Page 43

"And besides, how much of your money did you earn yourself? Don't you want to see whether you can make money on your own?"

Yu Qing listened in silence.

The restaurant fell quiet. Leftover food still covered the table. Neither of them got up, and the servants didn't dare come in to clear it away.

After a long while, Yu Qing smiled, though there was no warmth in her calm eyes. "Xiang Changge, what are you trying to do?"

As if she saw right through her, she met Xiang Changge's light gray-brown eyes with a knowing look. "I know. You want to find something for me to do so I won't be so bored."

"But I don't think I'm bored."

She only thought life was meaningless, that living was utterly pointless.

Boredom and pointlessness weren't the same thing to her.

When life itself felt pointless, everything she did felt the same. Nothing could stir a ripple in her heart.

"Have you ever thought that I have everything I need, yet still find no joy in life? If I were destitute, do you think I'd still have the willpower to struggle against my shackles?"

-

The restaurant fell quiet again.

Yu Qing went upstairs. Maybe she'd returned to her room, or maybe she'd gone to the music room. Xiang Changge didn't know.

She remained seated at the dining table, staring silently at the dishes.

Only then did she suddenly realize that she didn't understand Yu Qing at all.

She hadn't understood her after reading the original story hundreds of times, and she still didn't understand her after spending all this time with her in real life.

She didn't know what Yu Qing wanted, or what was missing from her heart.

Yu Qing would do as she asked when Xiang Changge told her to eat and sleep on schedule. She would also do as she asked when Xiang Changge told her to find something to occupy herself with, whether it was making incense or spending time with other people.

But just when Xiang Changge thought she'd found a way to pull Yu Qing out of the world that trapped her, Yu Qing had smiled and told her that she'd never left her prison at all. Everything she'd done was like teasing a little dog.

"Regain your faith in life and live happily—"

Xiang Changge murmured the task's requirements.

"Regain it... Had she ever had faith in life?"

"Yes."

The system's mechanical voice answered with absolute certainty in Xiang Changge's mind.

"...When?"

"When her parents were still alive."

"..."

"'Melancholy was her gift' was just a character trait in the author's story. But in Yu Qing's case, it was her personality, something she'd been born with."

"Even though she'd been frail and sickly as a child, her parents had been there for her. She might have been melancholy, but she still lived for them."

"What she needed was something to hold on to, something she could cherish—not some specific thing to do."

Xiang Changge didn't quite understand.

In her mind, she just had to follow the system's task: first change Yu Qing's routine so she could get healthy, then find something she liked to do. Wouldn't that make everyone happy?

But now the system was telling her Yu Qing didn't need some particular activity. She needed "something to cherish and hold on to."

"What do you mean?"

System: "...She needs love."

Yu Qing was an extremely complicated and contradictory person. She wanted someone by her side, yet hated people getting close to her. She feared loneliness, yet couldn't stand noisy crowds.

And she didn't need anyone to pity her, or to tell her what to do under the pretext of knowing what was "best for her."

Xiang Changge's words just now had come close to touching a nerve.

Perhaps, deep down, Yu Qing didn't want to push Xiang Changge away, or speak coldly to her. But that was how she'd acted in that moment.

After thinking carefully about what the system had said, Xiang Changge felt like she was beginning to get it. "Oh, she needs love—"

"Wait. Love?"

Yu Qing needed love, which meant Xiang Changge had to love her.

"?"

Wait, wait, wait. Was something wrong here?

Xiang Changge's eyes widened. "System, you never mentioned this when you gave me the task."

Was this really part of the task?

This sounded more like it was asking her to sell herself!

"I'm not that kind of person."

Besides, the price of doing a task and the price of selling herself couldn't possibly be the same, could they?

"No, no," Xiang Changge stammered, uncharacteristically flustered. "This is so sudden. I—I'm still an innocent young woman who's never even dated anyone! And Yu Qing and I haven't known each other that long. How can you ask me to love her?"

"This is so sudden. You didn't give me any warning at all."

"Is it okay for a task-taker to fall in love with their target? Is that normal? Does that even make sense?"

"...Wait, are you even a legitimate system?"

Still reeling, Xiang Changge fired off three questions in a row.

Wasn't she working hard on tasks so she could have a better life? How had it suddenly turned into giving her target "love"?

What did loving her even mean?

Giving herself to her in bed?

System: "..."

Had she taken things a little too far?

"I said she needs 'love.' I didn't say romantic love. Anyway, you need to love her, or get her to love you. Then she'll have something to hold on to. She's someone who 'lacks love' in both ways."

She lacked love, and she lacked people who loved her. It was that simple.

"This kind of love could be sisterly love, or the love between friends."

Xiang Changge: "...Would a mother's love work? I could try to think of her as my daughter."

System: "?"

The system fell silent, but Xiang Changge's thoughts began to wander.

"If I try to reason with Yu Qing and ask her to do this or that, she might rebel, get annoyed, or grow tired of it and refuse."

"But if I just force her to do it, she won't be able to resist. Or if I don't give her time to work herself up into a fit of emotions, she'll just do it... So that means she responds to force, not gentle persuasion."

Xiang Changge felt like she'd figured something out.

System: "..."

What exactly had she figured out?

After sitting at the dining table for another ten minutes or so, Xiang Changge pulled herself together and stood. "All right. From now on, Yu Qing is my baby too."

The kind of baby Steward Xiang would boss around and insist on getting to bed early and eating on time.

No wonder the system kept calling her "Baby Side Character." So that was what it meant.

—Baby Yu Qing.

System: "...That's not quite what we meant... All right, I suppose it's a little similar."

"What's she doing now?"

Xiang Changge asked the system.

The system checked. "Playing the piano in the music room."

Though she might not even know what she was playing.

"Playing the piano."

Xiang Changge thought it over. "Then let's have Yao Ningran come keep her company today. Yao Ningran can paint too, so when they get tired of playing, they can paint for a while."

Xiang Changge felt Yu Qing might not be comfortable with too many people around.

Besides, Yu Qing had only turned cold when they'd brought up Ge Bufan's braised food. She should keep Ge Bufan away from Yu Qing for the next couple of days.

The system asked, "What about Chu Keke? You asked me when she and the male lead would have a falling-out. Wasn't that so you could stop it?"

If they asked Chu Keke to come to Xiushan today, there was a good chance they could prevent that scene from happening.

"Stop it?" Xiang Changge chuckled as she rubbed her wrist. "What's the point of stopping it? If we stop it this time, does that mean it won't happen again?"

When you did something, you had to be decisive.

Xiang Changge narrowed her eyes in thought.

The system got a bad feeling. "!"

"I'm telling you again: murder is against the law!"

Author's note: People who are all tangled up need a lover who can't be driven away and can pick locks and break into their home [lop-eared rabbit head] [lop-eared rabbit head]

-

System: No idea. She said something about love and forcing her, then charged right in [clown] [clown]

Chapter 24: Steward Xiang, please stop hitting her

Yao Ningran arrived a little over an hour later.

By then, Yu Qing had grown tired of playing and was lounging on the sofa against the music-room wall like a boneless cat, idly flipping through a book of sheet music.

Though she was looking at the sheet music, her vacant, unfocused eyes made it clear she wasn't taking any of it in.