Of course, whether she was telling the truth was something only Zhi Xia herself knew clearly.
Shen Hongmei sat for a while, as if she had really just come over to give Zhi Xia some jujubes. Her words were very polite, and apart from the sense of aloofness in her eyes and facial expressions that completely belied her words, there was nothing that made people feel the slightest bit uncomfortable.
She got up to take her leave, and even said Zhi Xia could go to the Cultural Work Troupe to find her and play anytime.
Zhi Xia had originally wanted her to take the jujubes back, but she stubbornly refused, so Zhi Xia could only ask her to wait a moment. She emptied out the jujubes in the cloth bag, and put some roasted peanuts in instead.
"Comrade Shen, thank you for the jujubes. These are peanuts I brought from home when I came here. Please try them, they're freshly roasted." After seeing Shen Hongmei to the door, Zhi Xia said.
"Didn't we agree to become good friends from now on? Don't keep calling me Comrade Shen, it feels too distant. Just call me Hongmei, don't I call you Zhi Xia too?" Shen Hongmei reached out to take the cloth bag.
When their fingers inadvertently touched, the dimensional exchange device in the room suddenly lit up and issued a warning. [Detected presence of high tech product, unable to determine good or bad. Please be vigilant, host!!!]
Zhi Xia's expression changed, and the cloth bag in her hand fell to the ground as well.
Shen Hongmei was startled for a moment, but calmly smiled and bent down to pick it up. "Look at me, my hands are so cold they're numb. I can even drop something when picking it up. Don't mind it, Zhi Xia."
"You shouldn't mind, it was my fault for not holding it steady."
Zhi Xia tried her best to keep her voice steady. She watched Shen Hongmei turn and leave before her face sank.
After closing the door, she went into her dimensional space without even returning to her room.
The warning on the dimensional exchange device was still flashing. After studying it for a while, Zhi Xia finally understood its purpose.
Shen Hongmei also had something on her that didn't belong in this world, but she didn't know what it was yet. It could be a dimensional space, or a system. Of course, she couldn't determine if it was good or bad either.
The dimensional exchange device belonged to the side of justice. This could be seen from its trading rules - it only allowed normal, harmless trading and did not permit damage to dimensions. So it also played a supplementary role in stabilizing dimensions.
The device wanted to obtain the object on Shen Hongmei, but there were great difficulties in doing so.
Just like Zhi Xia, the dimensional space and exchange device were like a golden finger to her. Why would she be willing to give up her things to others? And the device could not make illegal actions like plundering others' possessions. Shen Hongmei would have to willingly hand it over, but how was that possible?
Unless the object itself was harmful to Shen Hongmei. In that case, she might not rule out wanting to get rid of it herself.
Zhi Xia was anxious, but she didn't know Shen Hongmei was no better off than her.
Carrying the roasted peanuts Zhi Xia had given back to her room, Shen Hongmei's sharp eyes noticed the cloth bag was still full. Only then was she satisfied. "That woman still knows better. Stingy with everything, giving neither cake nor meat, and she didn't even think to give us some jujubes. How could we accept them?"
Shen Hongmei took the cloth bag from Shen Hongxing's hands and looked inside to find the jujubes had become peanuts.
Shen Hongmei quickly explained, "Sis, don't talk nonsense, okay? She wasn't stingy at all. I gave her jujubes, and she gave us peanuts in return. She didn't take advantage of us at all."
Yang Jun was also increasingly annoyed the more he heard Shen Hongxing speak, especially since she had led their children astray too. He felt utterly helpless.
They had argued, cursed, and even hit each other, but it didn't seem to have any effect.
The thought of divorcing her grew heavier in his heart, but considering his career and the several children at home, divorce didn't necessarily seem like it would lead to positive change either.
He remembered when they first met, Shen Hongxing had been a good girl too - capable with housework, gentle and beautiful, and she didn't look down on his family's poverty. That was why he married her, vowing to treat her well for life.
But over the past few years, just as their lives grew better day by day, she had changed.
In fact, he couldn't even recall when she had started to change. It was as if slowly, slowly, she had become a different person from who she was.
Seeing her sullen, silent brother-in-law standing in the doorway and her sister's nonstop chattering, Shen Hongmei felt increasingly guilty.
"Sis, brother-in-law, it's getting late. I should go back first." Shen Hongmei's knitted brows revealed none of the casual demeanor she had shown Zhi Xia earlier.
"Alright, go back quickly then. Come over to eat tomorrow, sis will make you something tasty." Facing Shen Hongmei, Shen Hongxing was able to reveal a glimpse of her former self that Yang Jun remembered.
Back then, she had looked at him this tenderly too, saying she didn't mind his family was poor and had a paralyzed old mother, and wanted to spend her whole life well with him.
Shen Hongmei thought for a moment and made an excuse that she was busy tomorrow, so wouldn't be coming.
Returning to the dorm and thinking of her sister and brother-in-law's situation, as well as the several children at home, Shen Hongmei felt increasingly uneasy.
"System, spare my sister and brother-in-law, if you still want me to gain favorability for you."
Ever since she was 10 years old, she had inexplicably gained something in her mind called a System. It told her that as long as she bound with it, she wouldn't go hungry anymore, she could go to school, gain talents and abilities, and have her parents' and family's love - as well as beauty and wealth.
No matter which of these, they were huge temptations to Shen Hongmei, who had grown up in the countryside going hungry and cold, with parents who favored sons over daughters.
And the only condition was that she needed to gain favorability from others.
A 10 year old Shen Hongmei was still a child who could be tricked away with two candies, let alone when facing such huge temptations.
After binding with the System, Shen Hongmei did gain many things. She could gain favorability by pleasing others, then use that favorability to get resources from the System - including her so-called talents, beauty...
But very quickly, Shen Hongmei realized that the more favorability someone provided her, the more unlucky they would become.
First it was her younger brother. Because he often secretly gave her candy, the child contributed a lot of favorability and grew increasingly dependent on her.
But what followed was him becoming increasingly irritable and disobedient, with terrible luck. After a huge fight with the family, he ran away stubbornly and lost his life by falling into a pond.
Her playmates, parents, villagers - everyone who had contributed favorability to her and gained benefits from her would slowly change, sometimes in luck, sometimes in body - invisible and intangible...
Shen Hongmei didn't understand it at first, but as everyone around her changed and she grew older and understood more, she started having doubts and conflicts with the System grew greater and greater.
She wanted to dissolve the binding, but it was no longer under her control.
She shut herself in her room to avoid people, but the System's punishments were also very harsh. She couldn't even bear the pain from the electric shocks. She had even thought of ending her own life, but she couldn't even control whether she lived or died anymore.
Later she understood her own position - at best, she was just a puppet controlled by the System.
