Acting as the 'White Moonlight' in Destructive Novels [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The First World – Cyberpunk (3)

Having died once at the hands of the male lead, Lin Qingyu felt a visceral, stress-induced reaction the moment he saw that face. He subconsciously leaned to the side, dodging the incoming samurai sword.

Su Wang’s smile stiffened slightly, but his voice became even gentler. “Don’t dodge. You’ll have a more comfortable death if it’s a single fatal blow. It’ll be very painful if I have to hack you to death slice by slice, Qingyu.”

People whose mental worlds have collapsed really do talk like lunatics.

Lin Qingyu compared their builds and realized he was slightly sturdier than the male lead. If he could manage to snatch the sword, he might have a chance at a counter-kill. He dodged Su Wang’s attack and reached out to grip his wrist, intending to force him to drop the weapon—only to see Su Wang pull a handgun from his coat. It was the same one that had killed him before.

Before transmigrating, Lin Qingyu was just an ordinary actor. He had never seen a real gun in his life, having only acted out “disarming an opponent” in mindless, trashy power-fantasy dramas.

Lin Qingyu eyed the gun. Art comes from life; I think I can do this.

“Forget it, I don’t think you can win. Try talk-therapy—beg him, clear up the misunderstanding.”

Hearing the sound of a bullet being chambered, Lin Qingyu chose to accept Little Coward’s advice. He quickly raised his hands. “Brother, don’t kill me yet! I have important clues to tell you! I know you’ve been framed, I have evidence!”

A gunshot cut Lin Qingyu’s words short. He felt his strength rapidly drain away, and the world before his eyes began to tilt. The moment before his consciousness plunged into darkness, he saw Su Wang aim at his head and fire another shot for good measure.

System: …

Lin Qingyu: …

What a pathetic death. I’m never listening to Little Coward again.

The system was frantically bowing and apologizing.

“I’m sorry! Even though disarming him by hand was impossible, I shouldn’t have stopped you—at least you could have died with some dignity!”

Lin Qingyu was questioning the meaning of life. He sat on his own corpse, watching as he was dragged into the room by Su Wang. After checking the body and confirming he was truly dead, the male lead stopped paying attention to him. He turned and entered the original owner’s indoor armory to pick out gear. Lin Qingyu honestly couldn’t figure out what he had done wrong—wasn’t “innocence” exactly what Su Wang wanted?

He pulled up the backend interface to check the mission target’s data.

#BasicData#

Affection: 50/100 (Once a good friend, now a dead buddy.)

Desire Level: 0/100 (Not interested)

Internal Thoughts: ‘How many times has he used such clumsy tricks? Behind on gambling debts again, trying to scam me for cash? He’s as stupid as he was when we were kids.’

Dark Thoughts: ‘Kill the government dogs.’

Little Coward pointed at the backend, frantically defending itself. It wasn’t that its methods were flawed—it was the original owner who had narrowed the path! He wasn’t allowed to file a complaint!

Lin Qingyu sat on his own corpse, watching Su Wang dig a palm-sized mini-pistol out of the armory. It was pink and quite cute. Su Wang changed into the original owner’s clothes and put on the collar, pretending to be a “stray dog.” He squatted beside the corpse, helping to wipe the brains off his face and straighten his clothes.

His movements were tender, and his gaze was inexplicably doting—it made Lin Qingyu’s skin crawl. Thankfully, the Desire Level in the backend remained at zero.

After finishing the “buddy’s” funeral arrangements, Su Wang sighed. “Qingyu, I’ve been very busy lately. I don’t know why, but some people keep appearing near me for no reason—men and women alike.”

Lin Qingyu propped up his chin and glared at him. Those are the harem members and sidekicks the plot arranged for you.

“I found a very important clue last Sunday. Mike Yang, the agent who was supposed to die in the torture livestream, is actually alive. I saw him walk into the Future Tower with my own eyes and go to the Beauty Street on the 78th floor of Block A. I disguised myself and followed him in, hoping to find a chance to catch him. Everything was going so smoothly…but then a woman suddenly hit on me, insisting I had stepped on her pet cockroach [lit: twin-tails] and demanding compensation. By the time I shook her off, Mike was gone.”

“I just don’t understand.” Su Wang reached through Lin Qingyu’s soul, picked up the corpse, and rubbed his cheek against its neck.

Lin Qingyu didn’t understand why anyone would keep a cockroach as a pet, either.

Su Wang talked to himself, chatting happily with the corpse, and the affection level bumped up to 60, while the desire level began to rise. He didn’t intend to do anything, though—he just wanted to chop Lin Qingyu’s head off and carry it around to keep him company whenever he felt like talking.

It was quite perverted. Considering that a head would rot and smell, and carving away the meat would take too much time, he gave up on the idea.

Little Coward begged and pleaded, eventually successfully applying to the company for a chance to “resurrect on the corpse.” Once the male lead left, he could use it on Lin Qingyu and incidentally repair his body. That way, he wouldn’t end up crawling around like a zombie with half his head missing.

Little Coward held the “Resurrection Coin,” aiming it at the corpse. Lin Qingyu stopped beating up the air in front of Su Wang and floated back onto the body, waiting obediently.

But just as he reached the door, Su Wang suddenly turned back. Before Lin Qingyu and Little Coward’s baffled eyes, he pulled out his mini-pistol and pulled the trigger on the corpse.

Lin Qingyu watched, helpless, as his own body ignited and quickly turned into a pile of ashes. The prosthetic limbs the original owner had installed fell to the floor with a clatter. Su Wang pulled out a glass bottle and used a membership card to sweep the ashes inside. Holding the bottle, he chatted as he walked away.

It wasn’t until the door closed that Lin Qingyu finally came back to his senses. He hung his mouth open, dazed. I’ve been cremated. Can I still resurrect on the corpse?

“No.”

Then my mission in this world is…

Little Coward put down the Resurrection Coin, gritted its teeth, and disappeared from Lin Qingyu’s mind. Not long after, it returned with a stack of lottery tickets.

“My boyfriend runs a lottery shop. The grand prize is “Another Life”—you can survive even without a corpse.”

That powerful?

“It’s contraband. It’s got a kick. So, can you take your hand off the complaint button?”

Not until I win.

Lin Qingyu wasn’t confident. My luck is terrible. I’ve never won anything on a scratch-off. My peak luck was winning a “Buy One Get One Free” on a bottle of soda.

Little Coward expressed high agreement with his self-assessment. If he had even a shred of good luck, he wouldn’t have landed on this kind of mission target.

Little Coward had originally written up several strategy plans based on its work experience:

1. Throw yourself into his arms: Before the male lead acts, throw yourself into his chest, apologize through tears, and lean on him. Lin Qingyu is 185cm tall and sturdier than the male lead. Plan 1 discarded.

2. Play the emotional card: Use their shared memories to keep the male lead in check. From the moment they met, Su Wang had been reminiscing about the past while trying to kill him. Plan 2 discarded.

3. Confession: If the host has a history with the target, try confessing to confuse them, then slowly win them over. Little Coward looked at the data and the male lead, who was on the verge of a breakdown, and decided to give up on Plan 3. No matter how good-looking the host is, he’s still a man. The male lead is a straight man pushed to the brink of despair by life; a gay confession would only make him go even crazier.

By the time Little Coward put its notebook away, Lin Qingyu had already finished praying. He took a deep breath and ripped open a lottery ticket. A seven-colored light burst out of the card, exploding in the air to reveal a line of text: ‘Another Life’.

Lin Qingyu: ! One shot! Success! I’m rich!

Su Wang walked through the crowd, clutching the ash bottle. The people living in the Future Tower weren’t easy to get along with; almost everyone had blood on their hands. That included the AI wandering here. Outside the tower, AI had safety protocols that “never harm humans,” but inside the tower, they didn’t.

The injuries on Lin Qingyu’s body were caused by an AI. As for why those hunks of metal were targeting him, Su Wang didn’t know, nor did he have any interest in investigating. It was nothing more than unpaid gambling debts or loan shark issues.

Risking arrest, Su Wang had advised Lin Qingyu many times. He could tolerate his friend’s betrayal—perhaps there was some hidden hardship—but he could not accept him wallowing in degradation. When he had money, he gambled; when he didn’t, he robbed. Robbery, murder, pimping. Was the next step drugs, or forcing innocent people into prostitution? Selling himself hadn’t brought Qingyu any benefit. His once kind and upright friend had become so filthy that Su Wang felt he was better off dead.

Su Wang pulled out the ash bottle and shook it in his hand. “Look how clean you are now. It’s much more comfortable to die at my hands than to be killed by a human bomb or hacked to death by loan sharks.”

“I saved you and raised you; it’s only right that I kill you myself, right, Qingyu?”

Su Wang pressed his ear against the glass, as if he could hear Qingyu talking to him. He shook the bottle, and the ashes danced inside. Quiet, obedient, and well-behaved. So cute; even dead, you’re still so well-behaved.

Having been chased by the elusive female cop for a month, Su Wang vaguely realized there was a problem within the Alliance. He might never have a chance to clear his name and would have to carry the blame forever. He didn’t intend to run, nor did he want to live. Before he died, he would stop his friend from degrading further and eliminate the dim-witted government dog who saw everything in black and white.

After he felt a sense of relief, he would go for revenge. He would find clues on Beauty Street; if he could find the mastermind, he’d kill them. If he couldn’t, he’d blow up the Future Tower and the government building.

Su Wang squeezed into the elevator behind a group of tattooed men, his scarf covering his collar, causing no panic. The interior of the elevator was covered in graffiti—dirty, chaotic, and smelly. A glitching frisbee-bot bumped against the cabin wall, creating an annoying racket.

Several men chatted at the top of their lungs.

“The forum says there’s a ‘Stray Dog’ in this building.”

“Which one?”

“This Block A, but someone saw that he was killed.”

The others exhaled in relief.

“Speaking of which, a lot of outsiders have come to the building recently. What is Titanium Dome Technology doing, stuffing so many people in here?”

“Is it related to them?”

“Of course! Who goes to the Future Tower for no reason? Isn’t it because they took a job from Titanium Dome?”

“I didn’t, I took a government contract to catch someone.”

The man pulled a wanted poster from his coat, the image on it constantly shifting.

“It’s a cop, supposedly a dirty cop who colluded with that SSS-rank criminal.”

“She’s hot.”

“Yeah, I like redheaded babes. F–k! I’m getting excited. Shall we go to Beauty Street after we trade?”

Su Wang tilted his head to look at the wanted poster. Short red hair, blue-white prosthetic eyes—it was Lilith, the female cop who had been hunting him.

Why is she wanted too? Did she forget to clock in at the station for too long? Serves her right.

The elevator opened at the 113th floor. Su Wang was about to squeeze through the burly men when he saw two familiar figures sprinting through the corridor—a man and a woman. The woman was wearing a blood-stained bodysuit; it was Lilith, who should have been tied up in the dark room of his rental apartment. Beside her was the man in the suit, whom Su Wang knew all too well. It was his Qingyu.

Su Wang: …

“Huh? Lin Qingyu?!”

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