System, You Didn't Say the Villain Can Read Minds! - Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Yun Wenzhou’s left hand supported her right elbow while her right hand was raised, a deboning knife hovering at her fingertips, reflecting a spine-chilling cold light under the illumination.

She maintained a composed posture, speaking words of utter disdain. Her gaze toward the Director was as cold as if she were looking at trash. Even though she hadn’t directly admitted to being the murderer, her demeanor was an unmistakable provocation.

In fact, she was indeed provoking him.

—Want to pin a crime on us? You’d better be serious about it.

Yun Wenzhou had long since lost any desire to stay in this shelter.

Before leaving that former home of hers, she thought she only hated that couple who had occupied the nest like cuckoos; it was only after entering the shelter that she realized what she actually hated was humanity.

Almost everyone had a dark side in their hearts, darkness that acted like tentacles reaching out from the abyss, trying to entwine her, drag her down, and swallow her whole.

She was fed up with these disgusting inner voices. She wished she could kill everyone here.

But her Sister didn’t like her killing people, and her Sister didn’t want to leave this place. For her Sister’s sake, Yun Wenzhou was willing to endure.

Unless someone tried to harm her Sister.

The Director turned pale at Yun Wenzhou’s sudden display of the knife, unable to utter a word for a long time.

Mo Jiu was also startled by Yun Wenzhou.

“Don’t be impulsive! He only suspects right now; if you self-destruct, you’re just confirming it!”

Mo Jiu: System, wake up! Something big is happening!

The System remained unresponsive.

Of all the times for this to happen…

If the System went offline for good and never came back, that wouldn’t be so bad; Mo Jiu could decide her and Yun Wenzhou’s future for herself. What she feared was the System coming back online, seeing the situation completely spiraling out of control, and dumping all the pressure on her by issuing tasks she couldn’t possibly complete.

Sometimes Mo Jiu thought: if a task is impossible, why not just give up on it? Although she didn’t know what price she would have to pay, that price might not be harder to bear than the task itself.

However, up until now, there hadn’t been a task she would rather die than do.

Behind Yun Wenzhou, Ye Lan had gripped her shadow longsword, while Yue Xinghe took two steps back, hiding behind Ye Lan. The atmosphere in the room became tense and dangerous; a life-or-death battle was on the verge of erupting.

Mo Jiu closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

To hell with the System. To hell with the plot.

“The shelter is expendable, but Yun Wenzhou must live.”

With that thought, she spoke, addressing the Director in an unruffled tone: “Director Zhang, when I first met you, I had a pretty good impression. I thought you were objective, fair, and reasonable. Looking at it now, is it really acceptable to let a newcomer replace a supervisor just because you found her cooking delicious?”

“I thought you truly cherished talent, but it turns out you only wanted to satisfy your own appetite. As for the conflict between me and that man named Yuan, you didn’t care at all.”

“Just like now, you’ve decided I’m the murderer. Even without evidence, you want all clues to point to me. More than the truth, you want the ‘truth’ you’ve already decided on to become reality.”

“You only care about your own thoughts and take the actions you deem right. What kind of ‘objective, fair, and reasonable’ is that?”

“I am very disappointed in you. I truly believed you could lead us toward hope, but now I see you’re nothing more than a dictator of a tiny patch of land.”

“Since you’ve already decided to make me the culprit, then I’ll just leave.”

Having finished her speech, Mo Jiu rose from her chair with dignity and looked at Yun Wenzhou behind her: “Coming with me, or staying?”

“Is that even a question?” Yun Wenzhou was both excited and slightly hurt.

The excitement came from the fact that her Sister had decided to leave for her sake. In her Sister’s heart, her own status was higher than the shelter, higher than a safe haven.

The hurt came from wondering why her Sister thought there was even a possibility of her staying.

Her Sister was kind, but also very self-centered. She always thought about what was “good” for Yun Wenzhou, rather than what Yun Wenzhou actually wanted to do. Her Sister liked her, but didn’t love her, so she only cared about her safety and not her thoughts, never having tried to truly understand her.

Despite this, she didn’t really understand her Sister either. Even though she could hear her Sister’s inner thoughts from time to time, she didn’t understand what she truly desired. It was as if the most important piece of a puzzle was missing, and no matter how she searched, she couldn’t find it.

But it didn’t matter. They had plenty of time ahead.

“Sister, let’s go.” Yun Wenzhou smiled and took Mo Jiu’s hand.

Mo Jiu let her hold it and turned to leave.

Ye Lan raised her free hand to stop them, frowning as she asked: “Where will you live after leaving the shelter? Housing is secondary… what will you eat? No, the main point is, this involves your innocence. You’re just going to walk away like this?”

Mo Jiu looked up to meet her eyes. The expression on Ye Lan’s face was one of genuine concern.

Clearly, unlike the Director, Ye Lan didn’t necessarily claim to believe in their innocence, but at least she didn’t plan to label them as murderers while evidence was lacking.

But the twist was… they were the murderers. Surprised?

Mo Jiu was set on leaving and asked calmly in return: “Is innocence important to me? Does it even matter if I’m the murderer or not?”

“Why wouldn’t it matter?” Ye Lan didn’t understand.

Mo Jiu sighed inwardly. The female lead was incredibly naive, but that was exactly what made her special. In a setting where everyone lived in fear, someone who could stay true to themselves and fight to save the world was admirable no matter what.

Even if they were destined to fight one day.

Mo Jiu didn’t want to destroy Ye Lan’s innocence, but she feared that innocence would get her killed before the final battle, so she responded to her question.

“For a group of rabbits, does it matter if a wolf has killed a rabbit before?”

“To a ‘rabbit’ like the Director, I am already a wolf. So even if I’ve never killed a rabbit, I can no longer stay in the rabbit burrow—especially since rabbits can enter and leave my room at will.”

Having said that, she leaned close to Ye Lan and whispered in her ear: “By the way, you’re a wolf too.”

While sitting in the chair, Mo Jiu had spent a long time wondering why it was her. She wasn’t the only chef in the kitchen. Between Yuan’s disappearance and the theft of the knife, why was it decided that she did it?

If her identity had any special feature besides being a supervisor, it was… she was an Awakened. She wasn’t just an Awakened; she was the only one not assigned to a guard post. If she had the power to kill aberrations, she had the power to kill humans.

Whether she had killed or not wasn’t the point; having the ability to kill was the point. The Director’s fear of her Awakened ability had triumphed over his appreciation for her cooking, leading to a 180-degree shift in his attitude.

—The above analysis had already been memorized in its entirety by Yun Wenzhou.

In any case, with the System offline, Mo Jiu made the decision to leave on her own. And this was exactly what the Director wanted, so he said to Ye Lan: “Don’t stop them, let them go!”

Ye Lan clicked her tongue and moved out of the way reluctantly.

Mo Jiu gave a light chuckle: “See you around.”

She gripped Yun Wenzhou’s hand in return and pulled her out of the room, tossing her employee badge onto the floor the moment they stepped out. Yun Wenzhou followed suit, dropping the badge she hadn’t worn around her neck even once, but she made off with the deboning knife.

As if to retaliate, before the two could even exit the shelter gates, the Director’s own voice rang out over the intercom with an announcement.

“Mo Jiu, former supervisor of the Food Processing Kitchen Zone, and Yun Wenzhou, guard, have been expelled from the shelter on suspicion of intentional homicide. They are permanently banned from re-entering. I hope everyone in the shelter takes this as a warning to abide by the rules and law, and to work together to maintain the safety and stability of our shelter.”

Mo Jiu and Yun Wenzhou reached the shelter entrance. The heavy doors opened, revealing the apocalyptic landscape once again. The meteor showers had stopped; though there were fires in the distance, there were no more burning houses in their immediate sight.

Mo Jiu let go of Yun Wenzhou’s hand, but Yun Wenzhou refused to let go, still gripping her tightly.

“Sister, is there anywhere you want to go?” Yun Wenzhou asked.

“First to a clothing store to change, and I need hair ties,” Mo Jiu replied.

They had left too quickly and forgotten to bring clothes. Fortunately, she hadn’t forgotten her phone; although there was no internet, she could at least check the time or take photos.

“Mhm, then let’s go to the mall.” Yun Wenzhou tentatively hooked her arm through Mo Jiu’s, then intimately rested her head on her shoulder.

Mo Jiu tilted her head slightly toward her, looking as if she wanted to say something but hesitated.

“What should I do with her?”

If the Library really approved her application to replace the Villain, then—

“She shouldn’t be following me.”

“Sister,” Yun Wenzhou spoke suddenly.

“What is it?” Mo Jiu responded flatly.

Without the System’s supervision, Mo Jiu didn’t need to force herself to maintain any persona. Her true self wasn’t cold-blooded or ruthless, but she wasn’t particularly warm or kind either. She wouldn’t harm others without cause, but she wouldn’t be inexplicably good to anyone either. Her tone carried a subtle sense of indifference and distance.

But instead of being deterred, Yun Wenzhou hugged her arm even tighter: “Sister, can you promise me one thing?”

“Tell me.”

“Never abandon me.”

Mo Jiu didn’t speak.

“Sister, promise me, okay?”

Mo Jiu continued to stay silent.

“I don’t want to lie.”

“Sister!” Yun Wenzhou’s tone suddenly became urgent. She grabbed Mo Jiu’s hand and pressed it against her own neck.

She always wore a choker around her neck—the collar her Sister had personally put on her. Aside from this collar, no one else could dream of hanging anything on her neck.

“Sister, you said it yourself—I am yours, and you won’t abandon me, right?”

Mo Jiu felt her body temperature and sank into thought.

“If I knew it would turn out like this, I shouldn’t have given her the choker.”

“However, if I harden my heart and abandon her once, she’ll learn that ‘simping’ until the end leads to a miserable death.”

Yun Wenzhou’s eyes widened, a wave of coldness sweeping through her entire body. Her Sister was making decisions for her “own good” again. Her Sister wanted her to be independent and was even willing to abandon her heartlessly to achieve that…

Ha.

Sister, you don’t understand me at all.

You don’t understand how important your existence is to me.

And you don’t understand how resolute I can be to achieve my goals.

“Sister, if you don’t want me, then just kill me.” As Yun Wenzhou spoke, she pressed the sharp deboning knife into Mo Jiu’s hand, wrapping her fingers around the hilt and pressing the tip against her own chest.

With a force that allowed no resistance, she hijacked Mo Jiu’s hand to stab herself, forcing a flash of shock and panic onto Mo Jiu’s face.

Mo Jiu instinctively tried to pull the knife back, wanting to move it away from Yun Wenzhou’s chest, but she could only watch helplessly as the tip pierced the flesh. Drops of blood seeped out, flowing down in a startling red trail.

“Are you crazy? Let go!” Mo Jiu was forced to use both hands, pitting her strength against Yun Wenzhou’s.

Yun Wenzhou curled her lips into a cunning, successful smile: “Sister, hurry and say you’ll never abandon me. If you’re bored of toys and dogs, I can be something else. I can be your blade, your guard, your maid… oh, that’s right, we’re both adults now, we could play something even more stimulating!”

Mo Jiu: “…”

“@#￥%%……”

“Hahahaha! Sister, admit it, you have thoughts about me, don’t you? You can do anything to me. If you can’t give me love, then bestow upon me humiliation and pain!”

“I am willing to swear an oath upon my life to be forever loyal to you and never betray you. Why can’t you just guarantee that you won’t abandon me?”

“Sister, say you won’t abandon me! Promise me! It’s just one sentence—say it for me! Please! Say it for me!”

Though she said “please,” her actions were nothing short of a threat.

If anyone else had said those words, Mo Jiu would have called them a “maniac” and let go, letting them seek their own death. But unfortunately, the one saying it was Yun Wenzhou.

Mo Jiu had seen her powerless endurance and stubbornness in the face of domestic violence, and her obedient submissiveness when being handled. She had witnessed her growth and her fall; she understood her coldness and her madness.

So…

Mo Jiu used her Awakened ability to pin Yun Wenzhou in place, forcing her to let go of the hand holding the knife. She snatched the knife away, then pinched Yun Wenzhou’s chin, looking directly into her eyes as she spoke coldly: “If you act out like a maniac again, I really will leave you behind.”

Tsk. A perfectly good villain, seemingly raised by her into a mad dog.

But what could she do?

“A person I raised with my own hands can only be kept by my side to be personally disciplined.”

Support