Chương 2: Determination, System, Mysterious Reward

After Lin Chen left the room, Lin Che slowly closed the door and turned to face the room.

As he slid down the door panel and sat on the ground, warm liquid suddenly splashed onto his knees, shattering into sparkling stars.

"Strange... when?" The boy hurriedly wiped his face with his sleeve, and a small patch of the cloth was quickly soaked.

In his adult memories, he had long forgotten what it felt like to cry. Society taught men to be as hard as steel, and tears were a sign of weakness that was never allowed. But at this moment, he let himself sob like a child.

"That's great... Dad hasn't..."

In his blurred vision, the black and white portrait in the mourning hall overlapped with his father, who was humming a song and adjusting his tie in the next room. The man who would secretly slip pocket money into his schoolbag was now excitedly anticipating his date tomorrow.

Lin Che suddenly pinched his thigh hard, the pain bringing him fully awake—after the joy came an even heavier responsibility.

Judging from the father's shy expression, this meeting was definitely not an ordinary blind date. If tomorrow's prospective stepmother is like that woman from my past life, harboring ulterior motives...

The boy's clenched fists trembled as he pressed them against the wooden floor. This time, he would never repeat the same mistake, even if it meant shattering his father's expectations and potentially damaging their precious father-son relationship.

Memories of my past life flashed by like a revolving lantern: in a Western restaurant, the boy brought by my stepmother folded napkins into paper airplanes and threw them around, spitting on the waiter who tried to stop him.

The woman maintained a gentle smile throughout, her slender fingers gracefully cutting the steak, seemingly oblivious to her son's atrocity.

At that time, he was not mature or perceptive enough to realize what this meant, or perhaps he did realize it, but his vigilance was blinded by his eagerness to make his father happy.

After getting married, he saved every penny to buy gifts for his "younger brother," not expecting gratitude from him, but only hoping that someone could take his place in accompanying his father.

But that spoiled little devil only knows how to ask for money in various ways, never heats up dinner for his father who comes home late, and never offers him a glass of honey water when he is drunk at a social event.

"Could a mother who raises a son like this be a good wife?"

He questioned his own conscience more than once in the years that followed.

He clearly saw it, he clearly noticed it, but because of his naivety and his hesitation, he failed to speak up to stop his father, which led to his father's early death. He hated himself for this.

"Heaven has given me a second chance, and I must seize it." Lin Che had made up his mind.

As for his so-called stepsister, he recovered his composure after a brief period of panic and didn't take the matter too seriously.

The reason he felt anxious was that he lacked the confidence to be a good older brother, but whether the two sides could form a good family was still uncertain, and it was too early to think about those things now.

[The host really seems to have nothing but thoughts about his father.] An unfamiliar voice suddenly rang out.

"Of course, he's my dad, of course I have to care... Who else would I be if not you?"

Lin Che suddenly raised his head, trying to find the source of the sound. His movements were so fast that his bones creaked.

"Is it haunted?" He turned on the lights in the room, but found nothing.

[This is the system.] A mechanical voice sounded directly inside the cranial cavity. [Binding in progress—] Lin Che then realized that the voice he was "hearing" was coming from inside his head.

"What are you?" he tried to ask himself, and then he got a response.

This system aims to help the host become an excellent...

"Uninstall the system." Lin Che slapped his forehead and gave the command in his mind without hesitation. Whatever inexplicable things were crawling into his head, get out of there quickly.

In many works he has read, obtaining a system after rebirth seems to be the standard, but when it comes to making the people he cares about happy, he trusts his own judgment and actions more, and doesn't feel that he needs to rely on the so-called power of a system.

The dialog box in front of him suddenly twisted into the shape of a Möbius strip, which gave Lin Che a bad feeling.

[Does the host not confirm that the system should not be retained?] Lin Che's temples throbbed; this familiar rogue software tactic reminded him of the fear of being dominated by spam pop-ups.

He stared at the ring of words spinning clockwise in the air and realized it was a double negative trap—if he chose "yes," he would actually agree to keep it; if he chose "no," the uninstallation process would continue.

He tried to reach out and touch the "No" option, and the characters began to dance on his retina.

[Doesn't the host think that continuing to retain the system would be a better option?] The triple negation grammatical structure caused Lin Che's thinking to pause briefly. As he tried to decipher the sentence, a feeling of dizziness suddenly washed over him.

"Where did you come from, you piece of malware? Did you study at some wallpaper company? This tactic looks so familiar!" Lin Che cursed inwardly.

Before he could even process the logic behind this, the system's next sentence appeared right in the center of his field of vision.

You surely think there might be benefits to not uninstalling the system for now, right?

"I choose death..." Lin Che lay sprawled on the ground, his mosquito coil-shaped eyes staring at the ceiling. This system must have been developed by a product manager poached from some company!

According to big data analysis, 99% of people will give up thinking when faced with a four-fold negative sentence.

Hearing the system's mocking tone, Lin Che actually detected a sly smile, like a mischievous child who had succeeded in playing a prank, in the system's monotone voice.

"Unload... load..." Lin Che made a last-ditch effort, his voice weak and feeble.

[Binding complete, cannot be uninstalled. Congratulations, host, you have obtained the 'No to No' achievement badge.] [New player quests will now be released] Bring a mirror to the South Suburb Park.

[Reward: Spark Lens (Genuine)]

"Um?"

Lin Che, who had already given up thinking, suddenly looked up and stared blankly at the three big characters in the reward column.

The next moment, he sat bolt upright, his twenty-six years of life experience completing a cost-benefit analysis in 0. 1 seconds—if it was fake, at most he'd wasted his trip, but if it was real...

"Dad, I'm going for a night run!" The boy rushed into the bathroom like a whirlwind, grabbed a small mirror and stuffed it into his backpack, almost tripping over the slippers in the entryway.

"Why are you running so late at night?" Lin Chen poked his head out of the bathroom, razor in hand, soap still clinging to his face. The only response he got was a loud slamming door shut.

The summer night breeze carried the fragrance of gardenias, and as Lin Che mounted his mountain bike, the mirror in his backpack rattled loudly.

Although there are still many suspicious points about this suddenly appearing system, and there is a possibility that it has been manipulated...

but-- That's a magic light stick!

Which boy could refuse the possibility of becoming light?

What? He's a mature man at heart?

Mature men find it even harder to refuse!

"Even if it's fake..." The gearshift was pulled to the highest gear, the chain making a cheerful click, "It's worth the gamble for the Spark Lens!"

With this mindset that he wouldn't lose out either way, Lin Che increased the speed of his pedaling, and the mountain bike drew an arc on the street, speeding forward.