I’m Not Going to Be the White Moonlight
【Return to World B342 and stop Shi Jinlan from destroying the world.】
An old English song drifted through the dim bar. The female singer held a guitar, strumming the strings casually, her voice melodious and lazy.
When the song ended, a few smacks of applause sounded from below the stage. The cheers were sparse; no one had been listening intently.
But Chi Qian was a supportive audience member.
She didn’t stop clapping until the female singer had stepped down from her high-backed stool and bowed to the audience.
“So supportive?”
A teasing voice came from behind the bar. A glass, refracting the dim light, was pushed in front of Chi Qian.
Right after it came an invading wisp of red, blossoming leisurely in the dark night.
The red hair that cascaded down was like a ball of fire, curling like seaweed.
Following it up was an extremely bold and brilliant face. She stood inside the bar looking at Chi Qian, her eyes shining with obvious amusement, as if she knew her well.
Chi Qian took the drink the woman had mixed for her and said without hesitation, “Well, she really did sing well.”
“You like her?” the woman asked.
Chi Qian was decisive. “I like the high-backed stools you pair with the different resident performers even more.”
“You can’t have them even if you like them. These are all from my private collection.” The woman shot Chi Qian a disdainful look, then leaned against the bar again and poked her arm. “But, I can give you the contact information of the person sitting on the stool. Want it?”
“Nope,” Chi Qian refused again.
Seeing Chi Qian refuse over and over again, the woman pouted in dissatisfaction. “Why be so blunt? Just give it a try. It’s not like you’ll lose a couple taels of flesh.1“
She seemed very keen on playing matchmaker for Chi Qian, adding, “Or you could tell me what kind you like. I have so many customers coming and going every day, I can help you look around.”
Not far away, a closed door was pushed open. A piercing light clung to the incoming customer, illuminating the dim establishment for a moment.
Don’t be fooled by the bar’s nighttime gloom; it was actually only two or three in the afternoon, not yet peak hours. The light swept over the scattered people, revealing that the bar was about half full.
Chi Qian was actually a little tempted by the woman’s words. She began to describe, “The type I like…”
She had just started when she felt a block in her mind.
The more seriously she thought, the more she felt a concrete shadow in her head.
That person was thin and tall, and even shrouded in mist, it was hard to hide her naturally noble and aloof bearing.
But whenever Chi Qian tried to think about the specifics—like her eyebrows, her eyes, her face, the tone of her voice—a cloud of fog would immediately squeeze in.
It was a hazy white film, like a deliberately hidden scar. She stood in the center of Chi Qian’s world, smiling at her, yet Chi Qian couldn’t see her clearly no matter what.
It was because of this that Chi Qian knew such a shadow existed.
And because of that, she understood that no one she met here was that shadow.
What is this?
Chi Qian was utterly confused. She mumbled a half-hearted, “Ah, it’s hard to say, forget it, forget it,” and picked up her glass to take a sip of her drink.
The woman watched Chi Qian’s expression, shaking her head and tutting twice. “Seeing that look in your eyes just now, I thought you were about to say you once had a love that was carved into your bone and imprinted on your heart.2“
“Then how could I not remember it?” Chi Qian felt the woman’s words made no sense and propped up her head to ask back.
“You forgot,” the woman said lightly.
“How is that possible?” Chi Qian was unconcerned. “If it was carved into my bone and imprinted on my heart, how could I forget?”
“It’s precisely because it was carved into your bone and imprinted on your heart that it makes a person forget completely.” The woman wiped a glass unhurriedly, her words seeming to hold a hidden meaning.
A new song started from the stage in the distance. The singer’s low, smoky voice seemed to be slowly narrating a sad and moving love story.
Chi Qian listened like an outsider, still dismissing the woman’s words. She looked at her and pointed out, “You’re being weird.”
“Likewise,” the woman said with a smile, glancing up at Chi Qian.
“Hmph.”
Chi Qian laughed too.
The people in this place were different from the two worlds she had stayed in before. Everyone had their own secrets and an unknown past.
Come to think of it, that makes sense. Everyone here is a Task-doer working for the System. We all have to experience things like parting in life and separating in death.3 It’d be abnormal not to have secrets.
Thinking of this, Chi Qian dipped her finger into a bit of spilled liquor on the table and, with a swift stroke, wrote her own name.
Her finger tapped the table lightly, then she was about to start writing another name, parallel to her own.
But just as she was about to write it, her hand paused.
A hastily started radical, “日,”4 was imprinted on the table. The shimmering reflection of the liquid made it seem like she had forgotten what character she was going to write next.
“Go on, write it,” the woman, who was watching from the side, urged, getting anxious at Chi Qian’s sudden stop.
“I’m not writing it anymore.” Chi Qian was being stubborn. She raised her hand and wiped away the half-finished character.
In the bar, people sat down and people left, casting overlapping shadows.
Then, as if lost in thought, she looked up at the woman. “I’ve never asked you, how do you write the ‘Tang’ in your name, Song Tang?5 The ‘Tang’ from haitang flower?6“
“Nope. It’s the ‘Tang’ from the Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties,” the woman replied.
Chi Qian found her explanation forced. “Then you should be called Tang Song, not Song Tang.”
“You can ask my mom. Her last name is Song.” Song Tang raised an eyebrow and smiled, then pushed another drink toward Chi Qian. “Try it. My new creation.”
“Dingdong!“
The sound of the glass sliding in front of Chi Qian rang out at the same time as the System’s notification update.
Before Chi Qian could even check the message, a burst of exclamation erupted from a booth not far away.
“Holy shit.”
“Great, just great! I knew it!”
“Didn’t they say the #1 Ranker7 took this mission? That it was foolproof?8“
“How could it be foolproof? How many people has this world buried?”
“This is getting really interesting. I’m so curious now, who on earth can actually complete this mission?”
…
The excited discussion from nearby immediately caught Song Tang’s attention.
She seemed to know what they were talking about, a sense of familiar resignation in her voice. “It failed again?”
Saying this, Song Tang put down what she was doing and slowly opened the Mission Board.
This board was the internal list used by Task-doers to accept missions, and it refreshed every eight hours.
It was just time for the System’s refresh, and the mission for World B342—one that everyone had become familiar with over the past three months—had appeared again.
The mission was simple: go to a certain company in that world and prevent the future main villain, Shi Jinlan, from acquiring it.
In the very beginning, the System had defaulted to allowing Shi Jinlan to acquire any company in her world.
This was a necessary step in her blackening.9 If she didn’t acquire them, how could she become a terrifying evil dragon? How could she become the most dazzling medal for the dragon slayer?
But gradually, the System discovered that things weren’t developing in the direction they had set.
Shi Jinlan had lost control.
More accurately, Shi Jinlan’s actions were in a state of rampage.
She was acquiring more and more companies, faster and faster.
The logic of the small world10 began to tip in Shi Jinlan’s favor.
If this continued, no matter how big a golden finger11 the System gave the male and female leads, they wouldn’t be able to defeat her.
She was an out-of-control evil dragon, on the verge of becoming a bug12 in this small world. Such an existence contradicted the small world’s predetermined ending. The direct result would be its destruction, and a single misstep could implicate other small worlds, and even the entire System.
And as the main villain, Shi Jinlan occupied an extremely high proportion of the world’s coefficient. The System couldn’t just delete her once and for all. If her character was deleted, the small world would be destroyed all the same.
Karma cycles, and retribution is infallible.13 It’s nothing more than this.
Because every small world was meticulously designed by the System, it couldn’t be easily destroyed. It could only be intervened with.
So, over three months ago, this mission to “go to a certain company and prevent its acquisition by Shi Jinlan” appeared.
At first, everyone treated it as an ordinary small mission with few points,14 something for newbies to practice on.
But as the newbies failed one after another, the point reward increased exponentially, and the mission level was raised. Almost every Task-doer in the System had their eyes on this mission, drooling over the chance to eat this piece of fat meat.15
But things were never that easy.
Three weeks ago, the three big-shot16 level figures who were perennially tied on the points board had successively accepted this mission. But today’s refresh of the new mission list marked the failure of all three of them.
Even worse, no one within the System could contend with Shi Jinlan.
Her mastery of strategy had reached a terrifying level, a true case of devising strategies from within a command tent.17 In the words of a Task-doer who had once tried to cross her, her precise calculations were an absolute one hundred percent.
She didn’t seem to have that one percent, or even that zero-point-zero-one percent, margin of error. She was like a machine monster.
And she controlled her own mechanical monster empire. Wherever she went, not even a blade of grass grew.18 Even with a golden finger, you couldn’t withstand her.
No one knew when Shi Jinlan had started to pay attention to the importance of that zero-point-zero-one percent.
But everyone knew that no one could defeat her in her own world.
The losers, batch after batch, became medals on Shi Jinlan’s chest.
The System was about to break.
“Badass.”
“I kind of want to meet this Shi Jinlan.”
“I hear she’s gorgeous.”
“Please don’t use the word ‘gorgeous’ to slander my goddess.19 My goddess is as beautiful as a celestial fairy. So cool and noble, one look from her and you feel you have no regrets in this life. That irresistible sense of pressure, that disdainful contempt for you, ah… my heart is racing, what do I do, I want to accept the mission again just to see my wife.20“
“Do you have to be so dramatic?”
…
“Exactly,” Song Tang whispered in agreement, turning to Chi Qian for confirmation. “Is Shi Jinlan really that good-looking?”
“Asking me?” Chi Qian looked like she was a million miles away.
Seeing Song Tang’s eager, expectant little eyes, she reluctantly tried to recall.
But her memory of that mission really wasn’t very deep, especially of her conquest target.21
She only vaguely remembered, “She’s very tall and very thin. There’s a chill in her eyes, and they can spit fire.”
“What kind of description is that?” Song Tang was utterly disgusted by Chi Qian’s account. “Don’t tell me you got punched by someone while finishing the mission and forgot all about Shi Jinlan?”
“Keep your voice down!” Chi Qian grew instantly nervous when she heard Song Tang connect her with Shi Jinlan.
Song Tang glanced at the people not far away. Seeing they hadn’t heard her, she looked back at Chi Qian with a smile. “Hey, if everyone knew that you did the prerequisite mission for this, and that you get a commission every time a subsequent mission fails, do you think they’d want to eat you alive?”
Chi Qian immediately signaled to Song Tang, “So you absolutely can’t say anything.”
After all, this kind of thing is best enjoyed in secret.
Chi Qian hadn’t planned on telling Song Tang in the first place.
It was only after they’d gotten familiar, and Song Tang was going over accounts with her one day, that the damn little capitalist had keenly sensed that Chi Qian’s points didn’t add up and deduced it herself.
Song Tang laughed at Chi Qian’s cowardly look. She cupped her fist like a microphone and interviewed her in a low voice, “Then let me interview Miss Chi. How does it feel to live a life of not having to work for almost half a year, holding onto a huge pile of settlement points? Is it awesome?”
“It’s freaking awesome!” Chi Qian couldn’t contain her excitement. “The feeling of lying flat22 and not having to work is amazing!”
Being a salted fish23 is true happiness.
I love Shi Jinlan!
Seeing Chi Qian’s pathetic look, Song Tang slapped her lightly. “You’re telling me to be discreet? You should be a little more discreet yourself. Be careful someone doesn’t ask you where all your points came from.”
“I know—” Chi Qian drew out the word, slumping over the bar, trying to turn herself into a salted fish soaking in alcohol.
“But speaking of which, do you think there’s a possibility that this Shi Jinlan… has awakened?24“
“Maybe. After all, the System can’t even control her now.”
“Doesn’t that mean we’re not far from being finished, just like last time?”
“No way… we’re trying to stop her this time. It’s not like last time where everyone who went died, right?”
“Stop talking, I feel like this whole house is about to collapse.”
“You’re just like the man of Qi worrying about the sky falling.25“
…
The topic of B342 and Shi Jinlan could be discussed for three days and three nights without end.
The Task-doers on the other side had already started another discussion revolving around her.
Listening in, Chi Qian couldn’t help but get curious too. “Hey, Song Tang-jie,26 you came here before I did. Do you know about that time the System was almost destroyed?”
“I don’t.” Song Tang shook her head. “A lot of people here were brought in as replacements afterward. I came in later, too, so even if I wanted to gossip, there’s nowhere to go. Besides, how would ordinary Task-doers like us know about such high-level matters?”
“True.” Chi Qian’s curiosity was suppressed.
“I just wonder if we’ll get to experience it firsthand this time,” Song Tang said, a little excited, but with a bit of rationality remaining. “But isn’t it always a case of ‘suffer a setback, gain a bit of wisdom’?27 The Main System shouldn’t let the entire system world almost get destroyed again this time, right…”
“Since this Shi Jinlan is so formidable, how is the System going to clean this up?” Song Tang rested her chin on her hand, looking at Chi Qian in confusion.
“Yeah, how will they clean this up…”
For some reason, Chi Qian felt a particular sense of glee hearing about the Main System eating a shriveled thing.28
She raised a finger and gently tapped her glass twice, watching the liquor refract a dark golden light. A faint, enigmatic smile curved her eyes.29
“Trash System,” Chi Qian said, then tilted her head back and drank the last drop of alcohol in the glass.
“Zizi… zi—30“
Before she could even pull back her gaze, Chi Qian saw the space in front of her flicker twice, like an unstable electrical current.
She looked at the glass, thinking she had just drunk too fast, but then her vision froze.
The System, despite her having turned off the mission interface, had sent her a new mission.
【Return to World B342 and stop Shi Jinlan from destroying the world.】
Chi Qian: Damn it.31
The author has something to say:
Qianqian: Didn’t you say I wouldn’t have to clean up this rotten stall?!32
Lanlan: Flowers! Cannons! Prepare to welcome my wife!
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