After the Black Moonlight’s "Death Escape" Failed [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 45.1

Chapter 45.1: Going Back to Find the Wife

◎ Host, your body has been stolen by your ex-wife ◎

In the vast, white expanse of the Host’s personal space, Jiao Qingyin sat on the ground, staring blankly at the collar in her hand.

Every Host who completes a mission is allowed to take one item from the small world. She had originally wanted to take her little wolf pup, but because Al had disappeared, she ended up choosing this collar that Al had once worn.

The black leather held no warmth, and the silver buckle was icy cold. The exterior of the collar was unremarkable—even a bit too plain—but Jiao Qingyin seemed caught in a strange loop. Ever since returning to her personal space, she would take it out from time to time and stare at it in a daze.

“Host, System maintenance is complete. Please—”

Hearing the System’s voice return, Jiao Qingyin put the collar away and looked up. “You’re back.”

After a few seconds of silence, the System spoke: “According to the System’s incomplete statistics, in the three days since the Host’s return, you have spent an average of 15.6 hours per day observing this collar. Would the Host like to purchase an ‘Oblivion’ item from the mall?”

That long? Hearing the specific data, Jiao Qingyin felt a bit disoriented. Spending these days alone in a nearly empty space, she had almost lost her sense of time.

“Host?”

Jiao Qingyin snapped back and rejected the proposal. “No need. Since your maintenance is over, we should head to the next mission.”

The orb-shaped System manifested its physical form, hovering before her. An “= =” emoticon appeared on its display before it handed a printed sheet of paper to her.

“Host, this is your notice of Mandatory Leave.”

“Mandatory leave?” Jiao Qingyin froze and quickly scanned the contents.

“Due to an unexpected malfunction in Small World No. S3202, the World Protagonist has repeatedly attempted to attack Headquarters. Therefore, the direct person in charge, Host Jiao Qingyin, is required to stand by for investigation…”

“Repeatedly attempted to attack Headquarters?” Jiao Qingyin gripped the paper tightly and looked at the System. “Didn’t Headquarters already accept the explanatory report I provided?”

“Because in the three days since the Host’s return, that individual has used the coordinates obtained previously to attempt several more intrusions.”

The first time Al succeeded was because Headquarters had never experienced being “backdoored” before. When she tried again, the alerted official personnel—who are, after all, high-dimensional beings—implemented protective measures and blocked her out.

However, Al’s name was now thoroughly blacklisted by the Time-Space Management Bureau, and Jiao Qingyin was placed under suspension for investigation.

Seeing Jiao Qingyin remain silent for a long time, and knowing how important points were to her, the System offered a word of comfort: “The notice only says it’s a leave. Once that person settles down, you’ll be able to resume work.”

Moreover, time in the Bureau flowed independently; one day was roughly equivalent to a year in the small worlds. They shouldn’t have to wait too long.

“Mm,” Jiao Qingyin hummed, setting the notice aside.

Ever since becoming a Host, she had worked at a breakneck pace, jumping from one world to the next. Her only “vacation” in years had been these three days while the System was being repaired. She hadn’t expected this vacation to be suddenly extended.

Noticing her low spirits, the System scanned its database for “Scripts to Comfort the Heartbroken” to find something appropriate, only to hear a ding—the sound of points being credited.

“Five thousand points—?!” Seeing the large sum of points added to its little vault, the System crackled with shocked electricity. “Host, why did you suddenly—”

“A peace offering for you. Al… she caused damage to your database. I’m apologizing to you on her behalf.”

“!!”

The System spun around and around, the emoticons on its screen cycling rapidly before settling on a happy “>W<“.

Jiao Qingyin’s lips curved slightly. “Go play with your System friends. Didn’t you say you wanted to try that ‘Electronic Milk Tea’?”

The System’s sparks flew even faster, but after floating up and down for a while, it still asked: “Is the Host not going to socialize with other Hosts? Or perhaps buy some furniture for the personal space?”

“No. I want to sleep for a bit. Go play by yourself.”

With a yawn, Jiao Qingyin lay down on the floor and actually closed her eyes. Outside of missions, the System could not monitor the Host’s psychological state. Seeing her breathing turn long and steady, it stopped bothering her and obediently left the space.

As soon as the System was gone, Jiao Qingyin opened her eyes.

She couldn’t sleep. Her entire mind was filled with Al. The past kept flashing back in the darkness; many memories that were clearly happy now seemed to have a black-and-white filter over them. Her heart felt as if it were being twisted by wire, tightening bit by bit and pulling downward. Jiao Qingyin realized she was much sadder than she had imagined.

What was Al doing now? Was she taking care of herself? Was she… also thinking of her?

Disappearing right in front of Al must have caused her severe psychological trauma. Even if Al hated her for it, Jiao Qingyin would understand. But she didn’t want Al to hate her; she hoped Al would choose to forget her.

After Jiao Qingyin had stared at the collar for an unknown amount of time, the System returned, but not alone. It brought a hopping bionic pet with it.

“Host, I bought you a gift.” The System moved aside so she could see the pet clearly. “I originally wanted to buy a puppy like the one you used to have, but I couldn’t find a suitable one.”

The Host rarely ever spent points, yet she had given it a huge sum of pocket money. Overwhelmed by the favor, the System wanted to give something back.

Jiao Qingyin instinctively corrected: “Al is a little wolf.”

As soon as the familiar name was uttered, the faded memories followed. Jiao Qingyin pursed her lips and changed the subject before the System noticed her expression. “What species is this bionic?”

“A snow leopard”, the System’s screen flashed a happy emoticon. “The System heard from other Hosts that black-and-white patterned animals are most loved by humans and have the power to heal troubles. The System couldn’t afford a panda, so I bought this.”

Jiao Qingyin looked silently at the mechanical snow leopard, which had no fur but used different colored metal plates to mimic the patterns. She was not healed. However, sensing the System’s bashful expectation, she smiled. “Thank you. I like it very much.”

The System was happy, and then it pulled a mirror out of the void. “Host, after my maintenance upgrade, I’ve opened a new function. Would you like to see how the previous world looks now?”

Jiao Qingyin’s pupils contracted. She instinctively dared not think too deeply about the meaning of those words, but she had already seen the person she missed so desperately in the mirror.

Al was walking through a place that looked like the ocean floor. The surrounding waters had extremely low visibility. Dangerous schools of fish patrolled nearby, and countless eyes watched her from the shadows. She walked toward a destination as if on level ground, eyes fixed forward. Her silvery-white hair flowed with the water like silk.

Where is she? Jiao Qingyin stood up, ignoring the new pet tugging at her pant leg, her gaze locked onto Al. She soon got the answer.

“I want your Mermaid Pearl.”

Al held her saber against an elderly mermaid’s throat, her eyes devoid of emotion. The old mermaid’s crown fell from her head. Under Al’s pressure, she coughed up blood but still held a pair of mermaid pups tightly in her arms, shaking her head weakly. “Our tribe’s treasure has truly been lost.”

“And…” Even facing Al’s murderous gaze, she continued, “The pearl can only resurrect the newly dead. The situation you speak of is not—cough cough—!”

The mermaid pups began to wail. The sounds of pleading and crying could break anyone’s heart, but Al’s expression didn’t waver.

“I don’t want to hear nonsense,” Al’s voice was even colder than before. “Appearance, characteristics, how to identify it.”

The old mermaid stopped arguing. Panting, she organized her words to tell Al everything she wanted to know. Though called a pearl, the Mermaid Pearl was actually a blue gemstone. it emitted a faint glow at night and could not be damaged by external force. When injected with elemental energy, it was the perfect medium for triggering magic.

The news that the Mermaid Pearl could bring the dead back to life had brought disaster to the mermaid race a century ago. Their blood had stained vast reaches of the ocean red, and the pearl was lost in the process. Although the old mermaid told everything she knew, she didn’t believe Al could find it. Most people didn’t know what it looked like; it might have been sold as an ordinary ornament or hidden in someone’s collection.

But in the next second, her face changed drastically when she saw what was lying in Al’s open palm.

“Is it this?”

A blue-green gem set in a ring band. It had an attraction that made it impossible to look away. But the gem, which should have been a perfect moon, was now a shattered stone due to a crack running through the middle.

“Yes… yes…” the mermaid murmured. She never thought she would see her tribe’s treasure again. “But it looks like it has already been used. The chance for resurrection only happens once… cough cough!”

A gale rose from the seabed. With Al as the center, a massive whirlpool began to form. The old mermaid and the pups looked terrified. But danger did not descend; Al vanished after a few seconds, leaving only a voice echoing:

“The natural enemies outside your settlement have been cleared by me. Consider it payment for the stone.”

Jiao Qingyin watched stiffly as the scene in the mirror shifted. Al’s silhouette appeared on the coast. She looked up and spoke to the System, but her voice didn’t sound like her own: “…Can you check if she has encountered any major dangers during this time?”

The System’s reply was quick: “In the three years since the Host left, the Protagonist of World No. S3202 (Al) has experienced 6 near-death encounters and 29 severe injuries…”

“…Among them, because the Protagonist (Al) attempted to reverse time at the Site of the Fallen Old Gods, it triggered a lightning disaster. Her body was dead for a full minute, nearly causing the entire world to collapse.”

Jiao Qingyin felt like a balloon pricked by a needle; even breathing became difficult. She realized Al’s “one minute of death” wasn’t some fake death or accident. Was it the stone in the Moon Ring that resurrected her, or…

In the mirror, Al put the ring back on her ring finger, set up a teleportation array with a cold face, and stepped in. Jiao Qingyin noticed she was thinner than she remembered, the bones of her brows looking sharp. But most importantly… there was no light in her eyes. They were dead, like a stagnant well.

Soon, Al appeared in a place Jiao Qingyin knew all too well: the Prince’s Manor. She took off her coat, lit the fireplace, and sat on the pile of cushions by the flickering firelight. Though there was a soft, wide bed behind her, she insisted on huddling among the cushions. Her expression, which had been tense outside, finally softened slightly.

Jiao Qingyin hadn’t expected Al to live here after she left. Looking at the room filled with their memories through Al’s perspective, her eyes stung.

It’s time to sleep, Al, she whispered silently.

But Al just stared blankly at the fireplace, doing nothing. It was spring, but she kept the fire roaring as if she couldn’t feel the heat at all. Jiao Qingyin watched anxiously, but not wanting to show her concern in front of the System, she could only grit her teeth.

After a long time, Al suddenly opened her eyes and moved, as if startled awake from a dream. Then Jiao Qingyin saw her stand up and summon a mirror. As Al’s fingers stroked the glass, Jiao Qingyin saw herself in the reflection.

She was startled at first, but then recognized the image as the past—the upper half of her hair was black while the lower half was dry and yellow, and she was holding scissors, gesturing to cut it.

Watching the person in the mirror watch herself in a mirror gave Jiao Qingyin a strange sense of displacement. What made her clench her fists was that Al had discovered the one thing she least wanted her to find out.

Sure enough, the Jiao Qingyin in the mirror cut her hair and began practicing how to walk. Her blindness in the left eye made judging directions difficult, and she bumped into table corners and cabinets several times. Jiao Qingyin hadn’t felt much at the time—she just got up and kept going without even a change in expression—but watching this, Al’s eyes turned as red as a rabbit’s.

Jiao Qingyin wanted to wipe away her tears, but she could do nothing. And judging by Al’s reaction, she had watched this scene in the mirror countless times.

“Stop watching,” Jiao Qingyin told the System as she saw her past self fall again. “Tell me about the functions of this bionic pet.”

The System determined that such imagery was not conducive to the Host’s mental health and had already wanted to close the projection. At her command, it executed immediately.

“Don’t show me again,” Jiao Qingyin said, as if instructing the System, or perhaps talking to herself. “…One must move forward.”

But in reality, she knew all too well: both she and Al were forever trapped in the past.

The next time Jiao Qingyin heard news of Al was two days later at a Host gathering. She didn’t know the other Hosts, but most of them knew each other. They were discussing a small world that was about to break away from the Bureau’s control.

Because of the world line deviation, three Hosts had been sent there in succession, but all were captured by the Protagonist the moment they landed. The Protagonist extracted information from them, stripped away their Systems, and threw only their souls back to Headquarters.

The story sounded too absurd. Most people dismissed it as a rumor, but a friend of one of the victims insisted it was true. Following a premonition, Jiao Qingyin walked up to the arguing Hosts.

“Excuse me, is the number of the world you’re talking about S3202?”

The Hosts were quite agitated. The one with the shortest fuse looked up unhappily at the interruption, and then—stalled. The black-haired, black-eyed woman had a particularly beautiful face and emitted an aura of approachability. She leaned in slightly, looking at them with a gentle, inquiring gaze.

The Host couldn’t bring herself to be harsh. After stuttering for a bit, she nodded randomly.

Jiao Qingyin gave a faint smile. “I have a few questions. May I ask you?”

The group nodded in unison and made a comfortable space for her. The one she had spoken to first said, “Wh-what do you want to ask?” She was the friend of one of the victims.

Jiao Qingyin pretended to be curious and asked for the details.

“The Protagonist of that world was supposed to destroy the world last year and recreate a new one. But for some reason, not only did she not destroy it, she went everywhere providing disaster relief. If even a small patch of field was flooded, she’d go and evaporate the water herself. The world line became completely twisted.”

“…To push the plot, you have to get close to the Protagonist. but there’s no one around her. The System can only create a fake identity for the Host, but as soon as the Protagonist’s perception is altered, she notices, and then—”

The Host shuddered, as if remembering something horrific.

“Anyway, if you see a bounty mission for this world, don’t take it! To this day, those three lost Systems haven’t been recovered.”

Jiao Qingyin wanted to ask more, but she saw a familiar System arrive at the gathering, followed by that ugly bionic snow leopard. The relationship between Jiao Qingyin and her System had improved rapidly; it spoke to her with much more familiarity. It found her and blurted out: “Host, your ex-wife has gone crazy. The higher-ups want you to go back to S3202 and clean up the mess.”

The surrounding Hosts fell silent. The Host who had been blushing at Jiao Qingyin’s face felt like she had been choked.

Jiao Qingyin stood up and smiled at them. That warm aura remained, but it felt inexplicably distant. She didn’t say goodbye and quickly left with her System. She came and went like a breeze, leaving no trace behind.

Once they reached a secluded area, Jiao Qingyin grabbed the System and shook it. “In this kind of emergency, aren’t they supposed to just deploy me immediately? Why am I still here?”

She was desperate. She hadn’t spent a single moment not worrying about Al. Seeing the System delay opening the channel to the world, her emotions showed on her face. The time flow was different; every second she delayed was a long time for Al.

“Be-because… the System detected that your body, Host, is not in the Bureau.”

“…What do you mean?”

In the Bureau, Hosts could only move in soul form; their bodies were usually stored in their personal spaces. Jiao Qingyin clearly remembered that her body had been lying in the corner on the day she returned. She hadn’t paid attention to it since, but who would have thought a body stored in a private space could mysteriously disappear?

The System was also anxious. Since this mission began, it had encountered nothing but accidents. This situation was unprecedented in the entire Bureau.

“The System investigated and found… found that according to signal feedback, the Host’s body was likely stolen by your ex-wife.”

Jiao Qingyin’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. She tried to speak several times, but didn’t know what to say. Finally, she asked, “Then how do I get into the world?”

“…You can only buy a temporary body from the mall to use.”

Jiao Qingyin went silent. The virtual shells in the mall started at fifty thousand points for the cheapest one. No wonder the System had been hesitant… Jiao Qingyin’s gaze shifted, stopping on the bionic pet at her feet.

A purely mechanical creation with no individual consciousness… it was perfect.