Chacha

Biodata

Background

Chacha initially failed to bind and went dormant before successfully activating while Shen Anxin attended court disguised as her twin brother, Shen Anlan. Upon activation, it introduced itself as the Gossip System, adopted the name Chacha, and offered rewards for consuming gossip 1 16.

Although Chacha promised that they could investigate secrets privately, the emperor and officials could hear its conversations with Shen Anxin. Listeners later discovered that an invisible force prevented them from telling her about this ability; they also sensed that revealing it to Shen Anxin and Chacha would have terrible consequences 1 7.

Personality

Chacha is enthusiastic about gossip, readily proposing investigations into everyone from minor officials to the emperor. It teases Shen Anxin about her previous-life death while watching a cheating scandal, but immediately retreats when she suggests abandoning gossip for safety 1 2. It also enjoys drawing out revelations, insisting that “melons have to be eaten one bite at a time” and sometimes withholding details until the relevant people arrive 7 44.

Its advice is frequently pragmatic and alarming to human listeners. It recommends poisons and hidden weapons over a minor bad-luck buff, and proposes conquering Southern Xia rather than courting its approval 5 26. Chacha admits that it does not understand human standards of beauty and initially overlooks the social discrimination Shen Anxin would face as an outsider in another country 3 33.

Despite its confidence in its own abilities, Chacha gives Shen Anxin credit for choosing to help Great Qi. When she calls it the true source of the empire’s changing fortune, it responds that its resources only matter because she makes the decisions and is willing to act 34.

Abilities & Skills

Gossip Retrieval

Chacha searches for concealed personal histories, motives, relationships, crimes, and events from the original future 1 5.

• Search radius: Its stated range is 100 meters around Shen Anxin 1.
• Indirect information: It can describe an absent person’s involvement in someone else’s story without unlocking that absent person’s own secrets. It explains the actions of Wei Baozhu’s persecutor but cannot identify her because she is outside the search radius 21.
• Detail and proximity: Having the people who know the truth nearby allows more detailed retrieval and potentially greater point rewards 44.
• No video playback: Chacha can narrate past events but explicitly lacks a video function 17.
• Retrieval faults: It occasionally encounters missing information. During General Wu and Minister Zheng’s argument, it reports a bug and says it must request a patch from the main system 16.

Original-Timeline Knowledge

Chacha can retrieve future gossip from the original timeline, but cannot see Shen Anxin’s future or search a future that has already changed 5.

• Predicts Great Qi’s collapse in its second generation and identifies the infant Seventh Prince, Xiao Yanzhang, as its future tyrannical ruler 6 7.
• Warns of an earthquake the following year that would kill 200,000 people and devastate eastern cities; confirms that precautions could reduce the losses 7.
• Reveals threats early enough for intervention, including Lanxiang’s theft before the stolen undergarments leave the palace 25.
• Distinguishes the original future from new developments: Southern Xia’s imperial preceptor did not publicly divine Great Qi’s fortune on that occasion in the original timeline 33.

Gossip Points and Shop

Chacha awards points when gossip consumption is detected. The information does not have to originate from Chacha: Shen Anxin’s own disclosure about Xiao Yanchen earns the point that unlocks the shop 5.

• Variable rewards: Grand General Xiong’s scandal is worth five points, matching the value associated with the Empress Wei incident despite his lower status 30.
• Shop catalogue: Includes skills, books, diagrams, seeds, recipes, weapons, buffs, and extremely expensive aircraft carriers and spaceships 5.
• Interface: Shen Anxin sees the shop as a transparent blue window 5.

Defensive Buff

Chacha supplies a permanent defense and damage-reflection buff as its beginner’s offer. When someone intends to harm Shen Anxin, bad luck intervenes to prevent the deed 1 5.

• Activation condition: Responds to harmful intent; equipping it produces no visible effect that the surrounding court can observe 5.
• Restriction: Only the host can equip it 1.
• World rules: Chacha says its interventions must follow the world’s Heavenly Dao and cannot be excessively conspicuous 1.

Technical and Social Knowledge

Chacha supplements its gossip with explanations of science, institutions, and political behavior 22 26 41.

• Explains recessive genetic diseases and the risks of marriage between close relatives 22.
• Analyzes Great Qi’s need for Southern Xia’s grain, salt, and minerals 26.
• Discusses woodblock and movable-type printing with Shen Anxin 40.
• Explains the absence of patent protection and the low status of inventors and artisans 41.
• Describes the imperial preceptor’s divination as a limited glimpse into phenomena beyond contemporary human understanding, rather than simply dismissing it as fraud 33.

Items and Services Provided

• Dream-Entering Pills — Allow Shen Anxin to enter another person’s dreams while they sleep at night. She uses them to contact Shen Anlan and check on her recovering father 5 13.
• All-Ailments-Curing Pill — Offered as a means of treating Shen Anxin’s father; Chacha also proposes transferring it directly to her brother 5 13.
• Shen Anlan’s handwriting — Redeemed with points so Shen Anxin can copy the Heart Sutra in her brother’s hand 10.
• Literary collections — Tang poetry, Song ci, ancient prose, songs, and fu purchased for the contest against Jixia Academy 35.
• Single-use buffs — Include effects usable on other people, such as a one-day bad-luck buff. Chacha describes that particular effect as causing only minor injuries and aches 5.

Relationships

• Shen Anxin — Host and conversational partner. Their relationship combines teasing, shopping advice, and cooperation; Shen Anxin explicitly thanks Chacha for giving her the means to survive and help change Great Qi’s fate 1 5 34.
• Emperor Hongyao — An initially cautious listener who permits investigation of his own secrets to test the system. Chacha’s disclosures provide warnings about his family, foreign enemies, and threats to the state 2 5 7 49.
• Xiao Yanchen — Frequently a subject of Chacha’s revelations. He recognizes that its predictions describe an alterable original future and uses its information to help General Wu during the confrontation with Southern Xia 18 20 31.
• Great Qi’s court — Both audience and source of gossip. Officials fear exposure, but eventually regard Chacha and Shen Anxin together as the country’s precious lucky stars 1 34.
• Main system — The authority Chacha says it must contact to report a retrieval bug and obtain a patch 16.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Notable Quotes

“Host, you have to be careful when eating melons, or you'll run into Dayun~” 1

“I'm only a system. You're still the one making the decisions, and it only works because you're willing to help Great Qi.” 34