The One True System

1.12

By the time Xiao Yi entered the main ballroom, most of the guests had already arrived. Old man Gao Lou stood atop a podium next to Feng Yi's father, Feng Bo, as he gave a speech to officially announce the engagement between their two children.

Xiao Yi easily spotted Gao Shen in the crowd, and headed towards him as guests mingled about. Gao Shen was idly swirling a glass of wine, looking as nonchalant as ever.

"Any issues?" He asked by way of greeting, to which Gao Shen shook his head in reply. "That's good. My sister was just about done getting ready. How's your brother?"

"Waiting for her behind the curtain, last I saw." He said, handing Xiao Yi his glass of wine, to which he easily took. "With any luck, this will all be over soon."

Xiao Yi hummed in agreement, taking a sip of the alcohol. He regretted it immediately. Gao Shen noticed the look on his face and huffed in amusement, before taking the glass back.

At that moment, Gao Xi and Feng Mei entered the ballroom together, and alighted the podium. Gao Lou and Feng Bo graciously stepped aside as the couple began their speech, thanking their guests for attending.

A few moments later, wave of claps signaled the end of their speech, and Xiao Yi breathed a sigh of relief as the two leads stepped down, hand in hand, as harmonious as ever.

"You seem nervous."

"Do I?" Xiao Yi laughed, nervously. "It's just, is it weird I was expecting something to happen tonight? Of- of course I'm glad nothing happened, but-"

Gao Shen cut him off mid ramble with a simple pat on the head. "Don't overthink the situation."

Xiao Yi sighed. "You're right." He admitted. He paused for a moment, and then shot a smile his way. "Thanks."

Gao Shen gave a curt nod and hastily took another sip of his wine.

"Oh, hey, your face is a bit red, don't drink too much!"

-

Despite everything going smoothly, Xiao Yi felt uneasy as the next few days passed by. Feng Mei had made herself scarce, and though Xiao Yi had tried to catch up with her, she always seemed to have an excuse to get away from him, and seemed to be avoiding him in particular.

Xiao Yi was a bit worried, but he didn't really know what to do. Since that particular plot point with her relationship had been progressing smoothly so far, he decided to let her be for now.

Instead, he had been focusing more on how to tackle his impending doom and figuring out the other two plot points he'd had to ensure - namely making both Gao Xi and Feng Mei inheriting their respective family companies.

Except, there really wasn't much for him to do even with that.

Feng Mei's situation easy to solve - he wouldn't survive long enough to be a problem, so by default she'd be next in line for the position. Gao Xi, on the other hand... As far as he knew, in the original story Gao Shen had also stepped down and let his younger brother take over, but the reason wasn't specified.

From what Xiao Yi knew, though, it seemed like the reason was because their father Gao Lou didn't seem to like Gao Shen. The reason behind that dislike, Xiao Yi didn't know and didn't really intend to pry.

Thus, if he let the plot progress naturally, he wouldn't have to do anything.

All he had to do was make sure Li Shu wouldn't meddle again. She had been quiet these past few days however, and even Gao Shen had been caught up in work, so Xiao Yi really had too much time on his hands.

"Brother, are you free tomorrow?" Xiao Yi was brought out of his musings when his sister entered his room. "If you're free, come try this new cafe with me!"

"Oh, sure!" He immediately accepted - finally, something to do!

"Alright. Get ready by noon." Feng Mei said, exiting his room.

"Sure!" Xiao Yi replied, waving her off.

Had Xiao Yi followed her out, he would of seen her take out an unrecognizable phone from her pocket, and with an aggrieved sigh, send off a text to a triumphant looking Li Shu.

-

"It's quite empty, isn't it."

"Hm?" Feng Mei replied distractedly, fiddling with her hair. She was sitting across from her brother in a small, out of the way cafe.

"The store. It's almost lunch time."

"Oh. Yes... It's not that well known... I told you it's new."

"I'd have expected it to be more popular in that case," Xiao Yi said, suspiciously. His guard had been up ever since the engagement party, but nothing had happened so far. Still, "what if-"

"Oh look, the food arrived."

Xiao Yi's sentence was interrupted when a young waiter placed a tiered tray of sweets in front of them, along with two cups of tea. The desserts looked delicately made, the fruits decorating the cakes glistening prettily.

His thoughts and suspicions immediately faded away from his mind when he came face to face with the spread of sweets before him.

"They're so cute," he said, fork already pierced into a slice of strawberry cake. "If you don't hurry I might end up eatinf everything on my own!"

Feng Mei smiled at him, but made no move to eat. "Brother, you're happy, right?"

"Hm?” The question came out of nowhere, and Xiao Yi was slightly taken aback by it. He thought about it for a moment, about his mission and his own personal feelings, and through a mouthful of food, he said: "if you're happy, I'm happy."

"

Haha, that's good. I'll be happy as long as you're happy too." Though she said this with a smile, her eyes looked sad. "Brother, I'm sorry."

"... Sorry?" He asked, confused. "What- wh-"

Xiao Yi blinked, and suddenly his vision became blurry. The fork that had been in his hands clattered onto the floor, and he fell with it.

On all fours, now, he mustered up all his energy to raise his head, one question on his mind: why?

The last thing he saw was his sister, bent down on her knee, taking his head in her hands, and pressing a kiss on his forehead.

-

a

n. hi... haha.... it's been a while since i did any work on this and looking back theres a lot of bits i ended up disliking and not wanting to write about any more (i really dont care for the system), but i'll try and finish up this arc and i dunno, write a diff story with a diff mc?

or try and go with this again... but ill probably rewrite the whole thing while keeping the overarching plot the same. i will start on a different arc however, i dont want to rehash this story line. what i really want an mc thats more self sufficient hahahaha

let me know what you think!

i do want to finish this arc at least. if i dont manage to finish though, would you guys just like a summary of what i had planned?