Chapter 22
The novel Cheng Li transmigrated into was called Born Idol.
Just as Lin Zhiqiao had guessed before, the original protagonist of that book was Cheng Xia, and the system called Born Idol had originally been Cheng Xia’s system.
In the original storyline, Cheng Xia likewise lived in his uncle and aunt’s home, and likewise experienced abuse from his uncle, as well as bullying from his aunt and the original Cheng Li.
But after being bound to the system, Cheng Xia’s life clearly improved quite a lot.
The system would tell him in advance about his uncle’s whereabouts and mood, reminding Cheng Xia to go out and avoid him, reducing the number of times he was abused at home.
Cheng Xia was still forced to sign a thirty-year “slave contract” with Mingguang Entertainment, but in the book, when Cheng Xia took part in the idol survival show, his uncle never went to the production team to make trouble.
Cheng Xia debuted successfully and exploded across the entire internet.
The original Cheng Li also went to cause trouble for Cheng Xia, but by then, Cheng Xia was no longer alone.
His teammates called the police for him. Cheng Li was detained, and once the police started pulling on the thread of the gossip, Cheng Qiang’s whole family received the punishment they deserved as well.
In the original plot, although Cheng Xia’s experiences were full of twists and turns, he was not so desperate that he had nowhere to turn for help.
He had teammates he could trust, and also countless fans who trusted him unconditionally.
Compare that to the current Cheng Xia. Because of the transmigrator’s interference, he had actually sunk into the low point of his life for two whole years, and only now had the baseless stains on his name finally been washed away.
Lin Zhiqiao viciously bit off a chunk of watermelon rind and cursed Cheng Li ten thousand times in his heart.
After venting enough to feel better, he suddenly realized something.
[How come Born Idol never mentioned Ji Ran or the Ji family?]
888 explained, [In the original timeline, Ji Ran only became a Mingguang trainee after Cheng Xia had already successfully debuted. The two of them never crossed paths, so… they probably just missed each other.]
Lin Zhiqiao felt something was off. [Aren’t the settings of a novel’s protagonist all created by the author?]
[Yes, and also no.] 888 said. [Words have power. Once an author creates a story, the power of those words pushes the story to automatically extend and fill in the gaps, eventually forming a complete parallel world with its own internal logic.]
[From the moment that world comes into being, everything and everyone within it has already slipped beyond the author’s control.]
[Of course, there’s another possibility too. It’s not always that the author first writes a novel, and only then a parallel world is derived from it.]
[Sometimes the world already exists to begin with, and the writer just happens, by chance, to “see” the events happening in that world—only then creating the novel.]
Lin Zhiqiao fell thoughtful.
888 asked, [Is that too complicated?]
[A little.] Lin Zhiqiao nodded. [But I more or less get it. In short, as long as I know the world I’m living in is a real world, that’s enough.]
Lin Zhiqiao tossed away the watermelon rind in his hand, picked up another slice, and bit into it with loud crunching sounds.
He was still thinking about Cheng Xia.
If there had been no transmigrator, Cheng Xia’s life obviously would have gone much more smoothly. He would not have had to go through those two years of near-total darkness.
The transmigrator’s arrival, though by a twist of fate it had helped Cheng Xia find his real family, also seemed to have planted in him the thought of no longer being an idol.
But then again…
No one could say for certain that being an idol was Cheng Xia’s only possible path.
With Father Ji and Mother Ji around, Cheng Xia’s choices had clearly become far more numerous.
Holding his watermelon, Lin Zhiqiao secretly glanced at Cheng Xia.
As if sensing his gaze, the boy looked up and met his eyes, giving him a very small smile.
Lin Zhiqiao pressed his lips together and cupped his face inwardly. [Ah, my son’s smile is so obedient!]
Forget it.
No matter what Cheng Xia ultimately chose, as long as he was happy, that was enough.
Being happy was what mattered most!
[I remember you said before that under normal circumstances, a system can’t leave its host.] Lin Zhiqiao suddenly asked. [So has the Born Idol system already unbound from Cheng Li?]
[That’s right.] 888 replied. [Not only has it unbound, it has already left this world.]
There was a faint ripple of space-time fluctuation lingering in the place where the Born Idol system’s aura had remained.
Lin Zhiqiao paused mid-bite. [Huh? It left? It’s not going to bind to Cheng Xia anymore? After unbinding, can’t it bind to a new host?]
[Maybe it… felt too ashamed to face Cheng Xia?] 888 pondered. [After all, it was bound to Cheng Li. Whether or not it was by choice, it once stood on Cheng Li’s side, and very likely even helped Cheng Li deal with Cheng Xia.]
Lin Zhiqiao nodded once.
A moment later, he said, [Or maybe it realized that even without it, Cheng Xia could still rely on his own strength to become an incredibly outstanding idol.]
Even if Cheng Xia currently looked somewhat conflicted.
There was no denying that as long as he still chose the idol path, he would definitely reach heights others could hardly imagine.
888 thought that made sense.
[After Cheng Li unbound from the system, will there be any effects?] Lin Zhiqiao asked curiously.
[The effects are huge.] 888 said. [All the cheat abilities he exchanged in the system shop will disappear. Cheng Li’s idol skills were all bought through exchange, and now all of those skills are gone.]
Lin Zhiqiao was shocked. [The cheats all disappear?]
[If the unbinding happens because the mission is judged a failure, then yes, they disappear.] 888 explained. [If Cheng Li had actually worked hard to improve his own abilities all along, the impact wouldn’t be that great, but…]
Lin Zhiqiao instantly understood.
Then he suddenly grew nervous.
[System, the money I earned from eating gossip…] Lin Zhiqiao asked anxiously. [That won’t disappear too, right?]
[Absolutely impossible.] 888 puffed out its chest proudly. [This system is not like those flashy, seductive outside systems. This system is a practical system. All rewards are real, tangible rewards—not virtual ones—and they definitely won’t vanish into thin air!]
Lin Zhiqiao let out a long breath of relief. [Money really is the most real thing in this world.]
888 added, [And gossip too!]
Lin Zhiqiao instantly found common ground with it. [Exactly, exactly!]
There was also a compressed file in the system interface, and inside it was a video.
At the moment Lin Zhiqiao opened the video, Cheng Xia, sitting to the side, seemed to sense something and suddenly looked up at him.
The chestnut-haired young man was holding a slice of watermelon, lazily nibbling at it bit by bit, his gaze unfocused as though he were thinking about something far away.
Cheng Xia withdrew his gaze, but a sudden scene exploded in his mind—
A noisy, exhilarated audience. A brilliantly dazzling stage. And an idol radiating light wantonly upon that stage.
Cheng Xia saw himself.
The people below were screaming his name in wild excitement, while he was onstage dripping with sweat, smiling with confidence and flamboyance, the light in his eyes even brighter than the spotlights above his head.
The scene flashed past in an instant, so quickly that Cheng Xia almost thought it was just an illusion.
But he could hear his own heart pounding wildly.
That was… him?
Was that the him Lin Zhiqiao imagined?
If what happened back then had never happened, would the current him perhaps have been exactly like the him in that vision—
Cheng Xia shut his eyes, his knuckles clenching so hard they turned white.
He was afraid.
No one knew this. Not even he himself, because he had been lying to himself all along.
Back when Cheng Qiang came to make trouble, Cheng Xia had been standing on the stage.
That stage had pushed him beneath dazzling starlight, and then just as mercilessly dragged him down into the abyss.
Cheng Xia suddenly realized—
He was afraid of the stage that had once granted him glory.
“Cheng Xia!”
Someone was calling his name.
Cheng Xia came back to himself and instinctively looked up. “What is it?”
Before he even finished speaking, two skewers were stuffed into his hand.
“What are you spacing out for! If you don’t eat now, there won’t be any left!” Ji Ran rescued the very last fried chicken drumstick and stuffed it into his own mouth at top speed.
From the side, Wen Li let out a regretful sigh.
Lin Zhiqiao finally came back to himself too, his hand instinctively reaching toward the table—then freezing.
The tabletop was a complete battlefield.
The skewers were gone. The fried chicken was gone. The happy soda was gone.
Even the fruit platter that had originally been full of watermelon now contained nothing but white-and-green rinds.
Lin Zhiqiao: “…”
[It’s all gone, every last bit of it! I didn’t even get to eat a single skewer yet! Wuwuwuwu!]
A skewer suddenly appeared before his eyes. Cheng Xia was the one offering it.
“For you,” he said. “I still have one left.”
Lin Zhiqiao was so moved his eyes turned watery. “Thank you.”
[Where did this little angel come from!]
And then he reached out and smoothly stole the last skewer from Cheng Xia’s other hand too.
