System Appears

Pain!

Pain, pain, pain!

Aside from pain, there was only an abyss of terror: I am going to die, I will die immediately. What does death feel like? It certainly won't be like transmigrating. From now on, no matter which world it is, there will no longer be a person like me; even this thought of mine at this moment, this fear as well, will dissipate along with it.

No!

I won't die!

Gaoyang struggled to open half an eye squeezed by the tentacles, and something seemed to be floating before his eyes.

He saw it clearly: a translucent, faint golden-glowing six-pointed star. It spun quietly, as if waiting for someone to touch it.

Gaoyang didn't know what this was, but instinct told him this was the only struggle he could make before his death.

He mustered all his strength to raise his left hand, inching closer to the six-pointed star in the air.

Soon... soon to touch it.

"Ah!" Severe pain drained the strength from his body, and his left arm dropped down.

"Is this what humans are? Human blood, human taste..." Li Weiwei was overly excited, her voice laced with panting, "Too beautiful! Too amazing!"

Gaoyang's head in Li Weiwei's hand was like a raw egg, crushable with a single squeeze.

She couldn't bear to break him so quickly, and she exercised extreme restraint, mastering the critical point just before crushing her prey's skull. She wanted to taste the fear and despair of a human's death struggle to the absolute maximum.

These emotions were simply too precious.

She might never have a second chance in her entire life.

Finally, about to usher in the final climax, Li Weiwei's body trembled wildly with excitement: "Gaoyang, you're a good person. I like you... I love you..."

"I want you!"

"Give it to me, please give me everything you are!"

The crushing force of the tentacles experienced a momentary slack; that was the precursor to exerting force.

Gaoyang seized the momentary chance, abruptly raising his hand to hook the six-pointed star in the air with his middle finger.

[Beep--]

[System activated]

[User information loading...]

[Loading complete]

[Name: Gaoyang. Age: 18 years old.]

[Gender: Male. Race: Human.]

[Status: Awakened.]

[Talent: Fortune. Serial Number: 199. Rune Type: Miracle.]

--Are you a system? Or a cheat? Whatever! I want to use my talent!

Gaoyang couldn't speak, but the voice in his heart could still be recognized by the system.

[Fortune is a passive talent and cannot be used]

--Then what use are you! I'm going to die! Save me quickly! Someone save me!

[Access ended, system hidden]

[Beep--]

The system vanished.

Everything happened in an instant; the six-pointed star before Gaoyang's eyes was gone, and he still couldn't do anything. How aggrieved he felt, but there was no hope left at all.

He closed his eyes and awaited death.

Strange! Why am I not dead yet? Why is the pain starting to subside? Why is the strength of the tentacles crushing my head fading away bit by bit?

"Splash--" The tentacles went limp, retreating back into Li Weiwei's arms.

Gaoyang collapsed to the ground, freed from the suffocation and agony, and he covered his neck and coughed desperately: "Cough, cough... cough, cough!!"

He raised his head while coughing.

Li Weiwei's arms had long since returned to normal, and her eyes were wide open with a look of utter bewilderment, tears welling in them: "Wh... why..."

Gaoyang's gaze slid down from Li Weiwei's face, her chest soaked in crimson.

Li Weiwei looked at Gaoyang with lingering reluctance, still wanting to reach out a hand toward him: "You... are... mine..."

"Slash--" A slender Tang Dao pierced through Li Weiwei's heart from behind, and Li Weiwei's body bent backward like a fish impaled by a harpoon.

"Step aside." A voice came from behind Li Weiwei.

Gaoyang stood up trembling, and he finally saw clearly that it was Qingling standing behind Li Weiwei, holding the hilt of the Tang Dao with both hands and maintaining a crouching assassination posture.

"Qingling? Why are you... here?"

"Move!" Qingling coldly repeated.

"Alright..." Gaoyang quickly stepped aside.

"Stand behind me," Qingling said.

Gaoyang obeyed.

Qingling swiftly drew her blade, and Li Weiwei's chest poured blood like a gushing fountain, spraying wildly as the road ahead was spattered a brilliant crimson.

Gaoyang forced himself to hold back from vomiting, and he then noticed that the Tang Dao in Qingling's hand was a pristine silver-white, completely unstained by a single drop of blood.

He saw Qingling grip the black hilt with one hand, place her slender index finger against the tip of the blade with the other, and gently stroke it down along the edge, causing the nearly 150cm Tang Dao to instantly vanish as though she had folded it away into another dimensional space.

Gaoyang stared in a daze.

Was this magic? Sorcery? Or an Ability?

Qingling didn't even look at Gaoyang. "Don't ask anything, go home immediately. I've already destroyed the nearby surveillance cameras, and everything that happened here has nothing to do with you."

"But..."

"You know nothing, speak." Qingling's gaze was like a sharp blade.

"I... know nothing."

"Say it again."

"I know nothing."

"Say it again."

"I know nothing."

"Very good." Qingling gave a gentle leap, vaulted over the two-meter courtyard wall, and vanished into the darkness.

Late at night, Gaoyang quickly left the scene and ran all the way home.

His mom and dad were already asleep, and only his younger sister was curled up on the couch browsing her phone. She got a huge fright when she saw Gaoyang at the entryway with a face full of cuts and bruises.

"Whoa, what happened to your face?"

"Oh, this..." Gaoyang had been so eager to get home that he had actually forgotten he still had injuries on his face.

"Ah, I get it!" His sister suddenly realized. "You're cosplaying a zombie!"

"Oh right... exactly!" Gaoyang went along with his little sister's words. "This special effects makeup is so lifelike, right?"

"Lifelike! Just like the real thing." His sister flashed a mischievous smile.

With this girl, you never knew which words out of her mouth were true and which were false.

Oh well, what had happened was far too sudden and absurd, and his mind was in complete chaos with zero energy left to deal with it. If his mom and dad woke up and saw him, it would be even more trouble.

Gaoyang rummaged through the living room cabinet for the first aid kit and ran straight to his bedroom.

He closed the door, calmed his nerves slightly, took out the disinfectant and cotton swabs to clean the wounds on his face, and applied bandages. Next, he disinfected the wounds on his arms and wrapped them in gauze, gritting his teeth in pain and breaking out in a cold sweat the entire time.

After briefly treating his wounds, Gaoyang lay on the bed, exhausted.

Fear and shock had replaced grief, and Gaoyang felt that everything that had happened tonight was intensely surreal.

Li Weiwei... his childhood sweetheart. The two of them had spent over a dozen years together day in and day out, trusting each other and talking about everything without reservation, yet suddenly, she had turned into a monster that ate people?!

Gaoyang would rather believe that she had been eaten by a monster, and then impersonated by it. Just like in the story of Little Red Riding Hood, where the wolf eats the grandmother and then disguises itself as her.

But was that really the case?

Why did that Li Weiwei who tried to kill him still speak Li Weiwei's words, as if she were Li Weiwei herself, and that was merely her alternate personality?

There were too many things he couldn't figure out.

His wounds were still throbbing with a dull ache. Was he infected? What if he woke up early tomorrow morning and turned into a man-eating monster himself?

Gaoyang felt restless and uneasy.

The hexagonal star in the air reappeared at some unknown point, floating quietly in the air before his eyes.

Gaoyang flipped over into a sitting position and reached out to touch it.

[Beep-]

[Entering the system]

[Congratulations! You have successfully survived for 3 hours]

--What is there to be congratulated about, I almost died just now!

[You can obtain 3 Fortune points]

--Why?

[Talent: Fortune. Serial Number: 199. Rune Type: Divine Miracle.]

[Effect: For every additional 60 minutes the talent holder survives, they obtain 1 extra Fortune point]

--I see. What are Fortune points used for?

[The attribute panel contains various attribute values. You can use Fortune points to permanently increase any attribute value.]

--Open attribute panel.

[Stamina: 10, Endurance: 10]

[Strength: 10, Agility: 10]

[Spirit: 10, Charm: 10]

[Luck: 0]

Gaoyang studied it for a moment. He had played games before and basically understood that the first six attributes likely corresponded to health, defense, attack, speed, magic, and control. As for what that "Luck" represented, could it be evasion or perhaps equipment drop rates?

With only 3 base Fortune points in hand, adding them to anything felt very meager. Gaoyang's gaze returned to that glaring number.

[Luck: 0]

--Luck? My Talent is Fortune, right? Is there a difference between the two?

[Fortune is a Talent. Luck is an attribute value.]

--That explains nothing.

--I feel like this Fortune talent isn't very good? Can I exchange it for another talent?

[No.]

--Open the talent list, let me take a look.

In an instant, a dense table of talents unfolded before Gaoyang's eyes.

Gaoyang spotted "Serial Number 199" right at the top, which was precisely his "Fortune". Strangely, the talent names and descriptions for Serial Numbers 198 down to 1 were all hidden.

--How come I can't see anything?

[The system cannot display unexplored information for you.]

--This system is such a rip-off! How is it nothing like the systems in web novels?

"Knock, knock, knock." Someone knocked on the window.

[Session ended, system hidden.]

[Beep--]

Gaoyang sat up abruptly as the system automatically closed.

A dark figure had already slid open the window and easily leaped into the room.

It was Qingling. She wore the athletic shorts and short-sleeved shirt she usually wore for training. Under the moonlight, her slender limbs were as white as suet jade.

She deftly kicked off the sneakers on her feet, undid her ponytail with one hand, and let her soft, long black hair cascade down to rest against her ample chest.

"You..." Gaoyang started to speak.

Qingling hopped lightly onto the bed, stepped barefoot onto Gaoyang's chest, and pressed his entire body back down onto the mattress. "I ask, you answer."

"Okay..."

"Do you like men or women?"

"W-Women."

"Alright." Qingling crossed her hands to grip the hem of her shirt, pulled upward swiftly, and stripped off her top. "Let's begin."