Becoming a Scum A in an Old-School Melodramatic Novel - Chapter 3

Shen Xian had always liked cleanliness in her past life. She was quick and efficient when doing chores, and she soon had the house spotless. While cleaning the kitchen, Fang Jinglan only glanced at her without saying anything. After throwing out the trash, Shen Xian washed the mop and scrubbed the whole house clean, inside and out.

A mechanical voice from the system immediately sounded in her mind,
“Task completed. <“200 yuan”> has been deposited into the host’s FeiXin account.”

FeiXin was the messaging app in this book. Shen Xian opened it and saw a chat window labeled “System” had appeared in her frequently used chats. It was truly straightforward and blunt. Shen Xian clicked on the red packet and successfully received {200 yuan}.

Fang Jinglan, in the end, still felt sorry for Shen Xian. She didn’t mention a word about the original host tricking her out of | 20,000 yuan |. She just said coldly to Shen Xian,
“Get a bowl and eat.”

Shen Xian smiled and immediately replied, “Okay, I’ll go get one.”

Once the food was served, the three-member family finally sat down to eat together, something they hadn’t done in a long time. Although it was quiet at the table, it was already better than when the original host was around. Back then, because she had tricked them out of money, she would come home only to hide in her room and play games. When hungry, she’d just eat whatever was in the kitchen, never eating with her parents.

After the meal, Shen Xian took the initiative to wash the dishes. Fang Jinglan glanced at her but said nothing. In her eyes, whether Shen Xian did housework or not didn’t make much difference. Sooner or later, she’d make a fuss asking for money again. Fang Jinglan couldn’t be bothered anymore and simply got up and left.

While washing the dishes, Shen Xian figured her mother had probably gone to play mahjong. Her father had a stroke, and the original host was unreliable. Mahjong had become the only thing that brought Fang Jinglan a bit of comfort. As she thought about it, she finished the task at hand.

Once again, the system’s mechanical voice rang in the kitchen,
“Congratulations to the host for completing the task early. A reward of <“100 yuan”> has been deposited into FeiXin.”

Shen Xian sighed. Just {300 yuan} in total. One step at a time, then.
She stepped outside to check on her father and found he had already pushed his walker back to his room to sleep. Shen Xian returned to her room to grab some clothes, planning to take a shower.

But when she saw herself in the bathroom mirror, she froze.

The original host’s face looked almost exactly like hers in her past life. Maybe because of the long nights gaming and smoking, her complexion was slightly yellow. When she touched her belly, she even found some belly fat. Looks like she’d have to work on all that herself.

After finishing everything, Shen Xian went online to get a general idea of this world’s development. She discovered that the stock market and investment funds were mostly the same as in her last life. There was even the rise of cryptocurrency. The blockchain economy in this book had only just started, and very few people knew about it. It was the perfect time to invest — if only she had more than {300 yuan}.

After thinking for a bit, Shen Xian asked the system floating in the void, “Besides increasing the favorability of certain characters, is there anything else I need to watch out for?”

“Although your presence has caused many plotlines in the original book to shift, there are still three fixed plot points that will occur. The system will notify you when they approach.”

Shen Xian sighed. She knew it wouldn’t be that easy. But if she wanted to survive, she’d just have to put in the work.

After understanding all that, Shen Xian took her father out to exercise in the afternoon and earned another {200 yuan}. When they returned home, she cooked dinner. By the time Fang Jinglan came back, Shen Xian had just placed the final dish on the table.

“Mom, you’re just in time. Go wash your hands, dinner’s ready.” Shen Xian smiled at Fang Jinglan. After all, everything before had been done by the original host. It had nothing to do with her. As far as Shen Xian was concerned, today marked a brand new start.

Fang Jinglan paused, looking at Shen Xian with some confusion in her eyes. She sat down on the sofa with slightly red eyes and sighed,

“You just took | 20,000 yuan |, your dad still needs money for his medication every month, and there’s also the child support for Tian Tian. Mom really can’t give you any more money.”

Fang Jinglan looked close to breaking down. Shen Xian quickly waved her hands and explained, “Mom, you’ve misunderstood. I really don’t want any money. I just had nothing to do at home, so I figured I might as well cook. Don’t be mad, let’s eat.”

Fang Jinglan glanced at Shen Xian. She felt like her daughter seemed different from before. But she had been disappointed too many times and didn’t dare to hope anymore. So she just sat down and ate.

After dinner, Shen Xian took it upon herself to wash the pots and pans. Fang Jinglan felt a bit lost — she had always done those things herself, and now she wasn’t used to it. If only Xian Xian could always be like this, she thought with a sigh.

After tidying everything up, Shen Xian returned to her room. After deducting the money “her daughter” took, she had earned {800 yuan} from completing tasks throughout the day. On top of that, the system gave her an extra {‘200 yuan’} as a bonus for proactively doing tasks, bringing her total to {1000 yuan}.

Shen Xian thought that maybe tomorrow she could take the child out for something nice to eat. After all, the little one was quite cute.

She searched through her room, digging through the original host’s belongings. Eventually, she found inhibitors and pheromone-blocking patches. Shen Xian suddenly remembered this was an ABO world, one with six genders. She happened to be a female Alpha. She checked her body and, seeing that she hadn’t entered her “susceptible period” yet, breathed a sigh of relief.

To be honest, Shen Xian didn’t really like the ABO setting. Being a Beta was fine — they couldn’t smell Alpha or Omega pheromones and weren’t affected. But Alphas had a natural dominance over Omegas. Their pheromones influenced one another, but in truth, the Alpha’s effect on the Omega was stronger. In more extreme cases, Alphas could even use pheromones to force Omegas into sex. Thankfully, that kind of coercion was punishable by law in this story.

Shen Xian tried using the gland behind her neck to release a bit of pheromones. The room was soon filled with a faint sweet orange scent. Shen Xian shivered and quickly stuck another blocker patch over her gland. She always felt like releasing pheromones randomly was no different from sexual harassment. It was better to suppress it. If she really needed to let it out, she’d wait until she was alone. She turned on the exhaust fan, and soon the faint citrus scent disappeared completely.

The next morning, after going for a few laps of jogging, Shen Xian went home and thoroughly cleaned the house. She also made breakfast and lunch. Fang Jinglan was becoming increasingly uneasy; she felt that the more hardworking Shen Xian acted, the more debt she must’ve racked up outside.

But several times, Fang Jinglan wanted to speak up yet stopped herself. She had no idea what to do about this daughter anymore.

Shen Xian had been busy for more than half the day and earned another {600 yuan} through the system. Adding it to the 1,000 she earned yesterday, she now had {1,600 yuan} in hand. But it still felt like a drop in the bucket. She washed her face, changed into clean clothes, greeted her parents, and went out.

The little flicker of hope that had just formed in Fang Jinglan’s heart was quickly extinguished again. Looks like her daughter tried to behave well but still couldn’t get money, and now she was getting ready to go mess around again. Whatever, it’s always like this. She should’ve gotten used to it by now. Should’ve stopped hoping a long time ago.

Shen Xian didn’t go far. She went to the cake shop to buy a small milk cake for her daughter. There was a cute little cow drawn on top — her little darling would definitely like it. She also bought a big tub of mango juice for her. Seeing that it was about time, Shen Xian went to wait outside the kindergarten for Shen Tian to get out of school.

After a short while, groups of children started coming out, following behind their teacher. Shen Xian hadn’t even walked over yet when she saw her little one being suddenly pushed to the ground by a little boy. She quickly set down the food she bought and rushed over, reaching out to pull her baby girl off the ground.

“Tian Tian, did you bump yourself? Come on, let’s get up first.” Shen Xian, heart aching, helped her little one up. She glanced at the boy and asked, “Why did you push Tian Tian?”

The little boy huffed angrily, “She’s the one who lied first! She doesn’t even have a mommy. She’s a bad kid with no mommy. We don’t want to play with her!”

Shen Tian’s eyes turned red, tears welling up, “Tian Tian didn’t lie. Tian Tian does have a mommy. Tian Tian’s mommy is right here.”

Shen Xian immediately pulled her baby into her arms and said to the little boy, “I’m Shen Tian’s mommy. You just pushed her — apologize to her right now.”

The little boy flushed, neck stiff, “I’m not! She doesn’t have a mommy, she doesn’t! She’s a stray child.”

At that moment, Teacher Zhao from the kindergarten walked over and grabbed the boy’s hand. “Li Jie, what does teacher always tell you? When you do something wrong, you apologize. Who told you to say such mean things? Hurry up and apologize to Shen Tian.”

The boy’s mouth was pursed high up, but with the teacher there, he had no choice but to tug at his shirt and mumble, “Shen Tian, I’m sorry.”

Just then, Li Jie’s mother showed up. Seeing her son pouting and standing there, she immediately walked over. Without asking anything, she blurted, “What’s going on? Teacher, you can’t be bullying our kid either!”

Shen Xian was still comforting her crying daughter in her arms. She simply stood up with her little one and said to the woman, “Your son pushed my daughter and spread rumors that she doesn’t have a mommy. Me asking him to apologize is completely reasonable. You didn’t even ask what happened and jumped straight to accusing the teacher. Now I understand why your child acts so spoiled and bullies others.”

“Hey, what’s your problem? Kids were just joking around, is that really such a big deal? Why are you making such a fuss?” The woman raised her voice, rolling her eyes so hard they were about to fly off.

That only made Shen Tian cry even harder in Shen Xian’s arms. At that moment, Lin Qinghan, who had come to pick up her child too, arrived and saw Shen Tian crying — she immediately panicked. Shen Xian tugged on Lin Qinghan’s wrist and handed her the child to hold. Then she turned to the woman and said,

“You’re the funny one. Of course you don’t think it’s a big deal — it wasn’t your kid who got bullied. How about we let my daughter push your son down and see how you feel? With a mom like you, no wonder no one dares let their kids play with yours.”

“What do you mean no one dares play with my kid? You’re the one causing drama! You dared make my son apologize — let’s see what you can do about it!” the woman snapped.