Chapter 2: The Profiteering Mother Who Sells Her Daughters (1)

Overweight bodies are seriously difficult to use!

After her 1001st complaint, Dan Jingqiu felt that she had been thoroughly duped by the so-called System 008. Ever since entering this new world, she had been internally cursing at Jinjiang System 008, which had conveniently entered into its official play dead (hibernation) mode. When it failed to respond, the corners of her lips curled coldly.

Lu Chunhua froze as she watched her old neighbor, Dan Jingqiu furiously tremble in front of her.

She was only there to talk to Dan Jingqiu about the latest gossip but she looked livid. Did she offend her somehow? Carefully thinking back on the gossip she had just sprouted, Lu Chunhua, who was infamously known for her sharp tongue, fell silent as fear overtook her.

Seeing the changing colors on Lu Chunhua’s face, Dan Jingqiu maintained an innocent look, not knowing that the simple curl of her lips had instantly caused the other person to second-guess their actions.

Recalling System 008’s strong emphasis on conforming to the original character’s personality and reactions, she sighed again. Suppressing her impatience and temper towards the other party, she continued the conversation.

“Madame Lu, please go on, I love your stories…” Dan Jingqiu revealed what she thought was a warm smile. However, she did not realize just how terrifyingly eager her smile looked like to the other party when it was plastered on a 100 kg middle-aged woman, whose height barely reached 1.6 meters.

“Err…where were we?” Lu Chunhua swallowed nervously.

Dan Jingqiu could not believe that this 40-year-old looking woman would be so forgetful, so she patiently reminded her: “Weren’t you just saying that sister Wang’s eldest son was looking for a bride?”

Madam Wang was another well-known figure in Lychee street. If Dan Jingqiu were infamous for running her relentless mouth, then Wang Yuhong, or Madam Wang, was known for being a shrew. She had managed to offend every single person living along that street. When angered, she had the ability to continuously curse her victim from the start until the end of that street. Her mean mouth and face were legendary to the locals.

As for Lu Chunhua, this gossipmonger was no better than Wang Yuhong! People who lived along the street called her ‘Big Mouth Lu’ behind her back. Any news she picked up would make its way around the street several times. She would even manage to get a hold of difficult to reach relatives to repeat her daily spiel. And while all the middle-aged women who lived along the street looked forward to her gossip visits, they were also terrified that their personal affairs might get overheard by her.

At the first crack of dawn, Lu Chunhua hastily made her way to Dan Jingqiu’s house. Casually pouring herself a cup of cool water as she sat down; Her butt wiggled impatiently as she waited for Dan Jingqiu to finish her errands. After being pulled over to Dan Jingqiu’s side, Lu Chunhua began her enthusiastic chatter.

The moment Dan Jingqiu reminded her of where she had left off in her gossip, Lu Chunhua could not be bothered with how she might have offended the other party and focused on spewing out all her rumors again.

“Aiyo, Xiao Dan, didn’t you know? That Wang Yuhong, tsk tsk. That’s what we call ‘a toad that wants to eat swan meat’!” (T/N: Wooing someone who is way out of their league.) The more Lu Chunhua spoke, the more excited she became. She eagerly launched herself against Dan Jingqiu with an intense and conspiratory look: “Her toad of a son is so short. He goes around telling everyone that he’s 1.7 meters tall, but I’d doubt it if he’s even 1.65 meters! And while he does have a house here, none of the houses on our street have more than one room!”

“And did you know what she said her son was looking for in a wife? One that’s 1.7 meters tall, with a stable job, parents that must have a retirement pension… and if they’re from outside the city, their families must have savings to support their living expenses! She said her son has nothing to offer but a registered permanent residence in B city. Who doesn’t have that here?! His house might get demolished in the future. Wang Yuhong’s qualifications for her son’s wife went way overboard, and beauty is also a harsh requirement too! And yet her son is still so picky!”

“But apparently, there’s still someone who’s willing to put up with that, what’s wrong with them? Turns out; Wang Yuhong was bullying the other family’s girl!”

“Tsk tsk, how delusional!”

As Lu Chunhua animatedly tattled on the latest gossip, she was so excited that spittle was flying everywhere. When she finally finished her piece and grabbed her cup from the table to gulp down its contents, she waited for her audience to react as she recovered her breath. This was when she had realized that the usually captivated audience was lost in thought.

It took a while before she was able to regain her senses.

Shit Shit Shit, this was a huge mistake! Lu Chunhua must have been crazy to gossip about Wang Yuhong’s eldest son in front of Dan Jingqiu.

Just half a year ago, didn’t the Dan family and the Wang family nearly tie the knot? Back then, their marriage plans fell through because of Wang Yuhong’s unreasonable demands!

Who in their right minds would stick around? Fearing Dan Jingqiu’s ire, Lu Chunhua hastily made up an excuse about grocery shopping and left in a hurry.

Dan Jinqiu was left behind in an empty living room with a half-filled cup of water. She left out a dry chuckle. Of course, she knew why Lu Chunhua ran off.

The so-called dwarf that Lu Chunhua was referring to was the Wang family’s youngest son, Wang Qimeng. He also almost became the groom in the marriage talks with Dan Jingqiu’s eldest daughter.

Dan Jingqiu felt exasperated when she recalled the series of messy issues that were associated with the Wang family.

The legendary so-called ‘beginner’s world’ does not exist. She jumped straight into the Hellish Hard mode with all these initial setbacks!

Noticing that her brain had its own story within this world’s story, she had an urge to give the evil System 008 a vicious beating.

She shared the same name as the body she was inhabiting; they are both called Dan Jingqiu. However, this world’s Dan Jingqiu was a side character, a 45-year-old mother who was also supposed to be the wish-maker in this world. This first half of this character’s life was rather smooth. She had a harmonious childhood and family, and after marrying her husband, Jin Youchen, she bore 3 daughters: eldest daughter Jin Lingzhu, second daughter Jin Xiuzhu, and third daughter Jin Wanzhu. Her husband operated a small restaurant, their earnings were average, they accumulated a small amount of savings, and their daughters were filial. But in the year she turned 45, her husband passed away from an illness. From that point on, her life underwent a drastic change.

Before her husband fell ill, she was a bit conceited and had spent all their savings. After their small restaurant went bankrupt and closed down, she was left with only her three daughters and a small house along Lychee street. Since then, money had been her highest priority in life.

When dealing with the marital affairs of her three daughters, she used money as the only criteria to judge the worth of future sons-in-law.

No house, no car, no savings? Sorry, next please.

And so began the tragedies.

First up was the eldest daughter, Lingzhu ——

Half a year ago, there were talks about marriage between Lingzhu and her childhood friend, Wang Qimeng. But life took a turn, and Wang Yuhong felt that Jin Youchen’s illness meant the doom of their family, which later became a reality.

In order to draw a clear line between their families, Wang Yuhong acted like a shrew at their doorstep, mocking Lingzhu for shamelessly clinging to her family…

Upon hearing this, Lingzhu chose to give up the relationship, and spent the rest of her days taking care of her mother in her father’s absence by running the small restaurant that was in danger of being closed down, and took it upon herself to single-handedly support the family.

Watching the original character’s memories to this point, Dan Jingqiu felt only immense pity for this young lady. Still, she had never expected the latter parts of this story to rapidly take a jaw-dropping turn.

When she woke up, the original character’s husband, Jin Youchen, was already cremated. She was so devastated during her husband’s funeral that she passed out and was left bedridden for half a month without losing any weight. When she finally found the strength to climb out of bed, that was when she met the gossip monger, Lu Chunhua.

She was only able to regain her senses because this was the beginning of the original character’s tragedy…

Not long after, Wang Yuhong would find her son a daughter-in-law from outside the city who came with her own dowry and had parents who had their own pension funds. Wang Yuhong would later boast about her ingenuity and foresight for rejecting Lingzhu, who had no future prospects and had selected the right daughter-in-law…

Over time, the original character’s psychological state became twisted, and the first sacrifice was her eldest daughter, Lingzhu.

For the sake of proving that her family was not worse off without a husband, the original character forced her eldest daughter to undergo a matchmaking session. Looks and personality were not considered. Her only requirements were money and property. In the end, she picked a man who was ten years older for her daughter. Lingzhu was against the marriage, so the original character cornered and coerced, and finally, forced the wedding to happen.

However, not even two days had passed when she found that her carefully selected 35-year-old son-in-law had a history of domestic violence. The bastard would turn violent at the slightest provocation. Although he had never caused enough harm that would require hospitalization, there were visible injuries formed on Lingzhu’s body after a mere three days.

Lingzhu wanted to file for a divorce. In order to save face, she coaxed her daughter to endure it again and again. Not a year later, Lingzhu could no longer bear the torment and jumped off from the highest floor of her building.

Xiuzhu and Wanzhu were unaware that their sister’s suicide was related to their mother. Fearing resentment from her daughters, the original character kept the truth hidden from them, feigned ignorance on the outside, and only allowed her guilt and pain to resurface in her nightly dreams.

When Xiuzhu graduated from university, she wanted to marry an upperclassman that she had dated for the past three years. However, the aforementioned upperclassman had just entered into entrepreneurship. He did not have any net worth, came from a lower-class family, did not have his own house, and his so-called company was located in a basement. The original character wanted to respect her daughter’s wishes. However, once she found out about the upperclassman’s situation, she was so angry that she went up to shame the man and demanded that he leave her daughter. No matter how much Xiuzhu begged, she would not budge, and personally broke up the loving couple.

That’s right, this upperclassman was one of the main leads of this world, and Xiuzhu would be what novels term as the “white moonlight,” or the person that the male lead yearns but was never was never meant to be with. As for her mother, a.k.a the original character; she was the arrogant monster-in-law who wrecked the relationship between two lovers.

As for Wanzhu, she became the sacrificial pawn to bolster the almighty love between the male and female leads—— The female lead, who had always secretly admired the male lead, discovered this original character’s vicious and evil ways. She had decided to not only give her a taste of humiliation, but to also force Xiuzhu’s family out of the city when she finally broke up with the male lead.

Given the recent breakup, the female lead knew that she was not in a good position to lay her hands on Xiuzhu, so she shifted her focus on Wanzhu. According to the female lead, the impact would be far greater if the blow came from someone close.

So, she intentionally enlisted the help of a male supporting lead who was secretly in love with her and disguised him as the ideal rich son-in-law. Through various underhanded tactics, she was able to get the original character to matchmake the male supporting lead with Wanzhu. Of course, the perfect male supporting lead played the perfect potential son-in-law. So, the original character did everything she could to develop their relationship. Unbeknownst to her, this was all just a farce. The inexperienced Wanzhu and the supporting male lead underwent a passionate relationship. However, when the male supporting lead revealed his true nature, Wanzhu was ruthlessly ditched, but not before getting hurled with various hurtful reasons to her face.

In the end, the female lead delivered a recording to Xiuzhu and Wanzhu, containing a conversation of Lingzhu telling her mother about her abuse prior to her passing. The recording dealt a massive blow to the two sister’s feelings and kinship. They both left the city without looking back.

Prior to leaving, the original character’s beloved youngest daughter, Wanzhu, asked her mother solemnly: “Which is more important? Money, or us?”

After being left alone, the original character suffered a massive breakdown and jumped off the same building that took Lingzhu’s life, and departed from this world. Her suffering spirit continued to wander restlessly, unable to move on.

However, her family’s misfortune was only a tiny fragment of this world, and their story could be summarized in a line——

“I heard a rumor that after Xiuzhu and Wanzhu left the city, their money-loving mother jumped off a building.

But none of this has anything to do with the main plot.”

Isn’t this tragic?

The brazen middle-aged woman who seemed to be permanently bogged down by problems that Dan Jingqiu saw back then was the original character.

Every day, she endured and revisited her pain and struggles. She hated the men who hurt her daughters, but she hated herself even more for making her daughters suffer.

“What is your wish?”

“I wish for my daughters’ happiness. I want them to know how much I love them…”

As the brazen woman recited her wish, her eyes were dull with tears, as if drowning in endless melancholy.

Dan Jingqiu could feel that the original character truly did love her daughters, and just like all three of their names, every single one was a precious pearl (zhu) in their mother’s heart.

If Lingzhu’s tragedy was caused by the original character, then what about Xiuzhu and Wanzhu? What did they do wrong? They accidentally entered into someone else’s love story, but were forced to leave their hometown, and ended up with a broken family…

“Mom, I’m going to go tidy up the restaurant! You just recovered so you need to rest more!” The crisp sound echoed from the top floor, Lingzhu frantically grabbed the buns that Dan Jingqiu had purchased early that morning and ran out, and just like the wind, she disappeared with great gusto——

When Dan Jingqiu finally regained her senses, there was no one in sight.

After experiencing the original character’s memories and being under the constant care of the three sisters for half a month, she could no longer sit around and do nothing. While in a trance, she even felt like she had personally raised these three daughters herself…

As of now, the energetic Lingzhu, who had supported her family without complaint, would become a depressed woman in the near future, and eventually leap off a building.

The childish Xiuzhu and Wanzhu would also consecutively get their feelings hurt and leave their hometown in a few years.

Dan Jingqiu felt an immense weight on her shoulders from these thoughts. Such heavy responsibilities and such a long way to go!

When she had just entered this world, she was immediately greeted with “I am dead. If you need something, burn paper.” (T/N: The living can only give the dead items/requests by burning a paper version of that object.) She had exchanged her remaining novice bonus points for the Cooking Skill·Beginner Level, and recalled the bowl of clear noodle soup she made yesterday.

At this moment, Dan Jingqiu was quite satisfied that she had upgraded herself from a disabled person to a self-professed “cooking master.” Now, she had set her sights on her first goal——

Changing the world begins from making a fortune!

The author has something to say： Reminder 1 – Character Age:

Mother: Dan Jingqiu (45)

Eldest Daughter: Jin Lingzhu (25)

2nd and 3rd Daughter: Jin Xiuzhu & Jin Wanzhu (22) – Twins

Reminder 2:

I’ll add another chapter once I hit 10 bookmarks! ( Me pretending there are 10 people who will bookmark this QAQ）