CHAPTER 637: [631] ORPHAN’S COUNTERATTACK 100 (COMPLETED)

The elders from both sides stayed in Beijing until the sixth day of the first lunar month. Early on the seventh, Zhou Mo drove Lin Mu’s RV to send them back to their hometown, as they had not yet retired. They planned to move to Beijing after their official retirement, giving the younger generation a few years of independence.

After the spring began, Zhou Mo and Zhou Yiyi set off on a trip in Lin Mu’s RV. Departing from Beijing, they traveled from north to south, enjoying a full three months of travel, and didn’t return to Beijing until the northern spring was in full bloom. By that time, their new house at Tsinghua was ready. They found an auspicious day and the couple moved in.

After the incident before the New Year, the couple became famous at Qing University. Wherever they went, they were the talk of the town. They always brought Lin Mu with them, and Lin Mu’s story, Zhou Yiyi’s brother’s situation, was known to everyone. It couldn’t be helped; Lin Mu was just too popular.

However, both of them were low-profile people. As they had come to teach, they certainly didn’t want to always be in the public eye.

So, once they moved back to the university, they became true office workers.

They taught classes in the morning, had lunch in the cafeteria, and made a simple dinner at home in the evening. They insisted on a healthy diet and didn’t eat much at night. After dinner, they would go to the sports field for a walk, dance a little, or run. All in all, their lives were quite comfortable.

On Saturdays and Sundays, Yiyi went to her studio to teach, and Zhou Mo took up part-time jobs outside the university. Because university life was quite comfortable, and they did not want to indulge too much at an age when they should be striving, they kept themselves busy.

Yiyi had already discussed with Zhou Mo about their annual donations, and Zhou Mo agreed to join her in philanthropy during the summer and winter vacations.

Life is like that; when you’re already living well, you have to give something back and do something meaningful.

After Lin Mu’s contract with his talent agency expired, he did not sign with any other agency but set up his own personal studio and temporarily retired from acting to prepare for his master’s degree in directing at Beijing Film Academy. Other than returning to Ren Yi for stage performances, he didn’t have any other commitments and focused more on improving his personal value.

Zhou Yiyi and Zhou Mo were very supportive of his decision.

In the spring of 2013, Zhou Yiyi discovered she was pregnant and gave birth to a son in the winter of the same year, ascending to motherhood.

That year, her mother-in-law retired and came to Beijing to help her with the child, allowing her to return to work after her maternity leave ended.

In 2014, Zhou Yiyi won the First Prize at the Lanting Award, becoming a real big shot in the circle, and she was only 27 years old that year.

Because of that year’s Lanting Award, Zhou Yiyi’s Weibo followers increased to over two hundred thousand, while Zhou Mo had already surpassed one million.

Lin Mu did even better. After graduating from the directing department, his graduation project raked in seven hundred million at the box office, becoming the dark horse of 2015. This work also won several awards, officially transforming him from an actor into a director.

His Weibo following skyrocketed past seventy million. Even though he had not acted for several years, he still appeared on variety shows from time to time, so his exposure remained high, and his popularity not only didn’t decline but increased as more of his talents were uncovered, garnering more and more true fans.

In September 2016, Douyin launched, and Zhou Yiyi quickly created an account, posting videos from time to time.

She did not make comedic sketches or sell products, just simple cooking and calligraphy videos. Occasionally she went live to show the interior of Tsinghua to her audience and chat about some interesting stories involving top students at the school.

At first, Douyin wasn’t very popular, and her follower count was naturally low. But as time went on, by 2019, her Douyin followers had surpassed the five million mark. Among her fans were many requesting her calligraphy, so even without selling products, she found an opportunity to make extra money.

In that year, the global pandemic struck. While stuck at home with nothing to do, they decided to have another child, and in the summer of 2020, twin girls arrived, making the mother-in-law worried. Luckily, the father-in-law had also retired by then, and they helped Yiyi with the children together.

The older child had started elementary school, and although the younger ones were still babbling in their cradles, the harmony between the couple, and the mutual respect and trust between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, gave her hope for the marital life in her later years.

In 2021, Lin Mu married a well-known female screenwriter. The godparents had also retired and moved to a villa in the suburbs.

Yiyi hired a nanny for the weekdays, and her in-laws came to help with the children. On weekends, they returned to their suburban villa to tend their small vegetable garden and spend time playing mahjong and catching up with the godparents. This was the life Yiyi had always hoped for, and her mother-in-law stated that once the second and third children started preschool, they would move back to the suburbs. Having a nanny to help with the children would be sufficient.

From the initial 100,000 yuan yearly donation, Zhou Mo and Yiyi increased it to one million within just a few years.

Essentially, all the calligraphy that Yiyi sold on the live streaming platform was donated to Hope Schools in poverty-stricken areas.

In this life, she chose not to be a boss, so the majority of the donations came from Zhou Mo, with a smaller portion from her. But this was her doing as much as possible to give back.

Because life was comfortable, Zhou Yiyi lived to the age of eighty-nine in this life. She passed away after Zhou Mo and Lin Mu, suddenly leaving this world surrounded by her children and grandchildren, a peaceful and happy death.

Before dying, not only did she and Zhou Mo donate their wealth, but Lin Mu and his wife did the same.

The children were all quite successful and expressed understanding towards their parents’ decision to donate the wealth. After all, they had dedicated their lives to charity work and it had become second nature, so the donation process for their assets, worth hundreds of millions, went very smoothly.

After Zhou Yiyi passed away, Tangyuan returned to the System space in soul form. Reflecting on this life, she felt her accomplishments were satisfactory, but Liang Tian had something to say.

"Of course they were satisfactory, because you chose a good starting point for your journey. You didn’t choose to start after the Zhou Family tore up your acceptance letter. If you had, it would have been a fierce battle of slander, alas. It’s a pity I didn’t get to see a big drama unfold, where they would’ve entangled themselves and fulfilled the Host’s wishes, it feels like a bit of a loss."

Tangyuan scoffed at this. "That’s not my fault; you were the one who sent me there. Isn’t it a bit late to be regretting it now?"

What else could Liang Tian say? He could only admit that the System hadn’t chosen the right point, indeed, it wasn’t her fault. However—

"I’ve noticed that without the Golden Finger, your mission completions are prettier, more perfect. How about this, we change the rules in the future. Storage, farming, shopping—we’ll only let you choose one, and then based on what you pick, we’ll give a special reward. This way, we won’t have a situation where the Golden Finger is too strong and makes you too complacent. We’ll make a declaration once you’ve made your choice."

—The end of this story—