Chapter 15

Too much. She was ready to give up on life over *that*?
She wasn’t refusing to live. She was refusing to let Xiang Changge live well.
If Yu Qing died, Xiang Changge would die with her. She had only just eaten her fill for the first time in years, and there were so many things left she wanted to eat and drink. How could she possibly accept that?
Seeing the way she was barreling toward the door, the system hastily called out, “Calm down, 8802. What exactly are you planning to do? Go interrogate the supporting female? What if that only makes her want to die faster?”
Xiang Changge: “……”
The system, which had been sulking a moment before, suddenly found its CPU running smoother than ever.
It even had the space to comfort its host. “It’s fine, 8802. It’s only the beginning. If we look on the bright side, the supporting female just has negative thoughts—they’re not actions yet. We can still work on changing her slowly.”
Rubbing her chin, Xiang Changge had to admit it had a point.
“True. Right now she just doesn’t *want* to live. For my mission to fail, she actually has to die.”
She could carry on with the plan for now. If Yu Qing stayed just as morose and one day truly attempted suicide, Xiang Changge could always tie her up so she couldn’t go through with it.
If, after being well‑fed and well‑kept, she *still* wanted to die, then a few necessary measures were only sensible.
The plot‑rewrite system, having read her thoughts: “! Wait wait wait! 8802, we are a serious system doing serious missions. We do *not* do prison‑play, okay?!”
Xiang Changge tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Oh? Not even if the alternative is mission failure?”
System: “……”
Well… compared to mission failure, it wasn’t like it was *absolutely* off the table… right?
Forget it. No point overthinking it. They would take things one step at a time.
Having talked themselves into optimism, one of them went back to studying the mission parameters while the other returned to her bath schedule.
At ten p.m., the drizzle started up again.
In comfortable pajamas, Xiang Changge stood before the floor‑to‑ceiling windows on the second floor, watching the rain fall in fine, wool‑like strands under the streetlights. She sipped from a crystal glass of plain milk and asked, “What’s she doing now?”
The system quickly answered, “The supporting female has already showered and is lying in bed reading literature.”
She wasn’t asleep yet, but at least she was in bed.
Xiang Changge knew full well Yu Qing could lie there until ten the next morning without ever closing her eyes.
Knowing was one thing; there wasn’t much she could do to force her to sleep on command. The whole point of the ten‑o’clock curfew had been to help her build a habit, but clearly, this would not be an easy task.
Given her poor health, sleeping pills were not an option—they would only backfire. And it wasn’t as if Xiang Changge could just sit by her bedside like a nanny, singing lullabies and telling bedtime stories.
System: “…And why *can’t* you?”
Xiang Changge: “??”
At ten‑twenty, the four‑seater shuttle rolled to a stop outside the main house.
Soon, someone in white‑striped pajamas stepped out, umbrella in hand, and headed inside.
At ten‑twenty‑two, the elevator chimed on the third floor.
In her bedroom, Yu Qing, curled up on her big bed with a book, suddenly sensed something was off.
She closed the book and held it to her chest, lifting her head slowly to look around the room.
She didn’t like having bright lights on while she was in bed, so at the moment the only illumination came from the two full‑moon‑shaped reading lamps on the wall above her headboard.
Their warm orange light fell around the bed, leaving the rest of the room in semi‑darkness.
She glanced toward the door, then went back over her memory to make sure she had indeed locked it. Once she’d confirmed that even with a key nobody could get in, she relaxed and slid back under the covers.
She had just pulled out her unfinished book to continue reading when a sudden *knock‑knock* sounded at the door.
Three knocks in a row. When no one answered, there came another three—and then silence.
Propped on one elbow, head tilted toward the door, Yu Qing: “……”
She had heard wrong. She *had* to have heard wrong. There was no knocking. It was just her imagination.
“……”
Five minutes later, when no one had opened the door, Xiang Changge asked, “What’s she doing now?”
System: “…Curled up under the blanket, hands over her ears, eyes shut.”
A textbook case of covering one’s ears and ringing the bell.
Xiang Changge: “……Is she sleepy yet?”
This time the system took longer to respond. “After running the numbers, no. She’s not sleepy. At this rate she could lie there until about five‑thirty in the morning before she felt like sleeping.”
Xiang Changge: “……”
Right. Enough said.
She went back to knocking.
This time, the knocks came in a steady stream.
The sound echoed through the room like a wooden fish in a temple. Even with her ears covered, Yu Qing felt as if a monk were chanting sutras right beside her.
After six more minutes of this, she couldn’t stand it anymore. Throwing off the blanket, she stormed out of bed and yanked the door open.
Bright hallway light spilled in, framing her in the doorway—hair tousled, eyes empty and cold.
“Xiang. Chang. Ge. You had better have a *reason*.”
She forced each word out, thick with resentment.
She was seriously reconsidering the appeal of poverty.
Xiang Changge, also in pajamas, gave her a polite smile that, in Yu Qing’s eyes, looked more like a provocation.
“Of course, Miss. I’m here to provide bedtime service.”
The anger on Yu Qing’s face blew away like smoke in a gust of wind. Her lashes fluttered.
“Bedtime… ser‑vice?”
What on earth was that?
Since when did butlers offer services like that?
Why had she never experienced any before?
Wait. With a name like that, was this some kind of weird thing she’d picked up abroad?
Before Xiang Changge could explain, Yu Qing blurted, “I don’t need any. You can go.”
Sleeping, for her, meant playing until she was exhausted and passing out. She had no use for “services.”
“It’s fine. I insist.”
Yu Qing: “?”
Did she hear that right?
She gave a disbelieving little laugh. “Forcing your services on me, is that it?”
Xiang Changge nodded serenely and even spread her arms a little. “Aren’t I the best example of that?”
—A living, breathing case of forced sale.
Who could argue with that? If firing her would strip her of her inheritance, what else could you call it?
Leaning against the doorframe, Yu Qing eyed the stripe‑pajamaed, hole‑sandaled woman and let out a cold snort. “At least you’re self‑aware.”
“Thank you.”
With that, Xiang Changge pushed the half‑open door wider, slipped past her as if she were walking into her own room, dragged the chair she’d sat in that morning back to the bedside, and sat down with all the gravity of a prison guard.
Anyone walking in fresh would have thought she was there to monitor Yu Qing’s sleep.
Still standing by the door, Yu Qing clenched her teeth. “Do you really think I don’t dare fire you?”
It was only the first day on the job and Xiang Changge had challenged her at every turn. Yu Qing didn’t even want to imagine what life would look like with this woman as her butler.
By now, Xiang Changge was used to the threats. Her voice and expression both remained calm.
“If you fire me, that’s fine.”
Through the dim room, she met Yu Qing’s eyes. “I assume you already know that according to your parents’ will and my contract, if you unilaterally terminate our employment relationship, you will be unable to inherit their estate.”
She didn’t even bother with honorifics now. Like some ancient regent with victory in hand, she went on, “In other words, if you fire me, you’ll become a pauper.”
Staring at that face, softened at the edges by the warm glow of the reading lamps yet still maddeningly composed, Yu Qing replied just as coolly, “And you think I care?”
It was only money. For someone who woke up every day wondering why she was still alive, what meaning could it possibly hold?
One brow lifted, Xiang Changge fixed those gray‑brown eyes on her like spotlights, watching every flicker of her expression.
“Oh? Is that so.”
“In that case, let me confirm.”
Folding her arms, she tapped her fingers lightly against her sleeve in a steady rhythm. “If you dismiss me, the two rescue shelters you fund for stray cats and dogs will have no incoming funds and will have to shut down.”
“The two hundred and twenty‑nine underprivileged schoolgirls you sponsor, the five charity funds and seventy‑two rural schools you support, as well as the scholarship programs covering three provinces, fifty‑six cities and countless impoverished students—all of that will dry up and—”
“Stop.”
Standing in the shadows, backlit by the hall light, Yu Qing squeezed her eyes shut, grinding the words out from between her teeth. “You… Xiang Changge… are very good at this.”
Xiang Changge smiled and spread her hands. “Thank you for the compliment, Boss.”
“Now, would you care to receive your bedtime service?”
Yu Qing could only laugh—cold and furious.
Boss? *She* was?
No. She wasn’t. Xiang Changge was.