Little Alpaca – Chapter 138

Volume 3: Old Tales of Kunlun

The System, It Isn’t A Thing.

Yi Qiu really wanted to kneel down to You Yan. She knew this bird woman’s desire for possession was very strong, able to eat vinegar¹ over any living thing, but she truly hadn’t thought that the System would also be unable to escape this calamity.

She froze for quite a while under You Yan’s extremely dissatisfied gaze, and only then did she blankly say, “The System, it isn’t a thing².”

【Ying?】³

“Didn’t curse you!” Yi Qiu comforted the System in her heart, raised her eyes to look at You Yan again, and continued, “How should I explain its existence to you… This System, it transcends the Six Paths⁴. It isn’t human, isn’t xian⁵, isn’t ghost or god, nor is it yao or mo⁶. It isn’t any kind of living creature of this world. It is just, just a kind of… a kind of existence, yet one you can’t see, can’t touch, and can’t smell… System!”

“……”

“Can, can you understand?” Yi Qiu sat beside You Yan, blinking her eyes at her.

You Yan’s brows knitted even tighter; clearly, she was unable to comprehend the nonsense coming out of Yi Qiu’s mouth.

Yi Qiu propped her chin up and considered this seriously for a moment. Finally, she shook her head helplessly, looked up at You Yan, and said with a face full of seriousness, “I also don’t know how to describe its existence to you. I can only say, I truly have no way to let you see or hear it. But if you care that much about what I’ve said to it, then I can tell you everything directly from now on, not hiding a single strand of silk or a single hair⁷!”

You Yan was silent for a moment, then couldn’t resist asking out of curiosity, “Then what did you say to it in the past?”

“I don’t like talking to it either; it has so much nonsense to say, and frequently can’t help with anything.” Yi Qiu thought for a bit, then said earnestly, “However, for many things, if I don’t know them, I can try asking it. It might tell me, or it might brush me off… Also, it provides me with some numerical references.”

“What does that mean?”

“For example, there is a value called ‘You Yan Favorability Rating’.” As Yi Qiu spoke, she couldn’t help pursing her lips, her eyes filled with suppressed laughter.

“What is that?” You Yan couldn’t help but be surprised.

Yi Qiu cleared her throat and said, “This is a value monitored and recorded based on your feelings toward me… It allows me to very clearly know the degree of your fondness or aversion toward me.”

A trace of anger appeared in You Yan’s eyes. “It dares to spy on me?”

In that instant, Yi Qiu didn’t doubt for a second that if the System possessed a physical body and soul, it would likely be tortured to death by You Yan using those cruel methods written in the original text.

After all, in the original text, You Yan had always been a villain who knew very well how to make people’s lives worse than death⁸.

It was a pity, though, that You Yan couldn’t see this System no matter what.

“It dares to spy on everyone!” Yi Qiu responded, continuing her story. “In the beginning, you only had a favorability of fifty toward me. At that time, you were so fierce!”

“……”

“Later, the favorability got higher bit by bit, and you treated me better and better.” Yi Qiu shrugged as she spoke. “At the time, this System told me that as long as the favorability reached one thousand, I could turn into a human, so I was always working very hard to curry favor with you.”

“……”

“But it all failed!” Yi Qiu shook her head with a look of helplessness. “I really didn’t know how to please you. Every time I tried hard to go along with you, you were indifferent. When I made a big fuss, you actually got quite happy… I thought, I actually thought that as long as I went against you, you would give me points. But when I went against you, you deducted the points back!”

Hearing this, You Yan couldn’t help lowering her brow and chuckling softly. She pondered for a moment, then looked up and said, “I do recall now. One day, you were throwing a tantrum and screaming in disorder in front of me, asking if I had forgotten something, and said something like—favorability has arrived.”

“That… that time.” Yi Qiu awkwardly smoothed the hair by her temples and whispered, “That time, that time the favorability broke a thousand. I thought… I thought you would turn me into a human like the System promised… But later, I figured it out. You are you; you aren’t controlled by the System at all. So how could it be true, as the System said, that once the favorability arrived, you would expend spiritual power to help me transform into a human…”

“You really are strange.” You Yan sized up the Yi Qiu before her seriously, and only after a long while did she continue, “Then let me ask you, that day we encountered the Huodou in Wuzhou, you ran back to find me regardless of your life. Was it because you were afraid that if I died, you couldn’t become a human, or was it because that Thin Bucket demanded it?”

In that moment, You Yan’s gaze was especially complex.

You Yan stared intently into Yi Qiu’s eyes. She knew too well that Yi Qiu couldn’t hide anything in her eyes; if she really told a lie, she definitely wouldn’t be able to deceive her.

Without a doubt, neither of these two answers was what she wanted to hear, but reason told her these were the two most likely causes.

She thought, it wasn’t that she couldn’t accept such an answer. After all, so much time had passed… After all, regardless of whether someone forced her, Yi Qiu had truly and unmistakably performed such life-risking acts for her, and more than once.

“Neither…” Yi Qiu said in a low voice under You Yan’s gaze. “I, I was just quite scared at the time.”

You Yan’s gaze softened a great deal in that instant—she could tell Yi Qiu wasn’t lying.

She tilted her head slightly and asked softly, “Scared of what?”

Yi Qiu pursed her lips and turned her head away. “I’m not telling you…”

“You want to keep it from me?”

“Then, then choose between lying and keeping it a secret.” As Yi Qiu spoke, seeming afraid You Yan would get angry, she hurriedly explained, “Anyway, anyway, it’s not an important secret. I just feel that my thoughts at the time would be weirdly embarrassing to say out loud.”

If she said those thoughts she had back then out loud, she would definitely be laughed at by You Yan.

The most laughable thing in this world was nothing more than a very weak alpaca thinking it could redeem a big villain.

Although she seemed to have succeeded, recalling her impulsive actions from back then still made her feel somewhat ashamed.

“Keep it a secret, then.” You Yan smiled with curved brows. “There are many things you haven’t explained clearly to me. I will slowly figure them out in the future; there is no rush for this moment.”

You Yan spoke, and fell into silence together with Yi Qiu.

After a bout of silence, she asked indifferently, “Does that Thin Bucket know when the moon will be full outside the illusion?”

“I’ll ask!” Yi Qiu said. Seeming not to want You Yan to think she was whispering to the System again, she simply asked aloud directly, “System, can you monitor the situation outside the illusion?”

【Replying to Host, the System is obstructed by spiritual power and cannot monitor the outside.】

“Didn’t you upgrade once? You can’t even do this little thing, what use do I have for you?”

【Wu wu~】

“No crying, what are you crying for!”

You Yan sat to the side. Although she could only see Yi Qiu frowning and talking to herself alone, she could more or less guess what kind of answer the other party had given from these words.

She pondered for a moment and said, “Ask it if it knows how long we have been in here.”

“Oh, oh!” Hearing this, Yi Qiu hurriedly asked, “I’m asking you now, from the moment I entered this illusion, how much time has passed outside?”

【Calculating time for you, please wait!】

【Calculation complete.】

【From the time the Host entered the illusion until now, a total of thirty-one days have passed outside the illusion.】

“Thirty-one days. You Yan, it says thirty-one days have passed outside!” Yi Qiu quickly informed You Yan of the answer.

You Yan nodded and fell into deep thought.

Yi Qiu didn’t know what You Yan was thinking, so she naturally didn’t dare make a sound to disturb her. After being quiet for a moment, she simply started doing mental arithmetic on the side.

She still remembered that on the night of Qixi⁹, Xun Chi was taken away by the Huodou.

The next day, she and You Yan called upon Luo Mingyuan and Jiang Yuyao. Everyone chased all the way there and dealt with the matter of the Fuzhu¹⁰ and the Huodou.

After four days of waiting, Chao Yun, who should have come upon hearing the news, had still not arrived. So she returned to Moshui with You Yan to look for clues, and then entered this illusion.

That night was the twelfth of the seventh month; the moon in the sky was nearly full.

Now that thirty-one days had passed, calculating it, the outside should be…

Uh, wait…

How are months calculated in ancient times again?

Is the seventh month in ancient times the same as the modern solar calendar¹¹, also thirty-one days?

Yi Qiu suddenly hesitated. She only hated that she had celebrated solar calendar birthdays since childhood and knew absolutely nothing about the lunar calendar.

However, if it was, it should be the twelfth of the eighth month outside!

The night of the full moon in the eighth month is Mid-Autumn¹². That’s only three days away from today!

In this way, as long as she calculated based on the time ratio inside and outside the illusion, she would know when they could leave the illusion!

Thinking this, Yi Qiu was just about to get up to find a pen to calculate when she heard You Yan say indifferently, “I know.”

“Huh?”

“Wait with peace of mind. When the time comes, I will take you out.”

“You’ve already calculated it?” Yi Qiu couldn’t help but be surprised.

“En.” You Yan nodded, looking at Yi Qiu with a hint of showing off in her eyes. “Otherwise? Wait for you to calculate it?”

“……” This feeling was truly defeating.

But thinking about it, it was good that You Yan calculated it. It saved her, a fellow who didn’t even know how many days were in the seventh lunar month, from calculating the date wrong later.

Actually, she felt that she wasn’t stupid, at most just not clever. But as long as she stood beside You Yan, she was being crushed in all aspects at every moment.

“You Yan.”

“Hm?”

“Let’s make a deal…” Yi Qiu cupped her chin and muttered in a small voice.

“Speak,” You Yan responded.

“Next time, if the situation isn’t urgent, trouble you to… trouble you to leave me some thinking time.” Yi Qiu said, biting her lower lip and reaching out to messily scratch the bangs on her forehead, distressed. “I also have times when I want to prove myself…”

Hearing this, You Yan couldn’t help letting out a light chuckle.

She gently grasped Yi Qiu’s wrist that was scratching her head, then smoothed out the hair on Yi Qiu’s forehead for her.

“What do you want to prove?”

“I… I want to prove that I’m not completely useless…”

“How are you useless?” You Yan asked back. “Didn’t you tell me how much time has passed outside the illusion?”

“But the System said that.” Yi Qiu pouted.

Listening to this, You Yan couldn’t help smiling faintly and rubbed that little head vigorously.

“You also saved me.”

“Huh?”

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