So I Had No Choice But to Stop Being the White Moonlight – Chapter 114
by Little PandaI’m Not Going to Be the White Moonlight
“Shi Jinlan, I really hate you.”
A gust of wind swept past the sun, scattering the light and the flower petals in Song Tang’s hand.
The crimson petals scattered, drifting across Song Tang’s vision before burning away into ash in the distance.
She stared blankly at Yuan Ming, who was shielding her, her eyes filled with a dazed confusion.
She watched Shi Jinlan approach from a distance, her pupils reflecting shock and alarm. The name that escaped her lips was, “Ah Lan⦔
Those two words took Shi Jinlan by surprise, but they also made her understand something.
Song Tang’s expression was one of complete bewilderment, or perhaps she was immersed in the memories Yuan Ming had modified for her.
“I never thought the Lord Main System would stoop to something so despicable,” Shi Jinlan said coldly, finally understanding what Yuan Ming had been doing during the days she was missing.
Yuan Ming paid Shi Jinlan’s words little mind.
Her attention was entirely on Song Tang. She looked at her, her eyes soft and gentle, and said, “Go back inside first. This will be over in a moment.”
Song Tang felt that something wasn’t right. As she hesitated, Shi Jinlan’s voice followed. “Is Miss Song truly uninterested in what happened after you left?”
Song Tang froze.
The astonishment in her eyes was no longer just about Shi Jinlan being alive; it was also that Shi Jinlan somehow knew she wasn’t Chi Qian.
Song Tang wasn’t entirely clear on how she had completed her mission.
She only remembered that when she woke up, Yuan Ming had told her the mission was complete.
She had found out that Yuan Ming was the Main System while carrying out the mission. So she believed that Yuan Ming had the power to ensure the story proceeded smoothly, even if Shi Jinlan hadn’t fallen in love with her.
Perhaps she really had jumped off the cliff. Perhaps Yuan Ming had altered the criteria for mission completion.
Seeing the corresponding mission points she had received, Song Tang hadn’t given it any more thought.
But in reality, not even Yuan Ming, as the Main System, could forcibly connect the story.
If the mission was unsuccessful, the plot could not advance. The world had collapsed after her mission. Yuan Ming had merely sealed away this segment of memory, along with everything that followed: her becoming a bar owner, meeting the real Chi Qian, and returning to this world once moreβall of it was sealed away in her mind.
This matter should have been foolproof.
If it weren’t for Shi Jinlan, an awakened puppet.
Seeing Song Tang begin to doubt the memories she had fabricated, Yuan Ming abruptly raised a hand, intending to drive Shi Jinlan away.
Eliminating threats to the System’s existence was the Main System’s duty.
Puppets were only meant to be obedient, not to develop self-awareness!
A System that controls characters and a character that awakens are natural enemies. It has nothing to do with love or hate.
And Shi Jinlan’s learning speed was far faster than Yuan Ming had imagined.
Yuan Ming raised her hand, sending an arrow of electricity straight for Shi Jinlan. But Shi Jinlan remained perfectly calm. With a slight sidestep, she dodged Yuan Ming’s attack.
She walked across the soft lawn, her steps steady and casual.
Her heels crushed the newly bloomed flowers, showing no pity for the garden Yuan Ming had so meticulously cared for.
“Yuan Ming, stop fooling yourself,” Shi Jinlan said coldly, a reminder of the dream Yuan Ming had woven for Song Tang, and for herself.
“Fooling myself?” Yuan Ming sneered. “If you hadn’t come, we could have lived here for a lifetime, until we grew old and died.”
At this, Yuan Ming clenched her jaw.
Her gentle eyes were filled with indignant resentment. “Why? Why must you ruin my plans again and again!”
As she spoke, Yuan Ming gathered a ball of electricity in her hand and unleashed a powerful strike at Shi Jinlan.
“Because Chi Qian is gone.” Shi Jinlan’s voice was colder than ice.
She stared straight at the current rushing toward her. With a lift of her hand, the bracelet on her wrist produced countless silver-white barriers, swallowing Yuan Ming’s attack whole.
Yuan Ming looked at Chi Qian’s bracelet, and for a moment, her tense expression crumbled.
That was Chi Qian’s bracelet.
It was the bracelet she had created back then to protect Chi Qian. Even though she had been forced to add code to it later, nearly getting her killed, all she had ever wanted was for Chi Qian to be safe.
For her not to fall in love with Shi Jinlan.
For her not to love Shi Jinlan again.
But things had gone against her wishes.
Yuan Ming had gone to great lengths to give Chi Qian a different kind of happiness, but no matter what, she always found her way back to Shi Jinlan.
“Song Tang, if you want your memories, open your System channel.”
Just as Yuan Ming’s emotions were in turmoil, Shi Jinlan’s voice rang out.
Yuan Ming had no idea how Shi Jinlan had obtained these things, but she knew she wasn’t bluffing. She spun around and covered Song Tang’s ears. “Ah Song, don’t listen to her!”
After all this time together, Song Tang had never seen Yuan Ming so flustered.
With her ears covered by this person, the world instantly fell silent, leaving only the two of them, their eyes locked. The sunlight fell on Yuan Ming’s dark pupils, refracting two images of Song Tang in her vision.
Her lover’s hands were warm and soft, a feeling Song Tang cherished most.
During their days here, her favorite thing was to drink wine in the evening with the lake breeze, because Yuan Ming would always lean over and rest her head on her shoulder, staying like that for a long, long time.
Song Tang had once told Chi Qian that not just people, but Systems too, would subconsciously avoid unknown risks.
And now she was facing that very problem: should she choose to continue living in this dreamlike world, or face the reality she had forgotten?
The past?
What pastβ¦
Song Tang was surprised by the name that had just flashed through her mind. Something felt wrong.
“I won’t listen to her,” Song Tang told Yuan Ming, her expression calm. As she spoke, she raised her hands and pulled Yuan Ming’s from her ears.
Their long, slender fingers intertwined, their love for each other unchanged.
And Song Tang’s stubborn desire for the truth was also unchanged. “But data doesn’t lie.”
Yuan Ming couldn’t stop her. The moment Song Tang said those words, she opened her System channel.
The data that Shi Jinlan had Thirteen prepare instantly connected. The memories, locked by an encryption key, came flooding back to Song Tang, so violently that her eyes reddened and tears began to fall.
“Ah Qian, you just jump. I won’t let you die.”
β¦
“Ah Yuanβ¦ Ah Yuan, I thought I’d never see you again.”
β¦
“Ah Lan, what are you doing here?”
“Didβ¦ did you know about Ah Yuan and me all along?”
β¦
“Grandfatherβ¦ Grandfather!”
“Iβ¦ I will definitely be happy with Ah Yuan, you can rest assured⦔
β¦
“Sheβ¦ she’s a good person, too.”
Fragmented memories unfolded in Song Tang’s mind. She saw a completely different, yet more real, past.
She and Yuan Ming had fled, but the mission had unexpectedly been completed; she had confessed to Shi Jinlan and seen a loneliness in her eyes that didn’t belong to her; Chi Qingyan had passed away, and he had known she wasn’t Chi Qianβ¦
She really wasn’t a very good Mission-Taker. She had made a mess of the role she was supposed to play, and had even pursued the wrong person.
In her memory, a great flood of water surged toward her, and in the blink of an eye, she was back in the System.
She had forgotten everything and become a bar owner.
She had metβ¦
She had met the real Chi Qian.
Back at the bar, Song Tang had always felt an inexplicable connection with Chi Qian.
So, of course, they had later become the best of friends.
And only now did Song Tang understand why she had felt such a kinship with Chi Qian.
And the memories of Chi Qian as a programmerβwhose were they?
“Where’s Qianqian?”
Fat tears streamed from Song Tang’s eyes. Her face a mess, she looked at Yuan Ming, then at Shi Jinlan, trying to find her friend in their eyes.
“I’d like to ask the same question,” Shi Jinlan said, her gaze fixed coldly on Yuan Ming.
She was holding a dagger. Moving with a speed Yuan Ming hadn’t even noticed, she was suddenly beside her. “Where did Chi Qian go?”
“She fell into the Data Black Hole,” Yuan Ming said faintly, completely ignoring the blade at her neck as she stared at Shi Jinlan with hatred. “That’s where you were supposed to go. Ah Qian disappeared because of you!”
“Was it because of me, or because of you!” Hearing this, fury surged through Shi Jinlan. She pressed the blade against Yuan Ming’s neck, and the blade broke the skin, drawing a thin line of blood.
It would be all too easy for the current Shi Jinlan to end Yuan Ming’s life.
But she held back.
She knew that if Yuan Ming died, Chi Qian would be sad.
And it was because of the trace of Yuan Ming that had initially attached to Chi Qian’s soul that Chi Qian hadn’t dissolved into data and vanished within the System, allowing them this reunion.
They were two people who couldn’t get along.
But for the sake of one person, they would both stand on the same side.
“Do you have any idea that people who enter the Data Black Hole slowly forget their past? They walk forward with no destination. No one has ever made it out.”
“If you want to find her, then walk right in.”
As Yuan Ming spoke, she opened a passage that only the Main System had the authority to open.
The chaotic blackness distorted the time around it. The wind blew past, and in an instant, it devoured the drifting flower petals.
Yuan Ming just watched Shi Jinlan, her gentle eyes filled with a cold light, meeting Shi Jinlan’s gaze.
She could see Shi Jinlan’s obsession, her despicableness, her cold indifference, and she had used these things to test her again and again.
Even just once?
If she had shown even a hint of retreat when it came to Chi Qian, just once, Yuan Ming would have had every reason to make Chi Qian forget her.
But even now, faced with such a question, Shi Jinlan’s voice was still resolute. “Fine.”
The cold word struck Yuan Ming’s eardrums. She then watched as Shi Jinlan walked toward the passage she had opened.
Shi Jinlan moved forward without a second thought. As long as she could find Chi Qian, she was willing to pay any price, even if it meant forgetting their past memories.
β”I think I know why it doesn’t matter anymore.”
β”Because even if I forget you, I will still fall in love with you.”
The sunlight devoured the surrounding shadows, blurring the very definition of a “person.”
Just as Shi Jinlan was about to step inside, a gentle hand grabbed her.
“Wait.”
Yuan Ming had stopped Shi Jinlan.
She looked anxious, her expression a tangle of reluctance. After a long hesitation, she finally said to Shi Jinlan, “There’s a segment of data in Ah Qian’s memory that originally belonged to Ah Song. After the passage opens, Ah Song might be able to try and sense Ah Qian.”
Shi Jinlan paused when she heard this.
She followed the warmth of the hand on her wrist, and a look of realization crossed her face. “You knew all along.”
At her words, Yuan Ming tightened her grip on Shi Jinlan’s wrist, making no attempt to hide it.
She was an imperfect program.
She had only become the Main System because she was called upon in a crisis.
She was supposed to be nothing but a cluster of data, yet she yearned for her identity as a human.
BOOM!
Suddenly, a clap of thunder echoed from the horizon.
Lightning split the sky, bleaching it a deathly white.
The passage Yuan Ming had opened was chaotically consuming everything around it, and the already fragile world began to collapse.
This beautiful dream she had woven for Song Tang could no longer continue, because Song Tang had awakened.
She still had her duties. She had to go back and maintain her System.
Yuan Ming looked up at the world she had written with her own hands, watching the program fragments peel away from the sky, her eyes filled with sorrow. “Shi Jinlan, I really hate you.”
From beginning to end, Yuan Ming’s feelings for Shi Jinlan had always been complicated.
It could be called hate, but that sliver of kindness in her heart made it impossible for her to truly, properly hate.
Shi Jinlan was indeed an outstanding person. Even after being worn down by the System like this, her back had never once broken.
If she hadn’t resisted the other “Chi Qians,” causing the world to restart over and over, Yuan Ming would never have met Song Tang.
But it was precisely because Shi Jinlan’s subconscious was always trying to find the real Chi Qian, even when she had forgotten, that Song Tang had vanished from the world, forcing Yuan Ming to search the entire System for her, to no avail.
Yuan Ming thought that she could understand Shi Jinlan’s feelings at this moment.
Because what she was experiencing now was what Yuan Ming herself had experienced many years ago.
But she felt no pleasure in it.
Because the person Shi Jinlan could never find was her best friend, the person she had wished happiness for since the very first lifetime.
“The feeling is mutual,” Shi Jinlan replied coldly, her face impassive as she watched the world disintegrate.
She thought that her initial intuition about Yuan Ming had been correct.
They really were the same kind of person, both willing to overturn the world for the one they loved.
The night was silent and lonely. Autumn cicadas1 hid behind the dense leaves, their long calls stretching out the night.
A sparrow perched on a branch very close to the window waited for a long time, but the warm yellow light inside never came on. It flapped its wings and landed on the windowsill.
“Tap tap, tap tap.”
At the two crisp sounds, the person lying on the sofa frowned.
Chi Qian’s consciousness was hazy. She fumbled with her arm for a long while before her hand found the light switch above her head.
The sudden light was unfamiliar, making her squint for a while.
A warm yellow glow filled the small room with a cozy atmosphere. Chi Qian opened her eyes, dazed, one of her legs dangling in the air.
She realized she had fallen asleep on the sofa.
What was she doing before she fell asleep?
Chi Qian had forgotten. She only remembered that she seemed to have just had a dream. In the dream, cold, damp seawater enveloped her, and she was stretching out her arm, trying desperately to reach someone through the chaotic darkness.
But she couldn’t reach them.
No matter how she struggled, that person remained just out of reach, slowly sinking, sinking into the deep sea.
The thought alone made a knot of irresolvable grief tighten in her chest.
Tears streamed from her eyes without warning. She felt as if her spine had been ripped out. She curled up on the sofa, letting the tears trace messy paths down her cheeks.
But why?
It was just a dream, so why was she so sad?
A fierce unwillingness to ever let someone slip through her fingers again pressed into her palm, so sharp she didn’t even notice her long fingernails digging into her own flesh.
“Knock knock knock.”
Just then, Chi Qian heard a knock at the door.
She looked up toward the entrance, and the light in the foyer suddenly flickered on.
The author has something to say:
They’ll see each other tomorrow!
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Lanlan and Xiao Ming are actually really interesting. Because of their relationships with Qianqian and Tangtang, they can’t stand each other, but they have to coexist peacefully.
It’s the kind of situation where, at a dinner party, Xiao Ming would gently and “accidentally” splash soup on Lanlan. Lanlan would calmly say it’s fine, then splash her own soup on Xiao Ming.
Then the two big kids would start calmly splashing each other until they were caught by their respective wives, given a stern talking-to, forced to wash each other’s clothes, and then made to clean up the battlefield together.
Hahahaha
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