Did I Succeed in Redeeming the Villain Today? - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: She Really Became a System?!

A fine mist of rain fell like silk, and falling cherry blossoms brushed past the girl’s long, thick eyelashes. The piercing morning sun fought to illuminate her vision, unceremoniously forcing its way into her pupils. The world awoke to the chirping of sparrows, and the vast, lush greenery was enveloped in the bustle of the morning.

Meanwhile, Lu Ning stood in the middle of the street, her face a mask of bewildered terror. Was there anything scarier than waking up to find yourself not at home, but on a completely unfamiliar road?

“What’s going on?”

Ring, ring, ring!

Before Lu Ning could process the situation, the sound of a bicycle bell rang out from behind her. She turned to see an electric scooter speeding toward her, getting closer and closer. The rider acted as if she wasn’t there at all, heading straight for her.

“!”

The wind swirled the fallen cherry blossoms on the ground, seemingly sweeping Lu Ning along with them. Just as she thought she was about to be hit, she watched the scooter pass right through her body.

W-what?

Lu Ning froze. The wind swept back around, rippling the puddles by the roadside. Her attention was inexplicably drawn to a puddle. The moment she looked at it, a chill crawled from her fingertips and spread across her skin.

The surface of the water showed no reflection of her!

The clear water reflected the vast blue sky, cloudless and bright, as cherry blossoms drifted slowly downward. The blossoms fell silently, but as they passed through a certain space, their pale pink petals outlined a floating spherical shape in the air—roughly at Lu Ning’s eye level.

Lu Ning’s body stiffened; the glowing ball in the water stiffened as well. She looked around in horror; the glowing ball in the water followed her movements perfectly. Seeing the 100% synchronization in the water, a thought popped into her head:

That glowing ball is me.

“Program activation successful. Downloading information for World N0145…”

Just as Lu Ning realized she had turned into a ball, a line of crystal-blue text appeared before her. The noisy world suddenly went silent. Densely packed data flowed into her spherical body like a visible liquid, instantly filling her empty, dazed mind.

“World N0145. Category: Modern. Type: Romance. Target: Mu Qiuyu. Objective: Help Mu Qiuyu reach a perfect life ending…”

Before the data was even one-sixth downloaded, Lu Ning froze again. It wasn’t because the data was too massive; it was because of the three words in her field of vision.

Mu Qiuyu.

The shifting data stream felt like the flickering lights of a bar. Last night’s memories, mixed with the smell of alcohol, flooded back.

The dim lights had changed colors as a resident singer hummed an English song Lu Ning didn’t recognize. Melting ice had coated her fingers, and the bittersweet, sharp scent of alcohol made her arms feel weak against the bar counter. Lu Ning didn’t remember exactly what she had done, but when she came to, the curly-haired woman she had just approached gave her a cold look and walked away.

And she felt like she was about to slide off her barstool…

“Ning, who is Mu Qiuyu? Do you know the woman’s face turned green when you called her someone else’s name?” Just as Lu Ning was about to fall, her friend Ji Xiao caught her.

Ji Xiao looked at the empty glasses scattered by her seat. She had never seen Lu Ning so reckless. “What’s with you today? How did you drink so much when you have a public class tomorrow?”

“Sad,” Lu Ning mumbled, hanging onto Ji Xiao.

“What?”

“She died, Xiao Xiao.” Lu Ning’s eyes were unfocused. The alcohol numbed her brain, but her sorrow wouldn’t dissipate. “You tell me… how could such a good person be stuck with such a garbage System!”

A few days ago, while Lu Ning was bored during student self-study, she had accidentally clicked on a novel. It had recently finished and was topping the charts—a classic “Real vs. Fake Heiress” story, a guilty pleasure for a drama-lover like Lu Ning.

But this time, she didn’t feel satisfied after finishing it. The further she read, the less she cared about the leads. She only wanted to know the ending of the main villain, Mu Qiuyu.

As the final obstacle to the leads’ success, Mu Qiuyu didn’t appear often, yet her popularity ranked in the top three—eventually even surpassing the protagonists. Her beauty was her least interesting trait. She lacked the “love-brain” of the leads; whether she was using others or hurting herself, she was ruthless and mad. Any scene she appeared in, even if briefly mentioned, became the center of attention.

Yet, such a formidable character ended up being betrayed by the System she trusted most. Gripping the only keepsake her mother left her, she committed suicide in grief and anger. When Lu Ning read about Mu Qiuyu slitting her wrists in the bathtub, she felt as if a knife were pressed against her own heart.

“Do you know she was so close to getting what she wanted? Why wouldn’t they give it to her?!”

“God damn it, the female lead said just a few words and turned Mu Qiuyu’s System against her! A rebellion! What a trash plot…”

Fueled by alcohol, Lu Ning vented the rage she had been suppressing for days. She gripped Ji Xiao’s shoulders, her brow furrowed, her voice full of grief. “Xiao Xiao, do you know she had nothing left? Nothing at all…”

Ji Xiao’s expression was complicated. She had grown up with Lu Ning and had never seen her feel so deeply for someone—especially a fictional character from a book.

“It’s all that damn System’s fault! I should have been the one!”

“If it were me, I would never betray Mu Qiuyu!”

“I would be her strongest support!”

“I would give Mu Qiuyu the best future!”

Lu Ning ranted against the System with every ounce of her being. Her alcohol-clouded brain didn’t notice where she was walking until—

“Ning!”

“Wha—”

Following Ji Xiao’s scream, a blinding light flashed across Lu Ning’s vision. That was her last memory of the night.

A lot of transmigration stories start this way, but surely I’m not that unlucky? Lu Ning thought hopefully.

But as the data finished loading, a System notification shattered all her hopes.

“Program activation complete. System, please establish contact with the Host as soon as possible.”

Lu Ning stared at the word “System” and felt herself mentally crack.

She really became a System?!

Other people transmigrate as the protagonist’s crew, or at least a cannon-fodder character who can save themselves. Why was she no longer even human? Why was she a System!

No, wait, I was just talking big for a second! There’s no need to actually pull me into this world to be Mu Qiuyu’s System! I don’t even know how to be a human properly, let alone a System!

And it was Mu Qiuyu’s System. Lu Ning remembered that at the end of the story, as an unfaithful traitor and an accomplice to the villain, the System was punished and destroyed by the Main System. She couldn’t have forgotten—after seeing that trash System get what it deserved, she had cheered and tipped the author several “Deep Sea Bombs.”

“Hey! Is anyone there? I can’t be a System! Can’t you make me a person?!” Terrified and looking at this completely foreign world, Lu Ning screamed in despair.

People were busy commuting on the morning street. Everyone walked briskly; no one stopped for Lu Ning. Cherry blossoms drifted with the wind, passing through Lu Ning’s body and floating onto the water without resistance.

A System was something only a Host could see.

“System, please establish contact with the Host as soon as possible.”

The notification box appeared again. The bold, crystal-blue font urged her to find Mu Qiuyu. Below it, a map lit up. Using Lu Ning as the origin, a red dot one block away was flashing. It seemed to be Mu Qiuyu’s home.

Lu Ning calmed down slightly after her outburst. She tried to close the notification and explore her functions. But the stubborn box kept reminding her of the mission; it could be moved, but not closed. Without completing the task, she couldn’t even open her control panel.

“System, please establish contact with the Host as soon as possible.”

“System, please establish contact with the Host as soon as possible.”

Lu Ning couldn’t help but complain, “If you’re so in a hurry, why didn’t you just teleport me to her? Don’t Systems usually just appear in the Host’s mind? Why am I stuck in the middle of the road?”

As she complained, the notification box seemed to flicker guiltily. The red dot marking Mu Qiuyu stuttered for a moment, then flashed even brighter. It was impatient, wanting Lu Ning to hurry up. But it seemed powerless to do anything except nag.

Right, she was the operator of the System. This notification box was just a persistent auxiliary program. But the System she had inherited was so incompetent it couldn’t even manifest in the Host’s mind.

Garbage System. Not only is it an idiot, but it’s also useless!

The light orb brushed past the morning dew, scattering sparkling droplets onto the lawn. After flying a block, Lu Ning finally mastered her “body.” She was no longer affected by the environment and hovered steadily outside the window of a red-brick villa. The red dot stopped flashing, signaling that she had arrived.

The morning light was clean and clear as it passed through the French windows of the dining room. The black window frames divided the glass into a puzzle, framing the slender silhouette of a young girl in the center.

Today was a weekday, and Mu Qiuyu had already changed into her school uniform. The well-tailored gray-brown western jacket made the girl’s youthful figure look straight and sharp. She sat steadily in the middle of the frame, taking a bite of bread. Her jaw moved slowly as she chewed. Her thin lips were pale, and her high nose bridge cast a shadow on her fair skin.

The spring light was bright, and the girl looked like a painting. But the misty rain made her silhouette behind the window seem indistinct and distant, as if she belonged to another world.

Creeaaaakk—!

“You only toasted these few slices of bread? Who is that supposed to feed?”

This beautiful scene Lu Ning was admiring was suddenly ruined by the sound of a chair dragging. A woman with a low bun walked into the dining room. As soon as she sat down, she dragged the plate in the middle of the table toward her, taking all the bread.

“Your tuition for this semester is paid. Remember to find the Dean yourself about the class transfer. Don’t think it’ll be easy just because you left the international class. You haven’t been to school since the start of the semester; catch up on your own. Your money is only enough for these two semesters. I’m already subsidizing you; I won’t pay for an expensive private university. Know your place.”

The woman bickered at Mu Qiuyu while spreading jam on her bread. Lu Ning listened from outside the window, the red dot in her vision feeling like a growing flame of anger.

How could she have forgotten? At this time, Mu Qiuyu had no home. This red dot on the map was just her location; this house belonged to her aunt.

The novel had mentioned Mu Qiuyu’s past. She had once been a brilliant, pampered daughter of heaven. Unfortunately, at seventeen, her parents died in a car crash, and her family was ruined. Even stranger, the massive fortune she should have inherited vanished into thin air. Relatives who had fought to be her guardian suddenly saw her as a worthless child. In the end, her mother’s sister, Mu Jingqin, reluctantly took her in.

“I don’t know what you were thinking. Even like this, you insist on staying at Guanghua. A year’s tuition at a private high school is enough for four years of university. You really don’t know the value of money. You’re not a young miss anymore, you know?”

At the table, Mu Jingqin droned on with the same words she had repeated countless times. Mu Qiuyu sat opposite her, listening without expression. Her long black hair masked her profile, and no emotion could be seen in her eyes.

Only when she finished the last bite of bread did Mu Qiuyu look up and say calmly, “Thank you for your concern, Aunt. I’m finished.”

By calling the nagging “concern,” she cut Mu Jingqin off. The woman looked at Mu Qiuyu’s plate and frowned. “You ate that little? Isn’t school lunch expensive? Can’t you save some money?”

“I won’t spend too much on food,” Mu Qiuyu stated plainly, as calm as a pool of cold water.

Hearing this, Mu Jingqin sneered. “Better not. I don’t have extra money for you.”

Hearing the same things too many times makes one numb. While the words sounded incredibly harsh to Lu Ning, Mu Qiuyu remained unfazed. She simply stood up with her plate and said politely, “Thank you again for breakfast.”

“Always ‘thank you,’ no life in you at all. That’s why no one wants you.” Mu Jingqin watched Mu Qiuyu walk toward the kitchen sink, her tone becoming more dissatisfied. “Really unlikable. With that gloomy face all day, you’ve cursed the family’s luck away.”

The words sounded like a mumble, but Mu Jingqin didn’t bother to lower her volume. Lu Ning didn’t know if the departing Mu Qiuyu heard them, but she felt as if the hand holding the plate tightened slightly.

I really want to teach this woman a lesson.

The fire in Lu Ning’s heart grew. Her eyes landed on the jam knife in Mu Jingqin’s hand.

Sssss…

A mysterious force suddenly struck Mu Jingqin’s wrist. The jam knife sliced across her finger. The knife was dull, so it didn’t cause a deep wound—just a scrape. It was hard to tell if the red on her finger was strawberry jam or blood.

But Lu Ning was satisfied. She proudly puffed out her round body, the tiny speck of strawberry jam on her feeling like a medal of honor.

No one was allowed to talk about her Host!

While Lu Ning was dutifully protecting her Host, the Host was closing the shoe cabinet in the entryway. “I’m leaving, Aunt.”

Mu Jingqin didn’t look at her; she looked out the window. The fine rain was hard to see with the naked eye. Mu Qiuyu didn’t wait for a response—she didn’t expect one. She slung on her backpack and opened the door. The wind rushed into the entryway, and the woman’s shout of “Take an umbrella” was swallowed by the sound of the door closing.

Raindrops fell on the girl’s nose, spreading a damp chill through her nerves. Mu Qiuyu looked at the street without expression, then tilted her head back toward the sky. Her dark pupils traced the clear circle of the sun’s silhouette. The rain from last night had dwindled by morning and would stop soon. There was no need for an umbrella.

The girl’s tilted head formed a line with the sky, as if she were experiencing the rain.

The notification box popped up again, urging Lu Ning to get to Mu Qiuyu’s side. She knew she had to find her; she didn’t need to be reminded a thousand times. Annoyed, Lu Ning moved the box back to the top left corner.

She shook her water-dampened body vigorously and flew in front of Mu Qiuyu.

“Host, sorry I’m late!”

“Congratulations on successfully binding the Life System! As your System, I will serve you all the way and help you reach a perfect ending!”

The water droplets on the white orb sparkled, bright like a thousand stars, enthusiastic like a dog greeting its owner.

After Lu Ning’s spirited introduction, Mu Qiuyu’s eyes lifted. Her dull, dark pupils glanced coldly into the distance. She pulled her hands out of her pockets and briskly pulled her hoodie over her head. Her dark brown leather shoes stepped off the porch and onto the wet stone path.

As if she couldn’t see Lu Ning at all, Mu Qiuyu brushed past her without a word.

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