boss Yu, who hadn’t even graduated from college, couldn’t do any of them.
Yu Lanyin lost miserably.
The Yu family was an accidentally successful technology-based enterprise, the kind most prone to premature failure. Yu Lanyin’s maternal grandfather was an old engineer, his mother a semiconductor engineer, his father a microcontroller engineer, and his brother a chip process integration engineer.
Their family also suddenly realized that it seemed they couldn’t all be engineers; someone had to know how to do business, so they sent him to study economic management.
He was useless.
He didn’t study well and ran off to date.
He deserved to die.
The blizzard grew intense. The System frowned, creating a transparent dome to block the howling storm, and softly coaxed Yu Lanyin to shift his attention, thinking about first class and hotels.
What the Yu family had thought back then was certainly not for twenty-year-old Yu Lanyin to come back and turn the tide to save the enterprise. Yu Lanyin was their youngest child, the apple of the family’s eye.
“We aren’t taking the red-eye flight.” The System gently kissed his eyes. “Do you want to sit on a plane and look at the snowy mountains?”
Yu Lanyin was immediately attracted: “What’s it like? Tell me quickly.”
His health was too poor as a child, and he hated flying—he’d get dizzy, his ears would ring, and he’d feel like throwing up. He had no mood to look out the window.
Later, when he wanted to look, the cost of a plane ticket made him wince with pain.
“Very beautiful.”
The System said: “Entering the sea of clouds is like a fairyland.”
Yu Lanyin’s eyes were crystal clear: “Mm-hm.”
The System said: “You’ll doubt if everything is real, if you’re dreaming. The cabin will be a bit colder than usual, and you’ll feel as if you can touch the mist.”
Yu Lanyin: “Mm-hm.”
The System said: “You’ll see the sunrise, the sun breaking through all the obstructing clouds, shining on the peaks of the continuous pure white snowy mountains. Everything seems to disappear; it’s very sacred. You break free from the shackles… like a free eagle.”
These were all written in the travel brochures.
There was an incredibly expensive special flight that featured this, flying a specific route at a specific time, with the beautiful scenery fully visible.
The System’s recitation was actually quite flat, not emotional enough, but after he finished, Yu Lanyin didn’t speak for a long time.
After a good while, Yu Lanyin finally said: “I must see it.”
“It would be too much of a pity to die before seeing this.” Yu Lanyin asked the System, “If I can’t think straight, can you pull me back?”
The System held him tight, and Yu Lanyin smiled, gently kissing the System’s face.
Yu Lanyin couldn’t wake up for the time being; he had fallen ill with a high fever. After high-intensity work, he had suddenly stopped, and his body was no longer under his conscious control, triggering an immune storm.
In reality, the System held him while he received an IV drip.
In the dream, Yu Lanyin blissfully ate chicken soup wontons.
Yu Lanyin was very well-behaved when eating. The young master had an excellent upbringing, not speaking while eating or sleeping, his cheeks puffed out with a soft curve as he chewed.
The System touched that curve, and Yu Lanyin’s eyes curved in a smile at him.
Yu Lanyin’s smile was truly infectious; it was hard for anyone not to be influenced. The System also smiled. Yu Lanyin knew very well how to make himself comfortable, his cheek gently rubbing against its palm, eyes squinted.
The System made a move to snatch his wontons. Yu Lanyin was very playful, immediately pretending not to give them to him, firmly covering his small cat bowl. They played together in the snowy dream.
The bowl had a stubborn small cat head drawn on it, with a crookedly written “Keep working.” The breakfast shop owner had drawn it himself. Yu Lanyin had worked diligently for three years, paid off all debts, and even had a surplus. He had saved a large amount of money for his two brothers—in case they weren’t dead, in case they were just lost, in case they could still wait.
Yu Lanyin was tickled by him and coughed while laughing.
The System looked at that bowl in the dream.
In the bowl weren’t fragrant chicken soup wontons, but porcelain shards.