In the script of the Otherworld, I play the main character.

Page 54

However, the treatment process was clearly not so easy. As time went on, Yu Xijin's long, slender legs began to tremble violently again, indicating that her condition was worsening. Lin Ran's expression was grave; this was no ordinary illness and needed to be completely suppressed for treatment.

So Lin Ran pinned Yu Xijin down on the bed, refusing to let go no matter how messy Yu Xijin's fair legs were, insisting on feeding her all the medical nutrition fluid before he felt at ease.

A moment later, Lin Ran stopped the medical procedure, removed the nutritional equipment, and placed it next to Yu Xijin's face. Yu Xijin's eyes were still somewhat unfocused and dazed; this was typical of someone recovering from a serious illness.

However, she was very patient and turned her head to carefully help Lin Ran clean the device.

A moment later, Lin Ran took out the tea that Yu Xijin had brewed from the refrigerator, poured a cup for herself and Yu Xijin, and said, "This weather is so hot, Miss Yu, have some tea to cool down."

Yu Xijin expended a lot of energy during treatment and study, and even her movements of raising her hands appeared boneless.

"Teacher Lin, do you still need to call me Miss Yu at this time?" "But don't you call me Teacher Lin too?"

"How can this be the same? Don't you feel a special sensation when you're called 'teacher'?"

Lin Ran thought that Yu Xijin came from a family of teachers, so the title "teacher" actually had a special effect on her?

"Calling me 'teacher' is too formal. Why don't you just call me 'dad'?" Lin Ran said tentatively, his tone implying that there was no need to be polite.

Yu Xijin was drinking tea when she almost choked on his shameless remark. "Bad teacher, dream on."

Yu Xijin pinched Lin Ran's waist, but she didn't use any force; of course, she still felt weak and powerless. The afterglow lingered.

"Okay. Then I'll call you Xiao Jin."

After resting for a while, the two went out for lunch together. Instead of going to a restaurant in the mall, they ate at a Western restaurant in the neighborhood.

Some residential communities also have restaurants. The residents of Yu Xijin's community have a pretty good spending power. Lin Ran glanced at the menu of this Western restaurant and figured the average cost per person should be several hundred yuan.

There shouldn't be many customers in the store, but Lin Ran and Yu Xijin didn't see any other customers after they arrived.

This is quite normal. The foot traffic in a residential area is naturally incomparable to that in a shopping mall. Generally speaking, such stores can only increase their unit price and take the private domain light luxury route.

Lin Ran casually ordered a few steaks, and then ordered a seafood fried rice.

While Lin Ran was eating and chatting casually with Yu Xijin, Yu Xijin's phone rang.

Yu Xijin glanced at the phone and then held it out to show Lin Ran. It was her fiancé calling.

All I can say about Yu Xijin's fiancé, Lin Ran, is that she should accept his fate. Yu Xijin may have initially only wanted to rebel a little, but unfortunately, she met Lin Ran.

After becoming intimate with Lin Ran, she was already bound to him. Under the system's pure love imprint effect, her fiancé had forever lost Yu Xijin. While Yu Xijin was still dealing with her fiancé's caring inquiries, the system's virtual screen suddenly appeared before Lin Ran's eyes.

[The system has detected that the host has stolen someone else's fiancée, which may cause the other person great heartbreak. Should a quest be generated to guide everyone towards a happy ending?]

Lin Ran was taken aback, her chopsticks idly shoveling rice into her mouth. Could this cause someone heartbreak? Guide everyone towards happiness? Isn't this what I, as a good person, should be doing?

Lin Ran silently accepted it in his heart. The next moment, the light screen changed, and the text updated: [Random script mission generated: The Rotten White Moonlight]

[Script Description: He could never forget the white moonlight that had captivated him in his youth; he thought they would never meet again, until ten...]

When we met again after the New Year, the moonlight seemed to be the same as before.

He finally became engaged to her, and for the first time, the moonlight seemed within reach, yet he hesitated to touch it. He wanted to surprise her; in fact, they had known each other since they were very young, and he had always remembered her.

Chapter 114 We'll Be Happy Together

Guiding everyone towards a happy ending—based on Lin Ran's understanding of the system, its definition of happiness likely deviates from normal logic. For example, if it aims to make everyone happy, then all it needs to do is distort and change their thoughts, turning things that were originally unpleasant into things they like, wouldn't everyone then be happy?

The system also granted Lin Ran a passive ability called "Happiness Aura" as a support. [Happiness Aura: A kind angel, unable to bear the suffering of humanity, decides to save the world.]

[Effect: When those around the aura bear a lot of negative emotions because of the aura bearer, they will feel an equal amount of pleasure, thus becoming happy and no longer viewing the negative emotions caused by the host as poison, but as delicious honey.]

[Currently only available for this mission]

Good heavens, this is practically a mass production machine for green-haired turtles, and a divine skill from yellow-haired guy.

"Can you tell me about your fiancé? How did you meet him?" Lin Ran asked Yu Xijin after she hung up the phone.

Yu Xijin didn't seem keen on discussing this, probably because it was related to what she was doing. Any decent girl would likely not want to be eating with a man.

Especially when having dinner with someone of the opposite sex whom you barely know but have a very close relationship with.

"Should we talk about your real boyfriend?" Although this boyfriend wasn't someone she fell in love with, but rather someone her family arranged. However, Lin Ran pressed her for details a couple more times, citing interest, and Yu Xijin began to tell her story.

However, Lin Ran noticed that the waitress not far away kept glancing over, clearly having overheard them. "I met him at an art exhibition. He was quite polite at the time, and then we exchanged contact information."

"But unexpectedly, his father and my father had some business dealings later on, and after he found out, he began to pursue me ardently." "Then, I don't know how he managed to get my father to agree to his family's marriage proposal, and then we got engaged."

"However, it might be because they considered my feelings, so it's just an engagement. If I want to call off the engagement before the wedding, I can." Yu Xijin doesn't have a big appetite; she ate two steaks and then started drinking dessert.

Lin Ran shoveled the fried rice into his mouth. The rice was pretty good, but there wasn't enough seafood, so the seafood fried rice didn't live up to its name.

"So what are your thoughts? What do you think of him as a person?" Lin Ran asked.

Yu Xijin propped her head up with one hand on the table, tilting her head to look at Lin Ran.

Why are you so interested in his affairs? Is it some kind of perverse male quirk?

"Just think of it as a quirky joke. Anyway, you seem to enjoy studying with me, right? If you're going to be together all the time, shouldn't you consider his engagement to you?"

"Hmm...Does that mean Teacher Lin wants to marry me? Although I do like you a lot, I don't think you would be a good husband."

"Ah... Xiao Jin has a good eye for people. Actually, to be honest, I'm a non-marriage advocate. Marriage isn't really a necessity in life, is it?"

Lin Ran didn't plan to register his marriage with anyone, but he did plan to have a wedding ceremony with each girl he liked. Who says you have to register your marriage to have a wedding, right?

"What I mean is, is it possible to find a way to make us all happy by getting to know your fiancé?"

Yu Xijin looked at him strangely: "A way for everyone to be happy? What do you mean? You don't mean you want to discuss with him some kind of perverted two-husband-one-wife scenario, do you?"

Yu Xijin received a traditional education from a young age and could not accept this kind of relationship.

Her subjective motivation of learning from Lin Ran for revenge and thrills is one thing, but it's another: Lin Ran and her fiancé discussed sharing her. One is an action she initiated to bring herself pleasure, while the other involves a situation of disrespect.

"Who said it's about polygamy? Let me finish. Think about it, after you and your fiancé got engaged, didn't he touch you?" Yu Xijin nodded. "Is there anything strange about that? Isn't that perfectly normal?"

"Yes, absolutely. I can say with absolute certainty that if he likes you, he will definitely find a way to possess you, because it's a man's nature. As for the idea that intimate behavior should only occur after marriage, apart from a well-bred lady like you, no one else follows that rule."

"If he likes you a lot, but doesn't want to possess you, then there's only one reason, and only one truth: he's very likely being cheated on!" Lin Ran's reasoning was so convincing that he almost believed it himself, though there was a halo of happiness in it.

Even if Yu Xijin's fiancé isn't a cuckold, he'll still get cuckolded; then the fake will become real.

At first, Yu Xijin thought Lin Ran was talking nonsense. Although she had read many books, the term "cuckoldry" was still too niche for her. It took her a while to understand what Lin Ran meant.

"You mean, he might actually want me to do that?"

Lin Ran nodded. "I think it's very likely. If that's the case, then we can study openly and honestly from now on, right? And that way, you won't have done anything wrong; on the contrary, you'll have fulfilled his wish."

Yu Xijin was slightly touched by Lin Ran's words. After studying deeply with Lin Ran, she inexplicably felt a sense of disgust towards her fiancé.

At first, she thought it was because of her traditional thinking; after all, Lin Ran had taken her virginity, which in ancient times would have made him her de facto husband.

Lin Ran held Yu Xijin's small hand, their fingers intertwined. "So, I have to ask you what you think of him. If you don't like him that much, we can achieve a perfect happy ending. That is, you and I become lovers in fact, and your fiancé listens from outside the door and supports you and the child. Then you can freely choose who to study with. Wouldn't that make us both happy?"

Lin Ran spoke with great righteousness, but in reality, only Lin Ran's happiness among the three was genuine.

Although Yu Xijin had the right to choose, she was unaware that the Pure Love Imprint would make her reject men other than Lin Ran, so in reality she had no choice.

Yu Xijin's husband had even less of a choice; with the halo of happiness surrounding him, his pain would be distorted into happiness. But Lin Ran didn't think she had done anything particularly wrong.

He didn't do anything heinous; on the contrary, he made everyone happy, so he can be considered a great person.

Well, who says that distorted happiness isn't happiness? Even those whose happiness is forcibly altered by the halo of happiness undoubtedly experience genuine joy at that moment.

Lin Ran felt that he was definitely a good person, at least much better than those guys who didn't have a system and relied on money to oppress others.

Chapter 115 The Bai Family

“Actually, I don’t like him. After all, our families are all engaged in marriage. But he is indeed a good person.” Yu Xijin said, biting her fork. “He takes the initiative to care about me and has never asked me to do anything.” After saying that, Yu Xijin took a sip of juice.

"In that case, let's try to test him. If he really has that kind of fetish, then your betrayal of him and becoming my study buddy is just satisfying him!"

Lin Ran explained her reasoning, "Since you're here for bridal training, it means you still want to learn how to be a good wife, right? As your instructor, I must take on this responsibility to help you discover your true preferences before marriage and make your life happier."

Yu Xijin started talking about her fiancé, whose name was Bai Tianyu.

It is said that Bai Tianyu's family was not well-off when he was a child. His father ran a small restaurant, and the business income was only enough to make ends meet.

Later, when he switched to running a cost-effective snack shop, the shop's name coincided with a popular internet meme, causing its popularity to skyrocket and making it an instant internet sensation. Bai Tianyu's father seized the opportunity to establish his own snack brand and rapidly expanded by opening up franchising.

Over the years, the brand has gained some influence, and Bai Tianyu's family can be considered to have become wealthy.

However, the company's profits did not match the brand's influence. In its early years, its main selling point was cost-effectiveness, and later, in order to expand rapidly, it did not set high barriers to entry for franchisees.

The company provides substantial support and investment to its franchisees, but rapid expansion has somewhat hampered profitability. The fact that Bai Tianyu's family appears wealthy is mainly due to the company's large amount of debt.

The business dealings between Bai Tianyu's family and Yu Xijin's family are Bai Tianyu's plan to upgrade the brand's image, create a light luxury image for traditional Chinese-style snacks, and increase the average order value and brand awareness to expand sales.

Yu Xijin's family was indeed similar to a scholarly family in ancient times, but nowadays, playing the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting can no longer bring wealth and honor.

Yu Xijin's father held a management position in the local calligraphy and painting association, earning money through his reputation—definitely more than the average shareholder—but compared to large companies...

Their profitability is definitely not on the same level.

"I thought arranged marriages were only for wealthy and powerful families in novels. It sounds like your fiancé isn't that bad."

Lin Ran asked, "I know about Bai Tianyu's snack brand. I used to eat there often. But according to Yu Xijin's description, the company's business is already having some problems."

Judging from the description, Bai Tianyu's father, the brand's founder, couldn't possibly be unaware that his business was built on cost-effectiveness, making him competitive within the cost-effective brand segment. However, if he were to increase the unit price and move towards the high-end market, without exceptional products or marketing, it would definitely do more harm than good.

Brand image is a moat; when people talk about value for money, you might be the first brand that comes to mind. But if you want to expand, this moat will block your path.

On the one hand, raising prices would mean losing the original price advantage; on the other hand, consumers would feel betrayed by the brand, leading to a lack of buyers accepting the new prices. Generally speaking, few companies proactively adjust their pricing strategies; the risk is extremely high, unless operational problems force the company to find alternative solutions. "You said it yourself, it's a novel. In reality, there aren't that many wealthy and powerful families. Even if they did, it's not something an ordinary person like me could possibly encounter."

Yu Xijin complained that in modern society, having a large and well-known brand company like Bai Tianyu's family is already an unattainable dream for ordinary people.

Further up the hierarchy are the powerful and influential families depicted in novels, which are rarely heard of by ordinary people in reality.

While Lin Ran and Yu Xijin were discussing Bai Tianyu, Bai Tianyu was chatting with his father, Bai He, in the conference room. "Dad, how's the sub-brand plan going?"

Bai Tianyu asked, and Bai He sighed softly in reply.

"It is estimated that the risks are still very high, mainly due to the high expected costs. Not only will it require spending money on cooperation with the association, but also a lot of money on advertising."

Just as Lin Ran had thought, Bai He also felt that brand pricing couldn't be easily changed; even if a value-for-money brand raised prices, it could only do so gradually. So Bai Tianyu came up with the idea that if the risk was too high, they could simply create a sub-brand. The original brand would continue with the value-for-money strategy, while the sub-brand would rely on the association...

The collaboration will take a light luxury, traditional Chinese style approach.

However, contrary to Lin Ran's guess that the company was operating poorly, the company actually had loans, but its revenue was on an upward trend.