Chapter 09

The next day, Jiang Lisheng got up early and went to the farmers’ market to purchase a batch of supplies, planning to build a pigsty for Xiao Jiang the pig in the backyard garden.

Considering the piglet’s future size, an ordinary pet cage clearly wouldn’t do.

So she simply hired a laborer from the bridgehead and sectioned off one-third of the backyard to build a pigpen with cement and stone bricks.

The worker, although experienced and well-traveled, had truly never seen anyone living in a villa set up a pigsty in the backyard. It was indeed a rare sight.

To make it easier to work, Jiang Lisheng deliberately wore a cheap, dull gray outfit and plastic shoes, looking rather grubby.

The worker was quick, and Jiang Lisheng wasn’t slow either. Within minutes, they had already built up one wall.

The worker couldn’t help glancing at Jiang Lisheng a couple more times and praised, “Young lady, you’ve got some real skills.”

“Just getting by,” Jiang Lisheng replied casually, though her hands didn’t slow down.

Back then, for the sake of that electric scooter, she had gone to a construction site and worked off the books for a whole week. All her skills were learned from veteran workers, so of course she wasn’t bad at it.

If it weren’t for her lack of physical strength, she would’ve preferred hauling cement—porters earned ten yuan more than the cement workers.

While she was working, Xiao Jiang the pig had already relieved itself three or four times beside her feet.

Each time after finishing, it went right back to its bowl to look for more food, never letting its stomach go empty.

Helpless, Jiang Lisheng could only take off her gloves and clean up the pig droppings.

She had just finished bagging the waste and hadn’t yet tossed it when she heard Jiang Nuonuo’s loud, exaggerated voice from behind—

“Jiang Lisheng, what are you doing?!”

Jiang Lisheng looked over.

The little princess stood in the messy construction site dressed in all white, her appearance completely out of place in the muddy and chaotic work environment.

There was no hiding the shock in her eyes. When Xiao Jiang the pig ran up to her feet, Jiang Nuonuo’s face turned pale as she took a step back, clearly afraid of the piglet.

Only after making sure the pig wouldn’t dirty her clothes did Jiang Nuonuo gather the courage to speak to Jiang Lisheng. “You moved my music room to the backyard and that wasn’t enough—you deliberately set up a pigsty next to it. You’re trying to trip me up on purpose, aren’t you? You want me to move out of this house, is that it?” As she spoke, her voice began to quiver with tears.

“Tsk.” A soft scoff came from nearby. “What are you crying for? Just tear it down.”

A boy’s voice, lazy and teasing.

Jiang Lisheng turned her head toward the sound. Backlit by sunlight stood a tall figure. The boy was exceptionally tall, wearing a white T-shirt under a black denim jacket. Hands in his pockets, sleeves half-rolled up, the muscles of his forearms were firm and well-defined.

His face was handsome, too.

Thick eyebrows and a prominent nose, his eyelashes cast shadows over his slightly upturned phoenix eyes.

Because he often looked at people from the tilt of his chin, his expression appeared all the more arrogant and unruly.

—Huo Bai.

The male lead in the original novel.

Jiang Lisheng had known she had a childhood engagement ever since she first came to the Jiang family.

It was laughable, really. Back then, she had tried everything to please her parents, to make them proud. Knowing that the Jiang family wanted to establish ties with the Huo family, she had taken the initiative to befriend Huo Bai, naively thinking she could get along with him. She had even made two attempts that could be considered flattering.

But Huo Bai looked down on her.

At their very first meeting, he deliberately had one of his lackeys spill a drink on her. For the sake of her family, Jiang Lisheng had endured it. After that, she never made a fool of herself in front of him again.

But it seemed Huo Bai and his lackeys had misunderstood something.

In the end, the rumors twisted and spread until they claimed that Jiang Lisheng was relentlessly clinging to Huo Bai, begging for an engagement, even calling her Huo Bai’s most devoted simp.

Damn it. Because of that rumor, Jiang Lisheng was ostracized by her classmates at school for an entire year.

Judging by the direction they came from, it was clear they had entered through the backyard gate.

No need to guess—Jiang Nuonuo, that little drama queen, must have been upset after yesterday and ran to Huo Bai early this morning to complain, dragging that little maniac over here to settle the score.

Unbelievable.

Can’t even build a pigsty in peace these days.

Xiao Jiang the pig was as affectionate as a dog. Since Jiang Nuonuo didn’t like it, the piglet immediately waddled over to Huo Bai’s side.

He lowered his gaze, his expression dark.

Jiang Lisheng quickly realized what was happening and hurriedly called out, “Xiao Jiang, come here.”

Summoned by its owner, the piglet wagged its curly tail and trotted back over.

Xiao Jiang…

Jiang…

Jiang Nuonuo suddenly realized that the pig had been given the Jiang family surname, and her emotions completely exploded. “You—you even gave the pig our family name. What does that make our Jiang family then?!”

Jiang Lisheng replied, “Makes us the pig’s relatives.”

“Jiang Lisheng! Don’t go too far!” Just thinking about having to practice piano next to a pigsty and sharing the same surname as a pig made Jiang Nuonuo tremble with rage. “Do you believe I won’t tell Mom? She definitely won’t agree to let you do this!”

Jiang Lisheng rolled her eyes. “Go ahead. Don’t just tell your mom—tell Mazu^[1]Mazu (媽祖) is a Chinese sea goddess widely worshipped in coastal regions of China and Taiwan. She is believed to protect sailors and fishermen, and is often called upon for blessings and safety. if you want. It’s useless. I tossed divination blocks and asked the gods before building the pigsty. If you’ve got a problem, take it up with them.”

What she said was downright nasty.

Jiang Nuonuo, fuming, couldn’t think of a single curse word to throw back at her.

In the end, her nose reddened, and then she suddenly remembered that Huo Bai was still standing nearby. She immediately reined in her anger, rubbed her eyes, and began to cry. “Jiang Lisheng, how could you yell at me? I’m your little sister. What you’re doing is just too cruel.”

She was clearly crying for the male lead to see.

Jiang Lisheng couldn’t figure out how she had so many tears. Probably because her brain had taken in too much water and couldn’t store anything else, so it all leaked out this way.

What puzzled her even more was that damned system. She had said so many harsh things, yet the system hadn’t warned her about breaking character. That didn’t make sense!

Thinking it over, Jiang Lisheng poked at the system: [What’s going on? Did you go offline or something?]

The system responded lazily: [I’m bound to the host twenty-four hours a day. How could I possibly go offline?] It then explained, [Rest assured, host. As long as you don’t get physical like yesterday or say anything truly vulgar, the plot is still on track. The storyline requires you and Jiang Nuonuo to fight over the male lead, and even more so, it needs the male lead to dislike you because of Jiang Nuonuo.]

Fight over him, her ass.

She could dunk herself in a vat of vinegar in Shanxi and still wouldn’t fight over some trashy man.

But Jiang Lisheng had caught the key point.

What that sentence meant was, as long as the male lead was around, she could do whatever she wanted to Jiang Nuonuo—so long as she didn’t go overboard.

Well, it made sense. Even a rabbit would bite when pushed too far.

Though a delicate little flower type of female lead wouldn’t outright curse someone as a dumbass, occasionally throwing some passive-aggressive shade wasn’t exactly out of character either.

Hehe, now she understood.

And she really couldn’t stand this &*$% anymore!!

That “hehe” immediately triggered a sense of dread in the system. [Host, don’t do anything reckless. We’re about to enter a plot segment.]

Jiang Lisheng made a stopping gesture and looked down to grab her phone. “Hold on. I’ll let my voice assistant talk to you.”

Voice assistant?

What kind of voice assistant?

Under Jiang Nuonuo’s increasingly confused gaze, Jiang Lisheng opened the memo app on her phone, her fingers clattering away on the screen as she typed. Then she cranked the volume up to one hundred percent and tapped the voice playback button.

In the quiet backyard, a robotic female voice rang out crisply and emotionlessly—

“It’s not just about yelling at you. If you can’t hear me clearly, I’ll carve it on your tombstone.”

“All you do is cry, cry, cry. The character for ‘cry’ has a ‘dog’ underneath it. I say you are that dog, crying your parents all the way into heaven.”

Jiang Lisheng held her phone with a cheerful grin on her face while the electronic voice spewed filth like a sewer.

Cyberbully mode: activated!

The impact of the AI voice’s tirade was so intense that not only Jiang Nuonuo, but even Huo Bai standing nearby was too stunned to react.

“Enough, Jiang Lisheng. Do you have no shame?”

At last, Huo Bai spoke up, his face showing clear disgust as he snapped at her.

Oh right, she had almost forgotten about this little lunatic.

Jiang Lisheng continued typing away furiously, then turned the screen toward Huo Bai and hit play—

“Don’t you go dressing up like a watermelon, trying to pass off as a green frog. This is a family matter, what’s it got to do with you? Or is it that you’ve taken a liking to my newly built pigsty and want to change your last name to Jiang and move in?”

The AI played the message slowly, its normally emotionless voice now seeming to carry a tone of mockery thanks to the subtle rise and fall in pitch.

Combined with Jiang Lisheng’s expression, the insult landed hard.

System: [……]

The system was stunned.

So this girl had found a way to exploit a bug?

What was even more absurd was that she had actually pulled it off. The main system remained unresponsive, not issuing any verdict for quite a while, which meant her actions were deemed perfectly acceptable.

“Jiang Lisheng—!”

Huo Bai had always been hot-tempered and hard to deal with, so how could he possibly tolerate Jiang Lisheng’s provocations again and again?

With long strides, he marched over, ready to snatch the phone from her hands.

At that very moment, a mission prompt popped up.

[You have a new main plot event. Please check.]

[Accidentally spill food on the male lead, triggering a misunderstanding and advancing the next phase of interactive storyline. (Plot Progress: 10%) (Currently Executing)]

Accidentally spill food…

Jiang Lisheng silently looked at the bag of pig poop she was holding.

Well… doesn’t that count?