VAP - Chapter 26
Chapter 26: The Sleeping Beauty Whose Words Are Law (25)
Yue Du was also caught off guard by Qi Jiu's sudden shutdown.
Judging from the two instances of forced sleep yesterday, she shouldn't have reached her energy consumption threshold for the day yet.
In her estimation, Qi Jiu should have been able to relax and play for a while after getting home, moving a few objects before hitting the threshold and falling into a forced sleep.
Could the act of erasing memories have consumed too much energy? Yue Du considered the possibility but immediately dismissed it. Qi Jiu hadn't seemed strained at the time, because erasing memories was also a form of destruction.
Then why did it happen?
Yue Du sat on the grass by the lake, hugging her knees as she pondered. She considered one possibility after another, only to quickly discard them.
Until the Main System's emotionless, mechanical voice rang out:
"Host's Esper Ability has been upgraded. Awarding 200 points."
Yue Du: “...” Oh-ho.
So that was it—an ability upgrade.
Then everything was fine—like hell it was! How could it be fine? Why was the sign of an upgrade also forced sleep? What if she suddenly leveled up in a dangerous place?
This couldn't go on.
The lake's surface remained calm, and it seemed Qi Jiu wouldn't be leaving her subconscious space anytime soon. Yue Du began searching the System Store for any items that might help.
But after searching for a long time, she found that nearly every item that could guarantee safety and was within an affordable point range required the host to operate and actively trigger it.
A host who fell into an unconscious, sleeping state at the first sign of trouble clearly couldn't meet the usage requirements.
Yue Du gloomily closed the store, unable to resist muttering in contempt, "It's all trash!"
Since that was a dead end, she changed her approach and began to consider finding a companion for her host.
Humans are social, pack animals. No matter how much of a lone wolf one might be, they still need to communicate and interact with their own kind. No one can completely detach from the web of human relationships.
But Qi Jiu was different.
She had never cared about the people around her; even the Qi family members were like a troop of annoying monkeys in her eyes.
When they weren't causing her trouble, she was too lazy to bother with them. When they did, she would discipline them. If they became too much of a nuisance, she would just get rid of them.
Wait, speaking of looking at monkeys—
Yue Du suddenly fell into deep thought.
In Qi Jiu's eyes, she wasn't just a data monkey, was she?
No, no, no, that couldn't be. After all, the great Qi Jiu seemed to like her quite a bit, even playing games and chess with her in the mental space to pass the time.
But then again, don't humans also enjoy passing the time with cute little animals...
The thought was terrifying the more she considered it!
Yue Du shook her head, banishing the dreadful association, and returned to the matter at hand.
If a companion was absolutely necessary, the first figure that came to mind was Xing Qingcang.
Whether in terms of power or character, as the protagonist of this small world, Xing Qingcang was the best candidate.
According to the data provided by the system, Yue Du knew the professor possessed dual Esper Abilities.
One was an enhancement type, Brain Domain Expansion; the other was the ability to wield lightning. He was a scholar in the lab and a warrior on the battlefield—a classic example of someone skilled in both civil and martial arts.
Yesterday, Yue Du had intercepted the information Xing Qingcang posted online—that esper data sheet.
It only listed one ability, the Brain Domain Expansion and enhancement; he was most likely keeping the other one a secret.
With Xing Qingcang, Qi Jiu's safety could likely be guaranteed to the greatest extent possible.
That was what Yue Du thought, and she told Qi Jiu so after she woke up from her forced sleep.
Qi Jiu leaned on her shoulder, listening quietly until she finished. Then, she lowered her gaze and said, "There are other ways."
Yue Du said, "This is the optimal choice." She paused, then added, "Of course, if you have some hidden setting you haven't told me about, now would be the time."
Qi Jiu gave a faint smile. "I don't, but you do."
Yue Du was speechless. Then how come I don't know about it?
Qi Jiu seemed to enjoy watching her look utterly bewildered while trying to feign composure. She deliberately lifted her head to stare, making no effort to hide the amusement in her eyes.
Being stared at by such a devastatingly beautiful woman, Yue Du averted her gaze unnaturally. "Well, go on then. I don't know what you're talking about."
Qi Jiu sighed with a laugh. "Do I have to remind you? Your body."
For a few seconds, Yue Du thought her host was being a rogue.
The words themselves weren't the problem, but they became one when paired with the other woman's deliberately low voice and the hazy, languid gaze so close to her own!
Qi Jiu hummed, "Hm?"
Yue Du snapped back to her senses. She pressed her lips together, trying to make her tone sound prim and serious. "You mean, you want me to redeem a physical body to watch over you?"
Qi Jiu slumped back onto her shoulder, nuzzling it lazily. "That's right. Just the two of us. That's enough."
Yue Du knew Qi Jiu possessed a mysterious sort of confidence, but it was completely unreasonable to extend that confidence to her.
She was just an ordinary girl-system, and the human female body in the System Store was just a shell with average physical attributes!
Most importantly—
"We can't afford it," Yue Du reminded her, her expression flat.
A human female body cost 2,500 points, and Yue Du had only managed to save up 889. Accumulating enough was still a distant prospect.
Although Qi Jiu had more points, they still wouldn't have enough even if they pooled them together. Besides, they had to save some for emergencies and couldn't spend all their points at once.
Qi Jiu said, "I never said we had to buy it right now."
"Now that we've entered a period of chaos, the Main System is bound to start issuing more and more missions, right? It won't take long to save up enough."
Yue Du still disagreed. "That's not the point. Spending so many points on an ordinary human body is just not cost-effective..."
Besides, there was no need to do so at all.
Her reason for choosing Xing Qingcang as a future companion wasn't just because he was the protagonist. In fact, she suspected it was the correct route.
It was like an option in a video game; to connect with the previous two main quests, Xing Qingcang was the only correct answer.
Why else would they have had her become his student and maintain contact to raise his favorability? Thanks to all of Yue Du's bizarre physics questions, Xing Qingcang's attitude toward Qi Jiu was already like that of a long-time friend. He was trustworthy.
Faced with her system's firm stance, Qi Jiu couldn't help but look troubled.
"What a headache," she sighed. "Do I need to be more direct? I only trust you. No one else is even in the running."
Those words were enough to move any system, but.
"No matter how much you trust me, it doesn't change the fact that I can't help," Yue Du said calmly.
If Qi Jiu really lost consciousness in front of an enemy, having only an ordinary woman standing guard would be useless. They would both just get knocked out together.
The world's strongest esper dying of Sleeping Beauty syndrome, completely helpless because she couldn't wake up, only to be utterly annihilated by some weakling opponent—that sounded far too tragic!
Qi Jiu said, "It's fine. The next Recovery Mist will arrive in three months, right? We just have to redeem the body before then. Even an ordinary human body will awaken an Esper Ability in this world." As she spoke, she raised her index finger and traced it over her rosy lips, the tip pressing against her Cupid's bow in a particularly alluring way.
"And don't worry about the odds. With me here, you're guaranteed to be one of the ten percent who awaken."
Yue Du was speechless.
In truth, there was much more she wanted to say. For instance, what if the ability she awakened was useless? What if she had to face an enemy far stronger than her?
But seeing the certainty in Qi Jiu's eyes, she ultimately said nothing.
"I... I'll do my best. Thank you, Qi Jiu."
Qi Jiu said with dissatisfaction, "Why are you calling me Qi Jiu? It sounds so distant."
Yue Du went with the flow. "What would you like me to call you?"
"Ah Jiu. Call me Ah Jiu."
Two slender, pale arms lifted and wrapped softly around Yue Du's waist from the side, pulling her close. Where her system couldn't see, the look in her deep, dark eyes was inscrutable.
Yue Du subconsciously called out, "Ah Jiu."
Qi Jiu: "Mhm."
She was like a little tsundere princess, satisfied after getting candy but pretending not to care.
For some reason, that was what Yue Du thought.
Whatever, as long as the host is happy.
After all, she herself also hoped to have a physical body. If she could be helpful while also fulfilling this little wish of her own, nothing could be better.
But even so, she had to make a few preparations. She couldn't let Qi Jiu actually get killed while in a deep sleep.
She should continue to maintain contact with Xing Qingcang. It wouldn't be a problem to play the part of a powerful girl—one who already had explosive combat power and then suddenly gained a teleportation ability after the outbreak—over the internet.
At the same time, she should also spend some points to buy a few teleportation cards, just in case.
As long as the opponent wasn't the kind of powerhouse who could decide life and death in half a second, teleportation cards were life-saving artifacts.
It was settled.
Meanwhile, at the G City Military District.
"What did you say? How is that possible?"
Wu Dao's face was pale, and he looked ready to collapse.
Wei Jingpeng stood before him, wearing a politely apologetic smile. "That's the situation. None of us know what happened, but Xiude is gone, and so are the few friends who were with him."
Wu Dao's only son, Wu Xiude, had disappeared.
No one could say how he and his friends had vanished. In the same room with them had been the young master of the Wei family, as well as several bikini-clad girls who knew nothing and would just huddle together, whimpering and crying, the moment anyone's tone grew harsh.
And all of these people had lost about an hour of their memory for unknown reasons.
"How is this possible? This is too absurd..." Wu Dao was both incredulous and terrified. "Young Master Wei, even if you don't want to tell me the real reason, don't make up stories like this to fool me... That's my only son! Tell me what really happened, and I'll send people to find him!"
Wei Jingpeng replied in a gentle tone, "Uncle Wu, do you think I have any reason to lie to you? It is what it is. I regret it as well, but I can't provide any more clues, because that's all we saw."
Wu Dao sputtered, "You—"
His furious words caught in his throat as the young man's expression darkened, clearly growing impatient.
This was mainly because Wei Jingpeng was missing that hour of memory. If he had it, he would have been too lazy to even spare Wu Dao a glance by now, and might have even pointed a finger in his face and cursed him out.
Something like this:
What kind of rotten son did you raise? His name is Wu Xiude [Martial Virtue], why not Wu Quede [Lack of Virtue]? He was a school bully who got what was coming to him, and he nearly got me killed in the process! And you, his father who never bothered to teach him right from wrong, have the gall to ask me about it!
However, since he remembered nothing, he could still maintain a facade and not appear too disrespectful.
Wu Dao was a ruthless man, but as ruthless as he was, he couldn't out-bully the Wei family.
In Wei Jingpeng's eyes, the fact that he was even willing to recount the events was giving Wu Dao more than enough face. And now he was being yelled at? He was truly the father of that Wu Xiude, who had dared to order him around just because he'd awakened an ability!
Wei Jingpeng shook his head mockingly, turned, and walked away, leaving Wu Dao standing alone to slowly digest the fact that his son was missing, swallowing his grief.
—Just like a certain father, working far from home all those years ago, who heard that his daughter had been driven to suicide by school bullies.
Wei Jingpeng made his way to the center of the military district.
Someone moved to stop him, but he took out his access pass. "I'm Wei Jingpeng of the Wei family," he said. "I'm here to see my sister."
After confirming the pass was genuine, the person immediately let him through.
Wei Jingpeng entered the elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor. According to regulations, this was the only floor he was allowed to enter.
The number on the display changed to "5." Wei Jingpeng took a step forward, about to exit, and came face-to-face with a woman with short, ear-length black hair.
"Sis!" Wei Jingpeng quickly stepped back and called out.
Wei Jinghuang looked him over and frowned. "What are you doing, rushing around so recklessly?"
Wei Jingpeng grinned. "I was coming to find you, wasn't I? I was in a hurry, it was an accident, my bad, my bad. By the way, sis, are you heading out?"
Wei Jinghuang: "It's time to eat."
"Together, then?"
"First, tell me why you're looking for me."
"Well, it's something..." Wei Jingpeng said with a pained expression. "You know I just got back this afternoon. This morning, over at Wu Xiude's place—"
"You have the nerve to bring that up?" Wei Jinghuang sneered. "What did you promise me a few days ago? That you wouldn't go out messing around with those people again? And what's the result? You go to some pool party, get caught up in trouble, and make us send someone to pick you up. Have you no shame?"
Wei Jingpeng said, "I know I was wrong. If you want to hit me, I'll take it! But there's something else..."
He then told her everything about Wu Xiude's disappearance.
At the end, he added, "It must have been an esper. The more I think about it, the more it creeps me out, so I came to ask you for a favor."
Wei Jinghuang said, "You want me to do a divination for you."
Wei Jingpeng: "Yes!"
Wei Jinghuang had awakened an Esper Ability: divination. Although it was called divination, it couldn't predict the future. Instead, it deduced the past, providing words and phrases corresponding to past events. It could only be used three times a day.
The ability would have been very useful for detective work, but Wei Jinghuang was a military officer and a former sniper. If she'd had a choice, she would have much preferred a combat ability over this support-type power.
"Why should I waste one of my uses on something like this? Since that esper didn't do anything to you, it proves this has nothing to do with you, right?" Wei Jinghuang raised an eyebrow.
Wei Jingpeng said, "...Sis, stop teasing me. Even if it's not because of me, a guy with such a bizarre ability is an unstable element, isn't he? Look at your own epaulets. Shouldn't you be shouldering your responsibility? Hurry up and eliminate this unstable element!"
Wei Jinghuang sighed. "Fine."
She led her foolish little brother back to her office.
Wei Jinghuang asked, "Specific time frame?"
Wei Jingpeng: "Between seven and eight in the morning."
Wei Jinghuang: "Alright. Now, write down a character. Whichever one comes to mind."
Wei Jingpeng took the ballpoint pen, grabbed a random piece of paper, and scribbled something down.
"This character?" Wei Jinghuang placed the paper flat in front of her. "Are you sure?"
Wei Jingpeng said helplessly, "You're teasing me again. Didn't you say I can't change it?"
"Haha, it's fun to tease you." Wei Jinghuang let out an insincere laugh. Once the ink was dry, she closed her eyes and placed her fingertip on the character for "Void" in the center of the paper.
She waited patiently for a moment. Finally, scattered words and phrases began to appear in her mind.
"She"
"Fear"
"Belial"
"Has been here, unintentional revenge and a deliberate death"
"Do not look"
Wei Jinghuang's eyes snapped open, her soul still shaken. "Holy shit!"
Wei Jingpeng was startled by his sister's sudden outburst. "Sis, are you okay?"
Wei Jinghuang didn't answer. She tore the paper to shreds and threw it into the wastebasket beside her.
"Jingpeng," she said sternly, "you're to stay in the military district during this time. Don't go running around outside, you hear me?"
Having grown up under the threat of his sister's hand, Wei Jingpeng instinctively straightened up the moment he saw her serious expression. "Absolutely!"
Only then did Wei Jinghuang breathe a sigh of relief.
"So what exactly happened?" Wei Jingpeng sat with her in silence for a while before his curiosity finally got the better of him.
Wei Jinghuang sighed. "Don't look."
Wei Jingpeng: "?"
"Who cares what it means? Just... don't look."
At Qi Jiu's home.
As it turned out, Qi Jiu was probably the Main System's favorite child.
Before, when she wanted to take it easy, the missions were pitifully few and effortless. The only long-term mission could be handled entirely by Yue Du.
But now that she wanted points, missions came flooding in, as if the system was afraid she wouldn't get her wish.
A month after their conversation—a month during which Qi Jiu hadn't stepped foot outside, content to be a salted fish at home—the Main System issued a new main quest: subdue the troublemakers of the world.
Of course, it wasn't worded exactly like that. The original text was—
Those who could not and would not suppress the darkness in their hearts have finally obtained the great power they dreamed of and have begun to use their abilities to wreak havoc on the world without restraint.
Go and subdue them. Make them acknowledge you as their king!
For every villainous esper subdued from the list, you will be awarded 150 points. The list is as follows.
Asia
China: Evil Scorpion Hua Yuxia, Queen Mother of the West Song Qingqing, Erlang Shen Xie Bufan, Faceless Ghost Cui Zi
Nihon Island: Edo's Lingering Soul, Hasegawa Chijo
Korea: The Maiden Reaper, Kim Jae-woo
Europe
United Kingdom: The Gentleman, Oliver Adrian
...and so on.
Seven continents, fifteen countries, twenty names, each one more laughable than the last.
Yue Du: "..." Suddenly, she didn't know what to say.
Should she roast these "all-villain" codenames that seemed to have been ripped straight from some third-rate fantasy script she'd seen in her past life, or should she be delighted that accumulating points would no longer be an issue?
Qi Jiu, however, was quite pleased. She said to Yue Du, "See? Just as I thought. The more chaotic the world gets, the more missions there are."
Yue Du glanced at her.
If she didn't know that Qi Jiu's Word Spirit ability had no effect on the Main System, which existed outside this world, she would have sworn her host was making her wishes come true simply by voicing them.
In any case, the mission had to be done.
For this mission, Qi Jiu displayed a rare enthusiasm, specifically by not half-closing her eyes and languidly declaring how boring it was.
Not only that, but before even starting the mission, she began to imagine the body Yue Du would soon possess.
Qi Jiu asked, "Will it look the same as you do now?"
Yue Du replied, "It should."
Barring any surprises, the body provided by the System Store would be created in her exact likeness from her previous life. She just wasn't sure if it would be her current seventeen-year-old data-form, or the twenty-three-year-old version she was when she died.
Qi Jiu mused, "Hmm, will it be wearing clothes when you redeem it?"
Yue Du said, "..."
What strange things are you thinking about!
In any case, the mission began.
The first esper they targeted was Hua Yuxia, codenamed Evil Scorpion, who was in the same city of Shengjing as they were. Yue Du found all the available information on him online.
Hua Yuxia was a young man with a beautiful, feminine name. He had an average appearance and looked gentle and harmless. If you put him in a crowd, no one would ever pick him out as the infamous Evil Scorpion.
The reason for such an obviously villainous codename was mainly due to his ability—Scorpion Stinger.
A three-meter-long tail, closely resembling that of a scorpion, trailed swaying behind him. The poisonous stinger at its tip glinted coldly—a deadly weapon!
In the past month, many espers who disregarded social laws and order had emerged, committing murder and robbery. The authorities were busy with rescue and disaster relief and couldn't spare the personnel to hunt them down.
Currently, the common term for them was the Chaos Faction—
The Chaos Faction, of course, hadn't formed an alliance or team. They had no contact with one another, but they were all capable of stirring up trouble in their respective territories.
Some of them didn't care at all if they were discovered, even reveling in the attention. Others were more cautious, silencing any witnesses after committing a crime, terrified of being seen.
Hua Yuxia was one of the latter.
However, with the information network still intact and functioning, it was difficult to remain a mystery. No matter how many people he silenced, he couldn't guarantee that not a single person saw him...
After all, before being poisoned to death, a victim might use their last ounce of strength to snap a photo and upload it, typing with trembling fingers, "Avenge me."
Or a witness might happen to snap a picture of his back, his profile, or record a video, then upload it to their social media account while screaming in celebration of their narrow escape.
Netizens would catch wind of it, fill with righteous indignation, and share it hundreds or thousands of times—and there you have it, the whole country knew who this troublemaker was.
Gradually, everyone learned about the few espers who were plaguing their regions. Once they became "familiar faces" among the masses, people would give them codenames of all sorts.
Like Evil Scorpion.
He was Qi Jiu's first target.
After reviewing all the information Yue Du had gathered, Qi Jiu turned off her phone screen. "He's a weakling."
Yue Du retorted, "Everyone's a weakling in your eyes."
But compared to the others in the Chaos Faction, Hua Yuxia was indeed easier to deal with. He relied mainly on the poison in his stinger, which was ten times more potent than a king cobra's and had no known antidote, but his own abilities weren't strong.
Qi Jiu said, "How does that saying go again? 'Everyone here, besides me, is trash.'"
For Qi Jiu, if there was something that couldn't be solved with one sentence, she'd use two.
No problem with that.
Yue Du was thoroughly convinced and applauded: Clap, clap, clap.
The invincible Qi Jiu, who could travel the world fearing nothing with just her words, moved herself to a spot five meters behind Hua Yuxia.
The movement was silent, so naturally, Hua Yuxia didn't notice anything amiss. He was still enthusiastically waving his scorpion stinger, stabbing it into something in front of him over and over.
Yue Du, with her omniscient view, easily saw what was being stabbed and immediately felt a sense of psychological discomfort.
It was a corpse, mangled beyond recognition.
It had been stabbed by the scorpion stinger hundreds, perhaps thousands of times, and was now a swollen, reddish-purple mass covered in bloody holes, long past being identifiable.
Yet Hua Yuxia seemed to be admiring his work, letting out continuous laughs of appreciation.
Qi Jiu said, "Ugh, he's disgusting."
Yue Du completely agreed. "He's a total pervert!"
Qi Jiu suddenly lost her desire to do the mission. "The mission description says to subdue him, right? Sorry, but I don't really want a subordinate like this. Can I just kill him?"
"Although I feel the same way, unfortunately, you can't. You still have to make him acknowledge you as his king," Yue Du said.
Qi Jiu replied, "No, I have absolutely no desire to be the king of something like this."
Yue Du added, "There might be nineteen more 'somethings' like him."
Yue Du knew about Hua Yuxia's past.
In this information age, if you knew a person's name and location, it meant you could probably find out something about them online—and if they were a person with a "story," that likelihood increased dramatically.
Hua Yuxia was a man with a story.
He was often bullied—as a child and as an adult—because of his feminine name, because of his overly plain but soft-looking face that just seemed easy to bully, and also because of his own taciturn personality.
But even after being bullied for over a decade, he was still used to keeping silent, never saying a word.
There's a saying: either erupt in silence or perish in silence. He erupted, but not against the classmates who bullied him or the colleagues who ostracized him, but against innocent stray cats.
Hua Yuxia was a cat abuser.
This was discovered by his colleagues, who took photos and posted them online. Although it didn't make much of a splash in the virtual world, his colleagues also reported the matter to their boss.
Consequently, Hua Yuxia was fired without any suspense.
The boss himself was a cat lover, with a Ragdoll and a British Shorthair at home that he constantly showed off online. Naturally, he couldn't tolerate such a thing.
After losing his job, before he had a chance to find another, Hua Yuxia experienced the esper outbreak and gained his poisonous scorpion stinger.
Society fell into chaos, and he finally found something even more cathartic than abusing cats—abusing people.
Yue Du had no desire to call such a creature a person. "Thing" was a better word for him.
Being bullied is never an excuse to take it out on the innocent!
Even Qi Jiu, who usually remained aloof and indifferent, looked at Hua Yuxia as if he were a disgusting monkey.
She sighed and said, "Forget it. In any case, let's finish the mission first."
With no intention of getting any closer, Qi Jiu stood her ground, even taking a step back, and spoke: "Bind Hua Yuxia's scorpion tail around his own body in a knot he cannot escape."
Before she was even halfway through her sentence, Hua Yuxia spun around abruptly, his three-meter-long scorpion tail whipping menacingly toward Qi Jiu, its stinger flashing with a sinister light.
Qi Jiu easily tilted her head to dodge it, her words continuing uninterrupted until she finished the sentence.
The scorpion tail was immediately yanked back by some unseen force, coiling around its owner's body and tying itself into a neat knot.
Hua Yuxia: ?!!!
The Evil Scorpion was stunned like a wooden scorpion.
Qi Jiu was very impatient. With the face of a world-weary beauty, she said coolly, "Call me Queen."
Without a second's pause, Hua Yuxia seamlessly complied: "Queen!"
The moment he said it, he wanted to raise his hands to cover his mouth in terror, but his hands were bound by his own tail and wouldn't move.
He hadn't intended to say anything, so why had the word "Queen" slipped out? Could it be the other person's ability?
What kind of bizarre and freaky ability was this!
Qi Jiu waited quietly for a moment but didn't hear the Main System's mission completion notification.
"It seems... calling you Queen unwillingly doesn't count. It has to be done with sincere conviction," Yue Du said.
Qi Jiu clicked her tongue. "Tsk, what a pain."
Hua Yuxia's expression was still blank, but deep inside, he was panicking.
He had always been someone who bullied the weak and feared the strong.
Back when Hua Yuxia was just an ordinary person, he was afraid of his colleagues, so he never dared to do anything improper to them.
But as a human, he was naturally stronger than a helpless stray cat, so he could abuse them without any psychological burden, deriving satisfaction from seeing their small, mangled bodies, their fur matted with blood.
Then he got an ability.
He finally had an ability!
He could turn those colleagues, who were now weaker than him, into declawed cats. The relationship between the weak and the strong had been reversed—Hua Yuxia was grateful for that mist from the bottom of his heart.
Now, Hua Yuxia had met someone stronger than him.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it, I was wrong!" After figuring out the situation, Hua Yuxia didn't waste a second before cowering.
Qi Jiu asked, "What were you wrong about?"
Hua Yuxia was at a loss for words. "I... I don't know."
At this moment, he showed no trace of the pervert who had been madly stabbing a corpse. If one ignored the menacing scorpion tail, he looked just like a shy, timid boy.
Seeing this contrast, Yue Du's psychological discomfort didn't lessen; it intensified.
Qi Jiu said, "Your mistake was letting something filthy pollute my sight."
Hua Yuxia immediately understood what she meant—the corpse that had been tortured beyond recognition. He said, "I'm sorry! Let me go, and I'll get rid of it right away—"
Qi Jiu said, "Alright. Call me Queen. With sincere conviction."
It was unclear whether it was the Word Spirit ability taking effect or if Hua Yuxia had already been sincerely convinced—after all, he caved very quickly. In any case, the notification sounded, and Qi Jiu received 150 points.
Qi Jiu said with relief, "Ah, that's done."
A spark of hope ignited in Hua Yuxia's eyes. "What's done? Can you let me go now?"
Qi Jiu looked down at him, at those eyes where hope and ugliness coexisted.
"I meant, it's time to clean up the filth."
she said, her face devoid of expression.
Hua Yuxia died. His throat was slit by an invisible force. At the time of his death, the scorpion tail that had claimed hundreds of lives was still wrapped around his own body.
Qi Jiu moved herself back home. After her ability upgrade, the level of detail required for non-destructive commands had decreased, and her threshold seemed to have risen as well.
She was nowhere near the point of forced sleep.
Yue Du was actually a little surprised.
"I thought you would just ignore him and leave him there." But instead, she'd included a bonus garbage disposal service and finished off the Evil Scorpion directly.
Qi Jiu, who was holding a teacup, paused. "Why would you think that?"
"I just get the feeling you don't really care about humans," Yue Du said carefully. "It's like you see them as monkeys or ants."
Qi Jiu smiled. "Must be your imagination."
Yue Du sighed. "Your tone is so perfunctory, I can't even convince myself it's my imagination."
Qi Jiu said, "Hmm, let's say I do see humans as monkeys. If I suddenly see one monkey stabbing another into a leaky bag right in front of me, of course it's going to be an eyesore. So, it's perfectly reasonable for me to want to get rid of that monkey."
Yue Du's expression was complicated. "That is... quite reasonable..."
But most normal people would probably just hurry away. Though, it's not out of the question that some might want to kill the monkey, I guess?
"But speaking of which, aren't you the one who sees humans as monkeys?" Qi Jiu said, a smile playing on her lips.
Yue Du was shocked. "Me?"
Why would I see my own kind as monkeys???
Qi Jiu said seriously, "That's right. You're a system, a higher life form that exists as data. By that logic, you probably don't even see humans as monkeys. They're more like paramecia to you."
Yue Du, who had been a paramecium for twenty-three years: "...That's a misunderstanding of us systems. In our eyes, all species are the same."
Qi Jiu drew out the word, "Iiiiis that so?"
Yue Du said with righteous conviction, "Of course."
Qi Jiu couldn't hold it in any longer and chuckled. "You're such an adorable system."
Yue Du replied, "It's 'System,' thank you very much."
They didn't continue the topic. Whether it was monkeys or paramecia, it was best not to delve too deeply.
For the next ten-odd days, Qi Jiu's schedule was as follows:
Wake up at noon, leisurely wash up and eat, then teleport behind some Chaos Faction esper on the list.
Subdue them and make them call her Queen with sincere conviction.
If she happened to arrive while the esper was in the middle of slaughtering people—"filthy thing, hurts my eyes"—then after the points were credited, Qi Jiu would casually eliminate them.
But if she arrived and the esper wasn't doing anything, just spacing out or playing on their phone, Qi Jiu couldn't be bothered to kill them and would leisurely return home after the mission was complete.
She wasn't some international police officer; there was no need for her to dispense justice everywhere.
It was worth noting, however, that after Qi Jiu's "visits," these Chaos Faction members didn't cause any more trouble—at least, none that made it onto the internet. They all stayed quiet as chickens in their own territories, pretending all was peaceful and well.
A few of them left a particularly deep impression on Yue Du:
First was a couple, China's Queen Mother of the West, Song Qingqing, and Erlang Shen, Xie Bufan.
Song Qingqing was a tall woman who, when activating her ability, would grow a leopard's head and tail. Yue Du was wondering why she was called the Queen Mother of the West instead of Leopard Head Lin Chong when she heard a deafening shriek erupt from the woman's mouth, a sound that could almost shatter a person's soul.
"..." As a system with superhuman hearing capable of picking up the faintest sounds, Yue Du was nearly screamed into a state of withdrawal.
No wonder she was called the Queen Mother of the West. The original was known for her roar.
The origin of the "Erlang Shen" codename was easy to guess. The man had a third eye on his forehead that gave him a 360-degree field of vision. He was the first to spot Qi Jiu, who had a habit of teleporting behind people.
This husband-and-wife team didn't like killing, but they loved robbing, especially jewelry.
When Qi Jiu arrived, they were sitting in a room counting their jewels. The entire room glittered, almost blindingly so.
Of course, the couple's combat power was equivalent to a wet noodle. Qi Jiu found Song Qingqing's "Queen Mother's Roar" too noisy and directly used her Word Spirit to command Song Qingqing to "shut her noisy mouth."
Then, because she needed to hear them call her Queen, she undid the previous Word Spirit command. Song Qingqing, still shaken, never spoke above forty decibels again.
Another memorable one was America's "Joker," Jewell Yorksa.
Although his codename was Joker, he didn't dress like a clown, nor did he laugh maniacally or make embarrassing jokes. In fact, his ability was to manipulate threads, and he enjoyed leaping about in the webs he wove.
...So why wasn't his codename "The Tightrope Walker"?
Who knows? Maybe the American people thought that codename was too long.
When they arrived, this Joker was in the middle of hanging several little girls, or simply using his threads to completely sever their tender necks, all while hypocritically muttering, "The Lord will forgive you."
When Qi Jiu left, she cleanly used his own threads to snap his neck.
One little girl looked like she was on the verge of bursting into tears from fright, but she still had the presence of mind to secretly take a photo, intending to upload Qi Jiu's picture to Twitter. But the attempt failed.
Puzzled, she opened her photo album, only to find that the two pictures she had just taken had vanished without a trace.
Yue Du: Hiding her deeds and name.
There was also an indigenous man in South America who wore a large feathered headdress and told everyone he met that he was the human incarnation of the Feathered Serpent. His favorite pastime was pulling a feather from his headdress and stabbing people in the brain with it.
If you didn't call him Lord Feathered Serpent, he would stab you in the brain because you didn't believe in him.
If you did call him Lord Feathered Serpent, he would still stab you in the brain, because if you believed in him, you had to offer yourself as a sacrifice.
—What brand of psycho was this guy?
In this chaotic world, the madmen were varied, but the perverts were all perverted in a remarkably consistent way.
In short, after Qi Jiu had "subdued" ten people on the list, she had saved up enough points.
Qi Jiu immediately wanted to transfer them all to Yue Du so she could redeem her body sooner.
But Yue Du didn't agree. She insisted on subduing another five people and setting aside over seven hundred points for teleportation talismans before she finally accepted her host's gift.
A notification box appeared.
—System 0996, are you sure you want to redeem one ordinary human female body?
—Yes.
2,500 points were deducted from Yue Du's account.
The next moment, the body of a young woman appeared on Qi Jiu's large, soft bed.
It was Yue Du as she had been at twenty-three, the way she looked just before she died.
Her medium-length hair just reached her shoulders, fanning out behind her head, fine, soft, black, and straight. Her eyes were naturally closed, her nose delicate. Both the gentle lines of her face and the exquisite shape of her features were small, pretty, and perfectly proportioned.
...Wait, setting aside what Yue Du looked like for a moment.
Let's talk about the body—the body was actually naked! Just lying there on the bed, brazenly bare! Every part was clearly visible!
If data could blush, Yue Du's face would probably be red, along with her ears and neck.
Sitting to the side, Qi Jiu raised an eyebrow. "Wow."
Yue Du: "Host, please respect my privacy and look away, thank you!"
Qi Jiu sighed melancholically and averted her gaze.
Yue Du exclaimed, "Why do you seem so reluctant!"
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