The first rays of the sun were just gracing the sky.
Chen Ying opened her eyes and turned to the side. What greeted her was a sky full of fluffy white clouds alight with warm light through the airplane window.
It took her a moment to process that it had actually worked. 'I'm really back,' she thought to herself.
Looking at the stunning view through the airplane window, Chen Ying marvelled over the fact that she had not only come back, but she had been reborn to the time before the reality show.
'The reality show' had been a literal nightmare for her and had ultimately led to her death.
Chen Ying really had to give some brownie points to her system this once. Even though most of the time it was utterly useless and infuriatingly stingy, it had finally come through for once.
If she had been reborn any later, she might not have been able to redeem her image, let alone take revenge as she wanted to.
Even if she managed to do it, it would have been really troublesome because the previous time, her reputation had been destroyed beyond repair while on this reality show.
Wang Bai, that white lotus, had already started her schemes before they even landed in her previous life, and Chen Ying had been fully oblivious and helpless.
This time, though, she would be prepared. Not only prepared, but she would also be ready to give everything back tenfold. Chen Ying was confident in herself, and all her previous hardships would be for nothing.
Chen Ying stretched to loosen her muscles and looked around. She was sitting inside her family's private plane. Her family was a major investor in the show, so under their pressure, the production team had let her and Wang Bai arrive on the island in a private plane.
It felt really funny to her how she was criticised for taking the private plane online, but Wang Bai, who had travelled with her on the same plane, had been praised for being a real phoenix.
In reality, Wang Bai was just a maid's daughter, but everyone online thought that she was the real eldest miss of the Chen family, while she herself was the 'fake' one.
Chen Ying had only come to know about this in her previous life because after landing on the island, they had been allowed a last call to their family before the filming officially started, and she had been scolded by her eldest brother on the call for 'ruining' the family's reputation. He had also briefly told her about all the things circulating online.
The last thing she heard from him was a warning not to destroy the family reputation more than she already had.
Chen Ying remembered feeling angry about the fact that she was labelled as the 'fake' daughter and going to Wang Bai so that she could help her clear this misunderstanding online.
'Why didn't I end up doing it though?' It was quite bizarre. All she could remember was feeling dizzy when she wanted to talk to Wang Bai, and later she seemed to have forgotten all about it.
Chen Ying was almost fully sure that Wang Bai had a hand in it, but the question was how.
She was sure that she hadn't eaten or drunk anything before going to find Wang Bai, so being drugged was out of the question.
How had she managed to make her forget it? She had to figure it out somehow so that she wouldn't fall for her tricks again.
Chen Ying wracked her brain, trying to remember if she had noticed anything odd about Wang Bai in her previous life, but it was to no avail.
"Just what cheap tricks are you using"? Chen Ying muttered under her breath.
"Whatt!" The system exclaimed loudly, startling Chen Ying so badly that she almost fell from her seat. "How dare you accuse me of using tricks right after I fulfilled your wish. It's not my fault that you're almost out of points now because you had just a lousy amount in the first place," the system continued with a humph.
Chen Ying rolled her eyes at the system's words. Usually, it was acting all high and mighty, but whenever points were mentioned, it turned into a diva right away.
"I wasn't even talking about you", Chen Ying said to the system, which made it shut up immediately.
"Ahem, so what's the matter, dear host? Maybe I could lend a helping hand regarding whatever is troubling you", the system replied timidly after realising that its outburst had been quite pointless.
Chen Ying immediately got suspicious upon hearing that. Her system was a point-grubbing little s**t.
At first, when the system had picked her soul after her death and promised to help her get her revenge, Chen Ying had been really grateful. She had quickly agreed to bind herself to it and even agreed to give the system half of her 'points'.
At that time she didn't even know how she would earn those said points. It was only later that she found out that she had to accumulate points by completing 'missions' in different worlds.
Chen Ying didn't have a say in these missions at all. After painstakingly completing each mission, she still had to give half of her points to the system, which had been of little to no help.
After completing missions nonstop one after another for who knows how long, Chen Ying was finally able to accumulate enough points to return to her original world.
Just thinking about how the system had been almost useless to her during her missions, Chen Ying could feel her blood boil, but she quickly calmed herself.
She really needed to be aware of Wang Bai's tricks, and despite having all her memories from her previous life, she couldn't think of anything at all.
Chen Ying really could not afford to be vulnerable now, so she decided to bite the bullet.
"Can you find out if there is anything unusual going on with Wang Bai"?
"Sure", the system answered affirmatively, which surprised Chen Ying. She had thought that the system would try to scam her out of her remaining points.
About a minute later, the system's voice sounded again, "Wang Bai seems to have an artefact".
Chen Ying was not too surprised upon hearing this, as she had already suspected this.
"What does the artefact do, exactly?" She asked the system.
"Five points," the system demanded.
'Aha, I knew it. Of course, this stinky system wants to take my points again,' Chen Ying thought to herself.
"Two points", she also stated directly. She was used to bargaining with the system for everything.
"Three points and I will reveal another secret related to Wang Bai," the system said with a smug voice.
"Fine, deal", Chen Ying accepted, as the offer was really too tempting.
After the system had finished deducting the points, it was just about to explain the details related to the artefact when a knock suddenly interrupted them.
"Yingying, come out...", a sugary voice called out from the door.