"Stop! Stop quickly!" Accompanied by a sharp cry, an exquisite yet pale little face appeared, her spring-water-like eyes filled with panic, helplessness, regret, and agony. "I dreamed of it again..."
The owner of this exquisite little face was Yun Qingyue. Her curved lips were tinged with an unhealthy bluish-purple, and her petite nose was upright and well-defined.
Had the emotions in her dark eyes not been overly complex, she would have looked precisely like a beautiful imperial concubine just waking from sleep.
Yun Qingyue had been born into a family filled with happiness and joy. Her father ran a sizable import and export trading company, while her mother operated an art training institution.
Busy though they were, her parents always carved out time to take her traveling. Unfortunately, suffering from congenital heart disease, Yun Qingyue had been forced to be a quiet young lady, following her mother to learn various skills.
Yet, she yearned to spread her wings and fly over mountains and canyons, longed for the colorful world beneath the sea, and desired the pure peaks of snowy mountains.
For the sake of her aspirations, her loving parents invariably found the time to take her out to see the world she longed for.
That time had been no different, right after the senior high school entrance examination results came out. Her scores had been exceptionally stellar, keeping her far ahead of the pack, so the whole family unanimously decided to go where she desperately wanted to go—Anxi! (one of the ancient names for Xinjiang).
Driving along the desert highway in Anxi, they admired the unique and magnificent wilderness. Her father had remarked, "Scenery like this is truly majestic! No matter how remarkable humans are, they are rendered utterly insignificant against such an environment."
Her mother smiled gently. "Indeed. Having appreciated so much majestic and magnificent scenery, we've gained a wealth of diverse insights. In the future, Yueyue will certainly become a remarkable person too!" Meanwhile, Yun Qingyue herself had long since been intoxicated by the scenery described in books, unable to spare attention for anything else.
Suddenly, her usually gentle mother shouted at the top of her lungs, "Darling, watch out!!"
Yun Qingyue turned her head, managing only to catch sight of a sudden dark shadow, accompanied by a deafening crash and searing pain before she lost consciousness.
Beep—beep—beep— What was that sound? It hurt so much! What was going on... No, wait!!!
Consciousness finally returned, and Yun Qingyue recovered her senses. It hurt! Pain racked her entire body, rendering her unable to move. Her vision refused to focus; there was nothing but pain and more pain.
She murmured unconsciously, "Mom, it hurts so much. Dad, it hurts so much. Mom... Dad..."
The equipment emitted a different buzzing sound, and a female voice rang out: "Doctor Li, Patient in Bed 13 has woken up!"
Immediately afterward, a crowd seemed to enter. A voice, very gentle yet somewhat cool, slowly asked questions. It felt as though a long time had passed, yet also mere an instant.
She finally made out that gentle voice: "Miss Yun? Yun Qingyue? Can you hear me?"
Enduring the agony, she rolled her eyes toward the source of the sound. Vaguely, it was a young doctor with a gentle smile, his face indistinct as if bathed in a soft-focus glow. She only felt that he was somewhat kind and warm. "Yun Qingyue, can you hear me speaking? How are you feeling right now?"
"It hurts, my whole body hurts. Where are my mom and dad? What happened? I remember something went wrong," Yun Qingyue answered.
After a pause of several seconds, that gentle voice spoke words that were somewhat cruel to Yun Qingyue: "Your car collided with a truck traveling in the opposite direction. You now have multiple comminuted fractures all over your body. Coupled with your congenital heart disease, many medications cannot be used. There may be many sequelae in the future..."
"Where are my mom and dad?" she asked. However, the young and gentle voice paused for a moment before continuing, "The data shows they are within the normal range. Once the current IV drip finishes, we can notify the police to come and speak with her."
Footsteps gradually faded away. Without the sound of the door closing, Yun Qingyue was terrified: Why wouldn't they say? Where were Mom and Dad? I remember Mom throwing herself over me, and then what? What on earth happened? Were they badly injured? Can someone tell me what is going on?
Just as Yun Qingyue was suffering through wild, panicked, and uneasy thoughts, she heard the female voice she had heard at the very beginning: "Officer, Yun Qingyue in Bed 13 has regained consciousness."
...Why on earth did this happen? Was she simply too happy? Because her parents loved her too much, had jealousy struck, reducing her to a lonely person?
Had it doomed her to spend the rest of her half-life in misery? It was all because she was too willful, all her own fault. How wonderful it would be if she had just stayed honestly at home; her family would still be whole! Clearly in poor health, why on earth was it she who survived?
Looking at the family of the at-fault driver weeping and pleading before her, she hated him for drinking and driving. She also hated herself—why hadn't she stayed home during the break instead of running around?
What use was compensation? What use was a prison sentence? Yun Qingyue only wanted them to return her mom and dad.
The police looked at Yun Qingyue, the sole underage survivor left in the household. With no close family members to care for her, they took charge of handling the remaining matters from start to finish.
They buried her parents, handled the compensation, managed the family company, property inheritance, insurance claims, and various other trivial chores.
During this period, Yun Qingyue finally learned the identity of the owner of that young, gentle, yet somewhat cruel voice.
Her attending physician, Doctor Li, was a young medical genius—just a bit cold and ruthless!
Ultimately, with the police's assistance, her mother's training school was allowed to continue operating, with Yun Qingyue taking only the profits and remaining hands-off. After all, the three-story building housing the school belonged to her family, and the rent had been partially reduced.
Her father's company sold all its shares at high prices, and among all the real estate under her parents' names, half of the properties in prime locations were kept for collecting rent. The rest were put on the market, and she continued to live in her original three-courtyard Courtyard House. Filled entirely with happy and wonderful memories, Yun Qingyue was not afraid of it at all.
Her bank deposits, safe deposit box, insurance payouts, and the driver's compensation had all completed inheritance procedures. As for the family's eight cars, Yun Qingyue made the executive decision to notarize and donate all of them to the busy police officers as a token of appreciation for their arduous efforts.
The attempt had almost failed, but in the end, Yun Qingyue forced them to reluctantly accept by declaring that if they refused the cars, she would simply give them money instead!
Having finished all the trivial chores, the police took her—still wrapped in bandages—to complete her suspension from the prestigious high school she had just been admitted to.
One female police officer occasionally visited her at home and called her. She knew these police officers were afraid she might do something foolish.
Yet she would never do such a thing; she would forever remember the very end—her father shouting, "Watch out!" and her mother's figure lunging over her.
Her mother had said she would certainly become a remarkable person in the future, so she would definitely strive to be a remarkable person!
After staying in the hospital for two months, Yun Qingyue was finally cleared for discharge. Had her body not recovered at a remarkably astonishing rate, she would have had to stay half a month longer.
However, Doctor Li still called her every month to come to the hospital for follow-up examinations. Perhaps medical geniuses simply harbored many questions!
Six months after her discharge, on a rainy night after finishing her studies and before going to bed, she still went to her parents' room to say goodnight.
The very moment she stepped across the threshold of her own bedroom, a somewhat rigid and mechanical voice suddenly echoed in Yun Qingyue's mind: Energy replenishment complete, system rebooting... Greetings, Host, Quick Transmigration Mission System No. 2573 at your service. Please confirm whether to open the mission interface, verify personal data, and begin accepting missions!
Recovering from goosebumps and utter astonishment, Yun Qingyue hurriedly demanded, "Who are you? What mission? How did you find me? What kind of nonsense is this, explain yourself!"
2573: I am a mission collection system created by Dr. Wu Xing in the Interstellar Calendar year 8496. I shuttle through various space-times to collect cultural and civilizational data, animals, plants, and various other items from those worlds.
Yun Qingyue: Why collect these? Why look for me? What is your objective?
2573: Due to many years of war between interstellar humans and other races in the past, many civilizations and species completely vanished and could not be replicated. Therefore, the research center gathered scientists from multiple races to invent the collection system to gather items from various space-times to restore the interstellar ecosystem!
Yun Qingyue: So you are the two thousand five hundred and seventy-third system. How did you find me?
2573: I exhausted my energy while piercing the Blue Star barrier, and I sensed an energy fluctuation from you, so I bound myself to you. You should thank me for using my remaining energy to keep you alive and improve your body. Otherwise, I could have rebooted much earlier! Fortunately, that energy was very pure, so my energy replenished quickly!
Yun Qingyue: So you also survived because of me, yet you bound yourself to me without my consent.
2573: I asked, and you agreed! I asked if you consented to binding with Quick Transmigration Mission System No. 2573, and you replied "Mn"!
Yun Qingyue: ... (I always feel something is wrong; I'll observe a bit longer.) How can you exploit loopholes like that? Also, what kind of energy attracted you to bind with me?
2573: My energy depletion was too severe at the time, so I didn't analyze it clearly.
Yun Qingyue: I'll call you Tongzi; the numbers don't roll off the tongue. Also, what are these missions? How do we take them? How are success and failure judged? What impact do they have on the mission space-time? What do I get out of it? Until when do the missions run? What should I do if I encounter danger? What do I need to prepare? ...
Tongzi: Stop, stop, stop. Opening your personal mission panel will give you all the answers you need. Also, you have two Level Zero initial missions to complete to familiarize yourself with the mission operation process.
...
Yun Qingyue: Fine, I get it. Now I need to prepare a lot of things, but you must hide my consumption records, parts of transaction footage, and my whereabouts. Although the time elapsed when I return after finishing a mission will be zero, you still need to monitor the status of my phone!
Tongzi: No problem!
The two Level Zero missions were very simple. The first involved an ancient peasant girl whose wish was to have a devoted husband, a prosperous life, a flock of daughters, and a lifetime of happiness.
Therefore, she purchased a Gu worm from the system to make the scholar fall in love with the peasant girl. She then intercepted a great deal of gold, silver, and jewels from mountain bandits to give to them, and lived in ancient times until both the peasant girl and the scholar passed away.
During this period, she collected many items. Aside from those required by the system, the rest were all stored in the System Backpack!
The second mission required an imperial concubine of the inner court to win the Emperor's favor and secure an imperial prince as the next emperor. How simple—system-produced medicine allowed the favorite concubine to conceive.
Continuing to use Gu worms to make the Emperor issue an imperial edict of abdication, she then administered chronic poison to the Emperor to fulfill the favorite concubine's wish! The Imperial Palace offered even more rare items and books to collect, not to mention the "tribute" from the favorite concubine!
With the two missions completed, Yun Qingyue requested a break to sort out her thoughts and gather and organize supplies. During the process of the first mission, she discovered that the energy that had attracted the system as mentioned by it was actually a Pendant Space.
Her mother had said it was an heirloom of their family, so she had given it to Yun Qingyue early on. When the system sensed it, the blood-recognition bonding had just been completed, hiding it deep within her soul. Thus, the system had failed to detect it.
Fortunately, this system was still only in its initial stage; residing within the space of the pineal gland, it could only be activated upon a call. She had secretly stashed away many things across the two worlds.
Why secretly? Because she discovered that this so-called system was problematic. It actually resorted to any means necessary to complete its missions!
The initial missions were led and completed by the system, leaving the Host with no autonomy. Therefore, the system had demanded she use drugs, Gu worms, psychological suggestion, and so on. These were simply unimaginable!
To avoid being backstabbed or encountering bizarre occurrences, Yun Qingyue chose to heighten her vigilance. Then, she observed covertly, looked out for her own safety, and cautiously sought a backup plan!
Throughout the execution of her missions, she never forgot to study various forms of knowledge. The system had improved her physical body, and she had collected numerous items while in ancient times, all of which she used to condition her present body.
An increasingly beautiful shell enveloped a heart that was gradually growing less fragile. Yet her psychological trauma would likely take a very long time to heal! Compounded by this system seeking her out for unknown purposes, Yun Qingyue's stress skyrocketed.
Young as she was, brilliant and formidable though she might be, she was still an underage child. How else could the scene at the very beginning have come to pass?