System 073 knew how absurd its mission briefing had just sounded, but it had no choice.
Five years ago, when the mission was initiated, something went wrong. Instead of binding to the female protagonist at the moment of her transmigration as intended, it was erroneously bound to the villain.
It had tried to report the error to the main system for correction, but the main system's response was:
"The mission has already begun and cannot be rectified. System 073, you are the ace auxiliary system of the multiverse. You should know how to adapt to circumstances. This is just a minor issue - do your best to overcome it. For us systems, this is also a form of cultivation."
After that, the main system ignored all further communication.
System 073 had no choice but to adapt and improvise. It decided to issue all the tasks meant for the female lead to the villain instead.
After all, as long as they achieved the final Happy Ending and allowed this world to operate independently of the plot, did it really matter who carried out the romance missions?
However, it felt the need to disguise its wording a bit: "This mission uses the standard system template. I haven't had time to modify it yet. Master, please don't mind the phrasing. In essence, the main quest can be summarized as: romance Yu Yi and achieve a Happy Ending."
Faced with such an outrageous mission, the great demon of destruction seemed to have no reaction.
The young man crouched by the water's edge, his hair unbound. With a calm expression, he leaned down to scoop up water and wash the blood stains from his hair, giving no indication of his thoughts.
Yu Yi clutched the teleportation talisman tightly in her hand, quickly processing the information she had just heard.
At first, she thought she had transmigrated into a novel called "Tidal Shock," but it turned out she had actually transmigrated into a book within a book.
According to the system, she was the female protagonist of this novel called "After Transmigrating, I Got a Happy Ending with the Villain." From the title alone, it wasn't hard to deduce that what she had assumed was an electric shock followed by transmigration into a book was actually just part of the plot of this novel "After Transmigrating, I Got a Happy Ending with the Villain."
As it turned out, she herself was also just a fictional character.
If Yu Yi had learned this truth when she first transmigrated, she probably would have had a breakdown.
However, she had now lived in this world for five years. During those five years, everyone she had met - whether it was Crane Senior Brother, the merchants in the small county town, or even nameless passersby in the book - were all flesh and blood people.
In her eyes, this world was the real world.
So, Yu Yi accepted the fact that she was originally a fictional female protagonist in an instant.
From what the system was saying, she had become Xue Chenjing's romance target, and they were supposed to end up with a Happy Ending. That meant her life should be safe, at least.
Yu Yi wanted to glean more information from the noisy system voice coming from the other party, so she didn't rush to escape just yet. After all, Xue Chenjing didn't seem to be making any moves either. If the enemy doesn't move, I won't move - she decided to wait and observe for now.
Having made up her mind, Yu Yi remained crouched in the bushes, clutching the teleportation talisman, and continued to listen quietly.
Seeing that Xue Chenjing wasn't moving, the system couldn't help but anxiously urge: "Master, the female lead has been missing for five years. Your romance progress is a full five years behind. Now that you've finally encountered the female lead, before she gets scared away, quickly take a billion steps forward and start your sweet romance storyline!"
Yu Yi's tightly furrowed brows relaxed slightly. So this book was a sweet romance? If it was a sweet romance...
She glanced at the gruesome corpse nearby, and her momentary relief instantly vanished.
No matter how handsome Xue Chenjing might be, even if this book was a sweet romance, she could never have a Happy Ending with someone so cruel. A man's love couldn't be relied upon. If they ever got into an argument in the future, wouldn't he crush her skull in a fit of rage?
[System: Ding— Main quest now issued. Please complete the "First Encounter with You" quest within 30 days, raising the romance target's favorability to 10%. If the main quest is not completed, side quests will be temporarily frozen.]
Xue Chenjing, who had just finished washing the blood from his hair and was gathering it up to tie, paused upon hearing this and asked, "What does it mean for side quests to be frozen?"
The system hesitantly explained, "Master, if you don't complete the main quest, you won't be able to open the Sword-Sealing Stone of Lishan Town. Also, the next divine artifact won't appear."
In the book, the plot and romance storylines were meant to complement and advance each other. Over these five years, because the romance between the male and female leads had been at a standstill, the plot had also progressed with great difficulty.
Just obtaining this one Sword-Sealing Stone had cost Xue Chenjing a great deal of effort.
Only now did he frown, crushing a stone by the river in frustration. "Why didn't you say so earlier!"
No wonder in all these years of searching, he had only found the Sword-Sealing Stone of Lishan Town and couldn't find any trace of the other divine artifacts.
Xue Chenjing suddenly stood up. Yu Yi's heart leapt in alarm. As he turned his head in her direction, she channeled her spiritual energy into her fingertips, activating the teleportation talisman she had been holding.
The talisman's light enveloped her. In the moment before the teleportation talisman whisked her away, she saw Xue Chenjing's figure instantly moving towards her.
The young man's handsome features suddenly loomed close, appearing to Yu Yi like a life-stealing demon. His hand, still damp from the stream, reached into the light of her teleportation talisman, tearing open a gap in the teleportation runes.
Yu Yi looked up, her gaze colliding with his at close range.
Xue Chenjing's dark eyes fixed on her, his pupils elongating into sharp needles before her eyes. The iris surrounding them was pitch black, but that vertical pupil was silvery-white, exuding a suffocating inhuman aura.
Yu Yi found herself unable to look away from his gaze. It was as if countless transparent, viscous threads extended from those vertical silver-white pupils, crawling into her eyes. The cold, slippery sensation lingered at the corners of her eyes, seeping in through them and firmly gripping her nerves.
Yu Yi heard a voice emerge in her mind, coaxing: "Be good, don't run."
This voice multiplied in her mind, splitting and proliferating. One became two, two became three, more and more until it seemed like tens of thousands of people were chanting in her mind. The whispers overlapped, wave after wave, threatening to drown her.
Be good don't run listen listen listen listen, like me like me like me like me—
Yu Yi maintained her upward gaze, eyes wide open, her expression gradually becoming blank.
Just then, another sharp voice suddenly pierced her ears, crying out in anguish: "Ahhh! You can't do this to her! She's the female lead, not some magical beast you want to tame!"
That sensation of having every nerve ending gripped by someone suddenly vanished. The voices in Yu Yi's mind receded like a tide. She shuddered violently and struck out at Xue Chenjing with her palm.
Xue Chenjing dodged to the side, but was still grazed by the sword qi in her palm wind, cutting his neck. A line of red seeped out, soaking into his collar.
The teleportation talisman finally took effect, whisking Yu Yi's figure away from the bushes.
"Tch." Xue Chenjing covered his neck, clicking his tongue in annoyance. His vertical pupils shrank back into round dots, returning to normal human eyes.
The system wailed in despair: "We finally encountered the female lead, and you scared her away again. Now it's like finding a needle in a haystack - where are we supposed to look for her?"
After being erroneously bound to the male lead, the system had urged Xue Chenjing to find Yu Yi, but Xue Chenjing wasn't interested in this suddenly appeared entity and ignored its suggestions.
It wasn't until the system gave him a spoiler, predicting when the Sword-Sealing Stone of Lishan Town would appear, and the prediction came true, that Xue Chenjing started to pay it some attention.
However, by the time Xue Chenjing followed its directions to that mountain cabin, the place was long deserted. Even the house had been burned to the ground, leaving no clues for them to track the female lead's whereabouts.
Xue Chenjing was, after all, the big villain of the book. His movements could still be traced. If the system had been bound to Yu Yi, it could have issued quests to her based on Xue Chenjing's movements, pointing her in the right direction.
But now that it was bound to Xue Chenjing, and Yu Yi had no system constraints, her movements became unpredictable. For five years, not even Pei Jingchao had the slightest clue about her.
A perfectly good female lead had completely vanished after transmigrating, without making the slightest ripple.
Now that they had finally run into her, only to let her escape again, the system couldn't help but burst into tears.
Even if it was a system, it was still a system created by the ancestors of the myriad worlds to maintain world stability. It was a top-tier divine artifact spirit, and it had feelings too!
Xue Chenjing, annoyed by its wailing, impatiently said, "Shut up! I tore her teleportation talisman to pieces. She couldn't have teleported far and is still on this mountain."
The wound on his neck had healed, but he picked up a broken sword from the ground, lifted his sleeve, and cut off a palm-sized piece of flesh from his arm.
System 073: "Ouch, Master should be a bit more frugal. This body isn't yours alone—"
No matter how many times it had seen it, it couldn't get used to its host casually cutting off his own flesh to feed demons. Although his combat power was indeed a bit low now, and he seemingly couldn't defeat anyone without relying on demons.
But if he kept cutting away so recklessly, wouldn't there be nothing but a skeleton left for the female lead in the end? How could that work?
Xue Chenjing hissed in pain, too preoccupied to pay attention to it.
The bone demon, which had been lying face down with its bottom up, caught the scent of Xue Chenjing's flesh and blood. Its skull suddenly lifted from the ground, its eyeballs bulging on its blood-red cheeks, staring at him unblinkingly, with saliva dripping from between its teeth.
The clicking sound of its teeth expressed its urgent desire to have a bite too.
"Useless at everything but causing trouble. What do you think you're eating? Get lost." Xue Chenjing glanced at it sideways, dipped his finger in blood, and drew an array on the ground. The edges of the wound on his arm began to writhe like a living thing, growing flesh tendrils that connected and fused together, quickly healing the wound.
The array on the ground pulsed, and a viscous white fluid crawled out from its center.
The white fluid was like a soft mass of pus, occasionally bubbling and releasing some white mist when the bubbles burst.
After emerging, it excitedly wriggled to Xue Chenjing's front, extending two tentacles from its body to wrap around his right hand, which was holding the piece of flesh.
The white fluid enveloped his hand, dangling stickily from his wrist for a moment, then consumed the flesh in his hand. Satisfied, it slid to the ground, bubbling like boiling water.
The mist released from the bubbles quickly merged with the cold fog in the forest, completely enveloping this shallow beach.
Xue Chenjing gazed at the pitch-black sky and said, "Go."
The white fluid sank into the ground. In less than half an hour, the mist in the mountains grew thicker and thicker, obscuring the sky and earth, swallowing the entire massive mountain range into dense fog.
...
Meanwhile, Yu Yi tumbled out of the teleportation talisman's light. This talisman was supposed to be a directional teleportation talisman, meant to transport her back to the Bamboo Grove Secret Realm. Even if the secret realm was closed, she should have appeared at its entrance.
However, when the talisman took effect, it was torn by Xue Chenjing. The talisman's effect was greatly reduced, and Yu Yi fell into a dense forest, unsure of where she had been teleported.
Her head was still throbbing with pain. Xue Chenjing's vertical pupils were truly creepy.
The repeated "like me" in her mind made her scalp tingle, it was practically mental pollution.
Fortunately, she hadn't been brainwashed.
Yu Yi took out a processed mint leaf and put it on her tongue. As the cool, stimulating sensation rushed to her head, she sat cross-legged and meditated, circulating a mind-clearing technique through her body for one cycle. Only then did she thoroughly cleanse the pollution from her mind, and her thoughts became clear.
The night mist in the forest grew heavier and heavier, until it was almost impossible to see one's hand in front of their face. Yet the forest wasn't dark, as if moonlight could penetrate the mist and shine into the mountain forest.
The milky white mist clung to her clothes, hair, and skin. Tiny, glittering particles separated from the mist and adhered to her skin. Yu Yi was completely unaware of this. She took out another directional teleportation talisman.
Yu Yi's wandering cultivator master was skilled in both sword and talisman techniques, and she had inherited her master's will, cultivating both paths. However, compared to talisman techniques, she seemed to have more talent in swordsmanship. The teleportation talisman in her hand was one of the few successful intermediate-level talismans she had, and using one meant one less. Yu Yi's heart ached at the thought.
After a moment of hesitation, she still activated the talisman in her hand, attempting to teleport back to the Bamboo Grove Secret Realm.
After all, life and freedom were more important, and talismans could be made again in the future.
The talisman's light enveloped her figure, disappearing for an instant, only to reappear in the same spot a moment later.
Yu Yi looked around in confusion, feeling numb inside. The teleportation talisman had failed to work.
She tried stepping onto her green bamboo sword and flying up into the sky. She flew for a long time, but all around her was just a sea of white.
"A maze barrier?" Yu Yi guessed inwardly, carefully lowering her sword and landing back on the ground. She had clearly flown upwards for a long time, but it took less than half a quarter hour to fall back to the treetops on the ground. It was evident that there was indeed something strange about this mist.
The maze barrier obscured vision and confused spiritual sense. Flying through the forest on a sword could easily lead to accidents, so Yu Yi had no choice but to feel her way through the undergrowth.
She hadn't gone far when she found a dilapidated mountain god temple in the forest. Seeing this temple, Yu Yi finally figured out her location. She was still on this mountain, not far from the shallow beach from earlier.
Not long ago, when she was bored, she had come to play at this mountain god temple with Crane Senior Brother. They had specially bought some paints from town to repaint the weathered and dim stone statues in the temple.
Yu Yi hadn't even approached the mountain god temple when she heard the sound of fighting from inside.
The surrounding mountains in this area were all poor and treacherous. Apart from the Bamboo Grove Secret Realm built on a small spirit vein, there were no spirit veins for thousands of miles around, and cultivators were rarely seen. She hadn't expected it to be so lively tonight.
Having just experienced the drama at the shallow beach, Yu Yi didn't care who was fighting in the mountain god temple. She had no desire to get involved and turned to leave, intending to find another place.
At that moment, there was a sudden loud boom from inside the mountain god temple, followed by an explosion. The blast wave dispersed the thick fog, instantly rushing towards Yu Yi's back.
She reacted extremely quickly, turning back with her sword. A screen of blue-green sword light formed a barrier, shredding the flying bricks and stones.
Behind the debris, a figure was blown back by the blast wave, about to crash into her sword light barrier. Yu Yi hurriedly withdrew her sword and reached out to support the person's waist, gliding backward with the horizontal rush of the blast wave.
The waist under her hand was soft and slender, the body light. It was a young woman wearing a pink dress.
The young woman appeared to be severely injured, her face pale, her willow-like eyebrows tightly knitted, with a red flower mark between her brows. She weakly coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood, about to collapse softly into her arms.
Yu Yi quickly supported her and was about to inquire when a familiar and noisy voice suddenly rang out, "Yes, Master, that's right. You should faint now. The female lead is kind-hearted and compassionate, with a bodhisattva's heart. She definitely won't abandon you, and this way, you'll have a chance to spend time together."
Yu Yi: "???"
She looked incredulously at the seemingly frail woman in her arms, suddenly withdrew her hand, and kicked her flying away. Then she quickly disappeared into the mist without a trace.
Xue Chenjing sat up from the ground, covered in dirt, pressing a hand against his waist where he had been kicked hard. He laughed bitterly, "Kind-hearted and compassionate, with a bodhisattva's heart?"
System 073: "..."
This shouldn't be happening! How could its lovable, kind, universally adored little sweetheart of a female lead do such a thing?! It must be that Xue Chenjing had corrupted her!
In the five years without its companionship, she must have suffered greatly to become so vigilant and unwilling to trust others. Wuwuwu, it was all its and the male lead's fault!
