Is Self-Redemption Really That Hard? [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 4

With just over five hundred yuan left in her pocket, Lu Wuqi stepped into an internet cafe. Spotting a sign at the counter advertising a “Top-up 300, get 200 free” promotion, she decisively spent more than half of her remaining fortune.

Needing a quieter space to focus, Lu Wuqi skipped the noisy main hall and chose a private cubicle that came with a higher hourly rate.

Earning ten thousand yuan in twenty-two days wasn’t hard for her. Normally, she’d study the stock market for a bit, make a few short-term trades, and profits would roll in.

The problem was—her starting capital was far too small now. After topping up three hundred yuan for internet fees, she was once again left with only a little over two hundred.

[System: Host, how exactly do you plan to make money?]

The Redemption System couldn’t help but pop out to ask. Lu Wuqi had been browsing webpages for over an hour, even indulging in a five-yuan bottle of soda—none of which looked remotely profitable.

“Start small,” she replied evenly. “Pick up some quick jobs, save a bit first.”

In her previous world, Lu Wuqi had started life on a much higher rung. She’d been adopted by the Lu family at five and received a monthly allowance ever since. After fifteen years of targeted training, she completed both her undergraduate and master’s degrees by twenty, then joined the Lu Group as a senior employee.

It took her eight years to climb from a high-level employee to the company’s top decision-maker, and just seven more to elevate the Lu Group from China’s top three to the world’s number one.

During that time, her concerns were never about how to start from scratch, but how to turn a hundred billion into a trillion—how to make money make more money.

Fortunately, fifteen years of elite training had armed Lu Wuqi with every skill imaginable. Having rotated through almost every department at the Lu Group, she’d truly become a jack of all trades—and master of most.

After an hour of studying the rules of a certain online forum, she finally found something to her liking among the featured posts—paid programming work involving code modification and completion.

However, since her account was brand new and she had no portfolio to show, she could only accept small gigs for now: helping college students finish assignments or developing simple ad-filled mini games.

Even so, by the end of the day, she’d earned more than she would have at a milk tea shop or through one-on-one tutoring. After rounding down a few digits, she had made a clean one thousand yuan.

Seeing her savings jump from three digits to four, Lu Wuqi calmly cleared all traces of her activity from the computer and logged off before five in the afternoon.

In summer, the sun didn’t set until after six. At just past five, it still hung bright and steady in the sky.

Stepping out of the air-conditioned internet café and into the sweltering heat, Lu Wuqi instinctively recoiled from the thirty-something-degree temperature. The glaring sunlight made her squint.

It’s easy to go from frugal to spoiled, but hard the other way around, she thought.

Just half a day in an air-conditioned room, and her body had already grown accustomed to comfort—now it protested the heat.

Checking the time on her phone, she first stopped by a nearby store to get a new SIM card, then headed to a stationery shop.

Her money-making mission for the day was complete, but the heartfelt handwritten apology letter she needed to prepare—she hadn’t even gathered the materials for it yet.

What kind of pen should she use? Should she write on A4 paper, loose-leaf sheets, or in a notebook?

Ten thousand words would take up quite a few pages. Should she get a larger notebook?

Or maybe a prettier planner, something that looked more thoughtful?

Would that seem too frivolous—or more sincere?

Her mind buzzed with questions—an unfamiliar kind of pleasant confusion.

She spent nearly twenty minutes dawdling among the rows of colorful notebooks and writing supplies before settling on a customizable ink fountain pen and a palm-sized planner with 120 pages.

The planner fit perfectly in her hand; when she spread her fingers, she could grip its edges neatly. If she spaced things well, her ten-thousand-word reflection could fill the entire book.

Except, now it looked more like a gift than a self-reflection.

Weighing the notebook in her palm, Lu Wuqi took her selections—the pen and ink refills—and handed them to the shopkeeper.

“That’ll be 108 yuan. How would you like to pay?” the shopkeeper asked efficiently, scanning the barcodes and placing everything neatly into a pretty paper bag, as if to make it harder for Lu Wuqi to say she didn’t want it anymore.

A hundred and eight yuan—for a notebook, two pens, and three bottles of ink?

Lu Wuqi instinctively glanced at the screen, her brows twitching when she saw the planner alone cost seventy-eight yuan.

She, who’d once never looked at price tags, had just been ambushed by a stationery assassin.

Still, remembering this reflection was for Lan Xu, she said nothing. Pulling out her phone, she brought up the payment code. “Mobile payment.”

If it was something that would end up in her girlfriend’s hands, then expensive or not—it just had to look good.

Good thing she’d earned a thousand yuan today, or her entire savings wouldn’t even have covered a few notebooks.

After recalling the ingredients she’d seen in the fridge the night before, Lu Wuqi headed toward the nearby wet market, planning to buy a bit more food to bring home.

The internet café charged separately for food and drinks—twenty yuan for a bowl of noodles. She figured it was far more cost-effective to buy two carp and cook at home instead.

As she mentally calculated her expenses, Lu Wuqi began selecting ingredients based on the dishes that often appeared on their family table. By the time her hands were full of shopping bags, her bank balance had once again dropped to three digits.

She rode a shared bike home just as the sun was setting, leaving only a few clouds tinged red in the sky.

Carrying the heavy bags through the door, she wasn’t at all surprised when her mother started to “scold” her.

“Why did you buy so much food, child? One fish is plenty—we can’t finish two between the three of us!”

“And why so much pork, chicken, and beef? The fridge can barely hold all this!”

“Next time, don’t buy so much. I don’t even know if we can finish it all in a week.”

Lu Wuqi stood in the living room, watching as her mother checked through each bag while grumbling—her words sounded like complaints, but the faint curve of her lips betrayed her delight.

“Mom, I found a new part-time job,” Lu Wuqi said with a small smile. “From now on, I’ll be eating lunch and dinner at home. Tomorrow noon, I want to have beef noodles.”

“You’ll be eating at home from now on? What kind of job is it? Is the commute manageable?” her mother asked, the smile tugging even higher at her lips.

“It’s fine, really. I’ll just be doing some freelance coding work online,” Lu Wuqi explained. “You know I’m majoring in programming—this way I can earn some money while studying.”

According to her plan, she’d be spending most of her time at the internet café. But to keep her mother from worrying, a bit of strategic honesty was necessary.

As soon as she heard this, Mother Lu stopped sorting the groceries altogether and started questioning her in earnest—how exactly she was earning money, whether it was safe, and whether she might be walking into an online scam.

Lu Wuqi had already anticipated these questions and had prepared her answers in advance. She handled them smoothly, putting her mother’s concerns to rest within three minutes.

“All right then,” her mother said, visibly relieved. “From now on, just tell me in advance what you want to eat, and I’ll make it for you.”

Her smile held a touch of pride. As expected of my daughter—so clever! Who else could come up with a way to earn money like this?

Thinking of all that fresh meat and produce ending up in her daughter’s stomach, she no longer felt that buying so much food was wasteful.

Her daughter was still so young and already working part-time—she deserved to eat well, and to have meat at every meal!

Meanwhile, Father Lu sat on the sofa, an unlit cigarette between his fingers. He looked like he wanted to say something, but when he realized neither his wife nor his daughter was paying him any attention, he quietly sank back down. The cigarette remained between his teeth as he stared ahead, lost in thought.

After dinner, Lu Wuqi returned to her room. She adjusted the ink in her fountain pen, opened her journal, and began writing her “apology letter.”

Dear Xuxu:

I have thoroughly reflected on and recognized my mistake. I.

She didn’t have much experience writing self-criticisms, but she had seen plenty of subordinates’ self-evaluations and mistake reports in another world, so she wasn’t at a loss for where to start.

Her journal pages were a warm shade of cream, and the ink she’d mixed herself leaned toward a deep navy blue. In her neat semi-cursive handwriting, the lines looked far more like a love letter than an apology letter.

To keep the ink from smudging, she patiently waited each time for it to dry completely before turning the page.

An hour passed quickly. When she counted the pages, she realized she’d written about a thousand words. Satisfied, she closed the notebook.

Earned a thousand yuan, wrote a thousand words of reflection—mission accomplished. Time for a shower and then bed.

Just as she was putting her pen and notebook away in the drawer, her phone buzzed twice on the table.

She picked it up and unlocked it with facial recognition. Two new messages from Lan Xu popped up on the lock screen.

Lan Xu: How’s it going? Did you find a suitable one-on-one tutoring job?

Lan Xu: If you don’t want to go to someone’s house, you could always work as a teaching assistant at a tutoring center.

Lu Wuqi opened the chat window, thought for a moment, then began typing a reply.

What she could tell her mother, she could tell Lan Xu as well.

Besides, Lan Xu already knew she liked reading programming books in her spare time, so this explanation would sound perfectly reasonable.

But before she could finish typing—just over a hundred characters in—Lan Xu, who had apparently grown impatient while “typing,” suddenly initiated a video call.

The default ringtone startled Lu Wuqi. She instinctively glanced around the room, and, reassured that her bed was neat and tidy, finally pressed the green button to answer.