TGSS - Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Wish Power System

Chu He froze for a moment before saying slowly, "A life only counts if you didn't kill that person..."

"But he died because of me." Liang Zhouyi sat drained on the floor, looking utterly dejected and powerless.

Hearing this answer, Chu He rubbed her palm, tilted her neck slightly to look at the ceiling, and sighed deeply. She knew Liang Zhouyi had probably fallen into her own vicious circle.

"Liang Zhouyi, have I ever told you about my past?" Chu He pulled out a chair by the dining table, sat down slowly and looked down at Liang Zhouyi on the floor. "You always said we were from different worlds, that I didn't understand you, but when I look at you now it's like... seeing my past self."

Liang Zhouyi's ten fingers dug hard into the floor, staring blankly at Chu He as if she had not understood her words. Since she had known Chu He, she had always been a woman who planned with confidence and high spirits, someone she admired, looked up to, even felt drawn to, yet she was saying...

Chu He sighed and bent down close to Liang Zhouyi. "In front of me you never need to feel awkward. My life hasn't been smooth sailing either. Because I pulled through, I became who I am now. Liang Zhouyi, what I can do, you can do too. I'm not saying this to lecture or teach you, I'm just stating an established fact."

Liang Zhouyi was stunned listening. She stared into Chu He's clear, bright eyes. Her chest felt constricted, and she could not say a word; all she could feel was the spark in her heart flaring fiercely, burning until her blood boiled and her muscles trembled with pain.

Chu He glanced around, tapped the back of the chair with her fingers, and held out her other hand to Liang Zhouyi. "Get up, take my hand. The future you should have had, I'll take you there myself."

She herself had once stumbled through the fog with no one willing to lend a hand, so now Liang Zhouyi, mired in the swamp, would be pulled out by her own hand!

That beautiful hand wore an expensive watch, looking so pampered that it was impossible to imagine Chu He had ever been as humble as she claimed.

"Don't make me look down on you." After waiting a long time, Chu He seemed to lift her eyelids and smile.

"You make it sound so easy." Those words finally made Liang Zhouyi laugh softly. Looking at the elegant woman before her, love and resentment suddenly grew wildly in her heart. Watching Chu He's certain, confident expression, she suddenly seized her palm and used the momentum to lean forward and press a hard kiss to Chu He's lips.

Chu He was knocked by Liang Zhouyi until her whole body was pressed against the chair back. She looked at the face so close, her pupils trembling violently, struck with alarm by the emotion brimming in those eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but Liang Zhouyi found an opening. A slick, agile touch wandered inside Chu He's mouth, rubbing against her palate until it itched unbearably. As her shock eased slightly, Chu He braced against Liang Zhouyi's shoulders, trying to push her away.

In the instant their lips touched, Chu He felt as if struck by thunder, leaving her movements stiff as a robot's, unable to muster strength. Liang Zhouyi's kiss was too desolate, carrying a kind of reckless, all-out assault. With a softening of her heart, Chu He was kissed into dizziness, the tingling numbness in her mouth throwing her heart into chaos.

Liang Zhouyi straddled Chu He's legs, gripping Chu He's arms tightly, with such force she nearly left bruises. Chu He finally seemed to come to her senses and began to struggle, but having lost the initiative and feeling constrained, she had almost no power to resist.

The chair tipped backward under the violent struggle. Fortunately Liang Zhouyi's room was so small that behind the chair was the bed. She knelt over Chu He, looking at her bewildered, astonished expression, as if to vent all the emotions of so many years. She bit hard at Chu He's lips and tongue, and the taste of blood spread.

Knocked onto the bed, the back of her head landing on the mattress and bouncing so Chu He's head buzzed, the pain at the tip of her tongue provoked Chu He into anger and she lost her reason for a moment. She flipped the other person to one side of the bed, wiped the dampness at the corner of her lips with her hand, and pressed her blood-streaked lips heavily against Liang Zhouyi, her eyes burning with an unreadable intensity.

Ding...

Congratulations, Host, you have completed all Side Missions. Please keep up the good work and complete the Main Mission!

The System's mechanical voice poured over Chu He like a bucket of ice water, replacing the desire in her eyes with clarity. She practically scrambled and tumbled off the bed, her pale face full of panic and self-loathing.

What, what had she just done. Chu He clutched her head as if on the verge of collapse, regret surging over her like an overwhelming tide. She lost all her earlier composure, not even daring to look up at Liang Zhouyi's swollen lips and disheveled clothes.

Liang Zhouyi panted, calmly pulled a tissue from the bedside and wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, looking placidly at Chu He, as if the person who had been so emotional before was not her.

"You! What were you just doing!" Chu He gritted her teeth, her face dark as she asked her.

"Oh, just now, I kissed..."

"Shut up!" Chu He waved her hand excitedly to cut her off. She did not want that shameful word to come from her mouth, and almost instinctively covered her ears. The thought of her relationship with Liang Zhouyi filled her with a subtle sense of despair and shame.

Although Chu He usually had a very low bottom line, the present situation had far exceeded what she could bear.

"What I mean is why did you um... do that to me!" Chu He's cheeks flushed, the red seeming to spread to her neck.

Liang Zhouyi looked at Chu He, who seemed ready to shrink into a crack in the floor, and said with amusement, "Then why did you sneak a kiss on me in the cave before?"

Those words petrified Chu He instantly. Liang Zhouyi had actually noticed that time, a possibility she had never considered. Usually so eloquent, she seemed struck mute by poison. After a long while she said awkwardly, "I... I-I mean, if I said it was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, would you believe me?"

After saying that, Chu He wanted to punch herself. What nonsense was she spouting!

Liang Zhouyi was silent for a few seconds. "Then just take it that I did this today because I was provoked by you."

"Is that okay?" Chu He breathed a slight sigh of relief. Liang Zhouyi's emotions had indeed been very off before. She had heard that people under great shock do indeed do incomprehensible things, and besides Liang Zhouyi was already gay, so perhaps it was not impossible to believe, she thought, deceiving herself.

Until she returned home mechanically, every cell in Chu He's body was still in a state of excitement, but thinking of her mission, reason returned in full. "System, what does it mean to have completed all Side Missions?"

System: "It means Host no longer needs to farm Life Points, you only need to complete the Main Mission to return to your own world."

"Oh." Chu He lowered her eyes. "Actually, Liang Zhouyi and I aren't really connected by past and present lives at all, are we?"

A crackling electric current sounded in Chu He's mind, and the System seemed to lag for a moment before answering, "Yes. You are simply the same soul in parallel worlds."

"Then why did you lie to me at the beginning, Wish Power?" Chu He's voice was soft and calm, letting the final form of address blend perfectly into her tone.

The System answered subconsciously, "If I hadn't said that, how would you have been willing to do the missions..." After saying it, it seemed to realize something, and the crackling in her mind grew louder.

Chu He waited a long time before she heard the System's originally mechanical voice, its tone like that of a young child, shift into the voice of a young man who said helplessly, "Host, let us get reacquainted. Your humble System is the Wish Power System, one of the five great Systems under the Main Deity."

So now it was putting on airs, who cared whether it was an Atonement System or some Wish Power System. Chu He said impatiently, "Why did you lie to me? What are you trying to do?"

The System was silent for a few seconds before saying, "If I had told the truth at the beginning, Host would not have willingly helped Liang Zhouyi."

Chu He instinctively wanted to refute it but then imagined it. If the System hadn't tricked her with that story about owing Liang Zhouyi, she really would have found it hard to do the missions willingly.

She pressed her lips together. "Then why me? If it's not because I owe Liang Zhouyi, why am I the one to help her? And does whether it's sincere really matter that much?"

The System was silent for a long time before speaking. "Your humble System does not want to lie to you, but it cannot tell Host the specific reason for now. What I can say is that this mission must be completed by you, and only you can do it."

"Then what about those Daily Missions you talked about that required intimate contact and all that..." Chu He's face flushed red as she said this, she could hardly speak of it calmly.

"Your humble System cannot say for now." The System gave the same answer.

Can't say this, can't say that, just leaving her to muddle through helping Liang Zhouyi find some love, untangle some heart knot, the veins at Chu He's temples faintly bulged.

The next day, when Chu He and Liang Zhouyi sat across from Tan Qing with matching dark circles under their eyes, he was so startled he nearly fell off his chair.

"You two... what's this?" Tan Qing's Adam's apple bobbed, an unclean guess forming in his mind that he was too embarrassed to voice. "And what's with your mouths?"

The two with matching wounds stiffened. Chu He spoke first. "The spicy crayfish gave us mouth sores."

Tan Qing narrowed his eyes and smiled. Eating crayfish in the dead of winter, do you take me for a fool! But looking at Chu He's abstinent, cold face, it seemed his disbelief itself was a kind of blasphemy, so he returned to business and looked at Liang Zhouyi, whose expression was distant and cool.

"You're saying you want to learn photography from me?"

After Tan Qing understood their intent, he almost laughed out loud. Liang Zhouyi oh Liang Zhouyi, he never thought someone as proud as her would have this day.

Seeing the smugness on Tan Qing almost overflowing, Chu He glared at him impatiently. "Be normal! Don't go too far."

Tan Qing gave a light cough, his expression turning serious. He said to Liang Zhouyi earnestly, "Zhou Yi, although I regretted that you gave up photography before, picking up what you left behind now is not a simple matter. After all, a full five years have passed. Time is precious to anyone. How much of your original talent and skill is left after being worn away over these five years?"

Liang Zhouyi looked deeply at Tan Qing. "Then in these five years, you went and did what you wanted to do, shot what you wanted to shoot, your technique is now flawless, but how much spirit is left in your work?"

Why Tan Qing cooperated with Wen Xiaoying, and why he returned to the country to get involved in a field he should not have touched, Liang Zhouyi had actually always had a guess. She roughly knew Tan Qing had hit a bottleneck, and now Tan Qing's reaction just confirmed her idea.

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