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"Hello? Who is this?"

Xiang Changge: "..."

Was she doing this on purpose?

"It's me, Xiang Changge. It's time for you to get up."

"Say something."

Xiang Changge: "I am talking."

Yu Qing, on the bed, glanced at her phone with a strange expression. She tapped the speakerphone and said "hello" a few more times, but still couldn't hear a sound.

Finally, she frowned and hung up the phone.

"Who is it, calling before I've even had a chance to sleep in."

Yu Qing muttered irritably, tossed the phone aside, and rolled over. Just as she was about to drift back to sleep, she suddenly felt something wedged in her ears.

Right, she had worn earplugs to bed last night to keep Xiang Changge out. No wonder she couldn't hear the phone ringing.

Just as Yu Qing pulled the earplugs out, the phone vibrated once more.

But this time, it wasn't a call; it was a text message from the same number.

"Miss, take out your earplugs. It's time to get up and have breakfast."

Yu Qing: "!"

She stared at the message on her phone with eyes wide as if she had seen a ghost. After reading it, she thought she had misread it, rubbed her eyes, and read it two more times.

Then, she looked at the hand that wasn't holding the phone; the two earplugs were lying obediently in her palm.

No way. How did Xiang Changge know she slept with earplugs? She didn't install a hidden camera, did she?

Thinking of this, Yu Qing hurriedly scanned her room, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

Also, who gave her my phone number!

Just as Yu Qing was about to put her phone on airplane mode and go back to sleep, a new message arrived: "You wouldn't want me to call a locksmith, would you?"

Another threat.

Yu Qing couldn't take it anymore. She threw the phone aside, kicked off the quilt, and rushed out of bed, intending to go find Xiang Changge and have it out with her.

Perhaps she had gotten up too quickly; the moment her feet touched the floor, she felt a wave of dizziness and her legs went weak. She nearly collapsed, but fortunately, she grabbed the bed frame just in time to keep from falling to the ground.

Sitting back on the bed, Yu Qing waited a moment until the dizzy spell slowly faded away.

Sitting listlessly on the bed with her black hair draped over her shoulders, Yu Qing lowered her head. After a long while, a mocking smile appeared on her pale face.

This body of hers really is pathetic.

Xiang Changge stood at the door for another ten minutes before she heard the click of the lock being disengaged. Then, a small, bloodless face appeared.

Yu Qing, wearing a white nightgown, leaned against the doorframe. The square neckline of the gown revealed her deeply sunken collarbones. Her expressionless face was clouded with a thick gloom—it was unclear whether she hadn't slept well or if she was simply dissatisfied with Xiang Changge.

Perhaps it was both.

She stared at Xiang Changge for a moment, blinked, and then turned back into the room without a word.

Xiang Changge followed her in.

Yu Qing's room was filled with the slightly bitter and astringent scent of mugwort, which, mixed with the cold air from the air conditioner, felt chilly. Smelling it was like eating mint; it rushed straight into one's chest.

Just like before she left last night, only two reading lamps were on in the room, and the heavy curtains were drawn tight, blocking out every sliver of daylight.

Xiang Changge operated the wall panel to turn up the temperature of the air conditioner, then walked to the window and pulled back the heavy curtains, leaving only a layer of thin gauze. Through it, the pale gray and dark green light of the morning filtered in hazily.

Turning around, she saw that Yu Qing had already sat back on the bed. She wasn't lying down, though; she was leaning against the headboard, eyes closed, head tilted back, resting the back of her head against the soft pillow to collect her thoughts.

Xiang Changge had expected to see her fuming with rage, but she hadn't expected to see a Yu Qing who seemed devoid of sorrow or joy—someone who couldn't muster interest in anything others did to her, trapped in her own thoughts and emotions, isolated from the entire world.

Standing by the bed, one leaning and one standing, they remained in a long, silent standoff.

Looking at the emaciated, lifeless person before her, Xiang Changge pushed the thought—that even if she had to imprison her, she must keep her alive—to the very back of her mind.

If possible, it would be better if she were at least alive and angry.

"Let's play a game."

In the quiet room, Xiang Changge's soft voice suddenly rang out.

Hearing this, the silent, melancholic beauty slowly opened her eyes, her cold gaze falling upon her.

Author's Note:

Chapter 13: Then I'll Have to Serve You Myself

Today, Xiang Changge was wearing a white shirt, a standard, professional style. Her sleeves were rolled up a few times, and a silver watch was fastened around her fair wrist, giving her a very business-like air.

However, when one's gaze dropped lower, the two bulges on either side of her trouser pockets, shaped like she was hiding a couple of eggs inside, broke the capable and composed aura she carried.

Yu Qing's gaze paused on them with a subtle expression, as if she were trying to discern what was hidden inside through the fabric. A moment later, her eyelids lifted slightly, and her eyes finally settled on Xiang Changge's face.

She didn't speak, only using her gaze to convey her confusion.

Xiang Changge was looking at her as well.

From the books, Xiang Changge knew that Yu Qing actually loathed the life she led as a child, a life of being restrained like a lab specimen.

But for the sake of her parents, she had accepted it.

After all, that was the only way to keep herself alive a little longer.

It was precisely because of this that after her parents died, having endured for long enough, she seemed to have broken free from her shackles—or perhaps, like a broken pot being smashed to pieces, she stopped caring about her own body.

It wasn't that she didn't know that skipping meals and turning night into day was bad for her health; she simply felt there was no point, and thus allowed herself to indulge in such self-destruction.

There was nothing left in the world that could make her hold onto expectations or attachments; every day now was, to her, merely a matter of muddling through.

Xiang Changge had originally only intended to have her follow the schedule she and the system had created, to help her slowly adjust her routine and nurture her health.

She knew Yu Qing certainly wouldn't comply obediently, but she had many ways to make her accept.

Yet now, watching Yu Qing leaning against the bed, struggling even to breathe, her face pale with a sickly flush at the corners of her eyes—clearly dissatisfied but unable to vent, ultimately choosing to let things be—Xiang Changge suddenly spoke those words.

-Let's play a game.

It could be considered giving Yu Qing a chance to choose.

Even if it was only on the surface, a fleeting opportunity for choice, one actually intended to implement Xiang Changge's ideas in a more justifiable way.

Xiang Changge explained, "You don't want to get up and eat now, but I want you to get up and have breakfast. Since our ideas conflict and neither of us is willing to listen to the other, let's play a game."

"If you win, you can continue to sleep as you please. If I win, you have to get up and eat breakfast."

After Xiang Changge's words fell, the room remained quiet for a long while.

After a long time, pale lips moved slightly, and three words, light yet laced with coldness, were spat out: "On what grounds?"

On the surface, it looked like a chance to choose, but when stripped to the core, only three words remained—on what grounds.

She simply didn't want to eat or get up, so what? Why must she follow Xiang Changge's wishes? Couldn't she make her own decisions about her own affairs?

Xiang Changge's expression remained unchanged, her tone calm: "On the grounds that our ideas are inconsistent, and on the grounds that you cannot fire me."

Yu Qing discovered that Xiang Changge possessed a strange kind of magic.

Her mood had been so low that she wouldn't have wanted to flee even if an earthquake had suddenly struck, yet with one sentence from Xiang Changge, she found her strength returning.

Not only did she find strength, but a thought even inexplicably bubbled up from the bottom of her heart: to pin the person in front of her down and give her a sound beating.

What a person, capable of making one's blood boil with just a mouth.

Yu Qing laughed in anger: "And if I don't?"

Xiang Changge spread her hands: "Then I'll have to serve you myself."

Yu Qing: "..."

Serve?

What did that mean?

Perhaps seeing the confusion in Yu Qing's eyes, Xiang Changge kindly explained: "It means personally taking you to wash up, personally feeding you breakfast, and so on."

Yu Qing pursed her lips tightly upon hearing this, her world-weary, dead-fish eyes staring fixedly at Xiang Changge. If looks could turn into blades, Xiang Changge should have been sliced to pieces, juice flying and skin bursting, just like the fruit in a fruit-slicing game.

As if completely unfazed by the killing intent in the other's eyes, Xiang Changge met her gaze calmly.

I don't know how much time passed, but unable to imagine the scene of being "served" by the other person like a child, Yu Qing was the first to look away.

"What are we playing?"

Yu Qing asked in a low voice.

Xiang Changge was very democratic at this moment: "Anything is fine, you choose."

"Games, chess, solving puzzles... anything works."

Yu Qing fell into thought.

She had no interest in games, though she did play chess occasionally.

"Then let's play a game of chess."

Xiang Changge nodded. Seeing Yu Qing's phone tossed at the foot of the bed, she walked over, picked it up, and handed it to her.

Yu Qing lowered her eyes to look at the phone being offered to her, then raised them to look at Xiang Changge: "What are you doing?" She thought they were going to play chess.

Xiang Changge: "Unlock it, we'll play on the phone."

Yu Qing frowned. Although she didn't quite understand what Xiang Changge meant, she unlocked the phone anyway.

Xiang Changge, having received Yu Qing's phone, first sent a friend request to herself from Yu Qing's WeChat without blinking, then opened a mini-program.

When the phone returned to Yu Qing's hands, the screen displayed a two-player Gomoku interface that had already started.

Yu Qing took one look and couldn't help but stare at Xiang Changge in shock: "This is Gomoku?"

She had assumed that if they were "playing a game of chess," it would be something like Go or Chinese Chess; she hadn't expected her to choose Gomoku.