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This might give her an extra sense of responsibility, and she wouldn't spend every day thinking that there's nothing in this world she has a bond with, so she might as well just die.

Yu Qing didn't speak, and the always decisive Xiang Changge quickly made the decision for her: "Then let's raise a dog... If you have plenty of leftovers, Miss, we could even raise two."

"You can think about it, decide what color you'd like, and I'll make the arrangements for you when the time comes."

After saying this, Xiang Changge walked to the balcony and closed the wide-open windows, leaving only two narrow slits on the sides.

As she walked back to the living room, she seemed to remember something else and glanced at the time: "By the way, according to your schedule, Miss, you need to be in bed by ten o'clock tonight. If you still need to shower or wash up, please keep an eye on the time."

Author's Note:

By the way, babies, do you want a paragraph comment feature?

I haven't used it, but it seems some babies want it.

But I heard that if you edit the text, the paragraph comments might get scrambled or disappear? The author, who constantly has to fix awkward sentences and typos, wears a confused expression [Crying][Crying] Also, also, would paragraph comments affect the reading experience?

Chapter 10: I'm here to provide bedtime service...

Xiang Changge left.

After a short while, Aunt Yang shuffled over, took one look at Yu Qing—who had stopped working on her puzzle and was completely lost in thought—and scratched the back of her hand in agitation.

Good heavens, no wonder the new housekeeper dared to replace the entire household staff on her very first day; she even dared to lecture the young mistress!

Lecturing was one thing, but she even made demands of the young mistress just like her granddaughter's kindergarten teacher—demanding she not be a picky eater, not leave food on her plate, and setting a bedtime! She had been standing not far away and heard every word of their conversation, and she hadn't dared to even breathe loudly.

This wasn't a housekeeper; this was a parent!

It was just hard to tell what Miss Yu was thinking.

After all, let alone going to bed at ten at night, it was common for Miss Yu to not even be asleep by ten the next morning, or not even be awake by ten at night.

Thinking this, Aunt Yang snuck another glance at the dazed Yu Qing, debating whether she should say something or find an excuse to leave.

For a time, the only sound in the third-floor parlor was the song Yu Qing had been fond of lately, playing on repeat.

I don't know how much time passed, but just as Aunt Yang was thinking about whether she should go pour Yu Qing a glass of water, she heard Yu Qing use voice control to turn off the music.

Once the music stopped, the parlor fell into a sudden silence.

Yu Qing pulled her legs up, rested her chin on her knees, and hugged her legs, asking Aunt Yang in a lazy tone: "Aunt Yang, being a pauper is actually pretty good, right?"

Aunt Yang, standing there uncomfortably: "?"

Is Miss Yu talking in her sleep?

Could she have been so triggered by the housekeeper that she thinks it would be better to have no housekeeper at all?

But if she doesn't want a housekeeper, she can just get rid of her; why talk about being a "pauper"?

How could being a pauper be good? That's a story more terrifying than any horror story the moment you say it out loud; of course it's not good.

Though she was refuting it in her heart, Aunt Yang didn't answer so definitively on the surface. She weighed her words and said: "It should, it should be pretty bad, right?"

She had only ever heard of people wanting to get rich, never of anyone wanting to be a pauper.

Yu Qing didn't respond.

Perhaps the question she just asked Aunt Yang was actually one she was asking herself.

Having carefully read the contract and the will that afternoon, she knew that according to those documents, if she fired Xiang Changge, she wouldn't be able to inherit the Yu Family estate... which was no different from becoming a pauper.

She didn't understand why her parents would draw up such a will; it looked like something made up on the spot.

Why must Xiang Changge be her housekeeper for her to inherit the Yu Family estate? What connection did the two have?

Why would her parents, who had always doted on her, write such a clause when drafting their will? Did they really trust Xiang Changge that much?

Yu Qing couldn't figure it out.

This was one of the reasons why she was so curious about Xiang Changge, and why, when the woman "overstepped her bounds," she hadn't firmly, seriously, and irrevocably insisted on firing her.

It was just that, now, Xiang Changge was going too far.

She hated the way she lived as a child, following the doctor's orders and the nutritionist's advice, living a regulated life without freedom, just like a lab specimen.

And now, Xiang Changge seemed to be dragging her back to the past.

The other woman's voice echoed in her mind again—

"To raise you to be healthy, plump, and ensure you live to a ripe old age."

If living meant being kept in a greenhouse like a pet, without freedom or the ability to do as she pleased, then she would rather just die.

"Beep, beep, beep—"

"Target has been detected having highly negative thoughts. Please take note, Host—"

On the other end, Xiang Changge, who had just driven the estate shuttle back to her own villa, was about to take a milk bath when she heard the warning from the system in her mind.

Xiang Changge paused her steps and asked the system with some suspicion: "Detected what? What is it?"

The system repeated itself.

Xiang Changge: "..."

As the first day of the mission, receiving such news was a heavy blow to both Xiang Changge and the Plot Rewriting System.

They had come here with the goal of helping Yu Qing live a happy life full of confidence, yet after all their efforts, Yu Qing had instead developed extremely negative thoughts ahead of schedule.

The human and the system stared at each other in a metaphorical sense for a few seconds.

Then, Xiang Changge clenched her fists and turned to walk out.

"Extremely negative thoughts? What kind of thoughts? She doesn't want to live anymore? Why? Is it because I made her raise pigs and dogs and not leave leftovers, or because I told her to go to bed at ten o'clock?"

That was too much; she didn't want to live just because of that?

It wasn't that she didn't want to live; it was that she didn't want to let herself have a good life!

If she stopped living, then she would have to die. She had just enjoyed a satisfying meal today, and there were still so many things she wanted to eat and drink that she hadn't tasted yet—how could she not want to live!

Seeing Xiang Changge's aggressive demeanor, the system hurriedly called out to her in her mind: "Calm down, 8802. What are you planning to do? Interrogate the supporting character? What if that just makes her want to die even faster?"

Xiang Changge: "..."

The system, which had been feeling quite distressed, found its CPU running faster and more smoothly after seeing Xiang Changge like this.

It even began to comfort its host: "It's okay, 8802. This is only the beginning. Look on the bright side: the supporting character only has negative thoughts for now. At least she hasn't taken any action yet. We can just take it slow and help her change later on."

Hearing the system put it that way, Xiang Changge stroked her chin and felt that it made sense.

"That's true. She only doesn't want to live right now, and for my mission to fail, she actually has to be dead."

She could continue to carry out the mission according to the plan. If Yu Qing continued to be negative day after day, when the day finally came that she truly wanted to commit suicide, she could just tie her up to prevent her from doing so.

If she kept taking good care of her and she still wanted to die, then she would just have to resort to some necessary measures.

The Plot Rewriting System, having detected her thoughts: "! Wait, wait, wait! 8802, we are a proper system, we do our missions properly, we don't do any of that imprisonment-play stuff!"

Xiang Changge curled her lips: "Oh? We don't do it even if the mission fails?"

System: "..."

Well... compared to failing the mission, it wasn't like... they couldn't do it, right?

Forget it, forget it. Why think so much? Just take it one step at a time.

After the human and the system optimistically reassured themselves, one went back to study the mission, and the other continued her bath plan.

At ten o'clock in the evening, it began to drizzle again.

Wearing comfortable pajamas, Xiang Changge stood before the floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor, watching the rain falling like fine wool under the streetlights outside. She took a graceful sip of the whole milk in her wine glass and asked the system: "What is she doing?"

The system replied quickly: "The supporting character has already showered and is lying in bed reading literature."

Although she wasn't asleep yet, it at least counted as being in bed resting.

Xiang Changge knew that Yu Qing could lie in bed until ten o'clock the next morning without falling asleep.

But knowing it was one thing; she had no way to force her to fall asleep immediately. Telling her to go to bed at ten was meant to help her cultivate sleep by just lying there, but clearly, that was no easy task.

Yu Qing's health was already poor; if she were to use medication to make her sleep, it would only be counterproductive. And Xiang Changge couldn't exactly go to her bedside and sing lullabies or tell bedtime stories like she was coaxing a child.

System: "...Um? Why can't you?"

Xiang Changge: "??"

At ten-twenty in the evening, the four-seater sightseeing cart stopped at the entrance of the main house.

Soon, a person wearing white striped pajamas stepped off the cart and entered the main house with an umbrella.

At ten-twenty-two, the elevator dinged and stopped on the third floor.

In the room, Yu Qing, who was curled up in her large bed reading a book, suddenly felt that something was wrong.

She closed the book, held it to her chest, and slowly poked her head out from under the quilt to look into the room.

She didn't like to have the lights too bright when lying in bed, so the only sources of light in the room at the moment were the two full-moon-shaped reading lamps on the headboard.

The warm, orange light spilled onto the bedside, while the area beyond the bed remained somewhat dim.