Chapter 1: The Daily Choice System!

[Ding! Daily Choice System activated!]

[If you had 10 yuan, how would you spend it?]

1. Healthy parents (5 yuan)

2. A girlfriend with a perfect figure: 36D, a waist as narrow as an A4 sheet, and supermodel legs (3 yuan)

3. A girlfriend who always obeys you, whatever you ask her to do (3 yuan)

4. A perfect physique: eight-pack abs, a lean, powerful waist, and a defined V-line (3 yuan)

5. Grow / length: 1 centimeter (1 yuan)

6. 10,000 yuan deposited into your bank account (2 yuan)

7. A Peking University admission letter (8 yuan)

8. Go back ten years (5 yuan)

“Holy shit! System! You finally fucking showed up!”

Ji Bai stared at the pale blue screen that had appeared in front of him. His whole body shook. Tears spilled down his face.

Three years!

Three whole years!

Did this thing have any idea what he had been through?

He had transmigrated into this world three years ago. The original owner of his body had just finished the high school entrance exam and gone on a family road trip with his parents and grandparents, all five of them together.

An accident halfway through had wiped out the entire family. Nobody left behind.

That was when Ji Bai arrived.

Before he could even recover from the shock of losing a whole family, Second Uncle and Second Aunt came knocking.

They insisted that his predecessor’s father had killed the grandparents by driving while exhausted. They took it all the way to court and sued for compensation.

They won. They swallowed every last bit of the grandparents’ estate and squeezed out the hundred-thousand-plus yuan his parents had left in savings. All Ji Bai got to keep was a tiny, run-down old apartment.

On her way out, Second Aunt had rolled her eyes. “If we didn’t feel sorry for you being so young, you wouldn’t even get to keep this place!”

Ji Bai had been stunned.

Other transmigrators sacrificed the family and unlocked godlike powers. His family had been sacrificed, all right. The godlike powers were nowhere to be seen, and his relatives had skinned him alive first!

Then it got worse.

He still had to go to fucking high school. And take the gaokao!

Anyone who had survived high school knew what a minefield that was.

He had assumed transmigration came with a memory buff. Instead, he got to school and discovered that this world’s history and culture were completely different from those of his old world.

No Li Bai. No Du Fu. No Jay Chou or Jackie Chan. All the poems, songs, and celebrities he knew were gone!

Ji Bai had nearly laughed out loud.

Heaven was on his side!

A paradise for passing off other people’s masterpieces as his own!

A second later, he had wanted to cry.

He couldn’t remember them.

Any of them!

He knew exactly what they were, but when he tried to recite them, nothing came out right.

He would reach for “In spring I sleep, unaware of dawn,” and out came: “In spring I sleep and never bathe; mosquitoes bite me everywhere. A big bad wolf comes in the night, and no one’s getting out alive.”

Ji Bai had fallen apart.

An absolutely catastrophic opening!

His youth had a prison aesthetic, and he hadn’t been given a single cheat!

For three years, he had lived at other people’s mercy, penniless and hopeless at school, without even someone to talk to.

And now his savior had finally arrived!

He stared at the translucent screen, momentarily dazed.

“Daily Choice System. If you had ten yuan, how would you spend it…”

Well, his system certainly got to the point.

He scanned the options and started eliminating them.

“First, option one is out!”

His parents were dead. What good was healthy parents now?

“Next, option eight!”

He had no desire to go back ten years. He would be nine. What was he supposed to do at nine?

“A girlfriend with 36D, an A4 waist, supermodel legs…”

His eyes drifted under the bed. That silicone thing was already starting to leak oil.

Ahem. Pass!

“An obedient girlfriend… Yep, very obedient. Five-dimensional joints. Whatever pose you want.”

Pass!

“Grow / length: one centimeter…”

Ji Bai paused.

“Is that character supposed to read *zhang*, for growing, or *chang*, for length?”

Same written character. Different pronunciations. Very different meanings!

He might consider the latter. The former… well, shelve it for now.

After that round of elimination, his gaze settled on three options.

[4. A perfect physique: eight-pack abs, a lean, powerful waist, and a defined V-line (3 yuan)]

[6. 10,000 yuan deposited into your bank account (2 yuan)]

[7. A Peking University admission letter (8 yuan)]

The gaokao was over. Results came out tomorrow.

One thing about this world’s gaokao: candidates submitted their university preferences before their scores were released.

Ji Bai had estimated his score at three-hundred-something, barely enough for a private undergraduate college.

But rather than leave a preference slot empty, he had casually put Peking University first. An empty slot was an empty slot, after all.

At least he could brag about it later. Yeah, he’d applied to Peking University back in the day. He just hadn’t gotten in.

“So if I pick seven, the system can change my score directly?”

He rubbed his chin. His eyes grew brighter.

Oh, they were playing for stakes like that?

Then he wasn’t going to be shy!

“I choose six and seven!”

The words had barely left his mouth when a text appeared on his phone.

[[ICBC] Your account ending in 8888 has received a deposit of 10,000 yuan. Available balance: 10,876.54 yuan.]

“Holy shit! It actually went through!”

Clutching his phone, Ji Bai nearly jumped into the air.

Ten thousand yuan!

The largest sum he had seen in three years!

As for the Peking University admission letter… the scores weren’t officially out until tomorrow.

“Let’s wait. Let the bullets fly for a while!”

“Hang on. Where’s that ‘let the bullets fly’ line from? Why can’t I remember?”

“This goddamn memory of mine!”

…

Meanwhile, in the principal’s office at Fucheng No. 99 High School.

Principal Wang was sipping tea with one leg crossed over the other when the phone on his desk rang.

“Hello? Who’s this?”

“Old Wang! It’s Li, from the Municipal Education Bureau!”

“Oh, Director Li! Hello, hello! What a pleasant surprise! Anything you need, just say the word!” Principal Wang hurriedly sat up straight.

A hearty laugh came down the line. “Hahaha! Nothing I need from you. I’ve got good news! Congratulations, Old Wang!”

Principal Wang looked blank.

Congratulations? Nobody had told him he was getting promoted.

“Director Li, what are we celebrating?”

Director Li stopped teasing him. His voice was full of envy. “You haven’t heard, have you? The gaokao results are in. Your school has produced the city’s top scorer!”

“What?”

Principal Wang nearly landed on the floor.

“Our school? The city’s top scorer?”

Was this a joke?

Did he know what sort of place No. 99 was?

It was famous throughout Fucheng, and even the province, for being a garbage high school!

Other high schools competed over university admission rates. How many students got into Project 985 universities? How many into Project 211 universities? How many into any undergraduate program at all?

His school competed over its gaokao participation rate!

What was a gaokao participation rate?

It meant finishing all three years of high school without going to prison or going home to have a baby, and making it to the examination hall in one piece.

Without going to the wrong venue, forgetting the admission ticket, or missing any exams!

That was a gaokao participation rate!

In previous years, if No. 99 managed fifty percent, they considered it an exceptionally good crop of students.

And now he was being told that a school like his had produced the top scorer in the city?

“Director Li, please don’t tease me. You know what our school is like…”

“Principal Wang, I’m completely serious. Ji Bai is one of your students, isn’t he? He scored 716 this year!”

“He’s Fucheng’s top-scoring science-track candidate, sixth in the province. That’s the best gaokao result our city has had in nearly ten years!”

“Congratulations, Old Wang! At this rate, maybe we’ll be working together at the bureau before long. Hahaha!”

The call ended.

Principal Wang stood rooted to the spot, phone still raised, for a full half minute.

Ji Bai?

716?

Top-scoring science-track candidate?

He sucked in a breath.

He was going places!

He hurriedly grabbed his mobile. With trembling fingers, he opened the group chat for the final-year homeroom teachers.

“Urgent! Everyone respond immediately!”

“Which class is Ji Bai in?”