“Wh-What’s going on? Why can’t I control my body?”
Liu Yiyi’s voice echoed inside Xia Xi’s mind.
Xia Xi opened his eyes and immediately looked down.
Well… what else could you expect from Liu Yiyi? As always, he could see his toes the moment he looked down…
“Wait, my body is moving on its own? Could it be…”
Liu Yiyi’s voice kept echoing in his mind.
“Xia Xi, is that you?”
As if to confirm what she was thinking, she asked the person who was now controlling her body.
Although Xia Xi knew this girl had more or less guessed his identity, he didn’t want to say it outright. After all, they were sort of friends in real life, and if he used his true identity while “online,” it would be a little awkward.
“No.”
A cold, crisp voice came out of Xia Xi’s mouth, and the expressions of the others sitting on the sofa in the room froze for a moment.
“Muttering nonsense like that. Honestly, I think you’re losing your mind from all that daydreaming.”
The speaker was a girl with freckles. She was quite a bit shorter than Liu Yiyi, but quite a bit wider around the middle.
Xia Xi furrowed his brow.
Through the system mission prompt, he knew the Liu family would try to humiliate Liu Yiyi, but he didn’t expect that the moment he arrived, someone would already be pointing at her face and yelling insults.
Of course, Xia Xi wasn’t about to let that slide.
“Who are you? Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to bring your own bathroom with you when you go out?”
Hearing what Xia Xi said, the girl looked confused for a moment.
“What do you mean?”
Now it was the girl’s turn to furrow her brow.
“Bringing your own bathroom… Oh, I get it, dear cousin. For someone who looks so decent, you sure have a dirty mouth. What a nasty piece of work.”
It didn’t take long for the girl to figure out that Liu Yiyi was calling her mouth smelly.
“Ha! If you ask me, this one is a complete ingrate. Your parents went through so much trouble to find you, and instead of being grateful, you refuse to come back to the family! Do you really think writing a few crappy books and getting a couple of movies made makes you something special?”
This time, it was an older woman, who looked like she was probably the freckled girl’s mother—she bore a strong resemblance to her.
“Well, isn’t that funny? What business is it of yours whether my parents found me or not? And what business is it of yours whether I return to the family?”
Some people are just strange. They clearly want to take advantage of others, but they still act like they’re standing on some moral high ground to criticize you.
Xia Xi looked around. It seemed like the living room of some big house. Most of the people there were younger. The only older person was Liu Jing, the mother of the freckled girl, Liu Jing.
“Xia Xi, don’t waste your breath on them. Let’s just go back to the small town. I want to read the books you’ve written…”
Liu Yiyi’s voice in his mind sounded a bit angry too, but she didn’t want to get too tangled up with these so-called family members. She had already left home before and was doing just fine developing her career in the big city.
If it hadn’t been for becoming a relatively well-known writer through a stroke of luck, these “family members” would never have found her through her sister.
Liu Yiyi knew exactly what these “family members” were thinking. They just wanted to find her a so-called “suitable” husband from a matching social standing, then use the marriage alliance to gain benefits. How boring.
Honestly, if her older sister hadn’t been stuck at home because their mother pretended to be sick, she would’ve gone back to the small town long ago.
Xia Xi didn’t respond to Liu Yiyi. For one thing, he had already denied being Xia Xi. For another, the system mission required him to shut these people up, so he couldn’t just leave that easily.
“You little brat, don’t talk so much. I’ve looked into you. All you did was write a few crappy books, right? And you haven’t come out with anything new for so long—maybe you’ve already run out of talent. Besides, who knows if those books were even yours? Maybe you stole someone else’s work.”
“That’s right, that’s right! That first book of yours, ‘The Arrogant Demon Lord Loves Me’? It was total garbage. There’s no way you wrote the later books without stealing from someone else!”
The crowd got more and more worked up, as if they had caught Liu Yiyi red-handed.
In fact, in a sense, Liu Yiyi’s books weren’t entirely her own creation. But she had already listed the co-creator’s name on the title page. She had also set up a separate bank account and put aside half the profits from those co-created works to give to him.
When she finally confirmed the identity of that “thousand-year-old weirdo” for sure, she would naturally give him the portion that didn’t belong to her.
Xia Xi looked coldly at this group of gossiping women—they didn’t seem like the kind of people who came from a wealthy family at all. He took out Liu Yiyi’s phone and dialed a number.
“How about we make a bet?”
While the call was still connecting, Xia Xi said calmly to Liu Jing.
“What kind of bet?”
“Let’s bet on whether I’ve really run out of talent and whether I can still produce good work. I won’t make things hard for you. If my work doesn’t sell for a million in copyright fees, I’ll let you do whatever you want with me. But if I win, you all go kneel at the front door and shout out loud that I was right.”
To be honest, a million in copyright fees was nothing. Xia Xi could pull any piece of work out of his mind and sell it for that much. Especially now that Liu Yiyi’s name carried some weight—plenty of people would be willing to pay, like… Xinhai Cheng.
“Deal! I’ll take that bet! But if you lose, you have to run around the house naked!”
A million was nothing to the Liu family, and they could easily earn that much in a short time. But from Liu Jing’s investigation, unless Liu Yiyi came up with something as good as “Your Name,” there was no way she could sell copyrights for a million yuan.
And Liu Yiyi had been stuck at the Liu family home this whole time. When did she have time to sit down and create? There was no way she could produce anything decent.
The Liu family didn’t believe in her, but Liu Yiyi herself—inside her own mind—trusted Xia Xi completely. She believed he would definitely make these people eat their words.
The moment Liu Jing finished speaking, the call Xia Xi had made connected.
“Hello? Is this Miss Yiyi?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
Xia Xi didn’t waste time on small talk.
“I have a new story. A million for the film and TV adaptation rights. Are you buying?”
He got straight to the point.
Xinhai Cheng was also very accommodating. He didn’t even ask what the story was. After just a brief pause, he agreed and even took the initiative to set up a time and place for dinner.
Xia Xi hung up the phone and looked at the dumbfounded Liu family members.
“Time to keep your promise, don’t you think?”
“Keep your promise, my *ss! Don’t think I don’t know, Liu Yiyi—that person you called is just some rich guy who’s keeping you, isn’t he? Selling your body for money? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?!”
Clearly, the other side had no intention of keeping their word.
So…
[Optional Mission: Revenge Comes Fast
Swap the Liu family members’ bodies with stray dogs for one hour]
[Mission Reward: None]
