Chapter 477 – The Plundering Golden Finger?
“I remember.” Lin Wangshu hadn’t expected Xu Jinning to ask about this again.
“Then tell me the names of the books you wrote before, one more time.”
Lin Wangshu was momentarily stunned. Although she didn’t know why Xu Jinning was asking again, she still cooperated, recalling and repeating the titles.
Soon, Lin Wangshu had nearly finished naming them all.
And what she mentioned was the same as what she’d told Xu Jinning more than three years ago.
However…
This time, Lin Wangshu hesitated.
It was this hesitation that Xu Jinning quickly picked up on.
“Is there another book you haven’t mentioned?” Xu Jinning asked, her heart beginning to race slightly.
She had a feeling they were getting closer to the answer.
Lin Wangshu hesitated for a moment but finally said, “There’s another one. It’s a book I wrote back in middle school, but it’s incomplete. It’s short, only around a hundred thousand words. Do I need to mention this one too?”
Is this it?
Xu Jinning’s breath caught for a moment. “Yes, tell me.”
Lin Wangshu: Alright then.
“This was the first novel I wrote in middle school. It’s a male-oriented novel, meaning it’s told from the perspective of a male protagonist. The main character’s name is Lin Bai.”
“Is it set in a specific historical period?” Xu Jinning asked eagerly.
“Yes.”
Almost as soon as Lin Wangshu confirmed this, Xu Jinning began to sense something.
“Did you give the male protagonist any special ability, like a golden finger?” Xu Jinning asked again.
“Yes, giving a golden finger to a transmigrated protagonist is pretty common, right?”
“So, what kind of golden finger did you give this Lin Bai character?”
“It was a check-in system.”
“Check-in system?”
“Yes. The concept of my book was that the main character, Lin Bai, was a college student in the modern era. He died while trying to save a pregnant woman crossing the street, getting hit by a truck driver who was drunk.”
“After his death, he transmigrated to the 1980s, into the body of a fifteen-year-old orphan also named Lin Bai.”
“Not only that, but he was also bound to a check-in system.”
“As long as he reached certain designated places, he could trigger the system and receive check-in rewards.”
“And what were these rewards, and where did they come from?” Xu Jinning asked further.
Lin Wangshu thought for a moment. “The rewards were tailored to whatever the protagonist needed at the time. For example, if he was hungry, he’d check in and receive food or drinks.”
“If he was cold, he’d check in and receive a blanket, cotton, or clothing.”
“Later on, as the protagonist’s circumstances changed, the rewards would change too.”
“Step by step, the protagonist would rise to the pinnacle of life.”
That was Lin Wangshu’s original vision when she wrote the book.
“As for where those items came from…” Lin Wangshu seemed puzzled. “Didn’t they just come from the system?”
“And where did the system’s items come from?” Xu Jinning pressed further.
Lin Wangshu responded, “…I don’t really know. I didn’t think I needed to write that. Aren’t those things just part of the system, or maybe exchanged using some sort of energy?”
“With just a check-in, not even needing to complete tasks, where would the energy come from to exchange for these things?”
Lin Wangshu: …Now that you mention it, that does sound kind of logical.
“Ah, but so much time has passed, I’d nearly forgotten about this book.”
“But why are you so interested in this book and that golden finger?”
“Did something happen?” Lin Wangshu’s instincts told her that Xu Jinning and Xie Ting’an hadn’t come to see her today for something simple.
There was definitely something important.
Xu Jinning hesitated.
She was debating whether to tell Lin Wangshu about it or not.
However, after considering Lin Wangshu’s recent changes, and the fact that she was the author of these novels and they might need her help, Xu Jinning decided to tell her.
After hearing everything, Lin Wangshu’s eyes were full of shock. “You mean, this world isn’t just formed from that ‘Real and Fake Daughter’ novel, but also includes other period novels that I wrote?!”
“Yes.”
Lin Wangshu was truly stunned this time—more than ever before.
“So, the female protagonists from my period novels, they all exist and have appeared in this world?”
“Yes.”
Lin Wangshu couldn’t help but think of the female protagonists she had created. Some were reincarnated, some were transmigrated, some could foresee the future in dreams, and one even crossed over from the cultivation world…
Especially that one from the cultivation world!
“If that’s really the case, then you all need to be very careful of a woman named Murong Jing!”
Lin Wangshu remembered that, among all the characters she had written, Murong Jing was the most ruthless, the most cunning, and the most unpredictable. She was the hardest to defend against.
She couldn’t even imagine what kind of chaos Murong Jing’s presence in this world would cause.
Just thinking about it terrified her.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know those female protagonists would appear, and I had no idea that those novels would merge together…”
Back when she wrote those novels, Lin Wangshu had still been known as Xu Jinwen.
Now, looking back, she realized that many of the female protagonists and plots she had created back then were deeply flawed in terms of their worldview.
She often disregarded human lives, overlooked the fates of supporting characters, and treated them merely as stepping stones for the male and female protagonists to grow and achieve success.
So now, Lin Wangshu understood all too well how terrifying it would be if the female protagonists from her novels truly existed in this world, wielding their “golden fingers.”
They would certainly bring harm and destruction to this world.
She never imagined it would turn out like this. If she had known, or realized it earlier, she would have written protagonists that embodied kindness and beauty—or maybe, she wouldn’t have written any novels at all.
For every novel she didn’t write, that would be one less protagonist to wreak havoc on the world.
Even her current character, Lin Wangshu, though seemingly ordinary and without any obvious special powers when she initially wrote her, possessed an invisible streak of good fortune and unbeatable luck.
Everything she did went smoothly; whatever she desired, she got.
But—why?
What gave her the right to trample on the lives and interests of supporting characters, the so-called “cannon fodder,” just to pave the way for her success?
It was wrong from the very beginning.
Now, Lin Wangshu understood why Xu Jinning had wanted to see her manuscript earlier. Was she afraid that Lin Wangshu’s current writing might manifest into reality too?
But based on Xu Jinning and Xie Ting’an’s expressions earlier, it didn’t seem like that had happened—yet.
However…
The male protagonist novel Lin Wangshu had left unfinished in her past life—and the mysterious disappearances Xu Jinning mentioned earlier—
“Are you suspecting that my unfinished male protagonist novel has also merged into this world?”
“That Lin Bai exists? And that his golden finger exists too?” Lin Wangshu asked.
“Yes, I suspect it’s Lin Bai’s check-in system that’s causing those disappearances,” Xu Jinning revealed her theory.
“The rewards that the system gives Lin Bai for checking in might not be something the system itself possesses, or something it exchanges using energy. Rather…”
Xu Jinning paused, carefully choosing her words, and then settled on the most accurate description: “It’s plundering from the people around him.”
