Chapter 10

If it weren’t for Shu Fu discovering Zhang Tian’s boyfriend cheating, if they had gone home as planned, if Shu Fu hadn’t insisted on driving them, Chen Fa and Wu Shaoshan would have followed their usual course of action and taken the subway on Line 14 at the station next to the shopping center to get home.

Chen Fa was typically bold, but when this hypothesis formed in her mind, she felt a terrifying shiver she had never experienced before.

Although the event had already passed, her subconscious was telling her how likely that “if” had been to occur.

It was like a person unknowingly blinking, or like a butterfly lightly flapping its wings…

There was a 90% chance they would have taken that subway. If they had, life and death would have been uncertain by now.

Shu Fu, who was also feeling a slight tremor, opened the black mini notebook again. The excitement she had felt earlier, when the progress bar had increased significantly, had now disappeared entirely.

[Invitation task completed, gained 2nd-level raft with 10% progress; gained an additional progress bonus of 10%; received 2 lucky draw chances. (Current raft progress: 45%)]

She had originally planned to wait until after her shower to do the lucky draw, but now she didn’t feel like it.

In today’s invitation task, there was only one thing that was certain: she would definitely attend the meeting because it was part of the “failure to attend would reduce the progress bar” task. Everything else was uncertain.

If she hadn’t thought of stocking up and left more than two hours earlier, she wouldn’t have happened to see Zhang Tian’s boyfriend cheating.

If Zhang Tian hadn’t fallen out with that jerk, she wouldn’t have felt so worried and insisted on driving them.

If she hadn’t driven but had chosen to take the subway, perhaps the four of them would have avoided the flood in the parking lot, but Chen Fa and Wu Shaoshan wouldn’t have been able to avoid the subway that caused fatalities…

If, if.

It was all ifs—no certainties, only variables. And that uncertainty made her uneasy.

When she drove out of the underground parking lot and avoided the trees fallen by the thunderstorm, she had a moment of doubt because this task was different from the previous ones. She wasn’t outside the event; she was in the midst of it, a part of the event, personally experiencing the danger.

From the beginning, when she saw the task and progress bar, she had some thoughts.

She had speculated that these were rescue-type tasks, similar to helping people avoid risks and accumulating merit to upgrade her raft’s progress bar.

But soon, she dismissed this theory.

Although she helped Zheng Feifei and the shop owner avoid some danger, she felt that this part belonged to the later added 5% progress bar.

In other words, if she hadn’t dropped her phone or decided to pack, and Zheng Feifei and the shop owner hadn’t avoided danger, the task would likely still count as completed after the event passed, just without the bonus part.

Such a task was vague and lacked precision. As long as the starting part was completed, the outcome didn’t have strict requirements. It was definitely not a rescue-type task.

Later, she speculated that this might be the main storyline, or perhaps because she hadn’t named the main character, she filled that void upon arriving and became the protagonist of this world.

Now that the “Drifting Island House” was also in her hands, this speculation seemed plausible.

From there, it was logical to assume that the protagonist of the world had luck, which allowed them to drive the plot forward and help others avoid risks—especially after what happened in the underground parking lot, which strengthened this guess.

But now, with Chen Fa’s call, things returned to square one.

So the real danger wasn’t in the underground parking lot—it was the subway!

This time, there was no difference from the previous tasks.

She still couldn’t fully control the plot. Without that 100% certainty, it couldn’t be considered the main storyline, and she hadn’t assumed the identity of the world’s protagonist.

Now, she felt more like a tool.

To put it simply, it was like being a wrench that had to appear at a certain moment to tighten a screw, ensuring that two nearby gears kept turning and didn’t derail.

As for whether those gears turned fast or slow, or whether they were worn down, that wasn’t up to the wrench.

But did this wrench even have a reason to exist?

Why was she even in this world?

Shu Fu stood on the small balcony, wrapped in a coral fleece bathrobe. The rain outside the balcony window had lessened considerably compared to the afternoon, but it still hadn’t stopped.

Both the news on TV and the websites were filled with reports on the heavy rainstorm and thunderstorm.

The terrifying thunderstorm lasted for over ten minutes, and many trees and low electrical buildings in Suicheng were struck. Some pedestrians who had taken shelter in buildings were also injured.

Suicheng had never experienced a thunderstorm before, and when the disaster hit, many people lacked basic knowledge. In their panic to avoid the thunderstorm, they rushed around and were struck directly by the lightning, instantly going into shock.

Some were lucky and were revived in time, but others were alone when struck, and by the time they were found, they had already lost their breath.

In the subway flood caused by the rainstorm and the thunderstorm disaster, eleven people died, and over forty were injured. In peacetime, this was a shocking number.

But Shu Fu knew that this was just the beginning.

After 9 PM, the rain outside the window intensified again, the sound of water pouring in torrents. Even with the windows closed, the air was filled with the damp, chilly moisture.

Shu Fu organized the supplies she had bought today in the bracelet space, as usual, sorting out non-food items that didn’t have an expiration date and putting them into the drifting island house. When she put away the raft and returned to the living room, she actually felt a bit cold.

The temperature wasn’t particularly low; it hovered around ten degrees at night, but the rain spread a damp chill everywhere. It felt a bit excessive to use either air conditioning or a kerosene stove in such temperatures, so she eventually pulled out the space heater.

The heater lit up, casting a warm orange-yellow glow that dispelled the chill around her.

Wrapped in her bathrobe, Shu Fu sat cross-legged on the sofa, still opening her laptop to post an anonymous thread online.

—— Let’s suppose, I’m now in a book, I’m not the protagonist, but I have to complete some tasks every day. These tasks are trivial and disorderly, like eating, going to work, meeting someone… just small, insignificant things. What do you think the purpose of these tasks is in the context of this book?

This website had a large flow of people, with all sorts of strange posts, random questions, and answers. Many idle people would stop by, leave a comment or two, and if the thread owner liked it, they would earn points, increase their authority, and get more attention.

Shu Fu’s anonymous account was a new one, so it didn’t have much traffic. Even so, in the half hour since she posted, a few comments had started to trickle in.

—— Coincidentally, I also entered a book a few days ago. Want to private chat about it?

—— OP, can eating and going to work really count as tasks? Try to be more thoughtful next time, okay?

—— Eating, working, and meeting people, isn’t that just like being an NPC? Only the protagonist needs to save the world, what do NPCs expect?

—— Upstairs, this is worse than being an NPC. At least NPCs can issue fixed tasks and help move the plot! This is just a backdrop, what’s the point?

…

Unfortunately, most of the replies were nonsense.

Of course, there were a few slightly more serious responses.

—— Ever heard of the butterfly effect? What seems like an insignificant trivial matter to you might actually be the starting point for something crucial, and you might not even realize it. The beginnings, processes, and outcomes in this world are all filled with mystery. Knowing the result in advance could change your actions and cause the outcome to change, potentially for the worse. Only when you don’t know anything can things happen as they should.

—— I think it’s meaningful. Although you do trivial things like eating and working every day, it’s impossible for every day to be exactly the same, right? Even if you take the same bus, leaving a few minutes earlier or later could result in meeting different people. A book may only have one protagonist, but there are many people in the book. Without all these other people, how could the protagonist become the protagonist?

—— So back to the same question: do you want to be one of the individuals standing at the top, or one of the individuals who disappear into the crowd?

…

Shu Fu sighed and closed the webpage.

Actually, she didn’t care much about whether she was a “numerator” or a “denominator.” What bothered her was the fear that, without realizing it, she might have been given the task of becoming a “numerator” while unknowingly missing some important things she should have completed.

The tasks were filled with uncertainty, and any tiny thought could lead to a different outcome. In the delivery rider task, she hadn’t received the extra bonus.

Compared to the other tasks, she couldn’t help but wonder if the parts she hadn’t completed—those bonus parts—might have caused someone’s life to be lost…

Once every small thought and choice involved life or death, the weight of those thoughts and decisions grew heavier. They became an invisible web, looming over her, leaving her feeling restricted, helpless…

This feeling was familiar. It was like when she used to write scripts. Writing characters and plotlines was a creative process. On the foundation of a theme, immense creative freedom was necessary to express ideas fully, to create richer, more real characters and stories.

But if there were too many voices around—investors, directors, producers, actors…

Each one thinking they knew better and interfering with the creation, wanting to modify things, adding their subjective wishes—those constraints would only make the creator feel restricted and helpless, even lead to self-doubt, causing the characters to become stiff, and the script to die…

Shu Fu’s mind was a bit chaotic. All kinds of thoughts filled her brain. Her thinking became fast and disordered. She couldn’t stay focused on one problem, because so many thoughts twisted her up, and in the end, she couldn’t even understand the original intent behind her thoughts.

She couldn’t think anymore!

She decided to stop, checked again to make sure the doors and windows were closed, turned off all the lights, and went back to her bedroom to sleep.

Since there was no task requiring her to clock in for work, Shu Fu directly took the day off on Monday. Her excuse was simple: she had been at the site of the underground flood the previous day, and was still shaken up, not fully recovered.

Zheng Feifei: …

No kidding, her luck was something else. But somehow, she couldn’t help but feel a bit envious.

After all, since last week, Suicheng had been constantly raining, with occasional strong winds and hail. Yesterday, there was even a thunderstorm, and the temperature kept dropping.

Outside, it was cold and damp. In this kind of weather, she didn’t want to go to work at all—she just wanted to curl up in the warmth and comfort of her home.

Unfortunately, although the rain was still falling today, it was much lighter, and the wind wasn’t as strong. According to the weather forecast, it would probably take two or three more days for the seasonal rain and cold front to pass.

Under these circumstances, the company was not going to give them a break.

She didn’t dare take leave like Shu Fu did. She had taken leave several times recently, although they were all sick leave, they had been recorded as personal leave.

Her supervisor had definitely taken note of this. No matter how legitimate her reasons for taking leave were, they would still be factored into her performance evaluation at the end of the year.

Zheng Feifei asked a few questions and, while offering some comfort, urged Shu Fu to work as much as possible. The two got along well, and Zheng Feifei really didn’t want Shu Fu to be let go by the end of the year.

Shu Fu sent a voice message: If I need to rest, I’ll rest. It’s not wrong to take a day off in such awful weather. I plan to order some food and supplies using a delivery app and just stay home and recuperate for a while.

Zheng Feifei texted: I envy you, but I can’t do that…

Shu Fu sighed. That was all she could hint at. She replied with a hugging emoji and then focused back on driving.

Of course, she couldn’t just rest at home. With the rain lightened today, she had gone out early to stock up on gasoline. Before the window company arrived in the afternoon to install the tempered glass, she planned to visit all the gas stations around her house, using it as the center of her route.

Her car could only hold so much gasoline, but her main goal was to purchase portable fuel cans from different gas stations—buying the maximum number of cans her car could carry from each station, and filling them up as well.

After resting overnight, the strange emotions from yesterday had already been forgotten.

That was just how she was. No matter how ridiculous things got, once she adapted, that was it. She was very good at diverting her attention in other ways—simply put, she didn’t waste emotional energy on unnecessary thoughts.

Since the outcome of each task was uncontrollable and she couldn’t figure out the perfect solution, she could only do as she had before—follow the few rules in the task and stay true to her heart.

Staying true to her heart was the most important thing.

She couldn’t do everything perfectly, but at least, whatever the outcome, this was the most genuine choice she could make.

As for whether she was truly in the real world, whether she was “Zhuang Zhou” or a “butterfly,” and whether there was any external gaze watching her, it was impossible to find the answer at this stage. Since that was the case, she decided to just leave it at that for now.

She would do what she could, do her part, and leave the rest to fate.