True and False Daughters, Aftermath
To be honest, Qin Jingzhou was quite curious about how the system ate.
He watched as the small ball of light clinging to the outer wall of his sea of consciousness flashed once, then leapt onto the top of his precious daughter's head. The little sphere instantly spread out into a shiny pancake, snugly covering the top of He Chunxi's head.
At this moment, He Chunxi tugged softly at Qin Jingzhou's sleeve. "Dad, I don't believe in pies falling from the sky… And something just feels wrong. I rejected it, okay?"
Qin Jingzhou was quite pleased. "It's your decision."
Which meant: you made the right choice.
He Chunxi grinned, eyes squinting happily, but soon her brows knitted. "Eh? Why is it so quiet now? Did it just leave?" She quickly asked her dad, "Will it go and bother someone else?"
Qin Jingzhou looked over to see the system, now using one flattened edge of its body to hook the gray mist. He said to He Chunxi, "Anything you want to say?"
He Chunxi leaned in close and lowered her voice. "Is Jin Li…?"
Qin Jingzhou gave his precious daughter's nose a little flick.
He Chunxi once again felt quietly pleased with herself: just look at Jin Li's situation now and you'd know that any system coming to your door couldn't possibly be a good thing.
By now, Qin Jingzhou's system had transformed into a dumpling wrapper, thoroughly enclosing the gray mist. Crisp munching sounds rang out, and Qin Jingzhou chuckled, "Food is the god of the people—the same goes for systems."
After not eating quite enough, the system turned back into a ball of light and flashed back to its original spot, sighing faintly, "A bit satisfied, but not really fully satisfied."
Qin Jingzhou put an arm around his daughter's shoulders, soothing his own system at the same time. "That's enough. The center-of-attention system has shed its skin—you got your fill, but you have to leave some soup for others. Otherwise, even I can't explain myself." Just the discarded "cicada shell" left behind by the center-of-attention system could give a determined research team enough to tinker with for a good ten years.
That half-real, half-illusory "cicada shell" was currently sealed in a special container made mostly of granite and stored inside the laboratory at the Huaguo Academy of Sciences that had the strictest security—bar none.
With the center-of-attention system taken care of, Qin Jingzhou looked through the glass at Du Jiahui: used and discarded by the center-of-attention system, Du Jiahui’s head lolled to one side, and he simply fainted.
Not far away, Du Jiaying hesitated. She didn’t know the details of what had happened, but could sense that something was different now… Just now, her formerly crazed brother yelling about wanting to see her biological father and Xiao Xi had also fainted with no warning. Well, the hospital instruments weren’t sounding any alarms, so he must just be asleep… No matter how she thought about it, she didn’t see it as a bad thing.
Du Jizheng and his wife were startled, but quickly realized their son had only fallen asleep. The two of them felt quite awkward—now that they’d calmed down, they could already imagine what Professor He would say to them.
Qin Jingzhou really did fulfill their wish. "If I may be frank, your son needs to see a therapist more than anything."
Just then, Du Jiahui’s attending physician came hurrying down the hall. The youthful, bespectacled chief doctor didn’t hold back in front of the Du Jizheng couple. "The patient’s kidney function is a bit poor, but actual kidney failure is a long way off. Please, Mr. Du, don’t make up imperial edicts while I’m in a meeting!" Then the chief doctor changed his attitude, smiling at Qin Jingzhou. "Professor He, my mentor is Academician Xu."
Academician Xu was Old Qin’s staunch supporter and had also taken the intelligence potion. Qin Jingzhou had met the gentleman several times.
He grinned and nodded, "Old Xu is your mentor? Then I should call you junior brother."
The chief doctor’s smile grew broader.
Shoulder to shoulder, Qin Jingzhou and the chief doctor chatted and laughed as they walked away down the corridor.
He Chunxi turned to Du Jiaying. "If there’s something—let’s get in touch later?"
Du Jiaying took a deep breath. "No, let’s go together."
For the moment, only the Du Jizheng couple were left looking at each other in the wide hallway.
Du Jizheng sighed. "Let’s tend to our own family first. Your brother-in-law’s even been kicked off the board."
In January, after the New Year’s holiday, Qin Jingzhou returned to work.
He contacted Principal Senior Brother Qin and the other school leaders, asking for help in bringing in a few legal experts from the law school—he wanted to deal with the wave of online marketing accounts smearing and slandering him… and his precious daughter.
He had put it simply: "You can insult me, but you can’t insult my daughter."
This year, Spring Festival came at the end of January, and the finished travel variety show, after a last-minute rush, finally aired nationally during the holiday.
Having completely cut out Jin Li's appearances, the whole show was free of any sensational drama. Its atmosphere was pure and refreshing, making it especially suitable for family viewing during the Spring Festival.
The program was carefully produced and of high quality, and with He Chunxi—the daughter of the Hua Country Science & Technology Prize winner—as a key selling point, the show actually managed to achieve an average viewership rating of 15 percent.
Before the final episode aired, He Chunxi posted on her own social media: "I’m leaving the industry, going back to prepare for college entrance exams, hoping to be my dad’s student, and will devote the rest of my life to research."
Within just a month, six board directors or senior management had been detained, and the platform had already been on edge for a while. The admins saw the "little ancestor" had posted and immediately notified their superior, who personally led the team to boost He Chunxi’s post, placing it as the third-highest trending topic. After that… there seemed to be no need for further "artificial intervention," because netizens, upon seeing the post, dove right into heated discussion.
In fact, Du Jiahui had mentioned the issue of mistaken identity with Du Jiaying on his own account, but before it could have any broader impact, his account was unceremoniously wiped clean by the platform.
On a side note, Du Jiaying’s mother, Ms. Xiao, was also completely muted for denouncing her ex-husband.
So the number of netizens aware of the swapped children was quite limited, and even those who did know found it nearly impossible to post about the whole thing—not that they couldn't post, but that anything posted would be instantly deleted.
Even so, Qin Jingzhou managed to collect enough evidence and began sending out batches of legal letters after the holiday.
He didn’t send legal letters just as warnings—they always led to lawsuits.
As a result, quite a few netizens criticized him as petty. That is, until June 15, when Huaguo Pharma Group announced a world-shocking new product: Brain Gold.
Uninformed netizens were greatly disappointed—was this really all the Science & Technology Prize winner had produced?
Some recently convicted, yet still resentful, key influencers even declared: "If this isn’t just an intelligence tax, I’ll do a handstand and have diarrhea!"
The twist… was that it required real-name purchases, one per ID, which meant only a six-month supply per person, and Brain Gold was out of stock for half a year straight.
One skeptical streamer was lucky enough to nab a share, planning to expose the "scam" live on air. With tens of thousands watching, the result was a spectacular on-camera turnaround.
Soon, netizens were shocked to discover that Brain Gold was effective not just for insomnia and memory loss, but also for paralysis, dementia, and even depression and autism!
At this point, most ordinary onlookers could only exclaim, "What the—!"
Meanwhile, Qin Jingzhou suddenly posted: "Congratulations to my daughter for being admitted to Capital University. For the next month, Brain Gold supplies will be doubled."
Looking at the comment section under her dad’s post—where people were practically banging drums and singing his praises—Hei Chunxi felt a mix of delight and embarrassment. "Dad, are you trying to make me a public enemy?"
Qin Jingzhou smiled. "It's fine. I just 'diverted' some export orders."
He Chunxi pouted. "Is that allowed?"
Of course it was.
In the Brain Gold project, Qin Jingzhou not only had veto power, but could also raise requests and tweak the specs at any time.
All in all, Brain Gold was sold domestically for three years before being promoted overseas, yet demand always outpaced supply. Even more outrageous, various countries’ black markets began treating Brain Gold as even more stable than actual gold—a true hard currency.
Then, a series of specialty medicines for brain disorders developed by him led to his deification in both domestic and international medical circles.
When Qin Jingzhou left this world, his precious daughter and Shang Xi's daughter were about to get married, and Du Jiaying and Gao Wen's granddaughter was nearly five years old.
Before leaving, he specifically attended Ms. Xiao’s funeral.
Once the center-of-attention system unbound from Jin Li, Ms. Xiao quickly regained her senses. After several apologies, although He Chunxi did not choose to reconcile, her attitude did soften somewhat. Ms. Xiao lived abroad for years and only returned after her husband’s death. She too passed away peacefully in her sleep less than three years later.
Ms. Xiao and the man she truly loved did not have children… Such is life—ups and downs, gains and regrets are inevitable.
After leaving this world, Qin Jingzhou specially told his system, "Fortunately, Ms. Xiao and her husband truly loved each other. Otherwise, I’d still have to help the original host resolve this relationship."
The system flickered, shining brighter. "I get you! That’s why I always try to choose original hosts who've lost their wives or are divorced, and for whom the children are either distant or have been separated from the original host for years, even if they're father and child."
Qin Jingzhou smiled and tried poking at his system. "So the next time is the same?"
The system bounced up and down—counting as a nod. "Yes. But Brother Zhou, the reward from this world’s will isn’t spiritual stones this time… It’s universal fate energy."
Universal fate energy is roughly a world’s blessing. Carrying such a blessing definitely makes facing tribulation easier than going without, although it all depends on how weighty the blessing is.
No sooner had the system finished speaking than he felt the blessing descend upon him. Since he wasn’t someone who specialized in cultivating fate, he couldn’t quantify how much easier tribulation would be with it. On second thought, it wasn’t really necessary to make a low-spirituality world pay in spiritual stones—he knew the World Will would have some way to exchange for them if really pressed.
Qin Jingzhou savored the feeling carefully. He smiled. "This works too. It’s good. Thank her for me."
All light on the system’s body stilled. Clearly, it had gone off to deliver the message.
After a moment, the little orb spun in place. "She says you’re welcome to revisit anytime."
Qin Jingzhou nodded. "Looks like she’s quite fond of me."
The system continued, "She lined up the next task for you as well. Brother Zhou, do you want to try it? Experience being both the main antagonist and the male lead’s biological father?"
Qin Jingzhou nodded again. "Let’s go take a look."
The system gave itself a little shake. "Alright."
As Qin Jingzhou passed through to the space beyond a new world’s crystal wall, before he could say a word, a stream of light—with a golden orb atop it—flashed past him.
He looked at his system. "This is the task."