After the Black Moonlight’s "Death Escape" Failed [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 87
Chapter 87: The Cycle Ends
◎I’ve kept you waiting◎
After completely unleashing her mental power, the dangerous aura radiating from Jiao Qingyin reached a terrifying level.
The World Consciousness discovered with horror that this person was not an ordinary task-taker to be manipulated at will; it even suspected that before entering the Time and Space Management Bureau, Jiao Qingyin might have been the “World Consciousness” of her own world. Otherwise, how could a mere human possess power of this magnitude…!
Had it been in its prime, it could have suppressed Jiao Qingyin and forced her to follow its arrangements to maintain the plot, just like it did with Wen Fengyue. But now—the World Consciousness felt that it was likely to be crushed by her.
It immediately lifted the block on the System, wanting the System to stop this host who seemed to have gone mad. However, the System, which should have been on its side, played dumb. Aside from repeating [Failed to connect to host], it refused to do anything.
The World Consciousness tried to flee, but it was one step too late.
“—Found you.”
With that soft whisper, Jiao Qingyin sounded the death knell for the hiding World Consciousness. She dragged it directly out of the void.
The dark grey World Consciousness let out a piercing shriek, and countless shadows flew out from its body, attempting to escape. Jiao Qingyin raised her hand, dispersing all the grey shadows. Then, amidst the overlapping screams in her ears, she looked at the entity’s true form held in her hand.
Her eyes held no emotion, causing the World Consciousness to tremble. It had wanted to hide its core in one of the shadows to escape, but Jiao Qingyin was too cautious to leave it such a chance.
“Interesting…” Jiao Qingyin narrowed her eyes as she looked at the mass of grey mist. “You don’t seem like a simple World Consciousness.”
There were too many impurities in this entity, entangled with endless resentment. Rather than a pure consciousness born to maintain the world’s operation, it was more like… a complex existence with private desires. Certain traits of it reminded Jiao Qingyin of information sent from headquarters.
[This world contains spiritual creatures such as ghosts.]
With some suspicions in mind, Jiao Qingyin wasted no more time. She plunged her transparent fingers into the grey mist and, amidst piercing screams, forcibly read what the “World Consciousness” was trying to hide.
It was the World Consciousness, but it was also a collective of countless ghostly consciousnesses. At its birth, it had been contaminated by countless vengeful spirits caught in cycles, gradually twisting into the form Jiao Qingyin saw now.
The part of it that was the World Consciousness wanted to maintain the plot. The part of it that was the ghost collective only wanted to devour the “protagonist,” Wen Fengyue, whose soul was incredibly delicious.
Faced with this contradiction, it decided to let Wen Fengyue finish the plot first and then devour her. However, Wen Fengyue’s soul power was too strong; devouring her directly would cause her consciousness to fight for dominance, and the final result would likely be Wen Fengyue replacing it.
To prevent this, it had to fully “process” the ingredient before “consuming” her. Erasing her personality, suppressing her will to resist, hypnotizing her through brainwashing… it had tried many things to make Wen Fengyue submissively follow the plot, but it always ended in failure.
Wen Fengyue was like an undying warrior; no matter what method it used, she could deliver a fatal blow even when covered in wounds. Fortunately, it could constantly rewind time to correct its mistakes. Thus, with each cycle, Wen Fengyue’s personal will grew weaker.
It was only one step away. Once she committed suicide and was reborn, it could devour this soul that would make it incredibly powerful without destroying the world’s operation.
But then, out of nowhere, Jiao Qingyin appeared. The “World Consciousness” suddenly moved, struggling frantically to escape Jiao Qingyin’s grasp, but to no avail.
It could only scream in fury: “You are violating the Bureau’s regulations! I will report you—”
“You won’t have the chance,” Jiao Qingyin said.
With that, as easily as tearing cotton candy, she stripped away all the grey mist clinging to the surface of the World Consciousness. To make her stop, the mist made of vengeful spirits began to shift into different forms, using different voices to persuade her to stop.
Seven-year-old Wen Fengyue tugged at Jiao Qingyin’s hem. “Jiao Jiao, don’t drive me away, I’m afraid of pain.”
Rip. Jiao Qingyin tore the figure in half.
Ten-year-old Wen Fengyue held a small black cat, tears streaming down her face. “Caramel, don’t go.”
Rip. Jiao Qingyin showed no lingering attachment.
Seventeen-year-old Wen Fengyue in a school uniform, gaunt and thin, looked at her without speaking.
Rip.
Jiao Qingyin didn’t care what the mist turned into, whether it played for sympathy or made threats; her movements didn’t pause for a second. She could tell the difference between the real Wen Fengyue and an illusion. The more the grey mist used Wen Fengyue to gain her mercy, the more she loathed these things.
Finally, while twisting into a terrifying ghost form, the grey mist questioned her with a voice like weeping blood: “Don’t you want to complete your mission anymore?”
Hearing this voice, Jiao Qingyin’s hand paused. The mist thought it had found her weakness and increased its output: “Sacrificing your own mission and points for a stranger is too irrational, you—”
“You reminded me.” Jiao Qingyin suddenly flashed a smile. She looked very gentle, but the grey mist felt an unprecedented panic. “My mission is to help Wen Fengyue take revenge, and you… just happen to be her enemy as well.”
In the next second, all the grey mist vanished completely in Jiao Qingyin’s hands.
With the grey mist stripped away, the World Consciousness turned into a small white orb, innocent and ignorant. Aside from a natural closeness to Jiao Qingyin who saved it, it no longer had any private desires. Without the pollution of the grey mist, its goal was aligned with Jiao Qingyin’s—as long as the ending of Wen Fengyue’s successful revenge was achieved, the process didn’t matter.
“Do you still have the power to reverse time?” Jiao Qingyin asked it.
The little white orb shook its head. It now only had the most basic functions to maintain the world’s operation. This answer was within Jiao Qingyin’s expectations. However, as the grey mist completely dissipated, Jiao Qingyin’s gaze fell back on Wen Fengyue.
She was no longer crying, but the tear stains on her face and her hollow expression made her look like a puppet whose soul had been extracted. Jiao Qingyin felt a pang of pain in her heart. If only she had been a bit earlier…
Dizziness swept over her, and Jiao Qingyin staggered. Her already transparent body showed signs of shattering. The little white orb saw this and, after spinning anxiously, said to Jiao Qingyin: “Your mental power is almost exhausted. It’s very dangerous. You need to rest.”
Jiao Qingyin understood, but looking at Wen Fengyue like this, she couldn’t bring herself to leave her be.
“You need to rest”, the white orb repeated. “If you don’t rest, you will die in my world.” If her soul died, Jiao Qingyin wouldn’t be able to return to the Bureau to continue her missions.
Hearing this, Jiao Qingyin sighed. With a hand covered in countless cracks, she gently touched Wen Fengyue’s head and then entered the girl’s body.
In this state of possession, she could use her final strength to ensure that even if she fell asleep, she could ward off ghosts and spirits from Wen Fengyue’s side. The price for this was that she essentially bound herself to Wen Fengyue. Upon waking up next, her range of activity would be limited to a maximum of three meters around the girl.
Jiao Qingyin didn’t mind this much. She had already broken the cycle that Wen Fengyue was forced to repeat; there would never be anything to shackle her again. Although she couldn’t accompany Wen Fengyue for the time being, based on the fact that the girl had succeeded in her revenge twenty-nine times on her own, it wouldn’t matter if she wasn’t there.
Thinking this, Jiao Qingyin closed her eyes with peace of mind.
Drip, drip, drip.
Jiao Qingyin slowly woke up to the sound of strange water droplets. Once her consciousness was clear, she instinctively floated upward, wanting to see Wen Fengyue’s current appearance. Her head hurt terribly, her mental power had only recovered a tiny fraction, and she didn’t know how long she had slept.
How old was Wen Fengyue? How was she doing?
Both expectant and uneasy, the moment she left Wen Fengyue’s body, she looked down. …And then she saw the source of the water sound.
A soaking wet Wen Fengyue stood by the classroom door. Countless water droplets fell from her hair and the edge of her hem, darkening the color of the concrete floor. Her hand was still on the doorknob; the bucket that had soaked her lay overturned at her feet. What had happened was obvious.
“Sorry,” someone in the classroom said with a laugh. “I forgot I put a bucket on the door.”
As soon as he spoke, bursts of laughter broke out. The laughter of the students drowned out the dripping water, causing Jiao Qingyin’s face to darken instantly. She didn’t expect that as soon as she woke up, she would see someone bullying Wen Fengyue with a prank, and the latter’s state… she had lived a very hard life during these years.
Wen Fengyue was too thin, and her height was half a head shorter than described in the plot. The standard-sized school uniform looked oversized on her, as if a gust of wind could blow her away.
According to Jiao Qingyin’s original plan, with the care from the time she spent as the black kitten, Wen Fengyue should have lived better than in the original plot. But… the reality was the exact opposite.
Unlike the independent Wen Fengyue in Jiao Qingyin’s memory, the girl now was completely like a dazed puppet. Every move she made seemed pre-programmed, strictly confined within a limited range. But Jiao Qingyin knew very well that the grey mist that used to imprison Wen Fengyue had been solved by her; she shouldn’t have turned out like this.
The bell rang for class, and Wen Fengyue walked to her desk, dripping with water. Her desk originally held neatly organized mock exam papers, but now they had been crumpled and torn into a pile of waste paper. Wen Fengyue looked at the desk without any sign of anger.
When the people waiting for a joke returned to their seats, Wen Fengyue finally moved. She picked up the fragments of the test papers one by one, her lowered eyelashes looking as if they were covered in a layer of snow. Jiao Qingyin followed silently behind her, her expression grim due to her headache and the sudden drop in her mood.
Seeing a student raise a trash bag toward Wen Fengyue, grinning as if to throw it, Jiao Qingyin reached out and slammed the person’s head onto the desk from a distance. With a loud thud, his forehead cracked the wooden desk, and blood seeped from his brow.
Jiao Qingyin ignored the chaos over there. She stared at Wen Fengyue, and after confirming she had no serious external injuries, she called the System. The System had been waiting for a long time. Once summoned, it rattled off what had happened after Jiao Qingyin left.
Wen Fengyue blamed Caramel’s death entirely on herself and fell into a state of extreme agony. Caramel was the only light in her dark, hopeless life; now that the light was gone, she didn’t want to live anymore. She began attempting suicide, wanting to go to the world after death to find her kitten.
But whether it was slitting her wrists, taking sleeping pills, jumping into water, or running into cars, accidents always happened. Aside from accumulating more and more wounds on herself, she simply could not die. It was as if some power was secretly preventing her death.
Wen Fengyue used to be angry at the injustice of fate, but as her suicides failed repeatedly, her mind and body suffered double torture. She was like a tightly drawn string that could break at any moment. Her suicidal behavior ended on the day she tried to pierce her temple with an awl.
It was a full moon night. She sat at the desk in the attic, facing a broken mirror, watching the tip of the awl approach her skin, her pupils constricting bit by bit. But just as the tip was a hair’s breadth from her temple, her hand stopped abruptly, unable to pierce through. Wen Fengyue tried hitting her elbow against the wall, changing tools, or slamming her forehead onto the weapon, but all failed.
At that moment, she realized she couldn’t even choose death. Wen Fengyue remembered the voice that often appeared in her mind when she was young, driving her to do things she didn’t want to do, until the day Caramel died.
Perhaps that was the voice of fate, Wen Fengyue thought. She was a toy of fate her entire life, never able to escape the pre-determined framework. Wen Fengyue’s wish changed then; she no longer wanted revenge—those things were meaningless to her. She only wanted to die early and reunite with Caramel.
The intense desire for death meant that when she was taken to the music building the day before the college entrance exam, she felt no panic or worry, only a sense of relief that “it’s finally going to end.” She was ready to embrace death, but after entering the rooftop, she saw Wen Ziyuan turn to laugh with two friends: “Did you know? She used to have a cat.”
Wen Fengyue’s pupils constricted, and her mind went blank. By the time she reacted, she was pinning Wen Ziyuan to the ground by her throat. “How did you know!”
She hadn’t let anyone know about Caramel, and the body had been buried in a remote hill. It was impossible, impossible—
Her move was too sudden, and the strength from her desperate outburst was staggering. Wen Ziyuan struggled and hammered at her arms. “Let go! Let go!”
Wen Fengyue tightened her grip. “How did you know!”
Wen Ziyuan’s eyes rolled back, and foam appeared at her mouth. Her friends finally woke up from their shock and pulled Wen Fengyue away. Since her health was poor, Wen Fengyue was immediately thrown aside. She struggled hard but couldn’t get up, though her gaze remained fixed on Wen Ziyuan.
Wen Fengyue’s gaze was so fierce that Wen Ziyuan felt a moment of panic. But soon, she became enraged and grabbed Wen Fengyue’s collar. “You dare to choke me!” She pushed her all the way to the edge of the rooftop, which had no railing.
“How did I know? You cried so loudly holding that dead cat that day, a bunch of people saw it!” Her face, which was somewhat delicate, showed a reckless and gloating smile, twisting her features into something nauseating. “I had someone dig it up and throw it away. I wanted to show it to you after you found out, but who knew you’d always—AAAH—!!”
Amidst Wen Ziyuan’s unbelievable screams, Wen Fengyue pulled her down the rooftop together. Jumping is so painful, Wen Fengyue thought as her vision turned blood red. But she was finally free. She was finally…
As soon as the World Consciousness detected Wen Fengyue’s life signal stop, it quickly sent her soul to be reborn. However, Wen Fengyue, full of a desire for death, was unwilling to cooperate. She only asked one question: “After rebirth, can I see Caramel?”
The World Consciousness stalled. Jiao Qingyin had been in a deep sleep, and it was a question whether she could wake up; it didn’t dare guarantee it. Knowing the answer from the silence, Wen Fengyue refused rebirth. She was too tired. Instead of living a life without Caramel, she would rather continue waiting here.
“Wait for Caramel, it might be a long time.”
Thinking of Jiao Qingyin’s message before she left, no matter what the World Consciousness said, Wen Fengyue would not budge. Out of desperation, the former could only forcibly seal part of Wen Fengyue’s memory, hiding the part about Jiao Qingyin, before sending her to be reborn.
However, after realizing her memory had been tampered with, Wen Fengyue split her soul into two parts. The part that didn’t remember Caramel went to rebirth, while the part that remembered became a ghost staying in the music building. Because of Wen Fengyue’s presence, the music building became a domain independent of the timeline. Countless ghosts were attracted by her but were trapped there; the music building gradually became a hell for ghosts.
Wen Fengyue was the strongest among these ghosts, but she was forever trapped by her obsession on the day of her death. She re-enacted the last day of her life over and over, using endless deaths to regret the past. She could have ended this cycle herself, but she never did.
Amidst the background sound of students shouting “someone is injured,” Wen Fengyue emptied her mind, not noticing that this death day had a plot change that had never happened before.
During lunch break, Wen Fengyue stood up, preparing to go to the cafeteria. She didn’t walk fast because when she reached the classroom door, Wen Ziyuan’s boyfriend would block her and say…
“Wen Fengyue, Xiao Yuan is waiting for you in the music building. Go there quickly.”
Wen Fengyue looked up with a small movement. No. She looked at the girl in front of her. No. It should be Wen Ziyuan’s boyfriend blocking her, not her best friend. This person should have already been at the rooftop of the music building with Wen Ziyuan.
“Tsk,” Wen Ziyuan’s friend looked at Wen Fengyue impatiently. “Hurry up—honestly, if it weren’t for Xiao Yuan’s boyfriend suddenly going crazy and cracking his own head, I wouldn’t bother coming to find you.”
“…” Wen Fengyue silently looked around. The distant scenery was hazy, indicating she was still in the illusion she had woven for herself. She followed the same path as every time before, walked into the music building, and climbed to the roof floor by floor.
But the scene once again conflicted with her memory. Wen Ziyuan, who should have been waiting here arrogantly, was nowhere to be found. The entire rooftop was empty. The continuous anomalies caused a slight change in Wen Fengyue’s deadpan expression. She stood at the edge of the rooftop, waiting until the exact moment she should have jumped.
Still, no one came to the rooftop. A breeze blew, lifting the hair by her temples. Wen Fengyue felt an inexplicable warmth, as if someone was protecting her. This feeling… Wen Fengyue closed her eyes, remembering her first meeting with Caramel. The wind that day was also very warm, Wen Fengyue thought, and then she jumped off the tall building.
Wen Fengyue looked at the ground, her body trembling physiologically, but her heart was calm. However, when the expected ending arrived, she found that this familiar, intense pain was much milder than usual. Wen Fengyue widened her eyes slightly, and in the next second, her deceased self appeared in the attic of the Wen residence.
…It was her illusion. The ending had not changed; she was still repeating the day of her death. She got up from the narrow floor mat, washed up, and put on her backpack. Hunger always shrouded her, but she knew she didn’t need to eat and was used to eating nothing.
Sunlight fell, not too blinding, with a warm temperature. Wen Fengyue understood these were all hallucinations. She was actually in the dark music building, which had been in disrepair for years and where even sunlight couldn’t reach. She stepped out of the house alone toward school.
However, after taking only one step, her hand was suddenly pulled by someone. The icy touch was so real that Wen Fengyue turned her head to look.
“Don’t be afraid. I will lead you to escape from here.”
Afraid? Wen Fengyue took a full three seconds to understand the word. What was there to be afraid of? She had never felt fear. Whether it was pain or death, those things had become a habit to her. The only thing that could cause an emotional stir in her was…
“I guess you’re thinking, ‘I’m never afraid,’ right?”
The unfamiliar voice rang out again. Even if Wen Fengyue wanted to tell herself she misheard, she couldn’t. And why… just hearing the other person speak made her want to cry? She stopped and stared at the empty air beside her. Her long-silent heart finally began to beat slowly.
The transparent phantom before her gradually solidified, and she locked eyes with a black-haired, black-eyed woman. The other had a gentle smile, just like the warm light and wind of this moment. Even though it was their first meeting, Wen Fengyue recognized her immediately. Tears mixed with intense emotion burst forth at that moment along with a cry: “Jiao Jiao!”
Jiao Qingyin smiled helplessly. “I remember the first time I scratched you was because you called me that—too clingy, not as good as Caramel—mmph!”
She was pulled into a full embrace by Wen Fengyue. This was the first time since coming to this world that Jiao Qingyin had physical contact with another person… or rather, another ghost. She was very unaccustomed to such warm interaction and almost reflexively threw Wen Fengyue out.
It was Wen Fengyue’s trembling sobs that stopped her. After hesitating for a long time, she gently opened her arms and gave her a somewhat awkward hug back. Jiao Qingyin herself found it funny; she could risk her life for Wen Fengyue and fight the entire World Consciousness, yet she was hesitant and unwilling to accept even a hug.
“I’ve come to find you,” she felt the dampness on her shoulder and clumsily raised her hand to stroke Wen Fengyue’s hair. “I’ve kept you waiting.”
“…Not long,” Wen Fengyue choked out. “Not long.”
As long as the other could come back, no matter how long, it wasn’t long. Up until today, she had repeated her death over 2,900 times, but if she had known Jiao Jiao would come back, she could have waited another 3,000 times with anticipation.
Wen Fengyue didn’t know how long she cried while holding Jiao Qingyin, but she knew how panicked she felt when she let go and saw the other’s clothes stained with blood and tears. “I, I didn’t mean to…”
In her anxiety, more blood droplets appeared from her eyes.
“Blue eyes look better anyway,” Jiao Qingyin said nonchalantly, wiping away the blood and tears. “So… don’t cry, okay?”
Wen Fengyue nodded vigorously. It was only then that she realized: “Caramel… how did you become human?” She peeked out, looking behind Jiao Qingyin to see if there was a hidden tail.
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Caramel
Interessante,porém fiquei meio confusa,😅