Xu Ziyan slept until noon before waking up. She rubbed her face comfortably against the pillow, got up, and washed up. She wandered around her large walk-in closet twice and picked out a beautiful dress. The soft fabric offered no sense of restraint at all. It was no exaggeration to say that wearing it felt like wearing nothing—super light and comfortable.
She went downstairs and called out, “Auntie Chen, what’s for lunch? I’m so hungry.”
Auntie Chen came out of the kitchen and said with a smile, “Today we have the dishes you like: plum-glazed pork ribs, crispy fried chicken, drunken crab… It’ll be ready soon.”
“Wow, that’s great! Thanks for your hard work, Auntie Chen!” Xu Ziyan smiled until her eyes curved, thinking to herself, 『001, look at this. Isn’t this the Luck Attribute bonus at work? I wake up and immediately get my favorite food.』
001 didn’t speak, but the more it thought about it, the more sense it made. Continuously adding to the luck attribute really did make every aspect easier, switching life to easy mode.
It never expected that the King of Involution it had so carefully selected would end up loving luck the most.
Xu Ziyan was just about to go get a glass of water when she saw someone stand up from the sofa area. That person gave off a very pretty and harmless vibe, the kind that made people want to protect her the moment they saw her. Who was this?
The other party smiled nervously. “Hello, you must be Manager Fu’s second younger sister, Miss Xu, right? My name is Lin Xiaoyun. I’m Manager Fu’s life assistant.”
Xu Ziyan remembered. Last night, the system had told her that Eldest Brother had brought Cinderella home. She subconsciously glanced around. “Where’s my eldest brother? Why are you here alone?”
Lin Xiaoyun explained, “Manager Fu went to the company this morning to deal with some backlogged work. I accidentally sprained my ankle, so Manager Fu told me to stay here to apply some medicine and adjust to the time difference. Sorry for disturbing you.”
Xu Ziyan waved her hand and went to get water by herself. “It’s fine. This home doesn’t belong to me alone. You’re Eldest Brother’s guest, make yourself at home.”
『Sprained her ankle as soon as she arrived? What kind of play is this? Does she want to use it as an excuse to stay? She’s already set foot inside the home. Won’t the time to conquer Eldest Brother be coming soon?』
Fu Qiming had told the Fu family members that Xu Ziyan was awake, so they all came downstairs and happened to hear Xu Ziyan’s inner thoughts.
Li Yunhui glanced at Lin Xiaoyun’s foot, a flicker of doubt in her eyes, and asked with a smile, “How is your foot, Miss Lin? Feeling better?”
Lin Xiaoyun quickly replied, “Much better. I don’t really dare put weight on it, but after applying the medicated oil, it doesn’t hurt as much.”
Li Yunhui nodded. “It doesn’t look swollen, but who knows if you hurt a bone? I’ll call Doctor Lin over to take a look at you.”
Lin Xiaoyun immediately declined, but Li Yunhui insisted and still contacted the family doctor.
The group didn’t pay too much attention to Lin Xiaoyun. Instead, they all concerned themselves with Xu Ziyan, telling her not to stay up late.
Xu Ziyan listened and nodded repeatedly. 『I won’t, I won’t! I slept until noon today and still don’t feel as energetic as usual. You really can’t make up for lost sleep from staying up late. I died from staying up too late in my last life! I’ll never stay up late again!』
Hearing her inner thoughts and knowing she had taken it to heart, they felt reassured and changed the subject. Fu Yazhen even placed a plate of fruit in front of her.
They didn’t snub Lin Xiaoyun either. They were all socially adept people; no one would make a guest feel awkward. But this very attitude made Lin Xiaoyun even more ill at ease.
According to her original plan, she was the first woman Fu Qixuan had ever brought home. Fu Qixuan wasn’t here, but he was willing to leave her at his home and have the servants take good care of her. The Fu family should have misunderstood the relationship between her and Fu Qixuan, becoming either curious or hostile toward her. Whether they tried to pair her up with Fu Qixuan or coldly told her to leave, she would have had a reason to go perform in front of Fu Qixuan and take the opportunity to advance a step further.
But now, the Fu family’s attitude toward her was completely that of a guest—polite, distant, only treating her as a company employee, Fu Qixuan’s colleague. This gave her no room to maneuver at all. Amidst the warm, family atmosphere, her own incongruity only highlighted how presumptuous it was for her to stay at the Fu residence.
Whether it was skipping the hotel to borrow a stay at the boss’s house, or staying at the boss’s house to recuperate from a minor sprain, it was all too presumptuous. The current situation made her seem very rude. Lin Xiaoyun sat there, her smile practically frozen on her face. Why was this different from what she had imagined?
And the Fu family was way too good to Xu Ziyan, right? Didn’t Ding Jie say the Fu family had kicked Xu Ziyan out? But from what she saw, Xu Ziyan was practically the little princess of the Fu family!
A flash of jealousy passed through Lin Xiaoyun’s eyes. They were both from the bottom of society. Why did she have to play the Social Butterfly, pleasing everyone left and right, while Xu Ziyan had such good fortune to be adopted by a wealthy family at a clueless age? After acting out for so many years, she was still treated like a treasure by this wealthy family? Why?
Xu Ziyan noticed her expression and gossiped with the system. 『What’s that look in her eyes? Could it be jealousy?』
If Xu Ziyan knew what she was thinking, she would have laughed heartily three times before telling her: This is luck! That’s why they say nothing in heaven or on earth is greater than luck! Luck is just too important!
The Fu family members heard her inner thoughts and all subtly glanced toward Lin Xiaoyun, just in time to see her expression, which was different from her usual demeanor. Their conviction that this person harbored ill intentions grew stronger. Fu Qiming even secretly changed the angle of his phone to record a video, sending it to Fu Qixuan, wanting to expose this woman’s true colors to Eldest Brother.
He looked around and decided to install a few more hidden cameras at home later. That way, they could capture things clearly, making it much easier to expose anyone.
Fu Qixuan had just finished a meeting when he saw the video sent by Fu Qiming. He frowned. Because he had investigated Lin Xiaoyun himself, of course he trusted the conclusions of his own investigation more. And he hadn’t yet met the Xu Ziyan with a changed soul; his impression of this cheap younger sister was still stuck in the past.
With that preconceived notion, he didn’t think this video could expose anything. On the contrary, he felt his whole family had gone mad, completely fooled by Xu Ziyan. Now they were even collectively targeting Lin Xiaoyun. He had no idea what awkward situation Lin Xiaoyun might be in at the Fu residence.
He sent a warning reply to Fu Qiming: Know when to stop. Don’t go too far.
Fu Qiming rolled his eyes dramatically and couldn’t be bothered to reply. Were they that stupid in Eldest Brother’s eyes? Or was the whole family stupid together? Unbelievable!
Fu Qiming opened his work chat group and started discussing preparations for a new game with a few buddies. This was a new group he had created. The people in it were all carefully selected and checked for issues—Li Dong was not among them.
There was a Game Creation Competition coming up in a while. He wanted to participate, aiming to get some results and also produce a graduation thesis. Thinking of this, he suddenly looked at Xu Ziyan. “Hey, you laze around at home every day. What about your internship? Do you have a direction for your graduation thesis yet?”
Xu Ziyan, who was in the middle of eating fruit, paused, her face full of shock. “Internship? Graduation thesis?”
001: 『Host, you are currently in the second semester of your senior year. You do indeed need to prepare these things.』
Xu Ziyan felt like a bunch of missions had been dumped on her out of nowhere. Back in the day, how much hair had she pulled out for her graduation thesis? And she had to do it again? The Original Host hadn’t studied hard at all, and she herself didn’t have much knowledge of this major in her head either. She couldn’t very well write it based on her own previous major, could she?
An idea popped into her mind. What if the world collapsed in a few days? Then this thesis probably wouldn’t need to be written, right?
Fu Qiming looked at her expression and guessed what she was thinking. He immediately acted nonchalant and said, “I’ve been preparing properly all along. My future plans for studying abroad aren’t set yet. What if I stay and run into classmates or teachers? How embarrassing would it be if I didn’t even graduate properly?”
Xu Ziyan thought about it. Yeah, what if she lived to a hundred this lifetime? How embarrassing would it be not to graduate properly?
She forced a smile. “I’m working on it. I have a plan.”
Fu Qiming almost laughed out loud. He finally got to see this Cheap Older Sister change her expression. But she really was lazy, not wanting to do anything all day. Who knew how she became the King of Involution in her past life.
Fu Dongfeng said, “When Qixuan comes back tonight, let him know. Starting tomorrow, you’ll go work at the company. Have him arrange a suitable position for you and assign two experienced special assistants to help you. If you don’t understand anything about the work or your thesis, just ask them.”
Xu Ziyan understood immediately. Wasn’t this one-on-one tutoring? Regardless of what was being taught, at least she could ask if she didn’t know, right? Even looking up information, she could ask which direction to search in, right? Xu Ziyan immediately beamed. “Thank you, Dad! You’re the best!”
Fu Qiming muttered quietly, “Whoever gives you benefits is the best. There’s not a single person in this family who isn’t the best.”
Xu Ziyan pretended not to hear. The others didn’t care at all either. On the contrary, they loved how sweet-talking Xu Ziyan was. Who wouldn’t like such a sweet-talking little Lucky Star?
If she was happy just lazing around at home waiting for death, then they would turn the home into the most beautiful ivory tower, a utopia. So what? As long as she was happy!
Xu Ziyan spent her day like this: she looked at birds with her foster father, pruned flowers with her foster mother, took a walk with her older sister, and bickered with her younger brother. It was a rather leisurely and fulfilling little life. During this time, Doctor Lin came to check on Lin Xiaoyun’s injury and said it wasn’t serious. Perhaps Lin Xiaoyun was more sensitive to pain, which was why she didn’t dare put weight on it. They left a bottle of medicated oil and went on their way.
Lin Xiaoyun probably felt very awkward, or perhaps realized she couldn’t accomplish anything on the Fu family’s side, so she hid back in the guest room and didn’t come out again.
It wasn’t until Fu Qixuan came back for dinner that Lin Xiaoyun immediately came out to talk to him.
Seeing Fu Qixuan bring back a fully loaded briefcase of documents, Xu Ziyan secretly clicked her tongue. 『This level of diligence is on par with mine in my last life. With so many documents, what time will he have to read until?』
This time, Fu Qixuan was looking right at Xu Ziyan when he heard the inner thoughts. He confirmed Xu Ziyan hadn’t opened her mouth. If this was a recording, it was impossible—no one knew in advance that he would bring documents, so how could a recording be made ahead of time? However, he couldn’t rule out the possibility of some black-tech method that allowed sound without opening the mouth. Ventriloquism was also possible.
At the same time, he felt annoyed. Wasn’t bringing so many documents her fault? The company was quite far from the Fu residence. The round trip on the road took a lot of time. He usually lived in his home near the company. On days like today when he had a lot of backlogged work, he would grab a simple bite and work late at the office, then go straight home—very convenient.
But because of Xu Ziyan’s inner thoughts, his parents demanded they all find reasons to move back home and have meals at home. That’s why he could only bring a huge pile of documents back to read.
Now that he was back, he was going to take a good look at what tricks this cheap younger sister was up to this time!
Xu Ziyan thought to herself: 『Why do I feel like his eyes are like knives? I didn’t offend him, did I? Did that scoundrel Ding Jie get Cinderella to whisper bad things about me in his ear?』
Fu Qixuan took his seat at the dining table, puzzled. Cinderella? Who? And what did it have to do with Ding Jie?