Chapter 7

Yu Qing’s tone tightened slightly. “Say something useful.”
Something useful?
Xiang Changge thought for a moment. “Anything the other butlers can do, I can do. Anything they can’t do, I can still do.”
Such an empty line.
Finding it dull, Yu Qing leaned back, slumping against the piano as if she had no bones at all. Her dark eyes went back to that unfocused, vacant state.
She was clearly looking in Xiang Changge’s direction, but Xiang Changge still felt as though she wasn’t really being seen.
The next second, Yu Qing heard the woman in front of her, still chanting slogans, continue, “My career goal is to take good care of you, feed you until you’re white and chubby, and let you live to a hundred.”
Those hazy, world‑weary eyes, which had had no focal point at all, suddenly gathered as if cupped together by a pair of hands and settled back on Xiang Changge.
Her bloodless lips moved, as though she wanted to say something. In the end, no sound came out—only a faint, mocking curve at the corner of her mouth.
Live to a hundred.
After a long time, Xiang Changge, whose hearing was excellent, caught a low murmur—like a soft breeze that slipped past the tips of one’s hair, so light that if one wasn’t paying attention, one would miss it entirely.
“Is that a curse?”
Xiang Changge said nothing.
She didn’t know what to say.
It was the first time—her first time meeting someone who treated the words “live to a hundred” as a curse.
When she’d read the novel, she could casually snark at this “Yu Qing” character. But standing in front of Yu Qing herself, she suddenly found she couldn’t bear to say anything harsh.
Maybe it was because the person in front of her looked as fragile as a soap bubble that would pop at a touch.
Beautiful, yet unbelievably delicate.
And so the employer and butler’s first meeting ended just like that.
Xiang Changge didn’t rush to officially take up her post.
Pulling her suitcase behind her, she boarded one of the four‑seater shuttle carts in the villa grounds and was quickly delivered to her “dormitory.”
It was a two‑story villa at the back corner behind the main house.
“You’re saying I’ll be living here alone?”
Getting out of the cart, Xiang Changge asked Aunt Yang again to confirm.
Aunt Yang nodded with a smile. “Yes. You’re the butler, after all—of course you get a single. And if you ever need anyone to clean or help with anything, you can call the staff from the main house over.”
“Also, you must be hungry. It’s about time for dinner. I’ll have someone bring a meal over. You can eat and then rest well tonight. You can start officially working tomorrow.”
Afraid that Xiang Changge might think she was overstepping—arranging things for her when it should technically be the other way around—Aunt Yang quickly added, “This is the young miss’s idea.”
Room and board included.
With meals provided by the national‑banquet‑level chefs and a standalone little villa to live in, Xiang Changge set her suitcase down in her “dorm” and, while waiting for her food, silently swore to herself that she would stick with this job until she was a hundred.
Even if that delicate little blossom Yu Qing walked all the way to the gates of hell, she would drag her right back out and make her keep breathing.
Four dishes and a soup, plus a dessert and a fruit platter—Xiang Changge polished them all off.
After putting her things away and walking around to digest a bit, she went to take a long, hot shower.
When she came out, towel‑drying her hair and making a tour of her little villa‑dorm, she spotted a large bathtub on the second floor and came to a dead stop.
Ten minutes later, after pouring in bath salts and filling the tub more than halfway, Xiang Changge sank blissfully into the water.
Watching his dear host behave like some overnight millionaire, the system ground its teeth. “8802, don’t you think your skin is going to wrinkle?”
Resting both slender arms along the edge of the tub, Xiang Changge closed her eyes in contentment, letting the warm water soothe every inch of her skin. “It’s fine. My skin will smooth itself back out later.”
System: “…”
It finally understood—there was no point in trying to hint to this host in roundabout ways not to indulge herself.
So it got straight to the point. “Do you have any thoughts about the mission?”
Thoughts?
To be honest, Xiang Changge really didn’t—maybe because she hadn’t started thinking about it at all.
“Don’t I only start work tomorrow?”
For today, she wanted to be Xiang Changge for a while longer, not Butler Xiang.
The system, anxious, heard what she was thinking. After a brief pause, it chose not to push her, and instead sent over a copy of Yu Qing’s current physical and mental assessment.
After soaking in the tub for forty minutes, Xiang Changge rinsed off again, then dug a set of loungewear out of the suitcase she had brought with her and changed into it.
The central air conditioning was set to a comfortable twenty‑five degrees.
Sprawling starfish‑like on the two‑meter‑wide bed, Xiang Changge heaved a sigh. She had almost dozed off like that when the sound of fine raindrops tapping against the window glass made the afternoon scene in the music room rise unbidden in her mind.
The dark, rainy sky outside the window, the warm orange glow inside, and by the black piano, the frail, paper‑white sickly beauty…
Xiang Changge’s eyes snapped open. She pulled up the assessment file the system had sent.
Name: Yu Qing (mission target)
Age: 21 years, 9 months
Mental state: 20/100 (apathetic, mild depression)
Physical condition: 35/100 (congenital weakness, chaotic routines, lack of exercise)
Organ function: heart 60/100; stomach 45/100; lungs 55/100; …
…
Below that was a long list of recommendations from the system—for example, eating meals on time, building healthy routines, increasing contact with people and nature, and so on.
In truth, with the Yu family’s money poured into her over the years, Yu Qing’s congenital frailty would not have stopped her from living a normal life. The real issue lay in her mental and psychological state.
Her poor health now had more to do with the fact that, after her parents’ accident, she had been perpetually low‑spirited, with no will to live and a life spent drifting day by day.
Reading this, Xiang Changge began to understand Yu Qing’s mindset a little.
When the apocalypse came, the world had become dangerous and full of strange horrors.
The grotesque, mindless zombies that only wanted flesh and blood, the vicious environment—everything had made it impossible for the survivors to see any hope of living on.
Especially for modern people who had never suffered a day in their lives and were suddenly plunged into hell.
Aside from those who died in accidents, many humans had simply chosen suicide because they saw no way to go on.
To live alone in the apocalypse, watching old friends and family leave one by one—some of them even turning into zombies before your eyes and lunging back to bite you—was enough to shatter anyone’s sanity.
Still, understanding was one thing. Being able to accept it was another.
Xiang Changge still believed that nothing was more important than staying alive.
After flipping through the file several times and rolling around a few times on the soft bed, she finally got up and headed to the study next door.
The butler’s little villa wasn’t large, but it was exquisitely furnished, with not a single missing amenity. Study, walk‑in closet, media room, living room, kitchen—everything was there, and everything was brand new. You really could just move in with your suitcase.
She hadn’t used modern appliances in quite some time, but her memories were intact. After a brief period of adjustment, Xiang Changge sat down at the computer and created a schedule even the system couldn’t find fault with.
“Ding.”
“Mission One: Encourage the supporting female to develop healthy routines.”
“Good health and energy depend on sufficient, healthy sleep and activity. Please guide the supporting female Yu Qing to rest on time and lay the foundation for a healthy body.”
“Mission duration: three months. Mission reward: 500 points (Note: Points can be exchanged for cash at a rate of 1:1000, or used in the system shop to purchase various items).”
“Mission failure penalty: one simulated meteor‑strike experience for the host.”
No sooner had the printed schedule slid out of the printer than the system’s mission announcement rang in Xiang Changge’s head.
This was a side mission linked to the main task; its entire purpose was to ensure that the main task could be completed properly. So failure here wouldn’t kill Xiang Changge immediately—it would just give her a taste of what death by meteor felt like.
Even so, being hit by a meteor sounded terrifying.
Clicking her tongue, Xiang Changge smirked to herself.
Sure enough, there was no such thing as a free lunch in this world.
Putting the schedule away, she pulled out the staff profiles and daily duty lists the old butler had given her and began cross‑checking them with the system’s information.
She had never actually worked as a butler before, but the system hadn’t just given her the title of outstanding graduate from the butler academy—it had also stuffed all the relevant knowledge into her head.
That was why she had been so confident that afternoon when she told Yu Qing that anything other butlers could do, she could do—and what they couldn’t do, she could still handle.
She slept soundly through the night.
At seven in the morning, when the alarm went off, Xiang Changge was still a bit slow on the uptake.
After lying there for a few seconds with her eyes open, she finally sat up.
From today on, she was the butler of a wealthy young lady.
With only Yu Qing as its master, the Yu household was actually a very relaxed place. Yu Qing’s routine was irregular, and she didn’t manage the estate herself, so most of the staff were quite idle. Working at the Yu residence was almost like being on an extended vacation.
To work in such beautiful surroundings all year round and barely see the mistress a few times—it might as well be a holiday.
Even the previous butler hadn’t had much to do each day.
Every position in the house already had staff. The butler’s job was simply to make sure everyone was at their posts and that when Yu Qing needed something, someone was there to provide it promptly.
The staff had grown so used to their leisurely lives that when they saw the new butler appear at the main house at seven‑thirty, under a drizzly sky and in the half‑light of morning, they were all stunned.
At that hour, Miss Yu was probably just dozing off; there would be no need for any of them.
Even the former butler had usually only shown up close to noon, when he could roughly guess that Miss Yu was about to wake.
But then they thought about how this was the new butler’s first day. As the saying went, a new official always lit three fires. She probably just didn’t understand the situation yet and was trying to show her diligence. Give it some time, and she’d relax.