Chapter 478 – Meeting Lin Bai is Imperative
“Plundering?” Lin Wangshu exclaimed in shock.
“Yes, plundering. The items the system rewarded Lin Bai with actually belonged to the people around him—whether it was buns, meat, bicycles, or other things.”
“These things didn’t just appear out of thin air.”
“They were taken from other people around him.”
“The system plundered them, claimed them as its own, and then gave them to Lin Bai when he checked in.”
“Everything in this world follows the law of conservation of energy; nothing can simply appear out of nowhere.”
“So, when the system plundered these things and gave them to Lin Bai as rewards, the original owners of those items lost them.”
Xu Jinning felt that this explanation made everything make sense.
The only question was whether Lin Bai knew where the system’s rewards actually came from.
However, Xu Jinning guessed that he probably didn’t.
She looked at Lin Wangshu and said, “Doesn’t it seem like the cases of things mysteriously disappearing, which I told you about earlier, make perfect sense now?”
“During that time, wasn’t the protagonist of your novel, Lin Bai, active in Gan City?”
Lin Wangshu paused for a moment, then slowly nodded.
Indeed, she remembered that the place Lin Bai transmigrated to was a village near Gan City.
“Then tell us about Lin Bai now,” Xu Jinning urged, as though something had occurred to her. “Where exactly did Lin Bai transmigrate to? And what kind of person is he?”
Xu Jinning felt it was crucial for them to understand exactly what kind of person Lin Bai was.
It wasn’t just important to learn about Lin Bai.
No, they had to find Lin Bai and meet him. It was imperative.
Otherwise, if they continued to leave things unchecked, Lin Bai might cause even more trouble with his check-in golden finger.
Lin Wangshu now understood the severity of the situation, and she didn’t hold anything back.
She quickly relayed all the information she could still remember in response to Xu Jinning’s questions.
Fortunately, she still remembered these details.
Soon, Lin Wangshu mentioned a small village near Gan City—that was where Lin Bai had transmigrated.
She also explained the items Lin Bai received after his check-ins.
Xu Jinning compared these with what Zhang Changzheng had told her about the missing items case and found they matched almost exactly.
The items were nearly identical.
This further validated her previous suspicions.
“After Lin Bai left Gan City, did he come to the capital?” Xu Jinning asked.
Lin Wangshu hesitated for a moment. “Yes.”
“And after arriving in the capital, did he receive any more rewards from his check-ins?”
“For example… a booklet or a book?”
At first, Lin Wangshu had forgotten about it, but when Xu Jinning mentioned it, the memory started coming back to her.
“Yes,” Lin Wangshu said immediately. “After arriving in the capital, Lin Bai went to the Forbidden City for a check-in.”
“And then he was rewarded with the ability to read a booklet.”
“The booklet recorded events that would happen in the future.”
“However, the time to read it was only one minute.”
“After that minute, the booklet disappeared.”
“As for how much he could remember and how many pages he could flip through—it depended on Lin Bai’s abilities.”
Xu Jinning: …
So, it was exactly as she had suspected.
It seemed everything was coming together.
That booklet, those future events—it was something she had written herself.
Xu Jinning never imagined that the plotlines would connect in this way.
So, it was all Lin Bai and his check-in golden finger causing trouble.
“And after that?”
“Where did Lin Bai stay after arriving in the capital?”
“What did he do after reading that booklet?”
This time, Lin Wangshu shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“When the plot reached this point, I stopped updating the novel.”
She stopped, so there was no more story after that.
As for how Lin Bai’s development played out, Lin Wangshu had no idea.
“Didn’t you have any saved drafts? Did you write about what happens next in them?” Xu Jinning asked again.
Lin Wangshu shook her head once more. “No, when I was writing that novel, it was my first time writing. I didn’t have much experience.”
“I didn’t know how long it would take to write, and I didn’t know about saving drafts.”
“So, I only wrote up to that point. When I stopped updating, I didn’t have any extra material saved.”
“You didn’t even plan out the future plot?”
Again, Lin Wangshu shook her head. “No.”
At that time, she had been writing with no buffer at all, coming up with the plot as she wrote and publishing it on the same day. She didn’t have a single draft saved.
She hadn’t even thought about where the story would go next.
After she stopped updating, her focus had shifted to trying to please her stepfather.
Xu Jinning: … Alright, then.
Xu Jinning exchanged a glance with Xie Ting’an, both frowning slightly.
At least now they knew for sure that Lin Bai and his golden finger were behind the mysterious events.
That was a significant breakthrough.
All they had to do now was find Lin Bai.
Once they did, they could confront him and sort things out.
“By the way, you haven’t told us what kind of person Lin Bai is,” Xu Jinning asked.
Lin Wangshu thought for a moment, carefully choosing her words. “Out of all the characters I’ve written, Lin Bai is one of the more morally grounded ones…”
At that time, although Xu Jinwen was living with her divorced mother, her resentment wasn’t as strong.
Back then, the values in her writing were still acceptable.
That’s why the character Lin Bai she created at that time was also decent.
“Before transmigrating, Lin Bai was a first-year college student. His father was an alcoholic and abusive, so his mother divorced him.”
“At the time, Lin Bai’s mother didn’t ask for any money; she just wanted to take young Lin Bai with her.”
“After taking Lin Bai, the early days were difficult for the two of them.”
“Lin Bai was just a primary school student back then.”
“His mother wasn’t educated, and the jobs she found paid very little. To save money, she worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant during the day and sold girls’ accessories at a night market in the evening.”
“And Lin Bai, after attending school during the day, would help his mother at the night market in the evenings.”
Lin Bai understood how hard his mother worked.
He had always been very filial.
Even at a young age, he knew he had to help and take care of her.
He knew that if his parents hadn’t divorced, his father would have gotten drunk, gone into a rage, and not only beaten his mother but also him.
There was one time when he was beaten so severely that he was on the brink of death.
It was after that incident that his mother resolutely decided to get a divorce. Even though it meant leaving with nothing, she was determined to take him away.
Lin Bai knew that if his mother hadn’t taken him with her, he might have been beaten to death by that man.
So Lin Bai understood that his mother loved him.
He also knew how tough her life was.
Although he was young, he saw it clearly.
That’s why he did everything he could to help her, to ease her burden.
“Though they didn’t earn much from the night market, the mother and son managed to survive in that city.”
Later, Lin Bai entered middle school and then high school…
And it was just when Lin Bai was about to take the college entrance exam that his mother fell ill.
