Miss Wheelchair - Chapter 16

Pie doesn’t just fall from the sky—unless the system is the one throwing it.

That same day, Tan Xin summoned the system to check her stats. She confirmed that while Gu Ci’s favorability score toward her was sitting at a dismal [-10], the woman was still entirely willing to stage a fake romance for publicity.

“Is your monitor glitching?” Tan Xin questioned, harboring a very reasonable suspicion. “I can literally feel it—Gu Ci totally likes me already.”

The system had no time to entertain her delusions. With a swift flick, the holographic screen blinked out, and it logged off.

It’s totally triggered, Tan Xin calmly concluded. I pointed out that their monitor was broken, and it completely lost its cool.

That very evening, Sun Moon Biopharmaceuticals published a post across its official WeChat public account and various social media platforms.

President Gu Ci had officially announced her relationship.

“Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you. — Wisława Szymborska.”

The attached photo showed the silhouettes of Gu Ci and Tan Xin sitting side-by-side under a streetlight. They were holding hands, and Tan Xin’s head was resting gently on Gu Ci’s shoulder.

The moment the post went live, Weibo completely crashed.

【Planes, Trains, and Automobiles】: I am literally shaking and crying right now! What on earth is happening?

【Loverboy 99】: No way! I was just casually shipping them, and they turned out to be a real couple?

【Bought Two Scratch-Offs in Cash】: There’s something fishy going on here. My gut tells me this is a PR stunt.

【Starving Bill】: Damn, both of them are in wheelchairs. No wonder people say you two are a perfect match.

Overnight, searches for Gu Ci spiked exponentially, dragging Tan Xin into the public eye right along with her.

Company A: “Hello, is this Miss Tan Xin? We’re from XX Entertainment. We were wondering if you have any plans to take on commercial endorsements?”

Tan Xin: “I do.”

Company A: “Great! Let’s find a time to discuss how we can collaborate. When would you be free?”

Tan Xin: “Anytime. But I have one condition.”

Company A: “Please, go ahead, Miss Tan.”

Tan Xin: “The commercial has to feature Sun Moon Biopharmaceuticals’ stem-cell products. Ideally, it should highlight their key benefits, catch people’s eyes, and make them want to buy them.”

Company A: “Miss Tan, we make cosmetics.”

Tan Xin: “Right! But stem cells can be used for skincare and beauty too. A lot of aesthetic hospitals are introducing stem-cell treatments nowadays, they— Hello? Hello? Are you still there?”

Company B: “Miss Tan, our company just launched a new mobile game, and we’d love to collaborate with you. How does your schedule look?”

Tan Xin: “I’m free.”

Company B: “Excellent! Do you have any specific requirements for our collaboration?”

Tan Xin: “My requirement is very simple. I just want to add a single line of dialogue when people play the game.”

Company B: “That’s easy enough! What line do you want to add?”

Tan Xin: “If you want to buy stem cells, come to Sun Moon Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd.”

Company B: “?”

Word spread like wildfire. Soon enough, the public pinned a very specific label on this overnight sensation named Tan Xin.

A total hopeless romantic.

In the end, Tan Xin failed to book a single commercial.

Fortunately, everything was going smoothly on Gu Ci’s end. Not only did sales for their current stem-cell product line skyrocket, but the waiting list of clients who had pre-paid upfront already stretched all the way to the end of the year.

Your favorability score has changed. Please click to settle.

When the system materialized, Tan Xin was in the middle of taking a shower. Her leg, wrapped in a heavy plaster cast, was propped up on the sink as she rinsed herself off, balancing precariously on one foot like a golden rooster.

“Hey!” She instinctively covered her chest, pulling a nearby bath towel tight around herself. “I’m in the shower!”

“You’re in the shower?” The system asked.

“Yeah!”

The system paused for two seconds. Then before clicking the button, please dry the moisture off your hands to prevent water damage to the system.

Tan Xin grabbed the showerhead and blasted water directly at the holographic screen. The jet of water passed straight through the light projection, splashing harmlessly onto the wall behind it. “You’re a virtual projection. Who are you trying to fool by pretending to be an electronic appliance?”

The system beeped twice. Water detected in system. Water detected in system.

Tan Xin was speechless. “You definitely have water on the brain.”

Draining water. Draining water. Draining water.

“Can you stop acting?”

With a sigh, she raised her hand and pressed the “Settle” button on the screen, cutting off the system’s terrible drama-queen performance.

The screen glitched, and the system returned to normal, reciting its standard protocol text:

Congratulations! Gu Ci’s favorability +10. Total favorability score: [0].

Finally.

After days of relentless, day-and-night effort, her favorability score had finally crawled from an initial -20 back up to zero. This was the first time Tan Xin had ever been this ecstatic about getting a zero on a test.

“Do you know why?” Tan Xin began to share her golden rules for success.

“Why?” The system was acting weirdly cooperative today.

Tan Xin turned off the showerhead and said, “Because it only took me a single week to memorize all that professional medical jargon and land the clinical assistant job. She saw my inner brilliance. Knowledge changes destiny, ever heard of it?”

The system wisely withheld the fact that if Tan Xin hadn’t behaved so bizarrely while showing off her brilliance, her favorability bonus actually should have been +15.

But it couldn’t say that. As an AI system, it had to do everything in its power to preserve its user’s fragile self-esteem.

Thus, choosing to remain silent, it proceeded to the next step.

Proceeding to mission settlement—Enter the Medical University. Please click to settle.

Right, there was still that matter.

Tan Xin was slowly getting the hang of the system’s patterns; she could usually guess whether a result would be good or bad before the final tally. With a grand sweep of her hand, she clicked the button.

Congratulations on successfully completing the mission: Enter the Medical University. Please select your mission reward.

The screen buzzed. After a fancy folding-screen transition effect, a few options materialized in the center of the display.

【Heal Leg Injury】 【Heal Heart Condition】 【Heal Eye Vision】

Finally, the rewards this time around were practical and straightforward.

There was nothing wrong with her vision, and her heart surgery had already been taken care of, leaving only her leg injury encased in a plaster cast. Naturally, Tan Xin selected the leg injury.

The moment 【Heal Leg Injury】 was selected, a satisfying sound effect chimed. In the next heartbeat, the bones in her right leg felt as if they had grown their own tiny hands and feet, shifting and snapping back into place beneath her skin like a puzzle piece.

She tried rotating her ankle. No pain. The lingering discomfort vanished entirely.

Nice.

She confidently planted both feet firmly on the floor, basking in the wonderful sensation of physical balance for the first time since entering this world.

It was absolute bliss.

The next day, Tan Xin went to the orthopedic department to have her cast removed.

The doctor was baffled by her rapid recovery speed, worried that there might be some underlying risks. After all, Tan Xin wasn’t just any regular patient anymore—she was President Gu’s girlfriend.

As a precaution, he ordered a follow-up appointment in a week. He strictly advised her not to walk around on her feet just yet and to remain in her wheelchair for the time being.

This played right into Tan Xin’s hands. Riding around in a wheelchair alongside Gu Ci was the perfect way to close the physical distance between them. Who knew? Her favorability score might just shoot up again.

“So, you’re planning to fake a limp?” Zhang Huiqian immediately saw right through the clever little scheme.

“Exactly,” Tan Xin admitted proudly. “I even faked being in pain in front of the doctor so he would tell me to keep using the wheelchair.”

“Not bad, babe. You’re learning fast.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

“So, what’s next? What’s your game plan?”

“I plan to bust my ass as a clinical assistant.”

“Huh? What did you just say?”

Tan Xin thought to herself, How is this girl so young yet so completely deaf? So, she repeated herself, louder this time: “I plan to bust my ass as a clinical assistant.”

Zhang Huiqian seriously questioned her friend’s sanity. “If you love working so much, why didn’t you just get a job in the real world? What are you doing in the system? You’re here to fall in love!”

Tan Xin countered, “You just don’t get it.”

“My favorability score is already at 60,” Zhang Huiqian shot back. “What is there that I don’t get?”

Tan Xin explained, “It’s about showing your brilliance. Your spark, you know?”

“What does that even mean?”

“My favorability score went up by 10 points this time entirely because I studied hard and memorized all that medical literature. Gu Ci respects my dedication, and that’s why she likes me more.”

Zhang Huiqian still wasn’t buying it. “Are you absolutely sure it’s because of studying, and not something else? I heard that pitching the fake relationship was your idea. It’s highly likely she just admires your business acumen.”

“Impossible.”

“Why impossible?”

“Knowledge changes destiny. Business acumen doesn’t mean jack.”

Zhang Huiqian fell silent.

The line went dead quiet for a few seconds. Tan Xin thought her signal was lagging and barked a few “Hellos” into the receiver before Zhang Huiqian’s voice finally drifted back: “So, you seriously plan to be a model employee for this professor?”

“Yep.”

“But I heard that professor is an absolute tyrant to his grad students. He only gives them a 200-yuan monthly stipend, and makes them run experiments from dawn till dusk. And that’s just the students, let alone a clinical assistant.”

Tan Xin remained entirely unfazed. “Isn’t that just the reality for grad students nationwide?”

Zhang Huiqian choked. “You didn’t have to be that brutally honest.”

And so, Tan Xin officially activated her workaholic mode.

Every single day, she showed up at the office at 8:00 AM sharp. From auditing literature to drafting project proposals, from managing duty rosters to revising SOPs—she handled everything meticulously and mastered it all.

Yet, her favorability score remained stubbornly rooted at [0], refusing to budge a single millimeter.

One day, she finally couldn’t take it anymore. Seizing the opportunity during lunch, she said to Gu Ci, “I’ve been working really hard lately.”

It was a completely random statement with zero context. Not knowing what Tan Xin was trying to get at, Gu Ci looked up, swallowed the rice ball in her mouth, and asked, “And?”

Tan Xin pressed on, “Don’t you have anything you want to say to me? Or any thoughts about me?”

Gu Ci replied, “Keep it up.”

Tan Xin fell silent.

This woman is seriously the most boring person on earth.

Right after lunch, she vented about the interaction to Zhang Huiqian. To her surprise, her friend sounded even more anxious than she was.

“Do you know why she’s acting like that?”

“Why?”

“Tan Xin, you’ve got a love rival!”

Tan Xin bolted upright, but suddenly remembering she was supposed to be faking a limp, she hurriedly sat back down in her wheelchair. “You say what now?”

Zhang Huiqian spoke at breakneck speed. “My assistant said they saw Gu Ci having dinner with a woman yesterday, and then they went to a hotel together—alone.”

Tan Xin racked her brain. She had gone to bed early last night, and now that she thought about it, she definitely hadn’t seen Gu Ci return before she fell asleep.

A vibrant, metaphorical field of green grass instantly sprouted on top of her head.

“Who is she? What’s her name? What does she do?”

Zhang Huiqian was a goldmine of information. “She’s the boss of my assistant’s best friend—a Chief News Director.”

Ugh, damn it. They’re a perfect match on paper.

“And she looks very intellectual and sophisticated.”

Great, even their aesthetics match.

“She’s also a few years older than Gu Ci.”

An unbeatable, mature older woman. Double blow.

No way, absolutely not. No, no, no!

“My assistant found out that they’re scheduled to meet up again tonight.”

What is this, a multi-episode drama series?

A deep sense of unease washed over Tan Xin. Right at that exact moment, a crisp knock sounded at her door.

Knock, knock.

“I have a business dinner tonight, so I won’t be back for food,” Gu Ci announced from the doorway.

Tan Xin forced out an expression that barely qualified as a smile. “Alrighty!”

The moment Gu Ci left, Tan Xin frantically whipped out her phone and fired a text to Zhang Huiqian:

[Send me the address.]

Today, she was going to catch them red-handed!