Chapter 2: The System Arrives

Chapter 2: The System Arrives

Late at night, the hospital corridor was dimly lit. Su Yingxue, watching over her sleeping grandmother, dozed off wearily on a folding chair.

In a daze, her consciousness suddenly fell into a warm orange light.

"Ding! Strong will to live detected in the host. Chef God System successfully activated!"

A crisp mechanical voice rang in her mind, and Su Yingxue woke up with a start. She looked around and found that everything in the ward was normal.

"Hello, host. I am your exclusive culinary system, [Little Chef]." A chibi-style figure dressed in a chef's uniform and wearing a tall hat popped into my mind. "Binding conditions: your love for your grandmother, and... your survival instinct when you're hungry."

Su Yingxue was stunned: "System? What can I do?"

"Easy!" The little figure waved a spatula. "You just need to complete the cooking tasks to get corresponding rewards—money, ingredients, and even special recipes! You can even restore Grandma's health!"

She subconsciously touched her pocket, where she found only two hundred yuan left.

"First task: Prepare a 'nutritious meal for the sick' to encourage Grandma to eat an extra half bowl of rice!"

Su Yingxue looked at her frail grandmother on the hospital bed and nodded, "Okay."

She got up, borrowed a small rice cooker from the grandmother in the next bed, and then ran to the small supermarket at the hospital entrance, where she used her remaining money to buy half a pound of lean meat, a bunch of green vegetables, and a tomato.

Back in the shared kitchenette next to the hospital, she skillfully chopped and minced the meat, stir-fried it with a little oil, added chopped tomatoes to enhance the flavor, and finally added diced greens to stew a pot of fragrant and tender tomato and minced meat porridge.

Su Yingxue delivered it.

Grandma had her eyes closed, but after smelling the fragrance, she slightly opened them and her lips moved.

"Xiaoxue..."

Su Yingxue scooped up a spoonful, gently blew on it to cool it down, and held it to her grandmother's lips: "Grandma, try this, I just made tomato and minced meat porridge."

Grandma hesitated for a moment, but still opened her mouth and ate.

"Ding! Mission complete! Rewards: 200 RMB cash, 1 x Special Ingredient [Dried Wild Mushrooms], Skill [Ingredient Identification Function]!"

Su Yingxue was stunned. She looked down and saw that 200 yuan had actually been deposited into her phone!

On the table, a small packet of dried mushrooms had appeared out of nowhere; the brown shiitake mushrooms emitted a faint fragrance.

"Xiao Su! These are shiitake mushrooms from Fang County, right? They smell so good!" The old lady in the next bed suddenly said, smelling the aroma.

Then he added, "My hometown is Fang County, and your shiitake mushrooms are of really good quality. They're plump and round, and they look really good!"

Su Yingxue smiled and chatted with the aunt next door for a few more minutes. The aunt glanced at her a few times and said, "You look just like the third female lead in the TV series I watched a few days ago."

Su Yingxue was both amused and exasperated. Perhaps it wasn't just that she resembled someone, but that she *was* her.

A few days later

The notification of "1.8 million" arriving in her account on her phone screen stung Su Yingxue's eyes in the sunlight. She stood at the entrance of the real estate agency, looking at the signed house sale contract in her hand, her fingertips trembling slightly.

"Ms. Su, all the formalities are complete." Real estate agent Xiao Wu handed over the keys. "This apartment is in a good location; you can use it from now on..."

"No need." She took the keys, her voice as soft as a feather. "I won't be coming back."

In that small two-bedroom apartment of fifty square meters in the suburbs of Shanghai, the balcony still holds the succulents she carefully selected, and the living room displays a photo of her and her grandmother. Now, these are all faded memories.

Stepping out of the real estate agency, the chilly early winter wind blew against her face. Su Yingxue looked up at the gray sky, took a deep breath, and dialed that familiar phone number.

"Hello? Su Yingxue! You finally answered the phone?!" Wang's shrill voice pierced the eardrums. "Do you know how much the company has lost because of you? Director Zhang has already said..."

“Wang Qian,” she interrupted calmly, “I want to terminate my contract.”

The other end of the phone suddenly went silent.

Three seconds later, Wang Qian's voice suddenly rose: "If you want to terminate the contract, can you come up with 2 million? If you can't act anymore, you can just wait to starve to death!"

"I want to terminate the contract, right now," Su Yingxue said, each word seemingly squeezed out from between her teeth. "I'll pay the penalty for breach of contract, but I want to negotiate it myself."

The next day, Su Yingxue stood alone in the elevator of Xingyao Entertainment Building. The mirrored wall reflected her slightly pale face and the faint dark circles under her eyes.

In the conference room, Wang Qian was already getting impatient.

"Two million, not a penny less." Wang Qian pushed the contract towards him. "Otherwise, you'll be considered in breach of contract, and you can forget about working in this industry again."

Su Yingxue took a brown paper bag out of her bag and gently pushed it on the table: "This is my house sale contract, 1.8 million yuan. Add to that my savings from the past three years, and the 100,000 yuan I borrowed from a friend, and it's enough."

Wang Qian's coffee cup stopped in mid-air.

She never expected that this girl, whom she had once called "ungrateful," would actually be able to come up with this money.

"You think terminating the contract is the end of it?" Wang Qian sneered. "The company nurtured you for three years, and all the roles you played, the resources, the connections—it's all gone! You're now a blacklisted artist!"

Su Yingxue looked at her, her eyes as calm as a deep pool: "Wang Qian, I've never wanted to be a big star."

She paused, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible, yet each word was clear: "I still have the voice message you gave us last time asking us to accompany President Ge. If you don't want Xingyao Entertainment to be embroiled in a scandal..."

The air in the conference room seemed to freeze.

Wang Qian stared at her for a long time, so long that Su Yingxue thought time had stopped. Finally, she snorted coldly, picked up a pen, and signed the termination agreement.

“Su Yingxue,” she slammed down her pen, “you win.”

Su Yingxue picked up the pen and signed her name in the designated area for the second party. From this moment on, she was no longer a contracted artist with Xingyao Entertainment.

Three days later, Su Yingxue moved with her grandmother into her grandmother's old house in Zhejiang Province. It was an old-style residential building built in the 1990s, with two bedrooms and a living room. Although it was old, it was full of warm and lively atmosphere.

"Xiaoxue, this is your room when you were little." Grandma pointed to the small room facing south, her eyes glistening with tears.

Su Yingxue took out the dried wild mushrooms she had received as a system reward and carefully soaked them. Soon, the unique aroma of mushrooms wafted from the kitchen, mingling with the savory flavor of free-range chicken, filling the entire room.

"Xiaoxue," Grandma said, holding a bowl, her voice weak but content, "what are your plans for the future?"

Su Yingxue wiped her hands, opened her phone, and saw a message she had just received: [Chang'an Banquet Film Crew is hiring a cook, 200 yuan per day]

She smiled and handed her phone to her grandmother: "I contacted the film crew; they need someone to make lunchboxes. I heard the pay is pretty good."