The Interstellar Queen of Scavengers

Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Star Network Laborer

Ding Dong——

[You have worked for 1 hour and successfully collected 60 energy points, including 10 points beyond the basic quota. Accumulated: 2.2 credit points. The hourly wage of 2.2 credit points has been credited to your account. Would you like to continue working?]

Hearing the system notification, Ji You put down her axe and wiped the sweat from her brow. She felt a bit tired and thought she probably couldn’t endure another hour of work, so she said, ”No.”

System: [Wishing you a pleasant evening.]

After the system closed the work interface, the wood stakes that Ji You had been chopping and leaving scattered around the yard instantly disappeared.

Having done an hour of hard labor, Ji You had earned 2.2 credit points. She checked her account balance and saw a total of only 152.2 credit points, which made her eyebrows twitch involuntarily.

This was all she had to her name.

So poor.

But—

What could be done about it?

In the entire interstellar era, all high-paying jobs have thresholds for Physical Strength and spiritual power. With her current health condition, Ji You’s Physical Level is E, and her Spiritual Level is F. To describe her in two words: ’useless’.

Being such ’useless’ material, Ji You had no way to find a job with good salary and benefits. This was also the reason why, half a year after crossing over, she was still picking up trash and doing menial work on the Star Network.

Having stopped her logging work, Ji You sat in the small courtyard, brewed herself a pot of tea, and rested for a while. She had originally planned to browse the Star Network casually, but after spending several hours collecting trash today and getting a bit of a scare, coupled with her online store receiving bad reviews, and the increasing headache, she felt physically and mentally exhausted. So she decided to log off early.

To return to real space.

The grass and flowers, bees and butterflies, blue skies and white clouds, and her cozy little courtyard... all disappeared. The real world only had a cold, interstellar standard model house: three rooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, with just basic furnishings and necessities, devoid of any extra decor and devoid of any feeling of home.

Ji You felt somewhat sad.

In her past life, she was an orphan, and in this life, the original owner of her body lost her parents at the age of eight. Afterward, her paternal uncle’s family forcibly took her in, incidentally taking over the assets left by her parents.

Just like all wicked relatives, her paternal uncle’s family turned out to be exceedingly bad. After getting their hands on the inheritance, they started to disdain the original owner, were harsh on her regularly, and allowed their own children to beat her. This led to the original owner not being able to bear it anymore, running away from her uncle’s house and returning to her own home.

Her paternal uncle’s family not only did not take the initiative to bring her back, but they also spread rumors saying that the original owner was ungrateful, that she often lost her temper at home and quarreled with her siblings. Since Ji You preferred to live alone, they gave her the keys to her house to live by herself.

Thus—

The house of the original owner returned to her hands, but— all the valuables inside had been stripped by her paternal uncle’s family, leaving Ji You with nothing but an empty house.

As a result, the original owner had learned to live alone since the age of ten.

The original owner was somewhat introverted and did not like socializing with strangers. Apart from neighbors she knew, she had very few friends, and even fewer she could confide in.

Then,

the misfortunes of life continued to envelop this frail and pitiful young girl. This year, she turned eighteen and graduated from the Alliance’s free compulsory education. During the entrance exams, she successfully got accepted into the Lanyue Star Mechanical Materials Department. However, before the graduation notification was issued, her best classmate Xu Siyu reported her for plagiarizing someone else’s work.

Xu Siyu presented a research report of her own, which, upon verification, proved that Xu Siyu had proposed the research a year earlier than Ji You and had published it first. With all the evidence, Xu Siyu’s accusation was substantiated, and Ji You’s results were annulled.

And Xu Siyu took Ji You’s place, becoming a new student in the Mechanical Materials Department of Lanyue Star.

What is the truth?

It was Xu Siyu who, taking advantage of her relationship with the original owner of the body, proactively inquired about her creative ideas, stole her achievements, and published them ahead of time.

But with irrefutable evidence, the laws and regulations, teachers, and classmates... all stood on Xu Siyu’s side. Ji You, unable to refute the charges, overwhelmed by helplessness and despair, ended her life resolutely on a quiet night.

After that, Ji You from the 21st century came through time.

...

Ji You clutched her chest and let out a soft sigh: ”Is it you? Are you—still grieving?”

Strangely, whenever Ji You thought about the cause of the original owner’s suicide, she would feel an inexplicable pain in her chest. Therefore, she boldly suspected that it was the influence of the original owner’s consciousness.

Or perhaps—

The original owner hadn’t left this body?

Ji You asked softly, ”If you’re still here, please tell me, how can I give the body back to you?”

Truth be told, Ji You was not willing to occupy someone else’s body, even if it was voluntarily given up by the original owner. If possible, she wouldn’t want to occupy it either. However, her time travel was also confusing; she had no idea what had happened.

Before traveling through time, although Ji You was an orphan, she was very resilient in character and did not feel inferior or lonely because of this. On the contrary, she seized every learning and self-improvement opportunity, and through continuous effort, not only did she strive to secure a house of her own in the city, establish a home, but she also had the excess energy to support other children from the orphanage where she grew up to attend school...

Knowing the importance of learning, Ji You lived frugally. The money she earned was almost entirely used to fund the children’s education, so she had no time to consider matters of love. Until her time travel, she remained a single woman past the usual age for marriage, yet all of those things were not a concern for Ji You. She believed in fate; if her other half hadn’t appeared yet, it was just because the right time hadn’t come—

Ji You was very satisfied with her life.

If she could, she really didn’t want to time travel.

So, how did Ji You time travel? She remembered that after work that day, she realized that several children from the orphanage had declining grades, and this worried her immensely. So, she went to buy some study materials and exercise books for the kids and was on her way to deliver them when suddenly a piece of an iron plate fell from a building and hit her on the head. Struck by the Iron Plate, Ji You found everything going dark and lost consciousness immediately. The next time she woke up, she found herself in the body of a girl who, out of despair and helplessness, had committed suicide.

Except for their different ages, not only did they share the same name, but their bodies and appearances were identical too, which greatly surprised and astonished Ji You. However, despite the physical resemblance, Ji You was fully aware that this body was not hers, and this person was not her.

After Ji You asked the question, the sharp pain in her heart suddenly paused for a moment, and after a short while, the paused heartbeat began to quiver intensely without warning. She felt the world spinning—