Time Travel Begins the Moment I Divorce My Wife - Chapter 23

Taking advantage of the moment when Wei Fengya and Li Ruoqiao were busy tearing each other’s hair out, Ji Xunchi rubbed her aching head and slipped out of the practice room.

As she walked down the long corridor, she noticed that everyone she encountered, regardless of gender, looked at her with a mix of jealousy, contempt, and envy.

When had Ji Xunchi ever been on the receiving end of such gazes?

Fortunately, she possessed a remarkably stable and resilient mindset. She did not take these rumors, which belonged entirely to the original owner of this body, to heart. She walked past the scattered groups of people with an air of nonchalance.

Eventually, Ji Xunchi stopped at a bench near the vending machine.

She leaned back against the seat, taking this time to properly organize the memories in her mind.

Just now, when facing Wei Fengya and Li Ruoqiao, because they held significant space in the original owner’s memory, Ji Xunchi had immediately mobilized all available memories to recall everything about them. From there, she pieced together the truth from the clues and successfully drove a wedge into their fragile “sisterhood.”

But in reality, they were not entirely wrong: the original owner was truly incapable of doing anything right and relied solely on her face.

Ji Xunchi sifted through the memories and discovered that the “I” in this world was even worse off than in the last. At least in the previous world, while she had been poor, she did not have any major debts. The only ones she had were from her own mischief as a scammer. But this “Ji Xunchi” was not only orphaned and from an impoverished background, but her only family, Grandma Ji, was critically ill. Beyond that, she carried a mountain of debt; those were usurious loans taken out to pay for her grandmother’s medical bills.

Thinking of Grandma Ji, who had told her to be careful on her way out just a few hours ago in the living room, a sense of melancholy and sadness washed over Ji Xunchi.

She composed her mood and looked back at the memories.

Although the borrowed money was enough to treat her grandmother temporarily, subsequent medical expenses remained a massive sum. The original owner could not afford it, and she could no longer repay the loan sharks. Driven to a dead end, she accidentally found a contact number in her grandmother’s room and learned that it belonged to a favor her father had done for someone long ago.

However, so much time had passed that Grandma Ji had almost forgotten about it and was not sure if the person had changed their number.

But “Ji Xunchi” was truly desperate, so she contacted that person with a “do-or-die” mentality.

Luckily, the person answered and agreed to help.

Thus, Ji Xunchi came to JSG (Juxing) and became a trainee in their upcoming girl group.

And that was the extent of that “favor.”

The path ahead would have to be walked by “Ji Xunchi” alone.

So, the original owner really did get in through the back door.

After reviewing the entire memory, Ji Xunchi sighed.

She bought a bottle of mineral water from the vending machine. Shen Yueting glanced coldly at Ji Xunchi, who was sitting with her head hung low in a daze. “Why are you still spacing out? Do you know we start dance rehearsals this afternoon?”

Ji Xunchi raised her head at the sound, seeing a girl in simple black sportswear staring at her with hostility.

It was Shen Yueting, one of the members of the new girl group and one of the lead vocalists.

“Since we are debuting soon, I hope you can take this seriously. Do not think about slacking off and holding back the rest of the team.”

Facing the warning, Ji Xunchi took a deep breath. “Understood. Thank you for the reminder; I will head up immediately.”

Seeing that she had no intention of getting up right away, Shen Yueting frowned, but ultimately said nothing more and went upstairs with a cold face.

Ji Xunchi sat where she was, rubbing her face in frustration.

She knew Shen Yueting. In the future, she would become a mediocre singer in the industry, someone completely unremarkable.

But to the current Ji Xunchi, the other party had one more notable identity.

She was one of Hua Jiangyu’s former bandmates.

That is right: before Hua Jiangyu became an actress, she had been an idol. However, her idol career was very short, lasting less than a year. Later, Hua Jiangyu rose to prominence in the film industry like a dark horse, crushing every obstacle in her path, winning countless trophies, and eventually becoming the youngest “Three Gold” Grand Slam Best Actress in the country.

So, my current identity is directly tied to being Hua Jiangyu’s former bandmate? Ji Xunchi calculated.

Thinking of this, Ji Xunchi called out to the system that had been silent for so long.

There was no answer.

Her eyes flickered, and she stood up, ready to leave the company.

The moment she stepped outside the front gate, a mechanical voice sounded in her head, accompanied by the familiar and repulsive “spinach bomb” attack.

Ji Xunchi grimaced and stepped back inside, sitting down once more.

Only after the disgusting taste in her mouth faded did she speak.

“Let us talk. What is your goal? I think there is no need to stay silent anymore, right? Things are already obvious: my time travel is linked to Hua Jiangyu.”

After a moment of silence, the system retorted: [Not entirely.]

“Not entirely?” Ji Xunchi pondered for a moment, then frowned. “Is it us?”

The catalyst for the time travel was Hua Jiangyu refusing the divorce, but the premise of that refusal was that she (Ji Xunchi) had initiated it.

And the two previous instances—when she was a three-year-old toddler and an eighteen-year-old high school student—according to her original life trajectory, she should not have known Hua Jiangyu at all.

Yet, she did know her, and there were always coincidences that created links between the two of them.

Even the key to her traveling back in time was related to kissing Hua Jiangyu.

The evidence was laid out bare. Although it sounded preposterous, Ji Xunchi was not a fool; how could she not ask by now?

Back in the previous world, she had started to suspect the system after hearing the purring sound of the “strawberry tip” falling asleep. She had not expected the system not to bother hiding it in this world either.

The system corrected her: [It is the feelings between you.]

“The feelings between us?” Ji Xunchi sank into thought. After a long while, she finally spoke: “System, do not be ridiculous. I have never heard of such a bizarre reason for time travel.”

The system’s mechanical voice remained flat, but its words made Ji Xunchi freeze: [If it were the original you, you would have retorted, “What feelings could there be between us?” instead of starting to think.]

Ji Xunchi: “…”

That is a fair point.

Prompted by the system, Ji Xunchi realized with a jolt that her feelings for Hua Jiangyu had unknowingly changed a great deal.

When she first brought up the divorce to Hua Jiangyu and told her there were “no feelings left,” Ji Xunchi had not thought she was lying; she truly believed it at the time.

If there were no feelings, how could she have asked for a divorce?

As for Hua Jiangyu’s feelings toward her…

Ji Xunchi recalled the shattered, reddened hue in the corners of her eyes and mused that perhaps there was still something there.

But that did not matter anymore.

Ji Xunchi thought calmly. While her feelings for Hua Jiangyu had reignited during these two bizarre time-travel experiences, or perhaps they had never truly gone out and someone had just added fuel to the fire and deliberately fanned the flames, it did not change the facts.

Since they had reached the point of divorce, even if there were feelings, it only proved that they were not suited to be together.

The system: [That is the purpose of your time travel.]

Ji Xunchi was stunned. “Is your system affiliated with the Universal Civil Affairs Bureau?”

“As soon as you see a married couple about to divorce, you rush out and force them to bind together on a quest for love? Do you have some KPI you have to meet? Must you be the Golden Medal Marriage Mediator, no, wait, the Golden Medal Marriage Mediation System?”

Ji Xunchi wondered, “After forcing us to avoid divorce and stabilizing the marriage, is the next step to urge us to have children?”

The system said coldly: [Do you wish to have children?]

“Can two women do that?”

The system: [As long as you want to.]

Ji Xunchi widened her eyes and refused repeatedly: “Forget whether or not we can give birth; personally, I strictly refuse to raise a child!”

The system did not respond. It watched its host clamor for divorce, yet immediately think of the other person when the subject of children came up. The data in its core program was clicking and calculating.

It had seen humanity’s hypocrisy long ago.

The system: [As you wish.]

Ji Xunchi breathed a huge sigh of relief.

No matter how cute a kid is, it is better when it is someone else’s.

Realizing the topic had drifted, Ji Xunchi quickly pulled it back. “If I do not follow the predetermined path left by the original owner, am I going to be trapped forever in these parallel worlds? Is there no possibility of truly going home?”

The system: [That is correct.]

Ji Xunchi: “And this so-called ‘breaking character,’ does it only work when facing specific people? Like Hua Jiangyu?”

The system: [You are very smart.]

Ji Xunchi sneered, “You were so obvious, do you think I am an idiot?”

After the core data finished calculating, the system’s mechanical voice gained some inflection: [You should not be angry; after all, the current situation is what you like.]

[Once you learned the truth of the time travel, you did not truly oppose or loathe it. After all, you are fickle; experiencing such novel and exciting lives is a game you cannot refuse.]

Ji Xunchi: “…”

She was expressionless. “How much background research did you do before binding with me? How long have you been lurking? Huh? Have you been stalking me for a long time?”

“Pervert!”

The system: […]

Clearly, those were the lines you entered yourself! When you refused the binding at the beginning, you were the one who wrote the script for the system to take to the Ji Xunchi in the other multiverse!

But the system could not say that, and it had to take the blame.

It said coldly: [Facts cannot be refuted.]

It continued to threaten: [If you do not stay in character, the spinach bomb will remain with you.]

Hitting the nail on the head, this sentence completely pinned Ji Xunchi down.

You stalker, you perverted system! You are ruthless!

Ji Xunchi took a deep breath. “Who says I am not staying in character? Did I not do a pretty good job last time?”

Actually, the system was right. She, Ji Xunchi, was a fickle person.

When she was a child, she liked Barbie dolls, but after a few days, she would throw them away and turn to holding a toy machine gun. She never held onto things for long. During her school years, when she saw a pretty girl, she might like one in one second and admire another in the next; she never had any constancy.

In her twenty-some years, besides text, the only one she persisted in liking for four years was Hua Jiangyu.

Four years. Four cycles of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

In an era where it only takes a second for one’s heartbeat to speed up and fall for someone else, she had liked Hua Jiangyu for 126,144,000 seconds.

But even so, everything could not escape the law of being “fickle.” In the end, she had arrived at the point where she wanted to be a stranger to her.

She lowered her eyes and asked, “This Hua Jiangyu is she really Hua Jiangyu?”

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