Miss Wheelchair - Chapter 21

With Gu Gu gone, the living room fell back into a quiet intimacy.

The house’s interior design was a jarring, clumsy attempt to fuse Eastern and Western aesthetics. Yet, with Gu Ci sitting right beside her, even the tacky talismans slapped onto the walls by some feng shui master began to look almost endearing.

Taking a deep breath, Tan Xin caught a whiff of Gu Ci’s perfume. It was subtle—a delicate blend of camellia and woody notes. It lacked the cloying sweetness of pure camellia and lacked the sharp, biting edge of agarwood. The two scents balanced each other beautifully into a low-key, understated fragrance that made Tan Xin want to lean in for another breath.

“Uncomfortable?” Gu Ci asked, her voice cool and even.

“Huh? No, not at all.” Tan Xin blinked, caught off guard.

“You keep taking deep breaths,” Gu Ci pointed out.

“Oh, that, well—” Tan Xin stammered, lacking the courage to explain the real reason behind her deep breathing. “It’s just a bit stuffy in here.”

Gu Ci paused, turning her gaze toward the wide-open double doors of the living room. A chilly autumn breeze was sweeping through the hall in relentless gusts. Stuffy?

Realizing her excuse made zero sense, Tan Xin’s mind raced. She desperately prayed for the system to bail her out. Even some pointless small talk would do!

Ding-dong!

Suddenly, the crisp sound of an electronic device booting up echoed through the air.

The system had arrived. Speak of the Fairy Godmother, and she shall appear.

[System]: “Hello, Tan Xin. You have an active real-time mission.”

Tan Xin frowned mentally. “But I’m already in the middle of a mission.”

The system countered smoothly:

[System]: “【Meet Gu Ci’s Parents】 is a sub-quest. What you are facing now is a sudden real-time mission.”

“Fine. What’s the mission? Let’s hear it.”

The floating holographic screen flickered and switched interfaces, revealing a single line of text in the center:

[Current Objective]: Please complete the real-time mission — Save Gu Ci.

Save Gu Ci?

How on earth did they skip straight to a “rescue” plotline? And save her from what? Was she supposed to magically restore her idiot half-brother’s intelligence?

If that were the case, Tan Xin would rather jump off a cliff right now and force-quit the simulation.

Beep!

The system vanished as quickly as it came, leaving no definition for what “saving” entailed, let alone any helpful hints.

A moment later, Gu Peisheng and Xu Qiuxin finally returned.

“Ah, Gu Ci is already here!”

Xu Qiuxin called out as she helped Gu Peisheng through the door.

Gu Peisheng had clearly taken a brutal beating. A thick layer of gauze was wrapped heavily around his head, his nose was taped up, and his right eye was swollen into a horrific, deep-purple bruise. He looked utterly pathetic.

“I’m so sorry, dear. It took some time to pick up your father from the clinic. Have you been waiting long? Did you see little Gu Gu?”

After fussing over Gu Peisheng and settling him upstairs, Xu Qiuxin hurried back down. She immediately reached out to grasp Gu Ci’s hand to play the doting stepmother, but Gu Ci coldly pulled her hand away.

Beep!

Red Premium: +10

Gu Chi is annoyed.

Tan Xin immediately intervened. “Auntie, if you have something to say, please just say it. Gu Ci doesn’t like holding hands.”

Unless it’s mine, Tan Xin added silently.

Beep!

Red Premium: +20

Xu Qiuxin is pissed.

Though Gu Ci’s disgust and coldness were written plain as day across her face, Xu Qiuxin remained entirely unbothered. The practiced, beaming smile never left her face.

“Alright, then. Let’s sit down and talk properly.”

Tan Xin shot an inquiring glance at Gu Ci. Gu Ci gave a subtle nod, indicating that she shouldn’t make a scene just yet and should instead wait to see how the cards fell.

The moment they sat down, Xu Qiuxin opened the floodgates of grievance.

“Xiao Ci, you have no idea the kind of trouble your father is in right now! The man he fought with yesterday is the son of a publicly listed company’s CEO. Not only are they threatening to cut off all of our company’s supply chains, but they’re also suing your father! We simply don’t have that kind of money right now!”

Gu Ci took a slow sip of her hot tea, her eyes chillingly detached. “If you sell this house, it should fetch at least ten million.”

Xu Qiuxin practically jumped out of her seat. “How could we do that? If we lose this house, where are we supposed to live? Xiao Ci, look at you—your career is booming, your relationship is going well. Could you, perhaps lend us ten million? We’ll pay you back the moment our cash flow stabilizes.”

Gu Ci let out a cold, mocking laugh. “Aunt Xin, that’s a beautiful calculation. But I doubt this was your idea. Where is Dad? At his ripe old age, he still only knows how to hide behind a woman. Pushing his wife out to suck his daughter dry and he actually expects me to hand over the money?”

Tan Xin hesitated for a fraction of a second.

She had assumed Gu Ci would ruthlessly tear into Xu Qiuxin. By society’s standard narrative, this was the woman who had destroyed Gu Ci’s original family, stolen her father, and given birth to an illegitimate brother to fight over the inheritance. Now, she was trying to swindle ten million under the guise of a “loan.”

Yet, Gu Ci didn’t waste her breath cursing the woman.

Instead, her firepower was aimed squarely at the unfaithful man—the man who had brought his mistress into the family home, who thought only of his illegitimate son when he had money, and who hid behind his wife the moment he ran out of it.

In that instant, Tan Xin realized Gu Ci was fundamentally different from the flat NPCs found in standard mobile games.

She was entirely, beautifully real.

“Your father.”

Xu Qiuxin looked visibly uncomfortable. She hesitated for several seconds before pressing on. “Your father isn’t feeling well right now, so let’s not disturb him, okay? Xiao Ci, ten million is nothing to someone of your stature. For the sake of how much your father has loved you, please just help us out this once, alright?”

As she spoke, tears began to pool and roll down her cheeks.

Tan Xin stared intently at the top of Xu Qiuxin’s head. There wasn’t a single flicker of emotional value changing. Not even a shred of genuine sadness.

Figures, Tan Xin thought. An incompetent, spineless father is bad enough, but a scheming stepmother is a whole different breed of trouble.

Gu Ci’s strategy was passive resistance—offering no money, no sympathy, and no engagement. But desperate people like Gu Peisheng and Xu Qiuxin would inevitably harass her day in and day out until they got what they wanted.

Suddenly, the lightbulb went off in Tan Xin’s head. The system’s mission to “Save Gu Ci” meant helping her break free from the toxic, suffocating grasp of her biological family.

With this revelation, Tan Xin rapidly scrolled through her mental playbook of “108 Methods for Clapping Back at Relatives.”

Rule Number One: When a relative plays the misery card, you must play a declaration of bankruptcy.

Hardening her resolve, Tan Xin violently pinched her own thigh. Forcing two genuine tears to well up in her eyes, she turned a sorrowful, weeping gaze toward Xu Qiuxin and choked out:

“Auntie, you have no idea. Honestly, Gu Ci and I, we are facing a massive crisis ourselves!”

Xu Qiuxin had just finished dabbing at her own dry tears when she looked up to find Tan Xin sobbing uncontrollably. For a moment, she was utterly bewildered—Hey, that was supposed to be my bit!

Forced to pivot, Xu Qiuxin adopted the facade of a caring maternal figure and asked, “Child, what’s wrong?”

Tan Xin pulled out a tissue. Delicately pinching it between her fingers, she dabbed at her face with the fragile, helpless grace of a tragic historical heroine.

“My health has always been terrible,” Tan Xin wailed. “I’ve already had two open-heart surgeries, and it has completely drained my family’s savings! Wahhh!”

Xu Qiuxin’s hands hovered awkwardly in mid-air, completely derailed. “That, well, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have money. Xiao Ci does! She owns a hospital and a company. She’s loaded.”

Tan Xin’s wailing grew even louder, her voice reaching a dramatic crescendo.

“All of her capital is trapped in the stock market crash!”

Xu Qiuxin’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Gu Ci blinked. “Huh?”

Turning her back to Xu Qiuxin, Tan Xin used the cover of wiping her tears to shoot Gu Ci a frantic look, non-verbally pleading with her to play along and not ruin the act. Then, she launched right back into her weeping performance:

“It’s all because she heard that some new advanced-material cardiac bypass bridge looked incredibly promising! She dumped every single penny she had into it, but the whole thing crashed and burned! It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t been sick, Ah Ci would never have tried to find the best heart bridge for me. She wouldn’t have been swindled into throwing all her money into the stock market! Waaaaah.”

Xu Qiuxin’s heart began to sync.

Beep!

Blue Premium: +10

Blue = Fear.

It looked like she bought it hook, line, and sinker—terrified by the prospect of a penniless Gu Ci.

“Every single penny?” Xu Qiuxin pressed on, putting up a desperate last stand. “Didn’t she leave any safety net?”

Tan Xin sniffled miserably. “Right now, the only money left is whatever’s in my personal account.”

Xu Qiuxin let out a small breath of relief. “Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness. How much is left?”

“Five yuan, thirty jiao, and two fen.” (Roughly eighty cents)

“What?”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Auntie?” Tan Xin shot back, sounding deeply offended. “Are you looking down on us just because we’re broke now?”

“No, no, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” Xu Qiuxin stammered. “I was just curious.”

“Curious about what? Curious about why we came to visit you today? Auntie, I’ve already spelled it out this clearly. Do you really still not understand?”

“Understand what?”

Tan Xin aggressively dabbed away the remaining tears on her face and said flatly:

“If you have any spare cash on hand, could you lend us some? We don’t need ten million, or even one million. Just one hundred thousand will do.”

Xu Qiuxin gasped for air, utterly suffocated by the sheer audacity. “You’re asking me for money?”

Talk about an absolute reversal of roles!

Tan Xin gazed at her with complete, unblinking sincerity. “Just give us whatever you can scrape together. Even a fly’s leg is still meat. Gu Ci and I don’t mind.”

Beep!

A notification sound chimed from Gu Ci’s direction.

Green Premium: +10

Oh, hell yeah. Wifey is green.