Chapter 404: The 90s Contrast System (7)

Xie Yang was very satisfied with Yang Taohua's unintentional cooperation.

She withdrew the diagnostic report and pulled a bitter smile to the corners of her mouth:

"Sister Taohua, don't look at me like that. The doctor said it isn't too serious. As long as I cooperate with the treatment, recuperate well, keep up with my nutrition at every meal, don't eat pickled things, rest well, and don't overexert myself, perhaps I can curb the development of the illness."

Yang Taohua: "..."

This isn't serious yet?

After following so many requirements, one can only hope for one thing—"perhaps it can curb the development of the illness"?

Then if it can't be curbed, it will still turn cancerous, right?

Oh my!

Xie Yang is too miserable!

Getting a terminal illness at seventeen?

Too miserable, too miserable!

At this moment, Yang Taohua didn't even have the heart to tease Xie Yang, and hurried off to tell Yao Meifang and a few other little sisters this explosive news.

Xie Yang carried her luggage into the house.

For the past few years, the original owner had always slept in the north room, which saw no sunlight; the south room was Zhu Meijiao's bedroom.

Besides being the original owner's bedroom, the north room was also piled with a large wooden cabinet for storing rice.

Old rice was piled inside, and as soon as summer arrived, it would breed pitch-black, hard-shelled rice weevils that often crawled onto the bed.

Having not returned for a year, the bedding on the bed was as cold and hard as a piece of stale dough, covered in dust, and occasionally one could see a few frozen-to-death rice weevils and malformed spider webs.

Xie Yang pushed the door open to take a look, and retreated before even stepping inside.

"The doctor told me to eat and live comfortably. Either I sleep in the same room as Zhu Meijiao and you help me air out the bedding, or you clear out the attic for me to live in?"

The house the Zhu family currently lived in was renovated a few years ago. At that time, some families in the village had already built stylish two-story houses. The Zhu family didn't have the money to build one, but they still had to have the dream, so the roof used a platform cast from Cement, which was convenient for adding floors later and also convenient for drying things.

But the entrance to the platform was prone to leaking rain even with a cover, so a small attic was added.

"Why should I!"

Zhu Meijiao retorted immediately.

She herself looked down on the small attic, which was only 1.6 meters high and five or six square meters in area; it was so cramped and so low, how could it be as comfortable as the bedroom she lived in now?

So her first reaction was: Xie Yang must want to sleep in the same room as her.

Her south room was indeed much more comfortable than the north room; it was clean and tidy with no clutter. In winter, when the south window was opened, the sunlight would pour in and warm the whole room.

After starting high school, there were several girls in her class who lived in the city. Once, when she went to a classmate's house to play, she discovered that the room the classmate lived in had floorboards, and one had to change shoes to enter or exit.

After returning, she pestered Zhou Ru to lay a layer of patterned plastic sheeting on the floor of her room. Although it couldn't compare to floorboards, it was still much better than the bare, rough Cement floor. She had to change into slippers every time she entered or exited the room, and she enjoyed this trouble very much.

She even took the time to fold many lucky stars and strung them together to hang on the door as a door curtain.

It could be said that her bedroom was the place in this house she was most satisfied with at present; let alone that Xie Yang was just a tag-along brought by her stepmother, even if they were biological sisters, she might not be willing to share it.

Besides being unwilling to part with it, there was another reason—a secret that could not be discovered by others.

Ten years ago, just a few days after Zhou Ru married into her family with the tag-along, she bound a very magical product from an alien planet—the "Female Supporting Character Contrast System".

As long as she bound a Task target and made this person her contrast group, she could obtain a continuous stream of Contrast Value energy, and this energy could be exchanged for various useful Props.

At that time, the people she hated most were Zhou Ru and her daughter. It just so happened that back then, Zhou Ru had just married her father, and in order to curry favor with her, she made Xie Yang do all the chores for her. Even the morning toothbrushing water and evening foot-washing water were prepared for her by Xie Yang, so she bound Xie Yang as her contrast group.

Over these ten years, the Contrast Value energy provided by Xie Yang had been soaring every day. Relying on this energy, she had exchanged for quite a few useful Props, such as "Good Luck Bonus", "Intelligence Bonus", "Affinity Bonus", and so on.

This gave her a hidden pleasure inside—the tag-along brought by her stepmother not only had to drop out of school to work to earn her living expenses, but also had to help her earn all kinds of useful, magical Props.

She hadn't even told her own father about this secret.

In order not to be discovered, she generally chose to operate when it was late at night and she was alone.

But the school dormitory was a large communal room for twenty people, and there was always someone reading and studying with a flashlight, sleeping even later than her, so every operation was done by hiding in her own room when she returned home on weekends.

If Xie Yang were in the same room as her, what would she do if she discovered this secret?

Zhu Meijiao firmly opposed it, making excuses that she didn't sleep well, that she didn't sleep well at school, and that she wanted to rest better when she returned home.

To be honest, Xie Yang didn't genuinely want to be in the same room as her either.

It was best that Zhu Meijiao refused.

She looked at Zhou Ru: "Then clear out the attic for me to live in. Anyway, I will not live in the north room no matter what. My current body cannot handle sleeping in such a cold and damp room."

Zhou Ru's face turned livid:

"Who is going to clear out the attic for you? Live in the north room or don't! Look at how you are now! Isn't it just that you're a little sick? Acting as if the whole family has to wait on you?"

Who doesn't know how to act?

Xie Yang lowered her eyelids slightly, her tone dejected:

"I just want to live somewhere warmer. If you really don't want to help me clear out the attic, then I'll move back to the old house to live. That house is broken, but at least the bedroom faces the sun."

According to the past-life memories left by the original owner, by next spring at the latest, Zhou Family Village would receive the good news of demolition.

When Zhou Ru and Xie Lei got married, the three small flat-roofed houses allocated to them by the old Zhou family would also receive a substantial demolition compensation payment.

Of course, one could also choose not to take the money and instead take three two-bedroom Relocation Housing units.

However, in her past life, Zhou Ru didn't want the houses; she complained that the Relocation Housing was off-plan and couldn't be moved into immediately, so she chose the demolition compensation payment that could be received in cash immediately.

She used this money to build a stylish three-story mansion for the Zhu family.

That's right, they originally only wanted to renovate a two-story small building, but with this demolition money, it was directly upgraded to a three-story building that could absolutely be called a luxury house in the countryside in the mid-nineties.

The original owner was working in Shencheng at the time and didn't know about this at all; the portion of the compensation that belonged to her was entirely embezzled by Zhou Ru, who didn't mention a word of it.

When she returned for the New Year and saw that the Zhu family had built a three-story western-style house, the original owner also thought it was money earned by Zhu Meijiao's father.

Following the Zhu family into the spacious and bright new house, although it was still a north-facing room on the first floor, it was much larger and much brighter than the previous house, and the feeling of being a dependent in the original owner's heart was even stronger than before.

So much so that in the following years, the original owner spent more and more time working away, and the money sent home became more and more. This money all became Zhu Meijiao's living expenses for high school and university.

Who would have known that half of this three-story western-style house was built with her money.

Hearing Xie Yang mention moving back to live in the old house, Zhou Ru looked completely unconvinced:

"Stop acting tough! You even complained that the house built only a few years ago was cold and damp; I don't believe you'd be willing to go live in that dilapidated little shack."