Interstellar Light Computers came in many different versions.
The government-issued Light Computers were the most basic, with functions comparable to phones from a thousand years ago.
For more advanced features, your only option was to buy a high-end model yourself.
An Zeyu was a B-level male, and his family was doing quite well on Blue Star. He also earned money from live streaming and occasionally took on missions.
As a result, he lived a fairly affluent life and naturally used a high-end Light Computer.
One of its features was the ability to test his Riot Value at any time.
He pointed his streaming Xiao Bee at his Light Computer and started the test.
And said, "I tested my Riot Value this morning. Right now, it's 57%."
[Gasp?? How is that possible?]
[Brother Yu, are you sure you remember correctly? I thought your Riot Value this morning was 55%?]
An Zeyu's face was also filled with disbelief. "That's impossible. I have a log of all my Riot Value tests right here."
He tested his Riot Value almost every day. Even when he was busy, he never went more than ten days without checking it.
Therefore, his Light Computer clearly showed that his Riot Value had been holding steady at 57% for months. It hadn't changed in a very long time.
After all, he didn't venture into the wilderness, let alone get into fights. He just took it easy every day, so of course his numbers wouldn't rise quickly.
So the question was, why did it drop by 2% today?
That was equivalent to the result of finding a C-level female to calm him individually for two hours.
But he hadn't done that.
His Riot Value wasn't high enough to require him to pursue a female.
Therefore, the only female he had interacted with today was Jiang Qin.
'Could calming someone just by singing really be this effective?'
He wasn't the only one who didn't believe it; the viewers in his live stream were just as skeptical.
[Don't bother watching, everyone. Isn't he an obvious shill? Streamers these days will tell any lie to make money.]
[If he'd been calmed individually by a female, I wouldn't be questioning it. His Riot Value isn't high, so he's relatively easy to calm. But this was a group calming.
Everyone knows that with group calming in a bar, even if you drink the most expensive Inhibitor, you can only lower your Riot Value by 1% at most when the female is one level below you.
And this streamer... when he came into the bar, he just bought a regular Inhibitor, right?]
[Streamer, this is fraud! How can you do this to your fans?]
Most of the people who followed An Zeyu were, in fact, low-ranking males and Half-beastman males from the lower classes.
They only followed him to find out about places that offered good value for their money.
His streams mostly consisted of him checking out different establishments, and never the really high-end ones.
He had already checked out more than half of the bars on Blue Star.
From him, his fans learned which bars had discounts on Inhibitors and which ones employed females with stronger Calming Power.
That was why they now suspected An Zeyu had been paid by the Moonlight Bar to fake his results and trick them into spending their money there.
Seeing the chat fill up with accusations of fraud, An Zeyu got angry.
"If you want to know whether I'm faking it, just come and see for yourselves! You don't have to take my word for it, but surely you'll believe it if everyone says the same thing, right?"
Just then, the bar owner, You Wei, announced that Jiang Qin would be performing another calming session in an hour.
She did two sessions every night.
"Her next calming session is in an hour. Anyone who's nearby can come see for themselves."
[Fine, I happen to be nearby. I'm coming over to expose this sham myself!]
[We get that you need to make money, but we won't accept being treated like idiots.]
An Zeyu, falsely accused, was about to go mad with anger. It would be one thing if he'd actually taken the money, but the problem was, he hadn't gotten a single thing out of this!
"Fine, fine, fine! Hurry up and get over here! I'm going to clear my name today. I, An Zeyu, have never taken money from a single establishment since the day I started streaming!
Every word I've ever said has been a fair and impartial review."
***
Jiang Qin didn't know about the live stream yet. She was currently backstage, examining the program that had suddenly appeared in her mind.
[Damaged System activated. Reputation Value unlocked.]
That's right—a damaged system had suddenly appeared in her head!
It was damaged because it had bound to her just before her death in her previous life. The moment the process completed, she breathed her last.
The system automatically activated its host-protection mode, consuming all of its energy to send her back to her 18-year-old self.
Having exhausted its energy, the system was now defunct, with only a single module remaining.
Reputation Value and the System Mall.
Things like missions and rewards were all gone.
Reputation Value was easy to understand: it meant becoming famous. However, fame from notoriety didn't count. Only people who genuinely loved her work could generate Reputation Value.
The System Mall, meanwhile, was essentially a cultural archive of Earth.
Any knowledge from Earth could be purchased here using Reputation Value.
In other words, it wouldn't matter even if she ran out of songs she remembered from her past life; she could buy any kind of work she wanted right here.
As for any copyright fees back on Earth, the system had already taken care of them.
Looking at the familiar songs, movies, and TV shows listed there, the anxiety in Jiang Qin's heart subsided considerably.
'I can do it. I can live a better life this time around!'
In both her first and second lives, people had always attacked her for her lack of education.
And they weren't wrong; she truly wasn't well-educated.
After all, she had only lived to the age of thirteen in her first life and had been constantly exploited for money. She had no time for school and had only completed an elementary-level curriculum.
In her second life on the Barren Star, forget about school—her only thought each day was whether she could scavenge something to eat from the junkyard.
And if she did find food, how could she protect it from being stolen?
After she returned to the Jiang Family, they never even considered sending her to school.
Jiang Yulian had brought it up once, but Jiang Ruming quickly talked her out of it, saying that the other students would discriminate against Jiang Qin for coming from a Barren Star and that she would be easily bullied at school.
She said it would be better for Jiang Qin to just stay home, and that she herself would be responsible for teaching her.
Besides, it wasn't really important whether a female got an education or not. Once she found a mate, she'd have someone to provide for her, and she could just enjoy her life without a care in the world.
Jiang Yulian thought it over and agreed. Jiang Qin was only a C-level female with limited Calming Power; there was no need for her to go to school.
Once she turned twenty and found a mate, she could just stay home and focus on calming her male. An education would be useless for that.
So, she decided not to bother with the hassle and simply hired an etiquette tutor to teach Jiang Qin at home.
She did this to prevent Jiang Qin from going out and embarrassing her.
At the time, faced with the mother she had longed to meet for so many years, Jiang Qin compromised. 'I can just teach myself,' she thought. 'After all, that's what I did in my first life.'
'Lots of child stars work and study on their own. It's not that big of a deal.'
But a great many things happened after that, causing Jiang Qin's heart to finally grow cold.
To refuse the mate the Jiang Family arranged for her, she left home at the age of twenty, only to die again at twenty-two.
So really, she had never lived a long life, nor had she ever received a proper, systematic education.