Chapter 1

Qi Jie and I had been together for ten years, and I always thought I was playing the role of the female lead in our story.
In high school, Qi Jie was a troublemaker who didn’t study much. During a fight with classmates, he accidentally broke my thick black-framed glasses.
Later, he switched seats to become my desk mate, copying the teacher’s notes for me every class.
Then, he won the 3,000-meter long-distance race at the sports meet and dragged me up onto the podium with him.
The crowd in the stands cheered wildly, and the principal handed him the award with a sour face.
He winked at me and the principal: “For my sake, you two should shake hands!”
In college, we started dating. On weekends, he’d take a three-hour high-speed train to see me, and we’d hang out at the small pub by the school gate, doing nothing in particular.
I’d read him cheesy online quotes: “During the 800-meter fitness test, my desk mate insisted on racing me. But the school bully scooped me up and ran like mad, lapping her twice! At the finish line, he kissed me, and the whole class exploded!”
Qi Jie laughed helplessly: “What nonsense is that?”
The next second, he suddenly kissed me.
It was our first kiss.
We both exploded.
After graduation, we moved into a rental apartment. Every night, we’d remind each other to go to bed by midnight, only to sneak out of bed at 2 a.m. for takeout.
Later, once we had stable jobs, we took out a loan for a wedding house, and both sets of parents were thrilled.
Finally, we reached our tenth year together.
That day, I worked overtime until late. As I stepped out of the office, a menacing man charged at me with a bloody kitchen knife.
Just like that, my life ended at the hands of some antisocial psychopath.
At the time, Qi Jie was at home playing video games. He glanced at the clock, realized I’d be home soon, so he quickly turned off the game and went to the kitchen to make me a late-night snack.
He called me, but it didn’t connect. The water boiled, and he didn’t think much of it.
After I took my last breath, my soul floated to his side.
I heard a deep, emotionless voice in my ear, like a stiff smart home robot.
The voice said to Qi Jie: “Your white moonlight has gone offline.”
I thought my exit was ridiculous.
But it turned out things could get even more absurd.
After I died, my transparent soul hovered around Qi Jie for three days. But since his female lead didn’t show up in those three days, I came back to life—
I mean, according to the system’s setup, my death was meant to introduce Qi Jie’s female lead. If she didn’t appear, I’d return to one month before the accident and die again in a different way, and so on, in an endless loop.
The system had prepared hundreds of ways for me to go offline.
Choking on food, dying from stress at work, an earthquake while sleeping at home, a tsunami on vacation, being diagnosed with stomach cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, brain tumor during a checkup, or even standing at an intersection late at night gazing at the moon and getting robbed…
I was numb to it all.
So far, I’d gone offline 98 times. This was my 99th loop.
It was that day again. Knowing I was doomed to die, I calmly took Qi Jie’s two months’ salary and went shopping for a bag.
At the intersection, a black sedan sped toward me.
I instinctively wanted to run, but my feet were glued to the ground.
My body flew into the air, then slammed down with a thud.
When I opened my eyes again, my feet were off the ground, and my transparent soul floated in the air.
Amid the crowd’s screams, I casually looked down at my mangled body.
That’s when the car door opened, and the panicked driver rushed out…