People who eat melon are in 70 - Chapter 21

In just a moment, Jiang Yutao remembered that the book had also described Lin Wenrong’s illness during his childhood.

However, it was only briefly mentioned in Lin Wenrong’s narration. In those few words, he recalled very clearly that Zhao Chunhua refused to let him see a doctor, and his father hadn’t come home yet. It was only when his older brother begged Gu Nianwei that he was finally allowed to see a doctor.

Because there were so few words, Jiang Yutao hadn’t recalled it immediately. Now, as she expanded her thoughts, she remembered.

According to the book, during this illness, Gu Nianwei not only took care of him but also looked after him in the hospital for several days.

Thus, after Gu Nianwei married Lin Jianzhong, Lin Wenrong was the first to accept her and continued to be her supportive ally. When Gu Nianwei faced various grievances in the Lin family, it was his companionship and support that helped ease her heartache.

Among Lin Jianzhong’s three sons, Gu Nianwei treated Lin Wenrong the best and gave him the most preferential treatment. She gave him the best of everything and showed concern in every aspect.

However, Lin Wenrong was indeed Lin Jianzhong’s son. No matter how much Gu Nianwei devoted herself to him, she couldn’t warm his heart.

He called her “Mom” in front of others, but he actually looked down on her from the bottom of his heart. In his view, everything belonging to Gu Nianwei should be his. Whenever she gave even a little bit of her possessions to others, he felt uncomfortable and acted hurt and jealous. During these times, Gu Nianwei would compromise and give him more.

When he discovered Lin Jianzhong’s affair, his first reaction wasn’t to inform Gu Nianwei or to stand up for her. Instead, he used the information to blackmail Lin Jianzhong in exchange for more benefits for himself.

After all, Lin Jianzhong’s wealth was limited, but he had three sons. His two older brothers were already adults, and only he was still young. If he didn’t plan for himself, what would he end up with?

At that time, Lin Wenrong was only eighteen. He perfectly inherited the selfishness and hypocrisy of the Lin family, and he hid his hypocrisy even deeper.

Gu Nianwei devoted herself entirely to him and, in the end, was hurt the most by him.

Last time in the county town, she prevented Gu Nianwei from having a chance to improve her relationship with Lin Jianzhong. This time, she severed the bond between Gu Nianwei and Lin Wenrong.

After all, this is a stepmother story, with the focus on the word “stepmother.” Everything revolves around the stepmother raising the child.

This also explains why, after blocking the opportunity for Gu Nianwei to improve her relationship with Lin Jianzhong, the awakening progress only increased by 5%, while preventing Gu Nianwei from making sacrifices for Lin Wenrong resulted in a 20% increase in the awakening progress.

The melon-eating system, which originally wanted to show off its intelligence, now felt embarrassed: “Waa, the host is too smart. How can I look so useless in comparison?”

After analyzing this, Jiang Yutao encountered a problem: “[System, can you explain to me why when the awakening progress is at a certain point, I can earn one melon coin, but when the awakening progress reaches 5%, I can only earn five melon coins, and yet when the progress reaches 20%, I only get ten melon coins?]”

The importance of melon coins is self-evident; they are necessary for making purchases in the system’s store, and other things are useless.

According to normal logic, shouldn’t the faster progress result in more melon coins? Why does it seem to work the opposite way in the melon-eating system?

She noticed this issue last time but didn’t raise it, planning to observe further. However, it turns out that as the progress bar increases, the melon coins decrease. If this continues, what’s the point of playing?

To Jiang Yutao now, melon coins are essentially her lifeline. If the melon-eating system dares to secretly withhold her melon coins, it’s like pushing her to her limits!

As Gu Nianwei stared blankly at the rain, Jiang Yutao accessed the system’s interface, searching meticulously.

The melon-eating system, disturbed by Jiang Yutao’s questioning, had its core code in disarray. It was a bit frightening seeing Jiang Yutao searching the interface without waiting for a response.

With a trembling voice, it cautiously asked, “[Host, what are you looking for?]”

“[I’m looking for the complaint button. I want to report that you’re embezzling my deserved rewards.]” Jiang Yutao had been dealing with this somewhat clueless system for a while. The emotional tone in the system’s electronic voice made her certain that it was feeling guilty.

So the one withholding her melon coins must be the system.

Jiang Yutao calculated carefully: for each percentage of awakening progress, she should receive 1 melon coin. Thus, at 5% progress, she should get 10 melon coins. Last time, she received 5 but the system deducted half.

This time, with 20% progress, she should have received 40 melon coins, but she only got 10, with the remaining 30 going into the system’s pocket.

The deduction was harsher than even that of capitalists.

Jiang Yutao decided to quit. Why should she work hard and only get a small portion of the rewards? This is just like the exploitative contracts in the entertainment industry of later times.

Working tirelessly and being extremely busy every day, only to find out that the wages are meager, with no benefits for food or accommodation, and earning just twenty to thirty a day.

Jiang Yutao had been a corporate worker for three to four years in the modern world and had signed many labor contracts. This was the most harsh and unfair situation she had ever encountered, especially happening without her knowledge.

Jiang Yutao was very angry and decided to file a complaint against this useless system.

She didn’t believe that a garbage system like this, which didn’t even have a penalty mechanism, would lack a complaint button!

Seeing that Jiang Yutao was serious, the melon-eating system was frightened.

It was the original melon-eating system, and Jiang Yutao was its first and only host. It was currently in a critical debugging phase, and if it were complained about, not only would it be destroyed, but the entire melon-eating system department would be abolished. It would become a disgrace in the system world.

Moreover, the title of melon-eating system would never be used again, and the task of monitoring small worlds would be taken over by a new department.

The melon-eating system was scared. It immediately fell to its knees in front of Jiang Yutao: “[Host, please forgive me this one time. I won’t dare to do it again. I will immediately return the melon coins I deducted from you.]”

With the electronic voice of the melon-eating system fading away, the 35 melon coins that were deducted were successfully credited to Jiang Yutao’s store account.

Good grief, she had only earned 17 melon coins from her hard work on tasks, while the system had given her 35, which was more than half of what she had. Jiang Yutao was both angry and amused.

She remained unmoved.

This action by the melon-eating system had completely infuriated her.

It felt just like working tirelessly for a boss, working like a mule day and night, only to be promised a 4,000 salary, but receiving only 1,000 yuan and being deceived into believing that was her full salary.

Just thinking about it made Jiang Yutao feel like her heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys were all on fire.

The system can’t just regurgitate what it has taken away. That’s just raising it high and putting it down lightly. Does it really cause any substantive loss to the melon-eating system? Did she gain any real benefit from it? Those melon coins were rightfully hers!

The melon-eating system was truly crying: “[Host, I really know I was wrong. I promise this will be the only time I do such a disgraceful thing. From now on, I will reform and become a system dedicated to serving the host.]”

Jiang Yutao did not believe a word of it. Although the system seemed quite clueless, it was also quite petty. It had even gone so far as to deduct her rewards. She couldn’t forgive it easily.

At this moment, Jiang Yutao finally found the tiny “Report” button in an obscure corner.

Good grief, if she hadn’t looked carefully, she would have definitely missed it.

She realized she had been biased; wasn’t the system smart when it actually worked well?

She enlarged the “Report” button, and the melon-eating system’s cries immediately erupted.

As Jiang Yutao’s hand drew closer to the “Report” button, the melon-eating system could no longer hold back: “[Host, can I compensate you for your losses?]”

“[I’ve worked hard to save up twenty melon coins; I’ll give them all to you, not keeping a single one. Is that okay?]” The melon-eating system had been so excited to see its fifty or so melon coins before, but now, seeing the empty account, it was deeply distressed.

What’s the most painful thing in the world? It’s thinking you’ve gained something, only to realize you’ve lost it.

The melon-eating system’s sorrow was as great as today’s rain.

Jiang Yutao clicked her tongue, thinking that the melon-eating system was still quite wealthy. She had thought she had stripped it of everything with her new player bonus, but it seemed there was still something left?

From today’s experience, Jiang Yutao learned a lesson: one should not think too much about others. Otherwise, if you’re not careful, you’ll end up getting hurt yourself.

Jiang Yutao’s hand moved forward again, and the melon-eating system’s voice was almost shouting in desperation: “[Host, I’ll use my authority to give you a Mid-Autumn Festival snack gift pack, including food, drinks, and other goodies!!!]”

With the Mid-Autumn Festival just a month away, it was indeed time to prepare mooncakes.

For those of them who were far from home, the commune also made some provisions. Each person received two mooncakes.

Jiang Yutao used to dislike mooncakes, but since crossing over, she had developed a strong craving. Besides mooncakes, she had a particular craving for snacks.

When she thought of snacks, her mind was immediately filled with spicy strips, milk tea, and popcorn.

The melon-eating system caught on and immediately responded: “[Yes, yes, yes, we have all of those.]”

Jiang Yutao clicked her tongue in her mind and decided to accept the offer: “[Alright, I’ll forgive you this time. But there won’t be a next time. If it happens again, I will definitely report you. Anyway, whether you’re here or not, I’ll keep enjoying my melon.]”

In the countryside, there are the most melons, and you can easily find someone who will chat for half an hour about their special melon.

Aside from the harsh living conditions in the 1970s, she was actually quite pleased with other aspects.

Moreover, there’s a knack for getting benefits. You can’t just strip everything in one go; you should leave some seeds for the next time, right?

The melon-eating system was overjoyed and vowed never to do such things again. It even revealed the person who taught this method.

It turns out that there is a dedicated forum for systems to communicate. On this forum, many systems are active every day, and some senior systems share their experiences.

There are posts on how to get along peacefully with hosts and complete tasks joyfully, as well as posts on how to manipulate hosts to make them fully obedient.

The melon-eating system was deeply moved after reading the earlier posts and felt it had learned a lot of new knowledge. But after seeing the later posts, it opened a new door for the melon-eating system.

So it’s possible to manipulate hosts?

The melon-eating system’s heart was perfectly struck.

It eagerly absorbed the knowledge, and after studying for two days, it began tampering with the melon coins. After all, aside from melon coins, it couldn’t use other rewards given to Jiang Yutao.

With melon coins, it could exchange resources with other systems and purchase its own skins in the system’s exclusive store.

It had its eye on a red skin featuring Wangzai milk, which looked beautiful. Many systems were wearing it, and it looked particularly vibrant and cheerful. The melon-eating system really wanted to have it.

However, it required 60 melon coins. After successfully deducting melon coins from Jiang Yutao for the first time and seeing that she hadn’t noticed, it became bolder and deducted three-quarters the second time.

It had already planned that if the host asked about it, it would respond as suggested in the post: “[Host, it’s too bad. I learned to be bad from reading its post. It instructed that if the host inquires, just say that rewards are random and depend on luck. If the rewards are low, it’s just bad luck.]”

The melon-eating system was filled with righteous indignation. It was now very familiar with the malicious tactics in that post. Many systems had followed the methods in the post with high success rates, except for it, which had failed miserably.

The melon-eating system felt it couldn’t let that system continue to be featured on the homepage. It wanted to make it impossible for other systems aspiring to take control to find their way!

“[Host, could you lend me two melon coins? I need to report that post. Posts like that should never be allowed—it’s just stirring up trouble between systems and hosts. Just like us, if you weren’t so firm, we might have been torn apart.]” The melon-eating system’s electronic voice was overflowing with emotion.

Jiang Yutao clicked her tongue.

She suddenly remembered a video she had seen in her past life on a short video platform. It was about a house fire where a child took the opportunity to throw their summer homework into the flames, which was later recovered by firefighters. The subsequent interview with the firefighters was hilarious.

The gist of it was: “If I’ve been rained on, I’ll just tear your umbrella.”

Jiang Yutao thought that sometimes this clueless little system was quite to her liking, so she agreed. The melon-eating system cautiously transferred two melon coins from Jiang Yutao’s account.

Then it went silent, and Jiang Yutao guessed it had gone off to make the report.

The negotiation between Jiang Yutao and the system seemed to have taken a long time, but in reality, it was less than ten minutes.

After listening to the sound of rain in silence for a while, Gu Nianwei’s mood finally calmed down a bit.

She looked at Jiang Yutao and said, “When we build the house, let’s make the corridor and hall a bit larger. If it rains, we can sit in the corridor, drink tea, and chat.”

As Gu Nianwei spoke, Jiang Yutao’s mind began to picture the scene of the two of them sipping tea and listening to the rain. The image deeply touched her.

In the fast-paced lives of twenty-first-century urban workers, who wouldn’t yearn for such a leisurely existence?

“Alright, I’ve heard that it snows in the northern winters too. When it does, we can brew wine and drink it in the corridor.”

Both of them laughed.

It was at this moment that Li Yunying came back.

Jiang Yutao and Gu Nianwei quickly went to greet her.

Jiang Yutao asked Li Yunying, who was wiping her hands and taking off her shoes, “Sister Yunying, how is the situation over there?”

Li Yunying took a moment to reply, “I took Lin Wenping directly to find the brigade commander. On the way, we also called Aunt Wei Hong. By the time we got to the Lin family’s place, Lin Wenrong was already convulsing from the fever. Zhao Chunhua was giving him a bowl of water mixed with pot bottom ash to drink.”

“The brigade commander and Aunt Wei Hong advised her to take the child to the hospital, but she said it was a waste of money. She argued that children aren’t that delicate and claimed that pot bottom ash is ‘universal medicine’ that can cure all ailments.” Li Yunying knew Zhao Chunhua was ignorant, but she didn’t realize she was this ignorant.

“This person is really something. I remember earlier this year, when her second son’s grandson had a fever, she was in a rush to go to the hospital. Why didn’t she suggest using pot bottom ash for him then?” In the end, it’s clear she just doesn’t care about Lin Wenrong.

Zhang Huihui was also very angry and asked, “What happened next?”

“Aunt Wei Hong took Lin Wenrong to her home. The brigade commander went to the commune health center on his bike.”

“Now that everything that can be done has been done, we can only do our best and leave the rest to fate.” With such heavy rain today and Lin Wenrong being taken out, and with the health center being so far away, no one knows what the outcome will be.

Li Yunying hoped that Lin Wenrong’s health would improve and that he would get through this.

Li Yunying said to Gu Nianwei, “Weiwei, it was the right decision not to go. You have no idea how Zhao Chunhua clung to Aunt Wei Hong when she was about to take Lin Wenrong. Aunt Wei Hong was slapped by Zhao Chunhua, even though they are relatives. If it were us, who have no relations with her, who knows what she would have done?”

This time, hearing about Lin Wenrong’s situation, Gu Nianwei’s intense feeling of wanting to replace him with herself had diminished significantly; she didn’t even need to suppress it—it just disappeared on its own.

Gu Nianwei let out a deep sigh of relief, “I was being inconsiderate earlier. When I saw that child come to me looking so pitiful, I just wanted to help.”

Li Yunying and Zhang Huihui nodded. They had no doubts about what Gu Nianwei said. Gu Nianwei had always liked children a lot, and in the eyes of the children, she was also the best young intellectual.

The Lin brothers just received more of her favoritism.

Normally, this should have been the end of the matter, but unfortunately, there was a troublemaker like Zhao Yonglan among the young intellectuals.

“I don’t think so. I heard that Aunt Wei Hong is planning to have you become her nephew’s wife. I heard her nephew is quite outstanding—he’s a military officer. If you marry him, you won’t have to worry about your future. Soldiers have great benefits. Weiwei, come on, tell us secretly—are you trying to win over her son in advance?”

As Zhao Yonglan said the latter part, she had a lewd smile on her face. “Don’t be shy. Men should marry, and women should get married. There’s nothing wrong with thinking about your own future. If you ask me, Weiwei, you didn’t handle this well. There’s no need to curry favor with a stepson. Just ignore them. Once you’re married and have your man under control, won’t you still have the final say in the house?”

Zhao Yonglan had seen second marriages in her own courtyard, and those women were quite formidable, keeping their men tightly under control while being indifferent to the children left behind. As long as they didn’t starve or freeze, that was enough.

Once she has her own children, the ones from before will become nothing but a thing of the past. All the good things will go to her biological children, and the father will be the same way. As long as it’s not excessive, he won’t bother to manage it.

Zhao Yonglan even thought that Gu Nianwei, who tried to win over a few children, was a big fool with no scheming or tricks. What’s the use of currying favor with those little brats? She’s not going to live with those three children once she gets married.

She should be getting along well with Aunt Wei Hong now, making her speak favorably of her in front of her nephew. Isn’t that better than doing nothing?

The faces of those present, including Gu Nianwei, showed no improvement, and Zhang Huihui even tugged at Zhao Yonglan’s sleeve several times.

Zhao Yonglan, annoyed, shook her off and continued her irritating chatter, her words growing more offensive. Seeing Gu Nianwei’s increasingly grim expression, Zhang Huihui decided to leave her be.

After all, Zhao Yonglan wasn’t going to listen to her anyway.

Gu Nianwei narrowed her eyes and said, “Zhao Yonglan, what do you mean by that? Who is supposed to be the stepmother?”

Zhao Yonglan covered her mouth with her hand and replied, “Weiwei, you’re being unreasonable. This is already common knowledge in the village, and you’re pretending not to know? I’ve heard that Aunt Wei Hong is even preparing wedding supplies for Lin Jianzhong. If you hadn’t agreed, could she be arranging all this?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. When did I agree to be a stepmother? You’d better clarify where this rumor came from. I want to know how they found out about something I don’t even know,” Gu Nianwei said. She understood how important reputation was for a girl in this era and had always paid close attention to her own.

She never expected that one day she would be the subject of such ridiculous rumors.

Zhao Yonglan had heard this from the women in her group. She didn’t even know all the people involved and didn’t know where to find them to confront them with Gu Nianwei.

“The villagers are all talking about it; what am I supposed to do? Besides, a fly doesn’t bite a seamless egg, and a slap can’t make a sound on its own. Otherwise, why would they spread such gossip about you specifically?”

After Zhao Yonglan finished speaking, Gu Nianwei slapped her across the face. “A slap can’t make a sound? Zhao Yonglan, tell me, does this slap make a sound?”

Zhao Yonglan had never been hit like this before. Gu Nianwei’s slap stunned her, and by the time she came to her senses, she was screaming, covering her face, and charging towards Gu Nianwei with her eyes closed.

“You hit me, you dare to hit me.” Clearly no match for Gu Nianwei, Zhao Yonglan was quickly subdued.

Gu Nianwei didn’t hit her again, but Zhao Yonglan was furious, shouting, “Zhang Huihui, Zhang Huihui, what are you doing? Can’t you see I’m being bullied? Why are you just standing there?”

Zhang Huihui hesitated for two seconds but ultimately walked towards Gu Nianwei.

Still, Zhao Yonglan’s parents were her own parents’ direct superiors. If Zhao Yonglan was beaten and Zhang Huihui didn’t help, the news would inevitably reach her parents, and they would be implicated.

Just as she took a couple of steps, Jiang Youtao stopped her. Zhang Huihui looked at Jiang Youtao and saw her half-smiling, half-serious face. “Let them handle their own matters; outsiders shouldn’t interfere, okay?”

The image of Jiang Youtao fighting Liu Erhua instantly flashed through Zhang Huihui’s mind, and she stood there, unmoving.