Her Eldest Legitimate Cheat Code

Ming Jiu froze.

[System???]

Was that you? Her eldest legitimate system!

The system's calm electronic voice sounded in Ming Jiu's mind. [It is I, Host.]

Ming Jiu quickly reacted. [You saved me, didn't you?]

In her previous life, she had only bound to the system in the second year of the disasters.

The system could not possibly have arrived early. There was only one possibility—the system had followed her back, or rather, the system had sent her back.

The system's voice remained equally flat. [You could say that.]

[When the Host died, I used all the gold coins in the Host's account, forcibly reclaimed all modified farmland, all backpack slots other than the initial ones, and all supplies stored by the Host. I purchased a large amount of energy and sent you back.]

Ming Jiu was so overwhelmed that she could not speak. She almost wanted to kowtow to the system.

She had been wrong. This was not her eldest legitimate system—this was her second set of parents.

Ming Jiu tried calling up the system interface in her mind. Soon, a familiar silver-gray light screen that only she could see appeared before her.

The interface was extremely simple, with several page options: [Farmland], [Orchard], [Breeding Farm], [Processing Plant], [Store], and [Mine].

Ming Jiu opened the [Mine] page with her consciousness. At the top was her plain profile picture, with several lines of simple information beside it.

[Name: Ming Jiu
Gender: Female; Age: 23
Place of Origin: Golden Crow System - Blue Star
Farm Level: Level 0
Gold Coins: 0; Silver Coins: 0; Copper Coins: 0
Farmland: 0
Orchard: 0 (Unlocks at Level 5)
Processing Plant: 0 (Unlocks at Level 10)
Breeding Farm: 0 (Unlocks at Level 10)
Backpack: 1\5]

Ming Jiu looked at the string of zeros on the interface and felt no regret, only relief.

Being alive was more important than anything—besides, the system had not only saved her. It had saved Xiao Rong too.

Ming Jiu opened the backpack page. The system initially came with five backpack slots, and each slot could stack up to ninety-nine identical items, regardless of their size or weight.

In her previous life, she had tried every possible way, working diligently for the farm. Most of the crops she planted were sold to the system in exchange for gold, silver, and copper coins, while her backpack slots had expanded from the initial five to twenty-six.

Life in the apocalypse had always been precarious. Every time she traded crops to the system, she would keep a small portion in her backpack for emergencies. Little by little, the rice, flour, and vegetables in her backpack had added up to at least forty or fifty tons. But now, they were all gone.

The only slot still in use contained ninety-nine large burlap sacks, all filled with wheat bran, rice husks, sweet potato vines, straw, and the like.

Clearly, the system could not sell that stuff, which was why it had been left behind.

[Thank you, System. Really.]

For the sake of saving her life, she was willing to work for her lifesaving system for another hundred years.

The system's electronic voice remained utterly unchanged. [You're welcome, Host.]

Ming Jiu felt that something was off, but she did not think too deeply about it. She quickly finished her sandwich, then changed her plans.

Now that she had the system cheat code in hand, there was no need for her and Xiao Rong to stay in City G.

They would pack up and leave immediately—right now!

It took Ming Jiu several minutes to find the WeChat account of a supermarket in the residential complex that offered home delivery. She messaged the owner and directly ordered two hundred of the largest plastic storage bins.

After she paid, the owner replied that he did not have that much stock on hand. He would go pick some up first and deliver them within an hour and a half at the latest.

Ming Jiu planned to pack up everything in the house that could be stored and put it into her backpack slots first. Then she would take Xiao Rong straight to the Zuo Family in City B and get Zuo Junhao's spatial ability.

Once she had the space, she could make further plans according to the situation. There was no use overthinking things now.

Ming Jiu put the dishes into the dishwasher and began moving things in and out of every room in the house.

The apartment had four bedrooms, two living rooms, and three bathrooms, covering one hundred and eighty square meters. Three of the four bedrooms were suites with their own private bathrooms.

The remaining room was the studio she shared with Dad Zuo, while the large balcony was the dance room used by her mother and younger sister.

Ming Jiu entered her parents' master bedroom and saw the family portrait on the bedside table. In the photo, Mom Ming and Dad Zuo had their arms around her and her sister, their smiles bright.

Ming Jiu's hand paused as she searched for the safe key.

Her parents' accidental deaths had happened seven years ago to her... yet time was clearly no cure for grief. Whenever she thought of her parents leaving, she could still feel that sharp, vivid pain.

After taking a deep breath, Ming Jiu opened the safe. Inside were two hundred thousand yuan in emergency cash, ten fifty-gram gold bars, and the property deeds.

Two residential properties and two commercial units.

Besides the apartment they currently lived in, Ming Jiu's family also owned a three-bedroom apartment in the same residential complex, which Dad Zuo had turned into an art studio where he taught children to draw.

One of the two commercial units had been used by Mom Ming to run a dance studio, while the other was rented out and happened to be vacant at the moment.

After her parents' accident, all the properties and money had temporarily been placed under Ming Jiu's name. Her name was the only one on the property deeds as well.

At this point in her previous life, she had planned to add Xiao Rong's name and replace the deeds after Xiao Rong finished her sign language course. Now, that was unnecessary. With these things under her name, it would be easier for her to liquidate the properties quickly.

As for the gold bars, Ming Jiu did not want to cash them out. On the contrary, she needed even more gold.

Taking out the gold bars, Ming Jiu directly summoned the system to exchange them.

Besides being obtained by selling farm produce, the system's currency could also be exchanged directly for real-world gold. Ten grams of gold could be exchanged for one gold coin, while the exchange rate between gold, silver, and copper coins was one hundred to one.

System currency could be used in the system store, which contained many good things: Gene Optimization Potion, ability activation potions, weapon and armor modifications, and much more.

Every single one of them made Ming Jiu drool with envy. Other than being expensive, they had no flaws whatsoever.

Up until her death in her previous life, she had been working toward saving enough gold coins to buy an ability activation potion.

The five hundred grams of gold bars exchanged for fifty gold coins. Ming Jiu put the cash and property deeds into a backpack slot first, then turned to rummage through her mother's jewelry cabinet.

This small number of gold coins was nowhere near enough.

The Gene Optimization Potion in the store cost a staggering eight thousand gold coins, equivalent to eighty kilograms of gold.

The ability activation potion cost ten times as much as the optimization potion.

Strength, strength, strength!

Surviving in the apocalypse was difficult. When everyone was starving, one's physical condition was impossible to hide.

Without strength, even if Ming Jiu had the system at her back and did not need to worry about food like other survivors, she would not even dare eat her fill.

If you ate one more bite than others, your steps would be steadier; if you had fresh food and lacked no vitamins, your skin would be smoother, your hair darker and shinier, and the whites and blacks of your eyes clearer... None of that could be hidden.

Without the ability to protect herself, Ming Jiu could only keep a low profile. During periods of extreme heat, she deliberately got sunburned. During periods of extreme cold, she deliberately exposed herself to the freezing air, all to leave obvious scars on her face and hands.

The searing pain of sun-scorched skin and the bone-deep itch after frostbite were things she never wanted to experience again, even if it killed her.

She had to live well with Xiao Rong. She would earn enough for two doses each of the optimization potion and ability potion.

Very quickly, Ming Jiu turned the jewelry cabinet upside down and sorted out every piece of gold jewelry inside.

Her mother did not usually wear much jewelry, but Dad Zuo loved buying it.

Although Dad Zuo had grown up with the background of a "wealthy family," he was just an ordinary art student who knew nothing about business or investments.

In his view, every investment carried risks, but buying gold for his wife and daughters would never be a loss.

Ming Jiu piled all the gold jewelry onto the dressing table. Looking at the glittering little mountain of gold before her, she summoned the system again.

[System, exchange it for gold coins.]

The system's voice sounded almost immediately.

[Detected 1,546.5 grams of gold. Exchange all of it?]

Ming Jiu selected "Yes" without hesitation.

[Exchange successful. Host, please check.]

Ming Jiu glanced at the amount of gold, silver, and copper coins on the system page. Including the gold bars—[Gold Coins: 204; Silver Coins: 65; Copper Coins: 0].

As she looked, the doorbell rang. The supermarket staff had delivered the storage bins she ordered. The large bins were stacked into several tall piles, their lids separately bundled with tape to one side, nearly filling the entire elevator lobby of the one-unit-per-floor building.

After dragging the bins inside, Ming Jiu rolled up her sleeves and began packing.

A single morning was nowhere near enough. Ming Jiu only had time to clear out her own room and her parents' room. She filled more than ten boxes with miscellaneous items and piled them all in the living room.

After checking the time, she realized it was almost time to go out and pick up Xiao Rong from class.

Ming Jiu was just about to put two storage bins into her backpack slots when the system's voice rang out again.

[System prompt: It has been detected that the Host is being monitored by a camera of unknown origin. Continue using backpack slots?]