Did I Succeed in Redeeming the Villain Today? - Chapter 10

Chapter 10: “You’re Finally Here.”

The night wind swayed, making the branches rustle and sigh.

A sinister moon revealed half its face from behind the withered forest, tracking the sound of a cheerful, lighthearted hum echoing through the trees.

A girl walked under the moonlight, the hem of her sheer dress sweeping lightly against her calves with every step. Her pitch-black, round eyes flickered under the moon’s gaze—clean, unlike anything belonging to this world.

Her long, loose hair was like ink spilled by the night, supple and dark. It would have been even more beautiful if it weren’t tangled with several stalks of foxtail grass.

Following Mu Qiuyu’s choice to sleep, Lu Ning had returned to the girl’s Inner World. After setting the monitoring of Mu Qiuyu’s vitals to the highest level, she began huffing and puffing as she weeded the inner landscape.

The weeds at the “entrance” were incredibly difficult to pull. Lu Ning had no tools, relying purely on brute force. After tossing and turning for over two hours, she finally cleared the patch.

“I really am a hardworking gardener,” Lu Ning stood in the clearing, admiring her handiwork and joking about how she had literally become a gardener in the physical sense.

Although a System is set to be on duty 24/7, the health monitor showed Mu Qiuyu was deep in sleep. I should be allowed a little ‘me time,’ right?

Lu Ning organized the pulled weeds into a pile and threw them into a section of ruined, broken architecture. Having spent her childhood climbing walls and trees with friends, she hopped onto a narrow stone wall in a few nimble steps. Ignoring the dust, she lay back and looked up at the moon.

The night was so quiet. Lu Ning pillowed her head on her arms, tracing the shape of the moon. She had already adapted to this grim environment; even the moon didn’t seem so scary anymore.

Just as she was about to rest, a familiar prompt popped up. This time, however, it wasn’t an alarm or a mission—it was a notification of earned points.

Lu Ning was surprised to find that when Mu Qiuyu completed a task, she, as the System, received a commission. Simple tasks gave a 20% rebate, while Main Missions gave 5%.

“Talk about a sweet deal!” Lu Ning eagerly tapped the “Claim” button. 20 points transformed into crystal-blue motes of light and entered her pocket.

20 points seems a bit low, though… Lu Ning remembered seeing the Mall in Mu Qiuyu’s interface. The cheapest items there were around 100 points. At this rate, she’d be a migrant worker for six months just to afford a trinket.

The prompt seemed to sense her skepticism, and the System Mall button clicked open on its own. Before Lu Ning could prepare herself for the “reality” of her wages, a dazzling array of items appeared.

The girl’s eyes reflected the crystal-blue screen, her pupils dilating. She suddenly realized her Mall was different from Mu Qiuyu’s. This appeared to be an internal Mall for Systems—and inflation wasn’t nearly as bad here. 1 point could buy a lot of food.

Lu Ning scanned the list and saw chips and milk tea for 1 point, as well as discontinued childhood snacks. As she scrolled down, she saw high-end delicacies that made her mouth water.

“Spicy Incense Pot! Sweet and Sour Pork! Beijing Roast Duck! Angus Veal Steak… W-West Lake Vinegar Fish?” Lu Ning’s eyes stopped at the fish. She had tried it once with a friend; neither had the courage to take a second bite. If she had to spend 100 points on that, absolutely not!

Thanks to the deterrent of the West Lake Vinegar Fish, Lu Ning’s initial excitement cooled down. She looked at the fish on the screen and told herself she needed to be more composed—more like Mu Qiuyu.

“…Wait a minute.” Lu Ning’s eyes clouded with confusion. “Why was Mu Qiuyu so calm when she saw her Mall earlier?”

Those were high-tech items that shouldn’t exist in this world. Logically, Mu Qiuyu should have never seen them before. Even if she wasn’t as “unrefined” as Lu Ning, there should have been some emotional fluctuation.

“Strange. It’s like she already knew what was in there.” Lu Ning muttered to herself, crossing her legs under the watchful moon.

Slurp.

The moonlit night was silent, save for the faint sound of someone drinking milk tea. After much soul-searching, “Master Lu” had decided to reward herself with a cup of milk tea from the Mall. She figured that instead of trying to psychoanalyze a future villain, she should first comfort the girl who had suddenly turned into a floating ball.

“Ah—heavenly!” Lu Ning had drunk plenty of milk tea in her life, but none tasted as good as today’s. After finishing half the cup, she lay back on the wall, satisfied.

This world wasn’t normal; there was no such thing as “bright moon and sparse stars.” Countless stars of all sizes were scattered across the sky like diamond dust on velvet. Lu Ning happily sipped her tea, scrolling through the System Mall against the backdrop of the galaxy.

The internal Mall was incredibly vast, with more categories than Mu Qiuyu’s side. As she scrolled, she discovered she could buy plant seeds. 1 point for a bag of specific seeds, or 10 bags of a random seed bundle.

Lu Ning took a big gulp of tea and looked around. Moonlight draped over the wasteland; wild grass swayed in the wind. Withered branches and ruins stretched into a desolate horizon.

“Maybe these seeds can be planted in Mu Qiuyu’s Inner World?” Lu Ning rested her chin in her hand, lost in thought. “If the ecology here improves, maybe her world will regain its vitality.”

After some deliberation, she decided to find a patch of “good” land to experiment. She had always wanted a small garden in her original world. She had tried, but she always had bad luck—either a storm would wash away the seeds the next day, or pests would kill the sprouts in their infancy.

She specifically bought the cheap, high-volume random seed bundle. Her luck was bad, and Mu Qiuyu’s mental climate was unstable; she needed to cast a wide net to see what could actually survive here.

The Mall delivered instantly. A large bag of seeds appeared beside her, along with a humanely provided gardener’s satchel because of the volume of her purchase. Lu Ning looked at the bag and gave a helpless, bitter smile. Her career as a gardener had officially begun.

Judging by the fact that foxtails grew to be half a person tall, the soil in Mu Qiuyu’s Inner World was actually quite fertile. Standing on the high wall, Lu Ning noticed signs of life to the East. Amidst the tangled deadwood, there was a faint layer of green, and dots of red that looked like berries on a bush.

“Alright, East it is!”

Under the cold morning moon, Gardener Lu slung her bag, grabbed her milk tea, and set off. Her footsteps flattened the grass, catching the moonlight behind her.

The further East she went, the more lush the vegetation became. The foxtails at the entrance were nothing compared to this. The silence amplified the loneliness; the wind whistled past her ears like a child’s sharp cry. Lu Ning gripped her bag straps tight. Her stress-relief milk tea was quickly finished. She stepped through the brush, terrified that a prehistoric python might jump out.

“It’s okay… at worst I’ll just… just log out,” she whispered, comforting herself with her remaining logic. The entrance was her spawn point; if things got hairy, she could leave and wouldn’t be teleported back here next time.

She walked a bit further. And as she crossed a certain threshold, the world beneath her feet changed quietly.

The crowded, jagged branches softened their thorns. The bushes were heavy with plump berries. The environment suddenly looked “better,” but Lu Ning’s guard didn’t drop; it went higher. She looked at the tempting berries and remembered reading that such “glamorous” fruit was often poisonous. This hidden danger was worse than the honest savagery outside.

Lu Ning sucked up the last pearl from her cup and resolutely pushed through the temptation.

In that instant, the sky seemed to brighten.

A vast expanse of white flooded her vision, tinting all the surrounding trees white. Light fell into the world of eternal night; it was as if she had stepped into another dimension.

Lu Ning stood at the edge, alert and confused. She looked at the open, flat land. The berry bushes drew a massive circular wall along the edge of the light. Every plant inside this brilliance was exquisite and beautiful. Silvery light shimmered over everything, which was meticulously manicured into various shapes, completely isolated from the chaos outside.

A person?

Lu Ning froze at the thought. Then, she saw a familiar figure sitting in the center of this sanctuary.

Mu Qiuyu.

She was wearing a simple, white long dress. Her dark hair cascaded down like a waterfall. Her long, thick lashes were slightly lowered as she sat in thought. The dark, brooding aura of the daytime was gone. A white-bronze garden chair suited the scenery perfectly, keeping her lonely company.

Beside the chair, Lu Ning saw a chain—long, winding, and seemingly endless.

Rustle.

A gentle wind brushed the branches. Mu Qiuyu heard it too. She looked up toward the direction of the wind.

She saw Lu Ning standing at the edge of the bushes.

In that moment, Mu Qiuyu’s eyes lit up.

“You’re finally here.”

She spoke to Lu Ning with a familiar tone, her voice laced with an irrepressible joy.

It was as if they had met many times before.

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