Chapter 74: Chapter 74: The Butterfly Effect

Xiao Qingya barely opened her eyes when she suddenly heard the System roaring excitedly in her mind.

[Host, Host! You are getting rich!]

It seemed to dance around her mind, screaming and howling like a groundhog.

[System, what’s wrong with you?] The little one yawned sleepily and stretched her little arms. She sat up to gather her soul from sleep.

The System quickly calmed itself down, resisting the happy squeal that was about to reverberate in its host’s mind.

Xiao Qingya yawned again, and looked around the room. It was empty. She immediately climbed down from the bed and took her baby bottle from the bedside table.

After she took a few sips, she was finally awake enough to process whatever the System would be telling her. [Quick, tell me. What is it? What happened?]

[Host, check your notification boxes.]

With a puzzled mind, Xiao Qingya opened her notification and was taken aback.

[Congratulations, Host. You have gained 150 points.]

She fell silent, scratching the back of her head in confusion. [System, I think you should really do a thousand more checks on yourself... you are definitely malfunctioning.]

There was only that one notification. She had read the other notifications above it and didn’t find any system prompt which suggested that a mission had been issued.

This broken system is getting more and more weird!

[Host, it isn’t really a malfunction... besides, I have done more than a total of thousands checks on myself!]

When its host was lazying around and enjoying her salted fish days, it was continuously working! It was indeed the most diligent System in the world! 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

[Then, what are these points for?] Xiao Qingya asked as she went to her brother’s room.

It was noon and usually her other family members should be there, feeding her second brother. The wounds and bruises caused by Zhou Shiming had just started to scab over, he still needed to change his bandage on some wounds regularly.

Upon arriving at her second brother’s room, she noticed there was only him there.

Xiao Fenghao stared at his little sister warily, especially at the baby bottle on her hand. He realized was a little traumatized. All kinds of emotions mixed together: affection, fear, but also slight guilt.

However, mostly, it was the feeling of embarrassment.

"Little Ya, where are Mother and sisters?" He asked.

Xiao Qingya tilted her head. [Is Second Brother thirsty?]

Xiao Fenghao subtly tensed at the words in her inner thoughts. He witnessed as the little one waddled over to him, shaking the baby bottle in her hand.

"Brother... want water?" She asked with a pair of innocent eyes.

Xiao Fenghao hurriedly refused. "No, Little Ya. Drink it yourself. Second Brother isn’t thirsty."

She stared at him doubtfully, and Xiao Fenghao was on the verge of tears. He was afraid this little devil would stuff the baby bottle to his mouth.

"Fenghao, Little Ya, are you two awake?" Suddenly, they heard a voice coming from the direction of the kitchen. It was neither their mother nor sisters.

However, once they got a look at the person, they realized it was a familiar auntie. One of their kind neighbours, Auntie Li.

"Auntie Li, where is our mother?" Xiao Fenghao couldn’t resist asking.

Auntie Li didn’t immediately answer his question. Instead, she asked him, "Are you thirsty, Fenghao?"

He subconsciously nodded. His throat had been quite dry from the hot weather, but it didn’t mean that he wanted to drink from his little sister’s baby bottle!

With a gentle movement, Auntie Li put the small wooden cup on Xiao Fenghao’s lips. He drank the water under his little sister’s accusing eyes.

Once he was done, he looked away in guilt and embarrassment.

"Something happened to your sisters, so your Mother is heading to the village market now," Auntie Li explained. Concern was apparent on her face.

Both siblings were taken aback. Xiao Fenghao frowned. "What happened?"

"People are trying to accuse your family of selling a recipe of poisonous soy milk." Auntie Li was shaking her head.

She considered whether she should tell them who the culprits were, but considering it was their family matters, she decided to keep silent. It wasn’t her place.

Xiao Fenghao pursed his lips. He used his brain and could already guess half of what happened. There was a recent soy milk seller who had replaced them.

Although he had guessed there might be something fishy with them, he didn’t expect that they would still drag the twins into it!

[Poisonous soy milk?]

Xiao Qingya’s childish voice rang out in his mind. [Could it be that the points I gained is from my sisters who had defeated two bad people?]

[Host, it is possible. It’s a similar case with your kidnapping incident. You gained points from defeating the bad guys!]

She heaved a sigh of relief, and Xiao Fenghao’s worried heart was also eased slightly. If his little sister received points from the twins’ incident, then they were most likely still fine...

[You have been doing missions to change the plot, Host. This seems to be the butterfly effect from solving these missions, which altered your family’s fate and people around them.]

[Since your family members’ life trajectories no longer conform to the original’s storyline, some plots that are supposed to happen will not happen. Things might become more unpredictable from now.]

Xiao Qingya bit her lip and then sipped on her baby bottle, realizing the seriousness of the matter.

[Does it mean there will be no mission anymore? Your mission detection power you just gained is useless then.]

The System was speechless at its blunt host. [It isn’t like that. Some things might still follow the original storyline, but some will not.]

She nodded in understanding and then sighed. The little one sat on the stool and kept on sighing.

Auntie Li was slightly amused. "Little Ya, why do you keep sighing?" Then, she also sighed. "Don’t worry, your mother and sisters are upright and honest people. They will definitely return soon."

As if right on cue, they heard footsteps. Three figures entered the room.

Zhou Anran and the twins have returned.

Auntie Li and Auntie Dong soon also excused themselves, giving the family a place to talk more comfortably among themselves. They must have something they wanted to talk about.

An hour later, they received a guest.

It was Zhou Wenzhi.