"Qing-er. Wake up."
Su Qingtang opened her eyes by a crack before rolling over and groaning loudly. Father Su looked down at his yawning daughter with a doting smile his eyes shining with fatherly warmth and gentleness.
"You have to wake up now," He said as his daughter finally woke up and gave him a bright smile when she realized it was him. His heart warmed.
"Dad!" Oi, he's actually at home today and hasn't left early to be at the company? What's going on?
"Hurry up and come downstairs. The Lu family will be here to talk about how to proceed with the engagement."
Engagement?
The system snickered, enjoying the hosts plight. How could she ignore such an awesome system like me? This is karma! "The retribution of your actions have arrived. Who told you to tell Mother Su that the male lead was having an illicit relationship with his assistant? Your lies will finally come to light."
Su Qingtang shrugged nonchalantly. She didn't really care too much. "Who'll expose me? You? Hehe. And isn't it technically true about the relationship bit? It just hasn't happened yet."
"And the assistant bit? Have you forgotten that his assistant is still Kim Suho?"
"Kim Suho? The Korean guy?" Su Qingtang wanted to run into a wall. Damn! So that's why the trash system was so happy and was gloating! Laughing at someone else's misfortune in a sin! "Trash system! Why didn't you remind me?"
The system was offended. "How was I supposed to know you would say that? I apologize for not expecting you to be stupid enough to make such a rookie mistake."
Su Qingtang stuck her tongue at it internally before she quickly calmed down. "It doesn't matter too much does it?"
The system kept silent. Who told her to call me trash? Humph!
A small smile formed on her face as she thought about a certain wooden block's angry face when he found out about her lie. He didn't really have an angry face, he always looked indifferent but after an entire lifetime of annoying him she finally figured out his tells. It turned out that he was actually pretty expressive if you knew what to look out for.
"My little Qing-er has grown. It's your final year in high school isn't it?"
Su Qingtang nodded her head like a pecking chicken her peach blossom eyes shining. She looked over just quick enough to catch the light fading out of her father's eyes. Her tiredness suddenly faded. Huh? What happened.
"Trash system… what's with this development? Isn't father Su supposed to be quite sunny and carefree but a shrewd businessman? What's with this layer of gloom covering him." The system was too upset with the name-calling to even warrant such a question an answer.
"I know you don't like to study hard. When I was around your age I hated it as well but… please try to get into good university so you can follow your dreams… when you figure out what it is you want to do… and if it doesn't work out there's always space for you at the company… but Father believes in you that you'll figure everything out on your own." He sighed, a sad look in his ever that Su Qingtang had ever seen on his face. "If you don't like the Lu boy than you don't have to force yourself to accept him. You can always count on father. Father will support you in whatever choice you make."
Father…
Su Qingtang watched the aging man walk out of her room, grey hairs coloring his hair and worry etched into his brows, her sleepiness disappearing. She curled her fists a bit as her expression turned serious, but with an underlying melancholy in her dark eyes. A darkness seemed to leak from her skin as her jovial persona melted from her pale skin leaving behind a girl whose clear eyes no longer held innocence and joy but a wisdom well beyond her years. Cold to the very bone. Yet a calmness that held her aloof from the world. A deity like aloofness.
"System, I've been meaning to ask this for a while. Why is it that everything is slightly different from how I read in the novel outline of the world?"
The system laughed, but you could sense the seriousness in its voice. "Host, you're the first host I've seen to actually care for these people as actual persons than NPCs to actually notice that world isn't this isn't totally fiction. When people write a story, they create a whole new world a world in which their totally biased perspectives that only look favorably on the protagonists have devastating impact on everyone else in the plane they have created. This great unbalance in the constitution of the world they create causes suffering for the people they have created. When they act on their whims killing random characters and adding random traits and dangers to characters the world consciousness has to work to fill in the plot holes to make the plane work."
A moment of total silence passes, and both sink into their own thoughts. Su Qingtang startles enlightenment floating in her calm eyes. The first emotion she had shown in a while. "So, the reason the Male Lead is unhappy is because- ''
"-he could never truly fall in love with the female lead." The system finished with a sigh. "Some people are fated to never happen and even though it works in stories. Real people have more variables that the world consciousness cannot control. Variables like feelings."
Su Qingtang went silent. Like everything before was an Illusion a bright smile graces her face childish innocence radiating in her eyes. The aloof cold from before dissipating into thin air like it never even existed in the first place. "What kind of man doesn't like the typical Mary Sue protagonist? …Are you sure he doesn't have some sort of un- unspeakable illness?"
The system went silent. Sometimes it would wonder if she was truly not understanding or if she was ignoring what she didn't want to see. Was the jovial happy but irrevocably stupid her truly a mask? Or was it her true self? What had she gone though in her original life to make her like this?