Did I Succeed in Redeeming the Villain Today? - Chapter 19.2

Chapter 19.2: “Can You… Can You Stop Being Angry with Me…”

She faltered for a second.

Then, she was shoved into the room by the man.

“Sir, Miss Mu has been brought,” the man said to the suited secretary, his previous thuggish attitude toward Lu Ning replaced by a polite, respectful tone.

“Mm.” The suited man nodded. He glanced sideways at the uninsulated, old-fashioned wooden door and waved the man away. “Get some distance. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

“You got it.” Even though the suited man didn’t look him in the eye, the thug still wore a sycophantic smile. He was happy to oblige—after all, who wants to stand guard? He had no interest in listening to the filthy secrets of high society.

As he turned away, the man spat on the ground behind the secretary’s back. Of course, the suited man didn’t see it.

The door creaked shut, isolating them from the outside world. Mu Qiuyu stood in the exact same spot she had in her previous life, staring expressionlessly at the suited man.

Under her gaze, the man slowly stood up, one hand in his pocket. The smile that had looked pleasant in the sunlight now felt bone-chilling in the dim room.

“Miss Mu, I don’t have much time to waste. If you don’t cooperate, I may have to take… necessary measures.”

Mu Qiuyu had heard these words in her past life. Now, she wanted to hear something different: “Since you want me to talk, you should at least tell me what you want to know most.”

Hearing this, the man assumed the young girl was scared and ready to compromise. It surprised him slightly; he had thought the proud, cold girl he saw at the beginning of the year was a tough nut to crack, but she turned out to be nothing more than a pretty, useless pillow.

“Since you’re being so cooperative, I won’t speak in riddles,” the man said, sounding more cheerful. “You say you don’t know where the 15% of the assets went, but why did we find that before your parents’ accident, your father took out corporate asset insurance in your name?”

Dust drifted silently in front of the window. This time, there were no sobs of pain from the girl. The man’s words were clear.

Mu Qiuyu had heard this in her previous life too. Back then, she had been completely ignorant of it. It wasn’t until several years later, when a sum of money mysteriously appeared in her account, that she realized her parents had indeed left her a way out.

But this time, the man’s sentence seemed different from her memory. In this life, Mu Qiuyu hadn’t had her arm broken; her mind was far clearer. She caught a keyword.

“Father.”

In her previous life, she had been too panicked to listen closely. It turns out he had said “Father,” not “Parents.”

Mu Qiuyu’s father, Su Qinghang, was a son-in-law who had married into the Mu family. For as long as she could remember, Su Qinghang rarely managed household affairs, especially hers. In her memory, he was a man who loved her mother more than himself—a man who didn’t even care about his own identity. People praised them as a perfect couple, calling Su Qinghang a rare “family man.”

But was that really the case?

The warmth of spring suddenly felt brittle. A crack appeared in the thick ice of her memories. A question echoed in Mu Qiuyu’s mind, followed by a surge of nausea and a sudden, chilling dread.

“Did you remember something, Miss Mu?” the secretary asked, catching the flicker of hesitation in her eyes.

“I did,” Mu Qiuyu said, pulling herself together. She countered with a condition: “But I’m not entirely sure yet. Can you show me the insurance policy? Perhaps it will help me recall more specific details.”

She spoke naturally, betting that the man had the documents on him. The secretary was half-skeptical, but the contract wasn’t a top-secret file; there was no harm in showing it. What if there was something in it that only an insider like her could decipher?

He pulled up the contract on his phone. “Here.”

“My hands are tied. How am I supposed to look?” Mu Qiuyu looked up at him and gave a helpless shrug.

The last rays of the sunset hit her through the square window, accentuating her pale skin. Her collar had been torn open earlier, and her shrug caused it to slip even lower. Her youthful, slight frame was visible even through the dust. The man suddenly thought that if he could take this girl home as a mistress, it wouldn’t be half bad. His patience grew, and his tone softened.

“In that case—”

“!”

As the man moved closer with the phone, he heard a wet thud. He turned his head in slow disbelief.

Mu Qiuyu had somehow slipped her bonds. She was holding a knife, and it was driven straight through the center of his palm.

The blade was sharp, glinting with a cold light. It happened so fast that the pain was delayed. But when it arrived, it was fierce. Realizing his hand had been impaled, the man’s face twisted into a grotesque mask.

“AAAH! You b!tch! You—”

Infuriated, the man tried to grab her hair to teach her a lesson. But before he could raise his hand, another hand grabbed his hair. Mu Qiuyu showed no mercy; she twisted the knife deeper into his palm before letting go. Then, she grabbed his head with both hands and slammed it repeatedly against the wall.

In many cases, the “strength gap” between men and women isn’t the deciding factor. The man’s expensive suit restricted his movement, and his sedentary, alcohol-fueled lifestyle meant he wasn’t much stronger than Mu Qiuyu.

Furthermore, Mu Qiuyu was no longer afraid of accidentally killing someone. She knew exactly what she was doing. As the man tried to counterattack, she delivered a brutal kick to his groin.

She grabbed his hair just as he had grabbed hers in her past life, and she slammed him into the wall with the same ruthlessness he once showed her.

“I told you, I would pay it back,” Mu Qiuyu said, her voice eerily calm as she repeated the motion like a soulless machine.

Waves of pain radiated from the man’s hand and skull. He couldn’t tell which part hurt more, but he could feel the sheer terror emanating from the person in front of him. He realized too late that when she warned him earlier after he snatched her gold lock, she had been dead serious.

Looking at her unwavering, cold expression through his blurred vision, a sense of profound despair washed over him. This woman was a demon from hell.

The man’s head proved to be softer than the wall. Before he could even scream again, he blacked out. Mu Qiuyu let go of the limp pile of meat, letting him slide to the floor like wastewater.

She stood over the bloodied man, her eyes indifferent, devoid of fear. I missed this step last time and wasted so much time, she thought. She yanked the knife out of the man’s hand, wiped it clean on his suit with a look of disgust, tucked it away, and walked to the door.

She pushed the wooden door open carefully; it didn’t even creak. Using her phone screen to check the reflection, she confirmed the other man wasn’t nearby. It made sense—otherwise, he would have come running at the first scream.

She turned and left. She deliberately avoided the path they had taken up, carefully checking the stairs before descending to the first floor.

Two beams of light illuminated the hallway. To the left led back to the main hall; to the right seemed to be an exit. Mu Qiuyu stopped to judge her path. Right was freedom. But her necklace was still with the driver.

And that cat.

Her grip on the banister tightened. After only a second of hesitation, she turned left. She was going back for her mother’s keepsake. Definitely not to save the cat, she told herself. Besides, the cat wasn’t really a cat—it was a System; it didn’t need a human to save it.

As she rounded the corner and hugged the wall, she saw a large, staggering shadow moving slowly through the dim light. Its fluffy fur was matted and wet. The shadow looked like a lumbering monster, driven step by step by a tiny body beneath.

Mu Qiuyu’s breath hitched. She recognized Lu Ning in that bedraggled form. The kitten was injured, limping toward her. Her once glossy black fur was covered in dust and a strange liquid, making her look filthy and sickly.

“Host…”

Lu Ning looked up, and her dull eyes suddenly lit up at the sight of Mu Qiuyu. Her mouth seemed to be holding something, making her speech muffled.

Seeing the dirty little ball in the sunset, Mu Qiuyu felt as if her heart had been struck by a rifle butt. She ran toward Lu Ning in three quick strides. The kitten didn’t stop either, hobbling toward her. Finally, on its third slow step, it collapsed into Mu Qiuyu’s outstretched arms.

“What did you do?” Mu Qiuyu asked, her brow furrowed.

Lu Ning felt her strength failing. She had never done anything so crazy in her life. Back in the hall, she had used her “cute” act to lure the driver, then snatched the gold lock he was using to tease her. To the driver, the cat was worthless compared to money. He chased her, but she bit down on the lock so hard she almost swallowed it.

The kitten was more agile than a human. She had almost escaped through the twists and turns when the driver lunged and grabbed her tail.

“MEOW—!”

The kitten had screamed in agony as if her tail were being ripped off. Before she could recover, the driver had rained kicks and punches down on her. Lu Ning had never felt such pain. Fortunately, she had upgraded her teeth and claws; when the driver tried to pry her mouth open, she slashed his face. She wasn’t sure if she got his eyeball or his eyelid, but she didn’t care—she got the lock back! She was Mu Qiuyu’s best partner!

Before she could explain, the object in her mouth reminded her to return it to its owner. Her breathing was ragged as she leaned against Mu Qiuyu’s palm. She opened her mouth.

Wet saliva mixed with blood smeared onto Mu Qiuyu’s hand. In the center of that mess lay the shining gold lock. Her mother’s keepsake.

Mu Qiuyu’s gaze was fixed on the blood and water in her palm. Lu Ning’s voice drifted into her ears: “Host… you’re finally willing to talk to me.”

The kitten struggled to lift her head to lick the dirty gold lock, trying clumsily to clean it. She was still fixated on the day’s events: “Can you… can you stop being angry with me?”

The tiny barbs on the cat’s tongue brushed against the gold lock, making a faint tinkle-tinkle sound against Mu Qiuyu’s palm. It was too quiet. Mu Qiuyu’s mind echoed with those two sentences. All the kitten’s joy and sadness today had been because of her silent treatment. And the kitten had fought to get the lock back just to “atone” for its mistakes.

She had turned herself into this wreck—and for what? She was a System! How could a System be beaten into such a state by a human?

Mu Qiuyu stared at the lock being licked clean. It felt as if those barbs weren’t scraping the gold, but her own heart. The sun hung precariously on the window at the end of the hall, leaving only the dimmest light. In that light, Lu Ning saw a flash of regret on Mu Qiuyu’s face.

But there was one thing Lu Ning could definitely distinguish: the scent of blood in the air that didn’t belong to either of them. It was on Mu Qiuyu’s face. Lu Ning knew that for Mu Qiuyu to return from the second floor, she must have fought a hard battle too.

Under the last light, the kitten lifted a paw: “Don’t be afraid, Host. I’ve set up a signal jammer… they won’t find you for now.”

But Lu Ning forgot that her fur was covered in her own blood. Her pink paw pad was still soft, but as it brushed against Mu Qiuyu’s cheek, it left a streak of blood on the girl’s pale face.

Mu Qiuyu looked at the black paw in the twilight and asked: “Aren’t you a System? How did you end up like this?”

Lu Ning’s eyes lowered. She was a cat now. She wanted to turn back into a System ball to steal the lock, but the damn world rules stated that if she didn’t become a biological creature, she couldn’t interact with the world. She could barely push a jam knife before; stealing the lock in “ball form” was impossible. And apparently, a biological body’s health was tied to system energy.

She didn’t have enough energy to turn back now, nor the strength to explain everything. She just gave a weak, cocky smile: “That guy… he tried to hit me… I scratched his eye out. I’m… I’m pretty cool, right?”

The sun withdrew its last light. The hallway went dark. Lu Ning saw how she had dirtied Mu Qiuyu’s face and felt a wave of disappointment. She had wanted to steal the lock stylishly, run to the second floor, and appear before Mu Qiuyu like a hero to regain her trust.

I’m such a useless System.

The kitten exhaled a weak breath and whispered: “I’m sorry… I think I got you dirty.”

The apology seemed to do nothing. Mu Qiuyu’s frown only deepened. Lu Ning sighed inwardly, gathering her remaining energy: “Mu Qiuyu, can you walk the rest of the way… bzzzt… by yourself?”

The sound of unstable static rang out. The kitten looked up with effort, as if speaking about the escape from the factory—or perhaps, about the future.

Mu Qiuyu blurted out almost instinctively: “I can’t walk it alone.”

Lu Ning froze. She never expected that answer. In their short time together, Mu Qiuyu had always done everything perfectly on her own. How could she not be able to walk alone? She was Mu Qiuyu—the person Lu Ning admired so much in another world.

Lu Ning uploaded the map she had downloaded: “Here… the map to get out… bzzzt… is loaded for you.”

“Please trust me just this once. The System… bzzzt… the System will fulfill all the Host’s requests.”

Static filled her voice, carrying a humble plea. “Mu Qiuyu, goodnight.”

With that, Lu Ning’s crystal-blue eyes went dark. In Mu Qiuyu’s vacant pupils, only a trace of flickering blue static remained, revealing the kitten’s true eye color—a faint, dull yellow.

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