Chapter 53 – The Self-Pitying Stepsister in a Historical-Era Novel (Part 1, With CP)

Once the system realized how eager Lin Qingxue was to complete missions, it responded enthusiastically and immediately summoned the next mission issuer into the mission space.

This time, the target didn't look as disheveled as the previous two. At the very least, her clothes were clean and neat. Judging by her appearance, Lin Qingxue guessed the woman across from her was in her thirties, with sallow skin and a thin, undernourished frame—obviously the result of long-term malnutrition.

Still, she was tidy. She wore a patched dark-blue shirt, black work pants, and faded cloth shoes—washed so often they were nearly white.

Just one look at that outfit, and Lin Qingxue could tell: this woman was living in the 1970s or 80s. It felt like Lin Qingxue was fated to be a tragic laborer. Every world she'd gone to so far had been full of hardship. Now she was in yet another era of scarcity and deprivation.

While Lin Qingxue was still caught up in her musings, the woman had already approached her. Without any pleasantries, she got straight to the point:"I want to keep my job in the city and not be sent to the countryside as a zhiqing. I don't care about anything else."

"Alright, as you wish."

As soon as Lin Qingxue answered, the system transported her to the new mission world.

Sure enough, the system only ever acted this efficiently when she was doing missions.

Once the system finished transferring the original host's memories, Lin Qingxue was practically laughing in disbelief at how naïve the girl had been.

The original host's name was Wu Yu. When she was one year old, her mother Yang Dani remarried into her stepfather Sun Dachuan's family, bringing along the death benefits from Wu Yu's biological father. A year later, she gave birth to a half-sister named Sun Lanting.

Throughout all this, Yang Dani constantly bossed Wu Yu around, while feeding her a steady stream of guilt-tripping nonsense:"You should be grateful to the Sun family. If they hadn't taken us in, who knows what would've happened to us..."

In short, she gaslighted Wu Yu relentlessly, brainwashing her into believing she was a burdensome outsider and not worthy of being compared to her sister. As a result, Wu Yu acted like a maid, silently and tirelessly serving the entire household.

Originally, the family didn't even want her to study. But when the women's federation found out she was a martyr's daughter, their plan to keep her home as a servant fell apart.

Wu Yu had at least some brains—she seized this rare opportunity to go to school and excelled academically, always ranking near the top. This became the thing her stepsister envied the most.

By the time she graduated high school, Wu Yu had already passed the exam to become an accountant at a textile factory. Logically, she shouldn't have been sent to the countryside at all.

But—unbelievably—after being guilt-tripped by her mother's crocodile tears, Wu Yu gave up her job to her sister and volunteered to go to the countryside herself, where she eventually died from overwork.

She died in the fifth year of rural labor, at the age of only 22.

Lin Qingxue thought back to the woman she saw in the mission space—no one would have doubted it if you told them she was in her thirties. Life in the countryside had been that brutal. Worse still, she'd been sending food back to her family like a fool.

In truth, Wu Yu's tragic life was entirely her mother Yang Dani's doing. From overworking her in childhood to stealing her job opportunity for her younger daughter, and even continuing to exploit her after she'd been sent away—this woman wasn't a mother; she was an enemy.

After reading the memories, anyone would agree Wu Yu was like a wilted cabbage left to rot—a classic pitiful and tragic figure.

And yet, what made it even more infuriating was how spineless she had been. Wu Yu clung so desperately to her mother's approval that even the tiniest scrap of fake affection made her willing to walk through fire.

Thank god Wu Yu's final wish didn't include some nonsense like "take care of my mom." Otherwise, Lin Qingxue might've died from a heart attack.

At present, the original host Wu Yu had just passed the factory's accounting exam and was on her way home to share the good news.

But now that Lin Qingxue had taken over, that news would be kept quiet—at least until she officially became a factory worker. By then, whether or not her awful family found out wouldn't matter.

The top priority now was to steal the household registration book and use the job as leverage to get her residence registered independently, before her family could ruin it.

So, Wu Yu hurried back to their tube-style apartment. Luckily, no one was home, making it much easier to act.

She successfully took the household registration book and went to the textile factory to complete the onboarding process. Fortunately, she also managed to secure a spot in the employee dormitory.

To be honest, the factory only gave her this much leeway because she was a martyr's child. Anyone else wouldn't have gotten this lucky.

After returning to what was supposed to be her "home," Wu Yu slumped down on a chair to rest. At seventeen years old, her body had been chronically underfed, so thin she looked like a little chick. Even a short trip left her gasping for breath, on the verge of fainting.

She looked around at the less-than-60-square-meter apartment, which had only two rooms. One was occupied by her stepfather and her mother, and the other had been split into two small rooms—one for her stepfather's eldest son, and the other for her precious half-sister.

And the original Wu Yu? She had to sleep on a makeshift wooden bed on the balcony, with no real room of her own, year-round.

The thought alone made Wu Yu furious. But right now, her most urgent need was to upgrade her psychic ability, to protect herself and give this family a taste of their own medicine.

Author's Note:Because one reader voted a few minutes earlier than the other, I decided to start with the historical-era novel arc first.

Special apologies to our dear "Goddess Squid's Pearl Fairy"—I got your suggestion, and the next world will definitely be the cultivation one.

Thank you all for your support!