Chapter 86: Settlement
After Gu Qinghuan got home, she practically ate the egg fried rice with her eyes closed, and once she finished, she went straight to take a bath and sleep.
From middle school until now, this was the first time Gu Qinghuan had gone to sleep before nine in the evening.
Lying in bed, she felt a strange dizziness. She suspected she had caught a cold, but didn’t have the strength to call out. Soon, she drifted into a hazy sleep.
Suddenly, Gu Qinghuan woke up. Darkness surrounded her, and she couldn’t sense her own body at all. Yet, her consciousness was perfectly clear.
She tried moving but still couldn’t feel anything. Thinking for a moment, she tentatively called out in the way she normally used to speak to the system:
[System?]
System: [Eh? Host, why are you here… Oh, right. Time for settlement.]
Gu Qinghuan was confused: [Settlement? For what?]
The system didn’t answer right away. Instead, it said: [This is the space I exist in. You came here once when we first signed the contract—do you remember?]
Gu Qinghuan recalled the time she had fallen into the water and lost consciousness: [So it’s this place.]
The system continued: [As for the settlement—it’s because one of your targets has reached 75% mission progress, which meets the requirement for settlement. We can now process the reward.]
[Is it Xin Bao?] Gu Qinghuan immediately perked up. [It was only 63% a few days ago—how did it jump to 75% today?]
[Yes, it’s her. She has gained a heart that will never sink, and in terms of ‘more possibilities for destiny,’ she can now create them with her own power. This caused the progress to grow quickly,] the system explained.
[Even when you weren’t aware, she was taking action on her own. No matter the outcome, they were new choices—new fates.]
[Once the progress reaches 75%, the kind of things that would make someone revert to despair become so unlikely that time will stop rewinding for that person.]
[So, after 75%, the target can be considered as having completed their mission, and we can move on to settlement.]
Gu Qinghuan had thought mission progress had to reach 100%—she hadn’t expected 75% to count. She felt happy, but also a strange sense of unreality, as though she’d reached her goal too soon.
She held back her emotions and asked: [So I’m here because of the settlement?]
[Yes. The energy from the settlement reward requires adjustments to your state. Coming here lets you temporarily leave the world’s rules and avoid anomalies.]
Gu Qinghuan understood and began to look forward to the settlement.
System: [Then let’s begin the settlement.]
It was like a switch had been flipped. In the pitch-black space of Gu Qinghuan’s perception, a faint point of light suddenly appeared.
System: [First key node: The first day of school.]
Gu Qinghuan saw Yu Xin on her first day—wearing an ill-fitting school uniform, stepping out of the Yu family’s car. Yu Yuan didn’t even look at her and walked away. Yu Xin stood there, not knowing what to do.
The stares from people around her made her even more nervous. She clutched her backpack straps but didn’t know which building to go to, so she just followed the crowd of other students.
She ended up in the senior-year building, realized from the sign she was in the wrong place, and in a panic grabbed the sleeve of a passing boy to ask where Class 3 of Grade 1 was.
The boy shook her off in disgust, calling her rude, and walked away.
Yu Xin was knocked to the ground by his force, twisting her ankle.
By the time she found her classroom, the bell had already rung. Limping, she walked in under the gaze of the whole class, not daring to sit in the front, and instead chose an empty seat in the last row, head bowed.
When it was her turn to introduce herself, her voice was small and mumbled—just her name—before she quickly sat down.
*
Yu Xin’s whole first day unfolded in scattered fragments before Gu Qinghuan’s eyes.
She wanted to reach out and touch the Yu Xin in the scene, but could only watch.
She remembered that day—how just a slice of egg sandwich and a cup of water had made Yu Xin smile at her.
But in these scenes, Yu Xin didn’t smile even once.
System: [First node settlement complete.]
With the system’s words, the gray scenes contracted and gathered, rushing like a shooting star into that faint light.
The light became brighter—not much, but noticeably so.
System: [Second key node: The monthly exam.]
Though called “monthly exam,” the scene shown was after it.
Yu Xin hadn’t gotten fourth place in the grade, but she was first in the class and tenth in the grade.
She was uncharacteristically happy and went home to tell the Yu family.
They didn’t believe her. She tried to explain, but in her panic, her words came out garbled, only making Yu Wenli angrier.
The next day, Yu Jinxin dragged Yu Xin to her class in front of everyone, asking if she had cheated.
Chen Zelin tried to defend her, saying she was quiet but diligent, and this was a well-earned result.
Yu Jinxin ignored him, insisting on checking the exam surveillance, and saying, “If you didn’t cheat, why not let us check?”
Finally, the academic director came to calm things down and provided the surveillance footage.
It proved Yu Xin hadn’t cheated. But when she returned to class, the whispers of her classmates pierced her ears.
“Was that her real brother? Why would a real brother suspect his sister of cheating?”
“Who knows? Maybe she acts differently at home and at school?”
“How bad must she be at home for her own brother to think that way?”
Yu Xin didn’t understand. She wanted to know—why would her biological brother doubt her to this extent?
She grew more and more anxious, more and more upset, until she finally grabbed her bag and ran out of the school.
She walked all the way home, locked herself in her room, and didn’t want to come out again.
*
It hurt. It hurt so much.
Just watching was suffocating.
Gu Qinghuan wanted to tear all those images apart, as if destroying them could erase that node’s future.
System: [Second node settlement complete.]
This time, the scene condensed into a brighter shooting star, and the light point shone even stronger.
It was no longer faint—almost dazzling now.
After that came the third, fourth, and fifth nodes, but all three were blurred like a mosaic—completely unrecognizable.
Gu Qinghuan asked: [Why can’t I see them?]
System: [These are the situations Yu Xin would face in her most desperate future along the current timeline. Some people or events in them could still affect the future now, so I can’t reveal them to you.]
It gave an example—without Gu Qinghuan’s interference, Yu Xin might have skipped school during the monthly or midterm exams, met a certain person, and suffered even more.
But with interference, she might not meet them—yet there was no guarantee she never would.
If Gu Qinghuan knew now that person was bad, she’d recognize them instantly in the future, causing “foresight interference.”
To avoid that, the system chose to block it.
Gu Qinghuan quickly understood. She didn’t mind—blocked was fine.
She believed the Yu Xin now had the strength to save herself and wouldn’t fall into despair again.
Even if she accidentally walked toward a path ending in despair, Gu Qinghuan would be there with her.
She would be the concrete, the asphalt, the bulldozer, the steamroller— paving her another road that shone bright.
Hello, ch 63 was not uploaded.
This is wrong chapter.
Thank you for your work.