Bai Lianhua opened her eyes and realised that she was tied up on a chair with a rope and her mouth was covered with a cloth. 'Have l been kidnapped? What's going on? Where is Hu Pingheng? I thought we were supposed to go camping? Why am l here?'
Then two men, one dressed in a grey suit and the other in black walked in. There was a boy behind them and Bai Lianhua realised that it was Hu Pingheng.
"Hey! Brother Hu, why am l tied up? If this is a joke, it really isn't funny! Quickly untie me, l want to go home!" Hu Pingheng laughed softly and then motioned for the man dressed in grey to untie Bai Lianhua. Feeling relieved, Bai Lianhua let go of the tension in her body and she smiled brightly. She stood up, rubbed her sore waist and couldn't help complaining about Hu Pingheng in her heart. The man in black pulled out a gun from his pocket and aimed it at her.
"Hey! Don't be rash, put the gun down. People could lose their lives from that!" Bai Lianhua couldn't help feeling scared - this was the first time she'd seen a gun in real life. The guns she saw were always in movies and she felt very cold as she realised that she might die.
"Hu Pingheng! What's going on?"
Hu Pingheng laughed again and walked toward her. Bai Lianhua's sixth sense told her that this boy was very dangerous and she shouldn't get too close. As he walked forward, she kept moving back until she reached the wall and Hu Pingheng came very close to her. So close that she could see that his eyes weren't actually black but the darkest shade of brown.
"Dear cousin, why are you so surprised? Did you never think for once why l was at that banquet? Let me remind you of a person - Mei Qinghua. Remember her?"
Bai Lianhua's eyes became unfocused as she thought about her mission target. "What about her? Did you know her?" Hu Pingheng reached out to stroke her hair but Bai Lianhua moved her head away. "In fact, l don't know her too well - she was one of the people my father helped to deal with the Yue family, your parents - the Li family and the Wu family. Have you never thought about why your family died so inexplicably in a car crash but you and your sister survived? How did you survive? Also, how is it that the Yue family and the Hu family adopted the two of you? Why would high ranking families adopt two orphans? Also, why is it that Mei Qinghua always appeared in front of you? First at the orphanage and again just recently. You take some time to think, l can wait."
Hu Pingheng gave a signal to the man in grey and he went out of the place. A few minutes later, he appeared with a table, some snacks and tea. Bai Lianhua couldn't care less about the food - what if it was poisoned? What worried her more was all the questions that her 'cousin' posed to her. Hu Pingheng ate elegantly and even seemed to be enjoying himself.
"Why did your father do this? He messed around with so many people's lives! We are innocent children! Whatever my parents did, why should l suffer for their mistakes?" Bai Lianhua spoke hurriedly and bit her fingernails in desperation.
"This is a long story - we still have some time so let me explain things from the start." Hu Pingheng cleared his throat and began to tell the truth.
"In the past, there used to be four famous families in this city. They were: Wu, Hu, Li and Yue. I'm sure you already know all the grievances between the Hu family and your adopted parents so l don't need to explain that. After my aunt started helping Hu Peng, Hu Peng made an alliance with the other families to squeeze the Hu family out of the main city. His main allies were the Wu and Li families and many people in my family were framed and lost their jobs for no reason. Our major companies went bankrupt and my grandfather and uncle had to go to prison. No one wanted to help us and they became busy burning bridges and removing all involvement with the Hu family. This is also why my aunt got expelled from the family - how could she unilaterally favour her boyfriend and forget her relatives!! As we were declining, the Li and Wu families benefitted immensely and they made more and more money. At that time, your mother was pregnant with the two of you and your father decided to go on a holiday for relaxation. In anger, my father spent the last of his savings and hired an assassin to kill your father. If your father died, the entirety of the Li family would collapse because he was the only heir available. Fortunately, the assassin succeeded in killing your parents but you and your sister were somehow rescued. My father didn't learn about this until you were five. So he got in touch with Yue Lian, who had been abandoned by the Yue family and made a deal with her - she would send her daughter to the orphanage you were sent to and ensure that you were friends with her daughter."
Hu Pingheng paused to drink some tea and continued speaking: "Because of the Li family's fall, we regained most of our businesses and made some money. My father and l were the only people remaining in the Hu family at the time except for your adoptive mother of course. The next thing my father knew, you were being adopted by Hu Peng. My father did some investigation and found out that your father was suspicious about being killed so he made Hu Peng promise to take care of you. I don't know why they didn't adopt Yue Linlan as well so l can't answer that question. My father sponsored Mei Qinghua and brought her to the city. His plan for her was to try and disrupt the Yue family so that only the Wu and Hu families would remain. This plan was messed up in the middle because Mei Qinghua got involved with the Wu family and my father decided to hit two birds with one stone. Mei Qinghua did splendidly and the Wu family went bankrupt while the Yue family was ruined by Yue Linlan surprisingly."
Bai Lianhua had to praise Hu Pingheng's father for a good calculation! Such deep level scheming really chilled her to the bone. But she still had to ask: "Why am l here then? Since Yue Linlan will definitely go to prison, you now want to deal with me? Do you really hate the Li family that much?! But if your relatives hadn't done bad things in the first place, how could they have been dismissed or put in prison?"
Hu Pingheng shrugged: "It doesn't matter now. All l'm here for is to kill you. Once that is done, l will go back and enjoy life!"
Bai Lianhua gasped at his shamelessness: "Killing is a crime you know! You will definitely be caught!" The man in black came forward and pressed the gun to her temple. Hu Pingheng wriggled his eyebrows and gave her a provocative glance: "No one will know - at most, you will become a missing person."
Bai Lianhua contacted the system in her heart: "Has the task been completed? There's no way that Hu Lianhua wants the Hu family now after all they did, right?"
The taskbar appeared and it had reached 100%. Bai Lianhua wiped the sweat off her forehead and closed her eyes: "Whatever, let me die. As long as l finished what l needed to do." The system quickly pulled her soul out before the man in black shot her.
The last thing she heard before she went back to the space was: "It's really a pity."
--
In the space, Bai Lianhua cursed Hu Pingheng: "What is a pity? What a crazy man! I hope l never meet him again in my life!"
The system rolled its eyes: "You'll never meet him again for sure. Let's take a look at your score and your stats."
Score: A
Total points: 20
Name: Bai Lianhua
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Age: 23
Intelligence: 4
Appearance: 4
Physical strength: 1
Roots: None
Martial arts aptitude: 2
Skills: Fashion designer beginner, Modelling Beginner, Acting Beginner, Painting Beginner
Charm: 5
The system then asked: "Where would you like to assign your points? A word of caution - you need to determine which route you will take when you perform tasks. Do you want to solve everything with strength, intelligence or beauty? Once you pick a route, you can add points accordingly."
Bai Lianhua recalled her experience in this first task: "Actually, l think l will focus on intelligence and beauty first. The reason is because of my martial arts aptitude - what is that? It's disgustingly low. And to be honest, after this task, l cannot say that l will always be in a martial arts plane. In modern planes, you can't just beat people which is why intelligence is most important. As for appearance, this is a face loving world. As long as you look good, who cares? So l plan to focus on my strengths for now."
The system wanted to hit someone: "This isn't the way to go! You must develop strength first! Look, you didn't even practice the martial arts you purchased in the beginning. If you had, Hu Pingheng wouldn't have been able to kill you. But l agree that your intelligence is low. Whatever, I'm not the one doing the tasks anyways - do as you wish."
Bai Lianhua shrugged: "Add 4 points to strength, 8 points to intelligence, 4 points to appearance and 4 points to charm."
The system did so and her stats became:
Name: Bai Lianhua
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Age: 23
Intelligence: 12
Appearance: 8
Physical strength: 5
Roots: None
Martial arts aptitude: 2
Skills: Fashion designer beginner, Modelling Beginner, Acting Beginner, Painting Beginner
Charm: 9
The system also asked her to check her rewards. "Because you got an A on your first task, you are rewarded with a prop for your lowest stat and an enhancer for a chosen stat. You get [Aptitude Riser]. This is a potion that increases your aptitude by 2 points. It can also be bought in the system store for 8 points. Which stat would you like to enhance?"
Bai Lianhua chose charm because it would help a lot when making connections. She's not strong enough to just ignore people - besides, what if she has to do a task and the client is ugly? Her charm increased by 2 points.
The system then showed her a new panel: "Since the trial task is over, you are now officially a low-level tasker. You can pick the task that you want to do from this panel. You can only do level F and E tasks for now. Any higher and you will increase the risk of failure. If you have any more questions, just ask me later."
Bai Lianhua looked at the panel and saw many tasks in many different worlds. She knew her own strength and continued scrolling down the list.
"There's an ancient world here! The rating is F so l think I'll pick this one. Let me just read the description."