Chapter 19

Even if it was only symbolic and short‑lived, it was at least a nominal chance to “choose”—a way for Xiang Changge to legitimize doing what she wanted to do anyway.
She laid it out plainly. “You don’t want to get up and eat right now. I do want you up for breakfast. Since our wishes clash and neither of us feels like listening to the other, let’s decide it with a game.”
“If you win, you can keep sleeping exactly as you like. If I win, you get up and eat breakfast.”
Silence fell again.
Only after a long time did Yu Qing’s bloodless lips part to let three drifting, chilly words escape. “Says who?”
On the surface, it was a choice. Scrape off the veneer, and it boiled down to that.
So what if she didn’t want to eat or get up? Why did she have to follow Xiang Changge’s wishes? When had her life stopped being hers to control?
Expression steady, Xiang Changge replied in the same calm tone, “Because we don’t agree. And because you can’t fire me.”
Yu Qing discovered that Xiang Changge had a peculiar magic about her.
Moments ago, her mood had been so low that she wouldn’t have budged even if the earth started shaking beneath her. Yet a single sentence from this woman, and strength flooded back into her limbs.
Not just strength—a very specific desire to haul the other woman down and beat her into the mattress.
All from nothing more than words.
She let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “And if I refuse?”
Xiang Changge spread her hands. “Then I’ll just have to serve you myself.”
Yu Qing: “……”
Serve?
What, exactly, was that supposed to mean?
Seeing the confusion in her eyes, Xiang Changge elaborated helpfully, “I’ll personally take you to wash up, and personally feed you breakfast.”
Yu Qing’s lips pressed into a thin line. Her world‑weary “dead fish eyes” fastened on Xiang Changge with a glare sharp enough to slice fruit; if looks could cut, Xiang Changge would have been diced to bits.
If she noticed the murderous intent at all, Xiang Changge gave no sign. She met Yu Qing’s gaze head‑on.
Eventually, it was Yu Qing who broke eye contact, unable to bear picturing herself being tended like a toddler.
“…What are we playing?”
Her voice was barely audible.
“Anything you like,” said Xiang Changge. “Your pick.”
“Games, chess, puzzles… anything.”
Yu Qing thought it over.
Games didn’t interest her. Chess, she played on occasion.
“Then let’s play chess.”
Xiang Changge nodded. Spotting Yu Qing’s phone tossed near the foot of the bed, she picked it up and held it out.
Yu Qing frowned down at it, then up at her. “What for?” Weren’t they supposed to be playing chess?
“Unlock it. We’ll play on your phone.”
Still not quite following, Yu Qing nevertheless entered her passcode.
The moment she handed it over, Xiang Changge calmly used Yu Qing’s WeChat to send herself a friend request, then opened up the mini‑programs.
By the time the phone was back in Yu Qing’s hands, the screen showed a two‑player gomoku board, already in play.
One glance, and Yu Qing’s eyes shot to Xiang Changge in disbelief. “This is gomoku?”
She had assumed that “play a game” would, at worst, mean Chinese chess or Go—not… five‑in‑a‑row.
It felt like psyching herself up to charge onto a battlefield, only to be sent out front to pick a bean.
“Yes,” Xiang Changge said, dropping the first black stone with a flick of her thumb. “Why?”
Gomoku wasn’t chess?
She had taken black and moved first.
Watching the token appear on the board, Yu Qing felt the same anticlimax as someone landing a full punch, only to discover their opponent was bundled in twenty layers of padding.
Drawing a deep breath, she forced down her exasperation.
Fine. Gomoku it was. Something this simple barely deserved to be called a match.
Yu Qing was full of confidence. So was Xiang Changge.
The apocalypse had been both boring and nerve‑wracking. When she wasn’t fighting zombies or scavenging, Xiang Changge had needed ways to keep herself entertained.
Sometimes she would scratch out a grid on the floor and play with herself.
Tic‑tac‑toe, gomoku—she’d played both enough times that she considered herself quite experienced.
Five minutes later, that “seasoned expert” was staring at four little words on her screen—*You lose*—with a look of utter bewilderment.
She’d lost?
She’d lost?
How could she possibly have lost?
Yu Qing’s face, colorless a moment ago, now held a faint flush. Whether she was amused or simply recovering, even she wasn’t sure. Lips pressed in a restrained line, she eyed the clearly stunned Xiang Changge with a touch of smugness.
“Butler Xiang, you lost.”
Saying the words filled her with a bright, almost dizzying sense of satisfaction.
She might have thought the other woman was going easy on her, but Xiang Changge’s expression—eyes glued to the phone, clearly unwilling to accept the result—told her that wasn’t the case.
When it came to gomoku, Xiang Changge simply couldn’t beat her.
Letting the phone spin once in her hand, Yu Qing tossed it back onto the bed and, imitating Xiang Changge’s earlier gesture, spread her hands toward the door.
“Off you go, Butler Xiang. I’m going back to sleep.”
Even after she found herself standing in the hallway, Xiang Changge still hadn’t quite recovered.
Ever the considerate one, the plot‑rewrite system piped up in her head, “It’s okay, 8802. Take it slow. It’s only the second day of the mission. This has to be a gradual process.”
If this were easy, there’d never have been any need for a system like it.
The sound of its voice seemed to bring her back to herself. She pocketed the phone, then reached into the other pocket, tapped a boiled egg against her forehead until the shell cracked, and started peeling as she walked downstairs.
The system: “……”
Right. The blow might have been a bit much.
Only after she’d finished the egg did Xiang Changge lick the salt from her lips and sigh. “I actually lost. Am I not a gomoku prodigy after all? How did I lose?”
The system, which had been in the middle of searching “what to do when your host suffers a devastating blow and stops behaving normally”: “……”
Quietly closing the browser tab, it began compiling collections like “Thirty Tips to Become a Gomoku Master” and “Gomoku Speed‑Run Guide,” sending them all to Xiang Changge.
After downing a carton of milk in the kitchen, Xiang Changge finally accepted that she was not, in fact, a genius of five‑in‑a‑row.
Yu Qing had won. That meant no forcing her out of bed for breakfast today. Still, as a proper butler, Xiang Changge made sure the chef prepared an array of tempting breakfast dishes and had them sent up to Yu Qing’s room.
She wouldn’t push her—but the food would be there if she wanted it.
Since Yu Qing wasn’t getting up and she wasn’t in the mood to pick shoes and accessories alone, Xiang Changge told the brands not to come today. She’d reschedule later.
She was not the type to sit idle. Beyond everything involving Yu Qing, there were still staff hiring and training to handle.
On top of that, she had brought in two new therapists and life coaches, planning to see whether talking to them might help Yu Qing at all.
As for her body, the nutritionist and rehab specialist would be kept busy as well.
The system could provide extremely detailed readouts of Yu Qing’s physical state. The nutritionist’s job was to turn that into meal plans with the kitchen—meals that were delicious but still hit all the necessary nutritional marks.
The one wild card, of course, was Yu Qing’s appetite.
Still, as she saw it: Yu Qing could refuse to eat or to follow her schedule, but the things she *should* be offered had to be there, every time.
The next step was to find something she might actually care about.
People couldn’t be allowed to stay too idle. You needed something to do to feel that life had meaning.
For Xiang Changge, every second was interesting.
There were so many things to eat, drink, see, and try—she wanted all of them.
While she bustled, Yu Qing drifted.
She already had trouble falling asleep at the best of times. Being dragged out of bed to spar over breakfast and gomoku had left her body exhausted but her mind oddly wired.
After Xiang Changge left, she opened the gomoku app again.
With no one else to play against, she switched to man‑versus‑AI.
She beat the Easy and Hard AIs handily, then, feeling a spark of competitive spirit, selected “Master” difficulty.
After five straight losses, she got annoyed, studied the machine’s patterns, and finally scored a win in the eighth game. After that, wins outnumbered losses.
Only after five consecutive victories did she get bored and toss the phone aside.
Not much fun. So that was all the AI could do.
Her mind was alert; her body, bone‑tired. Yet lying there, she still couldn’t sleep.
Unable to sleep, and with nothing she really wanted to do.
Just as her mood was ready to sink again, someone knocked on her door.
She jumped, immediately picturing an oath‑breaking Xiang Changge back to badger her out of bed.
Caught between confronting her and playing dead, she was still hesitating when she heard the door open.
On instinct, she snapped her eyes shut.
Familiar footsteps entered, carrying the scent of food.
Aunt Yang.
After so many years, Yu Qing could recognize her just by the sound of her walk.
Still, to be safe, she held her tongue.
Someone set things down near the bay window and left again.