The car door closed. The middle-aged man secretly sighed in his heart before starting the car. That was the only conversation they had since the girl no longer spoke."Poor girl. Maybe I should not have raised that topic. After all, if the boss is sincere about it, he would be the one to invite her over."
Zhan Rong was the eldest daughter of a very wealthy and influential man. But in the original storyline, Fan Zheng"s family was mentioned as the most affluent one, or at least the most influential amongst the ones who filed the case against that whole village.
There were two reasons behind this.
First, Zhan Rong died. Second, she was not close to her father. Since there was not much familial love between them, the father did not pursue the matter and only sent some people to deal with her remains.
The reason behind the awkward relations.h.i.+p was not solely because the father had remarried when she was five years old and drifted closer to the new wife. It was because of Zhan Rong"s mothers... Yep, mothers. She was conceived through surrogacy so it could be said she had two.
Unfortunately, when she was only seven months old, the surrogate mother kidnapped Zhan Rong to extort a large amount of money from her father. The incident left a bad taste in Mr. Zhan"s mouth and made him dislike the daughter who had come out of the womb of that malicious woman.
Another culprit for the cold treatment from her father was her real mother, the former Mrs. Zhan. This woman was still alive. But she faked her death in order to run away with her real lover. The two were now abroad.
Quite a number of properties had been transferred to her name before the event which were later sold to fund her and her little lover"s escape. All of those properties originally belonged to Mr. Zhan.
In all of these, little Zhan Rong was innocent.
However, the man who had been done twice by women only knew she was related to those two women and began to dislike her. For him, Zhan Rong was an annoying existence.
Who asked her to become almost a carbon copy of his cheating wife, a reminder of humiliating experiences he went through in his first marriage? Not to mention, she was a girl!
Mr. Zhan was not an extremely patriarchial person. But he wanted a son for his firstborn, a son who would bear his name and pa.s.s it down to his future descendants. Sadly, as a daughter, Zhan Rong naturally had no way to fulfill this, unless she would marry someone who would be kind enough to let their kids bear the last name Zhan.
In any case, Mr. Zhan disliked her so Zhan Rong grew up distant from her father. She was only receiving monetary support from him, almost like an orphan. She was not loved. Only nannies and servants checked on her whenever she was sad or ill.
In the world of rich kids, her situation was a natural magnet for bullies.
However, was she bullied? Thankfully, not. No one dared.
It was not only because she hid her real status most of the time and acted quite low-key. Mr. Zhan, being a face lover who frequently said to his acquaintances, "It"s okay for me to scold my child, but others bullying her, it"s not!", also contributed little to this. The man loved to talk. However, the number of times he truly extended a helping hand to his daughter could be counted on one finger.
The real reason... it was Zhan Rong herself. She was quite clever and was never a pushover.
Since she knew that only those who didn"t know how to intimidate others and fight back would be picked on, she cultivated a kind of glare that she rarely cast, but once she did, it was scary enough to keep bullies away. It had certain effects on adults.
And the air around her, she got it from her environment and upbringing. That irresponsible face-loving father of her threw many private tutors to her after all, mainly to make her learn etiquette and stuff which she was very sure was for the purpose of arranging a good, useful marriage for her in the future. In any case, she capitalized on the knowledge gained, knowing it would make one think she was inviolable, an ice G.o.ddess that one should only admire from afar.
Why was such a person acquainted with Fan Zheng and the rest? Due to the same hobby, what else?
If not for that, in all honesty, only Fan Zheng, who was secretly a disciple of a modern cultivation sect, would be qualified to make friends with Zhan Rong. Or not really qualified... But would be interesting enough for Zhan Rong to acquaint herself.
Now though, this hobby had done her badly and made her go through a horrible time.
"System?" It was just an attempt to verify something.
However, Zhan Rong"s face darkened when a panel floated before her. Seconds later, she sighed. In front her remained the proof of her sufferings in the forest which could also be proof that she was haunted by some ghost or another weird ent.i.ty.
Along the way, she gradually accepted that she was not being delusional and was really seeing something that others couldn"t. In desperation, since there was nothing else to reference, she resorted to checking some stories online under the system genre.
She scanned the latter part of the screen.
"I don"t know if it"s legit. But why is it called Ghost Petting System?"
Her eyes stayed on the last three words.
Shortly after, her face turned sour again.
"Is it hinting me to catch ghosts and raise them like pokemon?"
"It can"t be, right?"
Time pa.s.sed and the girl began to kill boredom by waving her right forefinger in the air while summoning and de-summoning the screen.
"Well. Maybe it"s already good that this thing is not bringing me harm."
The system seemed to have heard her thoughts since it suddenly changed the wall of texts in the holographic panel.
[Host is detected to have gotten past her initial shock. Thank you for accepting the system"s existence]
Zhan Rong suddenly froze in place.
[Checking database for a suitable mission.]
[Mission Issued: Go explore ten famous haunted places in this city to collect Yin Energy]
[Deadline… One week]
[Reward: Your exclusive pet ghost will awaken to start selling meng to you]
[Punishment… You will be thrown into another h.e.l.l Difficulty Dungeon]
Zhan Rong: "..."
She felt like she heard a malicious giggle just now.
The driver in front did not notice the abnormalities at first. But a minute later, he saw the young lady glaring intently at the back of his headboard, her balled fists trembling, making him feel some chill on his back.