A Straight Woman Forcefully Claims The Little White Flower Heroine - Chapter 4

Qin Wei hurried down the corridor in a panic, stumbling as she ran. Before she even reached the elevator, someone stopped her.

It was Lu Meng, the attendant who had received her earlier.

“Miss Qin, please come with me.” Lu Meng lowered her head and inclined her body, her gaze fixed properly downward. “I’ll take you to have your injuries treated.”

Qin Wei instinctively took half a step back. The words of refusal had already reached her lips, but Lu Meng seemed to guess what she was thinking and spoke decisively.

“The boss said that if Miss Qin wants her to take responsibility, she can come personally.”

“…Let’s go.” Qin Wei weakly gripped her own wrist. The panic in her heart still hadn’t subsided. She didn’t dare turn around, didn’t dare look toward the half-closed door behind her.

Lu Meng walked diagonally ahead of her, swiped a card, and pressed the elevator button. But once they entered, the elevator actually went up another floor.

There was no button for this floor.

“This way, Miss Qin.” Lu Meng stepped out first. Behind her, lush green vegetation spread out in layers, swaying in the rain-laden wind as a cool, refreshing breeze rushed toward them.

Qin Wei walked out in a daze. Fine strands of rain brushed lightly across her cheeks, and amid the silent haze, the turmoil in her heart gradually eased.

All shades of green bloomed before her eyes. She lifted her head and saw that within this sky garden suspended high above the city, there were even two ginkgo trees growing.

“Miss Qin, be careful not to get wet.” Lu Meng took a black umbrella from the side, opened it, and walked beside Qin Wei before gesturing for her to continue.

Qin Wei withdrew her gaze and glanced sideways at Lu Meng. Her hands were still clasped tightly together.

“Where are they?” Qin Wei asked. Her voice was thick with exhaustion, hoarse and indistinct.

“In the first-floor lobby,” Lu Meng answered honestly. “Miss Qin, there’s no need to worry. After you’ve changed clothes, I’ll take you down another elevator to the first floor.”

The corner of Qin Wei’s mouth dipped slightly. She bit her lower lip as though wanting to say something, but when she met Lu Meng’s perfectly measured smile, she swallowed the words again.

“…”

So that person just now was actually the owner of Hanlin Waterside Pavilion? But Qin Wei remembered that the first time she came here, there had been a small dispute with an investor. The person who came over at the time had been this very attendant in front of her—Lu Meng.

She even remembered Lu Meng wearing a polite smile as she told the person trying to break the rules, “I’m the owner of Hanlin Waterside Pavilion. If our honored guest is unable to continue the discussion, then I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

After having the person escorted out, Lu Meng had even turned back to look at the stunned Qin Wei and explained, “Being an attendant is my hobby.”

“Pardon me.”

…

“Miss Qin, please let me take a look at your injury.” Lu Meng led her through the maze-like garden and into an elegant wooden house behind it.

Qin Wei looked at the bloodstain on her sleeve, pulled the cuff back, and glanced at it. “I’m not injured.”

“Did Miss Qin twist her ankle? There’s some redness and swelling here.” Lu Meng crouched down, put on medical gloves, and pressed lightly. “There’s nothing wrong with the bone. I’ll apply a cold compress first.”

“Thank you. I can do it myself.” Qin Wei stopped Lu Meng, took the cold towel from her, and gently placed it around her ankle. At the same time, confusion rose in her mind—she really had twisted her ankle in that room, badly enough that she couldn’t even stand.

But when had it…

When that woman had accused her of deliberately entering Jingzhe Number One. Qin Wei had been filled with fear and anger at the time and only remembered a flash of pain in her foot.

Qin Wei’s gaze fell once more on the bloodstain on her sleeve. She wasn’t injured, so did that blood belong to the other woman?

“…” Everything had been so chaotic that she couldn’t even remember where the utility knife had struck.

Qin Wei clenched her sleeve twice, hiding the bloodstain from view, then looked up at Lu Meng. “I need to change clothes.”

“Please wait a moment.” Lu Meng got up and walked into another room.

But the moment she entered, another set of footsteps sounded outside the hall. Qin Wei turned her head and saw a woman strolling in from the garden.

Lu Chenyu wasn’t holding an umbrella. Her ink-black hair, layered like dark mountain ridges, fell completely into the rain, rising and falling among the lush green vegetation. Lower still, when Qin Wei clearly saw those distant pale gray eyes, it felt even more as though a hard blade had been drawn from its sheath and was walking straight toward her.

Cold light gleamed from it. Qin Wei instinctively wanted to run.

The door to the wooden house opened. The moment Lu Chenyu entered, she saw Qin Wei sitting in the hall.

“…You haven’t left yet?” Lu Chenyu’s eyes were cold, her voice even colder. Her tone sounded partly surprised and partly malicious.

Qin Wei immediately grabbed the sofa and stood up, watching Lu Chenyu warily. Only then did she notice the conspicuous bloodstain on the woman’s cheek, as well as the utility knife she was idly spinning back and forth in her hand.

Qin Wei went on full alert, her face turning even paler.

“Boss.” At just the right moment, Lu Meng came out dragging a rack of shirts behind her. Without thinking, Qin Wei moved behind Lu Meng.

Lu Meng looked at her boss, then at Miss Qin behind her. Lowering her head, she quietly stepped aside and said, “Boss, some of the food has already been prepared. Would you like to go upstairs, or eat in the garden?”

“The garden.”

Lu Chenyu endured the discomfort in her stomach and resisted the urge to clutch it. She glanced again at Qin Wei hiding behind a rack of shirts, then seemed to remember something and went into the room to retrieve another set of clothes.

“This one is closer in style to what you were originally wearing.”

Lu Chenyu hung the clothes on the rolling rack without looking at Qin Wei even once, then walked straight past her. She quickly pushed open a wooden door and disappeared from Qin Wei’s sight in the blink of an eye.

Her stomach hurt so badly she could no longer endure it. The instant Lu Chenyu closed the door, she nearly lost her footing.

“It hurts, it hurts…” Lu Chenyu struggled to grab the corner of the table. Veins bulged across the back of her hand as cold sweat poured from her, quickly soaking the corner of the wooden table.

Her vision swam. It took quite a while before her eyes could focus again. She shifted herself into a chair, grabbed the glass of water in front of her, and gulped down the warm water in one go.

Then she collapsed over the table, half-dead, clutching her stomach without moving.

Only after recovering for quite a while did she reach for the food in front of her and begin swallowing it bite by bite.

The mission might not be very reliable, but in a certain sense, the system still counted as her cheat ability.

After all, if she were still in the apocalypse right now, and she had failed to find food in that ruined restaurant, then on the way back to camp, extreme hunger would either have killed her by the roadside or left her weak enough for a zombie to punch a claw straight through her, sending her off to meet her two teammates.

“System.” Lu Chenyu sprawled inelegantly over the table, stuffing food into her mouth as she asked, “You’re sure there’s no plot summary and no character memories?”

“Forget that Qin Wei doesn’t know me. Right now, whatever I’m like, Lu Chenyu is like that.” Lu Chenyu shoved a spoonful of hot porridge into her mouth, pushed herself halfway upright, and stirred the porridge in front of her while propping herself up with one arm. It took her a long time to swallow another mouthful.

“What about everyone else? I only have two warnings left out of three. Who could possibly complete a mission this difficult?”

The system’s voice still had that familiar artificial-human quality, a distinctly mechanical sound awkwardly mixed with something trying to resemble “human warmth.” “No. However, every time the host successfully plays the role correctly, the three warnings can be reset.”

“Other than that, this system has no reward or punishment functions.”

“Incidentally, Host, the three-warning limit only applies when you are interacting with the heroine. As for everyone else, you only need to ensure that you remain in the position of the Lu family’s head.”

Lu Chenyu expressionlessly bit into the bread. She barely swallowed one mouthful before putting it back down.

She looked at the dazzling array of food before her and endured again and again before suppressing the urge to gorge herself.

No zombies. No death. No nightmares.

Don’t go and stuff yourself to death at a wonderful moment like this!

“Do I need to exchange points for it? Tell me. I’ll see whether I can do it.”

Uncontrollable information would inevitably lead to uncontrollable outcomes. Looking at the readily available food before her and the peace of a place that would never be surrounded by zombies, she had absolutely no desire to go back and face endless hordes of the undead.

Lu Chenyu stood up from the table, grabbed her own head, and forced her gaze away from the food little by little until she was looking at the greenery before her instead.

After three years of the apocalypse, even seeing people had become rare, much less comforting greenery like this.

She really missed it. Lu Chenyu exhaled, then slapped herself.

Miss what? She had already forgotten almost everything from before the apocalypse.

System: “There are no points. There’s nothing at all. The host’s only task is to ultimately become the greatest and most evil villain of this novel, give up everything belonging to the Lu family, and then die.”

Lu Chenyu: “I really die?”

“Yes. But the host may still remain here afterward.”

Lu Chenyu crouched down, grabbed the gold-speckled green leaves in front of her with both hands, and rubbed them hard several times.

“Do you people have several worlds on hand? The kind where I can choose whichever one I want?”

System: “This system is only responsible for this one world. After completing the mission, the host can only remain in this world.”

Lu Chenyu tilted her head up toward the overcast sky. At some point, the rain had stopped. Faint golden light descended, as though a golden sun were about to emerge.

“Fine. I’ll do it.” Lu Chenyu rolled up her sleeves, swept her bangs back with one hand, roughly gathered her hair a couple of times, then pulled out a thin cord and tied it up.

Then she happily bent down and started moving the plants in front of her. She shifted some to the east, kicked a few toward the west, and in the end mixed together the plants that had originally been neatly arranged by color.

The result was dazzling yet chaotic. Against the multicolored tiles on the ground, it made the entire scene even more confusing to the eye.

“Boss.” Lu Meng knocked on the door.

Lu Chenyu paused to catch her breath, half leaning against the railing with one leg spread casually to the side.

“Come in.”

Perhaps because she felt guilty about pretending to be someone else, she let her swept-back bangs fall again. The long, slanted strands completely covered her eyes, making her expression impossible to read.

“Miss Qin has gone back with the two members of the Zhou family.” Lu Meng entered with her head lowered.

“…” Lu Chenyu didn’t respond. She waited for more, only to realize that Lu Meng wasn’t reacting either.

Oh. She was probably waiting for Lu Chenyu to give an order.

Lu Chenyu folded her arms, switched which leg she was propping up, then tilted her head thoughtfully and looked down along the railing.

There were too many plants. She couldn’t even see anyone below.

Sigh. What was she supposed to say at a time like this? In Lu Meng’s eyes, she was probably some villain who forced herself on other people now, right?

Should she go all the way with it? Have someone keep an eye on Qin Wei?

Sigh. If she liked women, maybe she really would do something like that. After three years in the apocalypse, her mind was already more twisted than a pervert’s.

If she could even stalk zombies, then keeping tabs on a person was nothing.

“Boss?”

When Lu Chenyu remained silent for a long time, Lu Meng spoke tentatively, trying to guess her thoughts. “Boss, Miss Qin wore the clothes you chose.”

“Mm.” Lu Chenyu gave a deliberately mysterious hum and thought for a moment. “Bring me the Zhou family’s information again. I want to look through it.”

“Especially Zhou You’s.”

She could worry about the coercion once the fire was already burning at her eyebrows. Qin Wei wasn’t here right now anyway. No need to think about it. No need.

She’d look at something else.

“There’s hangover medicine in the bag.” Qin Wei sat in the driver’s seat and casually handed her bag to Zhou Jing, then asked, “How much did you drink?”

Zhou Jing’s face was flushed, but her eyes were still clear. She didn’t look very drunk. “Not much. One bottle and I threw up.”

“Once I threw up, who would still dare force me to drink?”

Zhou Jing sat in the passenger seat. She took Qin Wei’s bag and opened it, only for the oil-stained clothes inside to immediately come into view. She pulled them out and turned them over twice in confusion.

“Why is there blood on the clothes too?”

There were only a few drops of oil on the sleeve. It was obvious at a glance.

Qin Wei’s hands stiffened on the steering wheel. She unnaturally adjusted the bow tied around her neck.

“The attendant dropped a tray and it shattered. A piece of glass cut her hand. She probably got blood on me accidentally when she helped me.”

Qin Wei tugged twice more at her seat belt, then drove out of Hanlin Waterside Pavilion’s underground parking garage.

“Were you hurt?” Zhou Jing asked with concern.

“No…”

Qin Wei had barely gotten the single syllable out when Zhou You, sitting in the back seat, cut her off.

“Qin Wei, why did it take you so long to come up from the first floor? Didn’t you tell me you were already at the door?”