The Melancholy Miss's Overbearing Butler - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Wealthy but Melancholy

“What’s the use of having a lot of money? In this bustling and noisy world, money only brought her loneliness. The longer that string of numbers became, the deeper the void in her heart grew.”

“What she needed was a lot of love.”

“The empty villa lacked any human warmth. Yu Qing thought, perhaps she should have left with her parents long ago. What difference was this lingering, pathetic life from a rat crawling in the darkness of a sewer?”

“Thinking this, she no longer hesitated.”

“She was utterly tired of this daily cycle of painful living. After silently wishing herself “Happy Birthday” in her heart, Yu Qing exerted pressure on her hand, granting her life an end.”

“Mmm…”

Xiang Changge chewed on the air-dried earthworm she had only lightly toasted, feeling the familiar earthy, bitter taste spread in her mouth.

She freed one hand and flipped back a few pages of the novel she was holding—a book so tattered it looked like it had been used in a toilet, tossed on the ground, and stepped on eighty times, with some text illegible due to excessive wear.

She found the part describing the delicacies and read it with relish for the 365th time.

She continued to chew while using the text to imagine the taste of those exquisite foods in her mind.

It was the fifth year of the apocalypse. Everything edible had been consumed, but societal order had not been restored. The world seemed to have regressed tens of thousands of years, back to the Ice Age.

No, it was more terrifying and complex than the Ice Age.

Five years ago, a sudden acid rain descended, turning countless people into mindless zombies that only knew how to devour flesh and blood. Humanity was instantly reduced by a staggering 70%.

In the subsequent five years, zombies, acid rain, tsunamis, earthquakes, ice, extreme heat… a sequence of random and unpredictable natural disasters constantly depleted all life on Earth.

Those who had survived until now, besides having excellent personal capabilities, owed a very large part of it to luck.

Xiang Changge felt the same way.

After numerous brushes with death, she was still alive and well. How could one say her luck was bad?

Although she was currently worried about food, water, and clothes, she had found an old-school novel, written at some unknown time.

The novel’s descriptions of the female supporting character’s extravagant lifestyle included a lot of food content. Just as Cao Mengde quenched his thirst by looking at plums in ancient times, she, Xiang Changge, used reading to eat. One could say they achieved the same goal through different paths.

“Kung Pao Chicken, Furong Chicken, Yan Du Xian soup, Eight-Treasure Duck, Crab Roe Noodles… Tonight, the kitchen served Chinese cuisine, with a rich variety of dishes filling the two-meter-long marble table.”

“Yu Qing, accustomed to it and lacking interest, picked up a piece of Yan Du Xian soup with her chopsticks. However, before it reached her mouth, she seemed to sniff it and then paused.”

“She stood up, said only, “Take it away,” and walked upstairs, leaving the two maids who had cared for her since childhood to watch her retreating back with worry and hesitation.”

Seeing this, Xiang Changge, sitting in a low house that was three-sided open to the wind, reduced to nothing but a ruin or a shaky building frame, tightly closed her eyes. She held an unfinished air-dried earthworm in one hand and the novel on her knee in the other.

This was a true depiction of the saying, “The extremely hungry die of hunger, while the overfed die of overeating.”

Although Xiang Changge had read this scavenged novel dozens of times from beginning to end, every time she read this part, she felt a profound sense of powerlessness, despite being strong enough to kick a hole through granite.

The main plot of this retro novel was as follows—

The Male Lead, Shangguan Min, had a childhood fiancée named Yu Qing.

The Yu family was obscenely wealthy. After Mr. and Mrs. Yu died in a plane crash, their only daughter, the eighteen-year-old Yu Qing, inherited all their assets, becoming the youngest wealthiest person in A City.

However, Yu Qing was a premature baby, and her health had always been poor since childhood. If not for the Yu family’s wealth, she would have certainly perished young due to the unaffordable cost of expensive medical treatments had she been born into an ordinary family.

Because of her frailty, Yu Qing spent almost all her time confined at home, meticulously tended to by several family doctors. Even the amount of water she drank each day was precisely calculated.

Not to mention a human being, even an animal living without freedom, like a laboratory specimen, would not develop a healthy psychology.

The book’s evaluation of her was: “Melancholy is her talent. Words like ‘Lin Daiyu’ (a famously frail and melancholy figure) and ‘Sick Beauty’ seemed naturally suited for her.”

Yu Qing carried an ethereal detachment, as if she saw through the mortal world. She was uninterested in everything. After her parents’ death, the only person who could slightly capture her attention was the Male Lead, Shangguan Min, who had grown up with her and often visited her when she was confined like a caged bird.

Shangguan Min was like a brother to her.

In a world where she was all alone, Shangguan Min was the only family member in Yu Qing’s heart.

As for Shangguan Min, he initially thought his life was set on a fixed track: studying, inheriting the family business, marrying Yu Qing, and shouldering the burden of both family enterprises…

But he never expected that one day, a girl who was poor yet always positive, stubborn, and tough like an unkillable cockroach, would burst into his life like a dazzling ray of sunshine, illuminating his world with her glow.

Unknowingly, his gaze lingered on her more and more—

In short, it was a typical retro story where an overbearing CEO falls in love with a strong, unexpected “Cinderella,” but is bound by marriage. His fiancée is so frail that she looks like she could die at any moment, making him afraid to ask for a divorce and bravely pursue his true love.

He can only be torn between his deep feelings for the Female Lead and his sense of responsibility towards his fiancée, causing both himself and the Female Lead immense suffering and heartache.

If one had to summarize the central theme of the entire novel in one sentence, it would probably be—

“I love you, but I’m sorry, I have a responsibility; yet if I don’t love you, I can’t control myself, and the longing and love for you will kill me. I know I love you, but I’m sorry, I can’t love you.”

The role of the supporting female character, Yu Qing, included but was not limited to: being present when the CEO presses the Female Lead against the wall with reddened eyes, proclaiming, “I can give you my life,” while the Female Lead cries silently, saying, “You are a man with a fiancée, don’t be like this.” The Male Lead then suffers excruciating heartache and punches the wall.

After the Male and Female Leads’ torturous romance goes on for 300 chapters, and everyone around them knows about their affair, the only person kept in the dark, the supporting female character Yu Qing, finally learns that the Male Lead’s heart already belongs to someone else.

She realizes that to Shangguan Min, she was merely an obligation born from a family promise and the responsibility for the Yu family’s past help to his family. She had even unintentionally caused Shangguan Min and the Female Lead, Chu Keke, great distress for a long time.

Yu Qing silently and immediately freed the Male Lead, dissolving the engagement.

Just when the Male and Female Leads thought they could finally live happily ever after, Yu Qing chose to commit suicide because she had no more attachment to the world.

Afterward, the Male Lead felt that his breakup with Yu Qing had caused her death, and the Male and Female Leads were burdened with guilt, sinking into an even deeper level of painful entanglement.

“…”

Xiang Changge’s life consisted of nothing but scavenging and trying to figure out how to survive a little longer, which was both boring and stimulating. Consequently, she had read this content over and over again.

Every time she read it, she had only one thought: It took the author quite a long time to write such a massive pile of crap.

Besides wanting to slap the Female Lead once, the Male Lead twice, and the author three times, Xiang Changge also wanted to hit the supporting female character, Yu Qing, with the ‘Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms’—the girl who was depressed every day, wouldn’t eat the sumptuous feasts spread out on the table, and only watched the stars and moon while blowing cold air.

She could understand that a weak body prevented strenuous exercise, but why would you stay cooped up at home all day if you were frail? Wouldn’t that just make you weaker? At least take a walk under the trees in your eighteen-acre garden and get some sun!

And what about: Although she is immensely wealthy, she never knows what happiness is and can only feel a tiny bit of warmth from the Male Lead?

Can’t money buy happiness or people who offer care and comfort? The Male Lead barely showed up once every ten days to half a month. What kind of warmth could he possibly give?

No way! Hire a few gentle, beautiful sisters and older ladies to live with her, talk, chat, play mahjong, and cuddle under a blanket with the heating on. Xiang Changge didn’t believe she wouldn’t feel “warmth”!

Suppressing her speechless indignation, Xiang Changge closed her eyes, forcefully swallowed the air-dried earthworm, and without lifting her head, picked up a stone nearby and casually threw it toward the side.

A zombie that had been shuffling over, having scented a human, poked its snarling head through a broken wall nearby and let out a low hiss. The stone hit it accurately between the eyes in the blink of an eye.

The head flew off with a thwack, landing three meters away and rolling twice before stopping.

Ignoring the headless zombie body that swayed twice before collapsing with a thud, Xiang Changge carefully picked up another segment of the air-dried earthworm, put it in her mouth, and chewed noisily.

“Wealthy but melancholy? Probably just bored.”

No sooner had Xiang Changge finished her commentary in her voice, which was hoarse from long-term dehydration, than she suddenly sensed something acute. She violently looked up at the sky.

Through the large gap where only a small part of the broken roof remained, she could easily see the gray sky. A giant fireball was rapidly approaching her, giving her no time to think.

Through Xiang Changge’s gray-brown irises, she could clearly see that following the gradually enlarging fireball was a dense cluster of even more fireballs.

Like a rainstorm, meteors carrying fire began to fall densely from the sky.

In an instant, violent explosions rang out one after another. The shaky condemned building and the few scattered zombies wandering nearby turned into ashes along with the rolling smoke and dust.

“Ding dong—”

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Air China Flight SM2352 from Bribatol to A City. The estimated flight time is eleven and a half hours, with an expected arrival time of 14:30 PM. Our aircraft is about to take off. Please be seated and fasten your seatbelts…”

As a strange voice sounded in her ears, Xiang Changge, who had just regained consciousness, remained alert and made no sound.

She even restrained her body’s instinctive reaction and did not open her eyes immediately, preventing anyone from noticing she was awake.

She only strained to listen to the faint sounds around her, overriding the dizziness and discomfort.

Against a backdrop of what sounded like the roar of some large machine, she heard many voices—speaking Chinese, English, and some foreign tongue Xiang Changge couldn’t understand.

They seemed to be in a very relaxed state, their tones devoid of any tension or oppression.

The ambient temperature also seemed comfortable. It wasn’t the scorching heat of 40 or 50 degrees Celsius, nor the bone-chilling cold of minus 30 degrees during the extreme cold period.

She didn’t smell the stench of decaying corpses or the sour odor of unwashed human bodies. There was only—a variety of light perfumes.

Perfumes?

How long had it been since she smelled this scent?

Unable to help herself, Xiang Changge greedily took a deep breath.

Ah, what a fresh smell, what wonderful air.

Wait, oh no—

After the deep breath, Xiang Changge’s body suddenly stiffened, and she instantly became highly vigilant.

If someone were monitoring her, the change in her breathing frequency would certainly have been detected.

In this situation, where she still didn’t know what was going on, she couldn’t afford to wait and observe the situation first.

But—

Wasn’t she just hit by a fireball in that broken house? She didn’t even feel much pain as the high temperature instantly melted her, and then she lost consciousness.

Logically, she should be beyond dead. So how could she be…

Huh, was she on her way to heaven?

Otherwise, why would there be so many people around, and why would the environment be so comfortable it made her want to fall asleep?

Right, right, times change. When people die now, they go up to heaven, not down to the underworld.

Thinking this, Xiang Changge couldn’t wait to open her eyes, ready to see what the legendary heaven looked like.

The moment she lifted her eyelids to greet the light, she clearly heard a cheerful electronic voice in her mind.

“Kon’nichiwa, Host-chan! Watashi is the Plot-Whirlwind Rewriting System-chan! You can call me Tong-tong-chan! Weee have arrived at 99 Torturous Loves, The Overbearing CEO’s Love Has Nowhere to Hide 2.0 (Rewritten Edition) (Return).”

“…?”

At that instant, Xiang Changge was profoundly shocked and stunned into a daze by both the scene before her and the voice in her mind.

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