The situation among the Chen siblings had become strange. In fact, that was an understatement.

  May was busy with other responsibilities that day. She heard some of the things that happened, but even she didn't know everything they talked about that day.

  It had been raining heavily outside for hours, with thunderstorms every few minutes. It was the perfect weather for Zu Chen to be back from his mission.

  “Zu...” Peng said in a quiet voice as he waited for his sister to return. He was soaked from the rain, and the cold had numbed his hands. “You're back.”

  He had been standing in the rain for a long time. The mission had been delayed, which caused him great uneasiness.

  Zu Chen stood next to a tall woman with curly black hair and delicate, extremely pale skin. It was hard to believe that the woman was over a century old, as she looked less than thirty.

  “You've grown so much, Peng! The last time I saw you, you were so small!” she said with a smile, bringing her hand close to the ground. “You shouldn't be standing in the rain like this.”

  “I'll be fine,” he replied with a slight dissatisfaction. He didn't like that they weren't taking him seriously when he was so concerned about their welfare. “What happened?”

  “Nothing really, it just took a little longer than expected. But it's just women's stuff,” replied Chunyang Hu, winking at Peng.

  He felt a twinge in his heart. Zu Chen had always been confiding in him about everything, and now, for the first time in his life, he felt like he had no idea what was at stake.

  “Zu...” He addressed her again. She looked fine, even better than usual. She certainly didn't look like she was suffering from not taking her pills. “Can you explain all this to me...?”

  There was silence, and it was very awkward.

  “Don't worry about me,” she replied tersely and without emotion.

  For Peng, it was too much, and he exploded with all the feelings that had been weighing on him for a long time.

  “How can I not worry about you?! I have no idea what's going on with you!” he shouted resentfully. He just wanted to be able to help her.

  Chunyang Hu approached Peng, grabbed his arm, and shook her head disapprovingly.

  “Peng, do you care about your sister?” she asked seriously.

  “I...”

  “Yes or no. There is no other answer. And even if there is, I won't accept it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then please let her go for now,” she said, kneeling on one knee to lower herself to his level. “You'll find out everything soon. If you want her to be happy, let her be.”

  “But... I can help, whatever it is,” he said. He didn't understand any of it.

  Suddenly, she stopped taking the pills that allowed her to function and just as suddenly set off on a mission with a distant relative she hadn't seen in years. Despite this, she looked well.

  Suddenly, his sister approached him. Chunyang Hu moved aside to make room for her. Zu Chen came within a few steps. He closed his eyes, sensing that she was about to slap him.

  Instead, he felt the warmth of a hug. He returned it. How many years had passed since the last time they had been close?

  From the moment she first started being drugged, their relationship ceased to exist. They were siblings, but Peng felt like a stranger to her.

  He loved her and would give his life for her, but he hated her as a person. Or rather, he hated who she had become. And most of all, he hated those who had done this to her.

  Zu Chen whispered, “I know you want to help, but... It's better this way. For you.”

  “Zu...?”

  “No. Have you said you trust me?” she asked in a quiet voice. Peng thought about how unlike her that was. She was usually dry and cold, but now she seemed to resemble the old Zu who had died, at least a little.

  “Yes.”

  “Then please. Please, please, please.” She said in a quiet and weak voice. “Forget about all this and let's pretend it's like it used to be.”

  Peng, not knowing what to say, nodded. He wanted to go back to the way things used to be. Even if it meant sweet ignorance. In the end, he couldn't care less, he just wanted to have a sister.

  ───── ??☆?? ─────

  May understood perfectly well that she had no right to question Peng's decision. After all, it was his family's business. However, after hearing all this, May couldn't help feeling that his sister was too shady.

  With each encounter, May shifted her opinion of Zu Chen. At first, she considered her to be a cold and pragmatic child, then a victim of domestic violence, and later a tragic story of collapse. Now, however, she sensed that all these developments were heading in a bad direction.

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  But again, what could she do in the current situation? She decided it was best to do nothing. Although she didn't like her own feelings, she was currently a little fed up with the twins.

  She liked Peng and felt sorry for Zu, but their problems had become too burdensome for her and seemed to be heading in some strange direction. May was almost certain that it would all end in tragedy.

  And when it happened, she was afraid that if she happened to be standing too close, she might also take a blow.

  She suddenly came to her senses when she noticed that someone was speaking to her.

  “May, can you take a look at the board? I think Chao made an illegal move...” the girl asked her awkwardly, pointing to the chess game.

  She decided to take advantage of the fact that many people were trying to curry favor with her. Many people believed she had a bright future ahead of her, so they wanted to establish a relationship with her.

  So May had been socializing by showing them the game she had ‘invented’. The response had been quite positive, although she wasn't sure if it was out of politeness towards her or genuine satisfaction with the product.

  “Yes, it's a legal move. En passant may seem a little strange, but Chao is right in this case. Let me explain...”

  Promoting chess, however, meant having to explain the rules over and over again. After all, she was the only person in the world who knew the rules.

  Over time, though, it should get easier... Maybe I should write the rules down somewhere? That would make it a little easier for me.

  “Strange... But if you say so, Sister Shang!” she said with a smile.

  Popularity came in handy in such matters. She had even received a few inquiries about the possibility of purchasing a chess board. Of course, it still wasn't something that could make her rich, but it was a good start.

  Good promotion is fundamental. No one will buy a game they don't know or understand. These children from well-off families will buy the board, take it home, and teach their relatives, who will also want to buy their own boards.

  On Saturday, I have to place a bulk order to have these boards made.

  May could, of course, buy these boards from the system at less than half the price. However, it would be suspicious if she had dozens of boards in stock made by who knows who.

  So she intended to mix the real boards made by real craftsmen, which would be the official source, with cheap boards created by the system.

  Financially, this was obviously not an ideal solution, but security was more important, even if it was unlikely that anyone would want to find out the source of this wooden game.

  Minnie also seemed pleased: “You got six orders at 300 mu per chessboard. You'll order three from real craftsmen for 250 and three from the system for 100 [mu], so you'll earn over 750! Not bad for your first week.”

  Yeah... But hardly anyone can afford to pay 300 [mu] for a stupid chessboard. Only six rich kids ordered it... That price is too high for normal people to pay for entertainment.

  “They pay for quality. It could be done cheaper, but that would mean lowering the quality,” Minnie said. “Well, that's also an option. You can try to make a worse but cheaper version.”

  For now, it's better to focus on the exclusive versions. After all, nowhere else is there such a density of rich people as in this academy.

  “Right. For example, that boy Chao, who is playing with that girl right now. I heard him saying that his parents give him two and a half thousand [mu] per month! Ridiculous! We have to work so hard to earn even a fraction of that amount.”

  May laughed to herself. That boy is the son of the owner of the sect's largest bank. His parents spare no expense to provide him with everything he needs, especially since he is their only child and their successor...

  However, chess was only the beginning. It was something simple to create, but unknown to this world.

  Even when considering games, numerous other choices existed. Checkers, UNO, or even Monopoly. By themselves they weren’t complex and they could be remade in this place.

  However...

  She was a scientist! Board games? It was just a simple test. She smiled to herself, ignoring the children playing chess.

  The Haber-Bosch process, the industrial production of ammonia! Satisfactory soil was lacking throughout the entire region. The mountainous terrain was unfavorable for farming, but nitrogen fertilizers produced using this method would provide her with wealth so unimaginable to this world that it would send shivers down the spines of even the richest individuals in the world.

  Antibiotics, insulin, and of course engines to start the industrial revolution! Each of these things hid enormous wealth!

  It wasn't easy. Even May, with all her earthly knowledge, had no experience in such various fields, but she had something that gave her confidence. A system!

  She wouldn't succeed in a few years, or even decades, but cultivators could live for hundreds of years! Cultivation enabled some cultivators to develop some fields very well. However, this caused stagnation.

  Why study steam engines when Qi energy is much more efficient? A typical cultivator would not waste hundreds of hours researching something that could be done seemingly ‘more easily’. Mathematics? A waste of time, only addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are important! Higher mathematics? Even the most powerful cultivators ignored the power of this field. They considered it a waste of time.

  However, May understood that even without Qi energy, science was capable of much more than the people of this world realized.

  However, for this to be possible, I need money, and a lot of it. I will start with things that are easy and simple to copy, and slowly work my way up, starting with increasingly impressive investments!

  Chess sparked some interest, but it was hard to call it a trend. Even if the game had become hugely popular, fakes would have emerged quickly. May intended to take over the market with top-quality chess sets.

  After all, this applied to all aspects of life. The clothes of the poor and the rich were different, as were furniture and even food. The wealthy wanted to show off their wealth.

  May, however, did not currently have sufficient funds to mass-produce cheap chess boards. Small scale but high quality seemed to be the better option at the moment.

  The meeting and chess games lasted another half hour. May wondered whether to start a small chess club, as it would be good promotion for the game. To do so, she would need more chessboard.

  The meeting finally came to an end.

  She returned to her room at the House of Grass. She closed the door and began cultivating. She couldn't neglect the basics. Lately, she had been too busy studying alchemy for the test.

  The twins were already close to the seventh stage, and May didn't want to fall behind. She bought pills from the system that accelerated her cultivation rate by 50%. They were not available anywhere else on the continent.

  She could only maintain her current cultivation rate thanks to the system.

  She finished after three hours, and it was already dark outside. She was tired, but she still had to read a few chapters of the third-year alchemy book. The number of medicinal plants gave her a headache.

  “Ugh, there's not much time left,” she said to herself as she opened the book.