Chapter 67: Return

Zhou Chen felt his consciousness suddenly jolt, followed by opening his eyes. What came into view was a red square piece of paper featuring the Chinese character for good fortune, inverted upside down.

"This is my home, I'm back?"

This upside-down character was one he had pasted on the window during the Lunar New Year; he remembered it clearly.

The custom in their region was to paste couplets on the main door for the New Year, while bedroom doors or windows received the inverted character. The simplest meaning was that good fortune had arrived.

"Everything was real?"

The memories in his mind had not vanished. He still retained the memories of 'Xia Junshan' and the things he had done during that time, which meant he had truly transmigrated into the world of the television drama *A Little Dilemma*, spending over a year there.

"Truly... miraculous."

Overwhelmed with shock, Zhou Chen immediately thought of the most crucial matter: "System, open the interface."

Host: Zhou Chen
Attributes
Strength: 7
Constitution: 8
Spirit: 12
Agility: 7
Remaining Points: 0
Mission: Xia Junshan from *A Little Dilemma* hopes his daughter Xia Huanhuan's academic performance will improve. Please help Xia Huanhuan get admitted to Hanlin Middle School (Completed); Reward: Unclaimed.

The interface remained unchanged, except that the mission in the world of *A Little Dilemma* was marked as completed, along with an unclaimed reward.

Without hesitation, Zhou Chen chose to claim the reward, and instantly the system interface shifted.

Host: Zhou Chen
Attributes
Strength: 7
Constitution: 8
Spirit: 12
Agility: 7
Remaining Points: 4
Skills:
Money Paves the Way: When the host actively uses money to accomplish a certain task, the success rate of the event can be increased by fifty percent. Cooldown: Main world: one month; Film and television worlds: limited to once per world.

His attribute points had increased by four, the previous mission had disappeared, and a skill column had appeared containing a skill called 'Money Paves the Way'.

"The reward is four attribute points, which is pretty good, but what on earth is this 'Money Paves the Way' skill?"

Zhou Chen had deeply experienced the importance of attribute points during his year and more in the world of *A Little Dilemma*. However, having already left that world, he did not rush to allocate the attribute points to his constitution; instead, he focused on the newly acquired skill.

The description of the skill 'Money Paves the Way' was quite simple: whenever he spent money to accomplish a task, the chance of the task succeeding would be increased by fifty percent.

"This skill?"

Zhou Chen did not know how to evaluate this ability. It sounded quite powerful, capable of boosting an event's success rate by half, but the issue was, how should this be calculated?

He was not naive enough to think that spending a single dollar could boost the success rate of a difficult task by fifty percent.

The problem was that he had no way of knowing the original success rate of the task he wanted to undertake.

Unless the original success rate was already fifty percent, and he happened to spend enough money, could the overall success rate reach one hundred percent.

Easier said than done. First of all, he could not see the success rate, nor did he know how much money he ought to spend, leaving him to guess and calculate everything.

Therefore, in Zhou Chen's view, this skill was somewhat frustrating.

Yet, it was not absolute. In many situations, as long as the money spent was sufficient, even something originally considered utterly impossible could have its success rate raised to fifty percent—making the odds of success and failure fifty-fifty.

If one didn't know how much to spend, they should just spend lavishly; having more money definitely wouldn't ruin things.

Thus, the 'Money Paves the Way' skill was definitely useless when it was useless, but when it was powerful, its potency was beyond doubt.

Well, the core of this skill was money; as long as you were wealthy, many things could be accomplished.

But wasn't that stating the obvious? Even without this skill, as long as he had enough money, he could get many things done.

Besides, this wasn't a video game where higher percentages directly correlated with easier success. Sometimes, even if the probability reached ninety-nine percent, that tiny missing fraction could still lead to failure.

Naturally, no matter how much Zhou Chen complained, this skill could barely be considered a divine ability—provided it lacked the subsequent cooldown restriction.

A perfectly fine skill had to come with a cooling period. He could accept once a month in the main world, but limiting it to a single use per film and television world was excessive.

What was the meaning of this? Was there discrimination at play here?

"Utterly absurd."

After holding it in for a long time, Zhou Chen could only offer such an evaluation. He would have preferred getting another four attribute points instead.

Concurrently, the system transmitted another piece of information to him, notifying him of the time for his next transmigration: at the earliest seven days from now, and at the latest a month.

In other words, sometime within the next seven days to one month, he would be forced to transmigrate once again.

Zhou Chen could accept this timeframe; what he feared most was the system making him transmigrate continuously until he could no longer distinguish between reality and the fictional worlds.

Just like right now—although he had returned to the real world, his mind continued to echo with everything he had experienced in the world of *A Little Dilemma*.

Nan Li, Huanhuan, Chaochao, Zhao Na, Nan Jianlong, Yan Peng, Tian Yulan and her mother...

All of these things had not faded from his memory; instead, they had become an intrinsic part of it, forming his most recent recollections.

"System, can I go back?"

No response.

"Damn it, aside from assigning missions, what earthly use is this dog of a system?"

Zhou Chen cursed aloud, then calmed his emotions. This was not the first time he had cursed the system; it was merely an emotionless program, and shouting until his mouth went dry would achieve nothing.

"I wonder how they are doing?"

Thinking of this, Zhou Chen felt a pang in his heart. After more than a year of living together, he had developed quite deep attachments. For them to suddenly vanish from his life was something he could not accept overnight.

Sitting quietly on the balcony, gazing out the window, his thoughts drifted to who knows where.

Confirming that he could indeed transmigrate into film and television worlds was a joyous and celebratory matter, but at this very moment, he truly could not bring himself to be happy.

After an unknown duration, the front door suddenly banged loudly, startling Zhou Chen back to awareness. Hearing this sound, he didn't even need to guess who had arrived.

In their household, apart from his young niece who liked to kick the door open, nobody else would make such a commotion.

Zhou Zhiming in the living room walked over and opened the door, and instantly a small figure rushed in.

"Grandpa, Grandpa, where's Uncle? Where's Uncle?"

"Lele, come let Grandpa give you a hug."

Zhou Zhiming happily scooped up the little girl, and at that moment, Zhou Chen also walked out from the balcony.

"Uncle, Uncle..."

Seeing Zhou Chen, little Lele immediately struggled to get out of her grandfather's arms, stretching out her small hands and charging straight toward Zhou Chen.

Zhou Chen grabbed his niece Lele by her armpits and lifted her entire body up into the air. Far from being scared, Lele burst into delighted laughter.

"Lele, did you miss Uncle?"

Lele immediately said loudly, "Yes! Lele missed Uncle the most! Uncle, did you find an Auntie yet?"

Zhou Chen almost spat a mouthful of old blood; that pierced the heart.

Turning his head, he glared at his older sister Zhou Xin who was just walking in and said, "Sis, can't you teach Lele something decent? The first thing she asks me when she sees me is about an auntie?"

"You can't blame me for this; Mom is the one who keeps whispering it in her ear."

Zhou Xin was five years older than Zhou Chen, standing at one meter sixty-nine, with long black hair simply tied into a ponytail, wearing a professional business suit that made her look very capable.

"..."

Zhou Chen didn't know what to say. Cradling Lele in his arms, he asked, "Where is Brother-in-law?"

Zhou Xin put down her bag. As a group insurance manager for an insurance company, she was usually quite busy, and Lele was mostly looked after by her mother-in-law. However, on Saturdays and Sundays, the child was frequently sent over to be cared for by Li Chongping, so Lele was extremely close to the grandparents on both sides.

"Your brother-in-law is busy; he probably won't arrive until lunchtime."

"Oh."

Zhou Chen nodded. His brother-in-law used to be a doctor, but after sustaining an injury, he stopped working at the hospital and instead opened his own pharmacy. He usually had to tend to the shop, making him quite busy as well.