Chapter 46
Chapter 46
“Begin mission settlement.”
[Settling mission.]
[Congratulations to task-taker Zhu Yin for completing the main mission in the role of an assistant. Evaluating mission completion.]
[Mission evaluation complete. Grade: B. Mission reward for this world: +400 points.]
[Warning from the Central System: Task-taker, please refrain from publicizing any power that does not belong to the mission world, so as to avoid unnecessary turmoil.]
[Task-taker Zhu Yin has unlocked the title “Scumbag Slayer” and received +100 points. This title is equipped automatically. Effect while equipped: scumbags within ten meters of the task-taker will be intimidated and voluntarily keep their distance.]
[Task-taker Zhu Yin has received the protagonist’s gratitude and blessing, acquiring the ultra-rare item “Ring of Favor.” Effect of the Ring of Favor: while this item is equipped, favorability with the laws of the minor worlds increases by 10.]
A ball of golden light rose from within the space and came to Zhu Yin.
When the glow receded, an exquisite ring appeared. A tiny star was set in the center of its plain white band.
Zhu Yin reached out and took the ring. The star gave a faint gleam, and she saw a future she had not witnessed in the previous world.
At the very end of her life, an elderly woman had a long dream and learned everything that had happened before.
It turned out that she had not been born fortunate. Her life had once contained so much pain and humiliation.
Another version of herself, scarred and filled with resentment, prayed to the heavens. Fate answered her. Time reversed, everything began anew, and the plot was overturned.
She gained the perfect life she had once dreamed of.
She was profoundly grateful to Zhu Yin for bringing her all of it. Every trace of gratitude and love coalesced into this small ring, filled with attachment and protection.
Zhu Yin slipped the ring onto her finger and said softly into the void, “Thank you. I received it, and I love it.”
In a time and space the system could not see, the old woman on her sickbed seemed to hear the reply. She smiled happily and closed her eyes, utterly content.
Only Barbara scratched its little head in deep confusion. “We completed the last mission so perfectly, and the protagonist had no regrets at all. Why did we only get a B?”
It prepared to send the Central System an email challenging the result.
Zhu Yin stopped it. She coughed. “I know why. It’s fine.”
Barbara tilted its head, only half understanding.
The Central System’s warning had been sent specifically to Zhu Yin. Barbara had not received it. Given how inexperienced the little system was, however, it probably would not have understood even if it had seen the message.
Barbara scratched its head in puzzlement. Since its host said it was fine, it obediently let the matter drop.
It asked thoughtfully, “Then, Host, would you like to rest for a few days?”
After countless cycles of development, the World-Hopping Bureau had established excellent employee benefits. In a division like Zhu Yin’s, where missions were not especially difficult, task-takers received three to seven days of leave after each mission.
Zhu Yin looked around her apartment. It was tasteful enough, but boring. She opened the window onto a beautiful river of stars that she had long since grown tired of seeing.
She shook her head. “No. Mission worlds are more fun.”
.
Two forty in the morning.
The abrupt, piercing ring of a phone broke the darkness.
A slender, fair hand picked it up. “Mr. Li?”
A cold voice came through. “Get to the Li residence within twenty minutes, Doctor.”
The caller said nothing else before hanging up.
Zhu Yin, who had only just entered the mission world: …
She checked the time and sank into thought.
A plump cat, white with a faint pink tint, jumped onto the bed. Affected by this world’s biological clock, it gave a timely yawn.
Plot transmission began.
Zhu Yin’s current identity was the exclusive private physician of Haicheng’s foremost wealthy family, the Lis.
The male lead, Li Nanfeng, was heir to one of Haicheng’s most powerful families and an icy, domineering CEO.
The female lead, Liu Ruyan, was Li Nanfeng’s junior from school, his wife, and the substitute for his idealized love.
Zhu Yin’s powerful soul allowed her to scan the entire plot in a single second.
Put simply, it was a story of tormented love.
Li Nanfeng had an idealized childhood sweetheart whom he had adored since adolescence. But she had always been frail, and at fifteen, she had nearly died from illness.
Later, her family contacted a top specialist abroad and moved overseas for long-term treatment.
At the same time, trouble struck Li Nanfeng’s family, and he lost contact with her.
In any case, by the time they reconnected years later, his idealized love already had a fiancé.
Heartbroken, Li Nanfeng went drinking at a bar and met Liu Ruyan, who resembled her.
After spending one tangled night together and meeting by chance several more times, they went from a one-night stand to a long-term affair.
Later, when the Li family wanted Li Nanfeng to enter a marriage alliance, he approached Liu Ruyan and proposed a marriage of convenience.
He made it clear that he did not love her and that their relationship was purely physical.
What he did not know was that Liu Ruyan had attended the same high school as him. She had fallen deeply in love with him at first sight. Even knowing that Li Nanfeng did not love her and regarded her only as a tool to remember his idealized love and satisfy his desires, she was still willing.
Liu Ruyan was married to Li Nanfeng for three years. The rest of the Li family looked down on her background, while Li Nanfeng ignored her except when he slept with her while drunk.
Her doting family repeatedly urged her to divorce him because of the Lis’ treatment, and her friends also advised her to give up.
But whenever she saw Li Nanfeng’s face, she could not harden her heart. As long as she could remain beside him, she embraced even the suffering. She firmly believed her love would melt that block of ice one day.
Zhu Yin drew in a sharp breath and leaned her upper body back, her expression full of incomprehension.
This kind of love was somewhat beyond her understanding.
Still, a task-taker did not need to understand the affairs of the mission targets. She only needed to respect them.
What she had reviewed in that instant was merely the first half of the love story.
For some reason, the amount of information she had received in that moment left her feeling stifled. She simply got up, changed her clothes, and drove toward the Li residence.
She could review the second half–the crucial part of the story–on the way.
Barbara pattered along at her feet.
Plot transmission resumed.
If nothing unexpected occurred, Liu Ruyan would continue for a long time with this difficult yet hopeful and relatively peaceful life.
But the unexpected arrived without warning. Li Nanfeng’s idealized love returned.
The male lead, who had barely passed for normal until then, went completely insane.
Ignoring the fact that he was married, he devoted himself wholly to fawning over his idealized love.
After surgery by the specialist, her health had once become no different from an ordinary person’s. But her husband’s death left her devastated, causing her old illness to relapse.
Then the mighty force of the plot emerged: although unrelated to her, the inexplicably similar heroine was an exceptionally good kidney match.
The male lead pleaded tenderly with the heroine, “All you have to give up is one kidney, and Wanwan will live.”
Zhu Yin sucked in another sharp breath.
Zhu Yin leaned back again. Her hand tightened, accidentally crushing the steering wheel, and the car nearly drifted into the river.
Without betraying any reaction, she ran her hand over it. Invisible power surged, restoring the steering wheel to its original state.
The host frowned.
Still frowning, the host continued reading.
After shock, heartbreak, and despair, the heroine agreed!
She lost a kidney but gained several months of tenderness from the male lead.
Liu Ruyan gradually lost herself in his sweet words. Then heaven gave her a precious gift: she became pregnant.
Everything seemed to be improving, resembling the married life she had once dreamed of.
But matters were not so simple.
After carrying the pregnancy to term, Liu Ruyan gave birth to a healthy boy.
That was when the nightmare truly began.
As it turned out, the child of Li Nanfeng’s idealized love had inherited his mother’s constitution. Born with severe heart disease, he had remained alive only through extremely costly medical care.
Once again, the heroine’s newborn child was a perfect match for the other woman’s child.
Barbara watched its host’s brows nearly knot together.
This time, the male lead’s request met with fierce refusal.
It made no difference.
The heroine’s pitiful child died in the end.
After losing his biological child, the male lead finally seemed to awaken.
He abruptly realized that his true love was the heroine and that his feelings for his idealized love had merely been a beautiful youthful fantasy.
He began treating the heroine well and learned to love her, but it was already too late. By then, she was severely depressed, trapped in her own world and grief. She hated herself, the world, and the male lead.
Finally, late one night, she ended her own life.
Zhu Yin drew in a sharp breath for the third time.
The host leaned back for a third time.
Zhu Yin finished the last part with an indescribable expression.
That was right. The love story was not yet over.
The heroine was reborn.
She returned seven years later.
She discovered that the male lead had gone mad after her death and that his hair had turned white overnight.
He preserved her corpse and allowed no one near it.
He came to hate his idealized love, believing the heroine had died because of her.
He even personally removed his own child’s heart from the body of the other woman’s child.
The heroine went from silence to being moved.
In the end, she revealed her identity, started over with the male lead, and spent a lifetime loving him.