Chapter 33#
Day Six Countdown#
The System watched that sun for a while.
It wasn’t good-looking.
Not as good as Yu Lanyin.
The System turned its head to look at Yu Lanyin beside it. Yu Lanyin had taken off his goggles and was staring directly at the sun, his expression relaxed and comfortable, as if the rosy clouds filling the sky had leaped into his gentle, happy blue-grey eyes.
The System reached out and stroked the long, thick, curled eyelashes, and those eyes closed obediently as if they were exhausted.
The System said softly: “Yu Lanyin.”
The System corrected: “You are not an error.”
The phrase “clear the errors” was very inappropriate.
What the System was about to do next might be a violation. It deleted a part of Yu Lanyin’s “dream data.” This was a dream Yu Lanyin used to have: What if he had never been born? What if he wasn’t a child of the Yu family?
Then things wouldn’t have turned out so badly.
No one would have been hurt.
No one would have died.
In the dream, Yu Lanyin looked greedily through the window, watching a family enjoying themselves, watching them properly protect a child who truly deserved protection.
Not a hateful villain who caused the death of his entire family.
The System did not support or agree with this. None of this was Yu Lanyin’s fault at all. Yu Lanyin shouldn’t have such unreasonable dreams.
The plane tilted and turned, contacting the ground helipad.
Yu Lanyin slumped quietly along with the movement, his body restrained by the seatbelt, his head and neck drooping softly, his hand sliding down.
The System carried Yu Lanyin to a luxury hotel within the airport, accompanying him while he slept.
There was no new content in Yu Lanyin’s dreams.
The System managed to enter, searching for a long time in that boundless, incessantly raging blizzard.
The sky was blue-grey, with no clouds, no birds, nothing. The dream was filled only with pure white, sharp snowflakes like shattered porcelain.
No chicken soup wontons, no chocolate.
No Yu Lanyin.
Yu Lanyin woke up in the evening.
He slowly opened his eyes, staring at the brilliant crystal chandelier on the ceiling, dazed for a while before being gently called awake by a touch on his forehead.
The System greeted him: “Good evening, Yu Lanyin.”
Yu Lanyin noticed the System and immediately raised his arm happily: “Good evening, good evening.”
Yu Lanyin urged him: “Quick, hold me.”
The System picked him up and kissed him gently. Yu Lanyin liked being kissed, laughing incessantly, his earlobes tinged with a faint red, his eyelashes fluttering like moths trying to escape.
The System teased him, gently tossing him up and down. Young Boss Yu only had one arm that could move, waving it in protest: “I definitely haven’t played like this since I was five.”
Too childish.
What would people think if word got out?
The System looked down, touching his cheek: “One more time?”
Young Boss Yu blushed: “…Okay.”
The System continued to gather him and toss him gently. Yu Lanyin’s ways of perceiving the outside world were becoming fewer and fewer. Being tossed up and down like this, feeling a bit of moving air, already made him very happy, and a warm, thin red appeared on his cheeks.
They played until Yu Lanyin was tired. The System wiped his sweat and leaned down to kiss those eyes that were bright with laughter.
Yu Lanyin was again drawn to the window.
Rows of small red lights.
“Planes.” The System held his hand, gently squeezing his fingers. “Watching the planes?”
Yu Lanyin nodded: “Mm-hm.”
The System held him by the window to watch the planes.
The hotel was right next to the runway, with triple-paned soundproof glass. No noise could be heard, but the vibrations caused by planes gliding and taking off could still be felt.
Yu Lanyin pressed his forehead against the glass, holding his breath, his eyes lighting up: “I felt it.”
The System smiled, reached out to brush aside his sweat-dampened forehead hair, and pulled Yu Lanyin back to lean against it: “We’re taking the plane the morning after tomorrow.”
The glass was still too cold.
The System had originally wanted to book tomorrow morning’s flight, but Yu Lanyin’s body was already struggling to hold on. After walking each segment, he had to stop and adjust.
This was the difference in “mental strength.” If he couldn’t relax this breath and had to rely on himself to reach the snowy mountain, Yu Lanyin might still be able to hold on.
But now, there was no need for such suffering.
Yu Lanyin was very relaxed, comfortable to the point of laziness, no longer needing to live desperately.
Just like now, Yu Lanyin leaned against the System, looking out the window, again involuntarily dazed. When he was dazed like this, he forgot to be happy. The bewildered blue-grey in his eyes was as if violent snowflakes could pierce his pupils at any moment, surging and howling to tear apart this shell and submerge everything.
The System gently kissed his eyes.
Yu Lanyin shivered slightly, but this time he didn’t wake up quickly. He just groped with one hand, slowly clutching the System’s sleeve.
Yu Lanyin asked: “Is my elder brother okay?”
The question seemed abrupt at first glance, but the System knew that Yu Lanyin’s eldest brother had been tricked onto a plane and died in a foreign land.
The System said: “He’s very well.”
Yu Lanyin asked softly: “And Second Brother?”
The System said: “He was chosen by the Transmigration Bureau as a host, traveling for missions, frantically accumulating points, and desperately appealing to come back to pick up you and your eldest brother.”
This answer was well-fabricated. Yu Lanyin immediately smiled, his ears a bit red, as was his face: “My second brother is smart and powerful.”
The System stroked his hair: “Smart and powerful.”
Yu Lanyin shared the praise: “Eldest Brother is also smart and powerful. They’re both good.”
System: “Both good.”
Yu Lanyin raised a hand to touch the System’s face, but missed. The System took that hand, guiding the fingers to touch its cheek, hearing Yu Lanyin whisper: “So…”
“So…”
Yu Lanyin said: “You must live on.”
“Don’t die with me. Help me wait for my brothers.”
Yu Lanyin asked: “Can you help me run the breakfast shop? Oh, forget it. The breakfast shop is too tiring. Open a milk tea shop instead.”
Yu Lanyin had never run a milk tea shop, but he fantasized: “I wonder if I can drink as much milk tea as I want.”
The System asked: “Do you want milk tea?”
Yu Lanyin smiled and shook his head gently, but the System still ordered a cup of milk tea. He carefully tried to feed Yu Lanyin a bit, but this body seemed to no longer accept food; Yu Lanyin could not swallow.
The System coaxed him: “Hold it for a bit and then spit it out, just to taste it.”
“Wasteful.” Young Boss Yu was frugal. “Extravagant and dissolute Yu Lanyin, not good.”
The System said: “Yu Lanyin is good.”
Yu Lanyin’s face turned red from the praise, and he smiled, shaking his head: “Not good, not good.”
Yu Lanyin said: “I’m very bad. Golden on the outside, rotten on the inside. Oh, you’re just being deceived by this face of mine…”
His words were cut off by the System’s kiss, and he didn’t object. Yu Lanyin liked kissing. Cradled by the head and neck by the System, he kissed comfortably for a while, then couldn’t help but feel sorry for the System: “It’s all my fault for being too good-looking.”
System: “Good-looking.”
The System tightened its arms: “Yu Lanyin is good.”
Yu Lanyin dazed for a while, then smiled gently and sighed, no longer arguing over such a small matter with the System. He had his own answer in his heart. Yu Lanyin was actually a very stubborn yet gentle person—gentle because he didn’t argue, stubborn because he wouldn’t change his answer.
Yu Lanyin said softly: “Hold me.” He negotiated gently with the System, “Hold me a little tighter, don’t let go.”
The System tightened its arms in vain.
Yu Lanyin’s body had no sensation and didn’t know he was being held very tightly. The dream collapsed and crumbled again, and the imported data was also shredded and consumed by the chaotic, sharp snowflakes.
Yu Lanyin was still negotiating: “A little tighter.”
He was held airtight by the System, his head and neck arched back, hands and feet dangling. He noticed warm water droplets falling on his face and reminded the System in a small voice: “It’s leaking. Is it the heater?”
The System said in a low voice: “Yes.”
Yu Lanyin was very experienced: “Remember to find someone to fix it.”
Yu Lanyin said: “No wonder it’s cold.”
The System used all its might to hold him tight: “We’ll build a fire, Yu Lanyin. We’ll go into your dream and build a fire. I’ll hold you in the dream, and you won’t be cold.”
“…Hm?” Yu Lanyin was bewildered. “What dream? I’m not dreaming anymore…”
He found he wasn’t dreaming much anymore. Falling asleep was like a power outage—with a “buzz,” everything stopped, the lights went out, the range hood stopped, and even the flamboyant and conspicuous neon sign went dark.
But this idea of the System’s was good. Yu Lanyin liked being held. He sometimes wondered if he had “skin hunger” as mentioned online; he would sometimes even involuntarily hug himself secretly.
Yu Lanyin also liked fire. He would sometimes dream of being burned away by fire, becoming very clean.
Yu Lanyin found the System’s breathing was very rapid. Although he didn’t feel the sensation of being held, his chest was compressed, and he was already finding it a bit hard to breathe.
Yu Lanyin realized the System was already holding him very tightly.
It was his problem.
His body had no sensation.
“I wronged you.” Yu Lanyin apologized with good temper. “Sorry, sorry.”
He raised his hand to touch the System’s hair, rubbing it haphazardly to comfort the System: “Don’t worry, it’s fine. Leave it to me. I’ll try to study what’s going on again…”
Yu Lanyin coaxed the System: “I’ll have a dream.”
“You build the fire.” Yu Lanyin patted his chest confidently. “I’ll roast sausages.”
System: “…”
Yu Lanyin couldn’t stop laughing, sighing that the System simply hadn’t eaten roasted sausages and lacked life experience: “Oh, you don’t understand. Roasted sausages are so delicious.”
The System didn’t understand because Yu Lanyin ultimately couldn’t figure out how to have another dream.
Finding he couldn’t fall asleep at all after tossing and turning for a long time, Yu Lanyin’s impatient nature acted up again. He put the insurmountable problem behind him and eagerly pulled the System to play “It Takes Two.”
Young Boss Yu had no concept of a “fair fight.” After discovering the System was secretly using data to help him pummel the BOSS, he cheered loudly: “That’s the way!”
“How dare he kill me!” Young CEO Yu was majestic, cheering the System on desperately from the grey revival screen. “Hit him!”
The System showed great power, holding out through the revival time alone. Yu Lanyin charged back strongly, only to be K.O.’d again in a second.
Yu Lanyin: “.”
Yu Lanyin hammered the bed with one hand: “Hit him!!!”
The System liked this lively and irritable Yu Lanyin. His eyes smiled, and he cradled the prickly Young CEO Yu in his arms, gently kissing the messy hair.
They played the game from midnight until dawn, and then until nightfall again.
With the System’s help, Young CEO Yu was unstoppable, tearing through Chapter Seven in one go.
Yu Lanyin stated that the two of them were terrifyingly strong.
Yu Lanyin played to his heart’s content, with sweat on his forehead. He threw down the game controller, still wanting more: “That was so great…”
The System asked: “Play again?”
Yu Lanyin shook his head: “Once is enough.”
Yu Lanyin just wanted to play the game to his heart’s content, and that wish had been fulfilled—thanks to the System’s previous frantic data feeding, all the feasts he wanted to eat had also been eaten recklessly to his heart’s content.
He had slept to his heart’s content too.
He had kissed and touched to his heart’s content.
He had even stayed in a hot spring hotel and a luxury suite, and ridden in a private helicopter.
Yu Lanyin was so comfortable he kept sighing: “How can a person live so decadently?”
“What’s this?” The System cradled his head and neck. “There are still many wish quotas, Yu Lanyin. Is there anything else you want to do?”
Yu Lanyin wracked his brain for a long time: “I don’t have any more. Do you?”
The System was slightly startled: “What?”
“I’ll share them with you.” Yu Lanyin was frustrated with its lack of ambition. “Quick, while I’m still alive, think of what you want. Let’s use up all the wish quotas.”
Not using them was a total loss.
Yu Lanyin generously egged on the System: “Ransom that headquarters of yours for a hefty sum. How about setting up a company? You could also go to school. Oh, do you want to get a PhD? PhDs are so cool.”
“Take me as an example—find a particularly good person and form a family.”
Yu Lanyin rested on the System, excitedly sketching that grand blueprint: “That kind of life is so good. You’ll get addicted after one day, really…”
System: “Yes.”
Yu Lanyin dazed for a moment: “Huh?”
He wasn’t done talking yet.
What was “yes”?
The System didn’t explain, only holding Yu Lanyin in its arms and leaning down for a kiss. Yu Lanyin thought kissing was also good, and after a moment of bewilderment, he put the question behind him.
This body was held very, very tightly by the System.
The System held the senseless hand firmly.
Yu Lanyin was maintained by nutrient IVs, and his body was weakening rapidly. His heartbeat was weak and rapid, and if his head and neck accidentally tilted back, he couldn’t support himself.
This made booking the flight a bit troublesome. The airline was reluctant to take such a passenger, fearing an accident.
But money could always solve 99% of problems.
The System supported the soft back and head. Yu Lanyin still hadn’t learned how to breathe while kissing and fainted silently. The light from the screen hit his face from the side, making this beautiful, doll-like face glow.
23:59, soon to be another 0:00.
The seventh-to-last day of the System’s responsibility to save Yu Lanyin was slept through by Yu Lanyin, and the sixth day was spent playing games.
Half the time limit had passed.
Yu Lanyin still didn’t have a “redemption value.” He was happy, comfortable, dashing, and free, humming softly and lazily in the kiss, saying he had no more new wishes.
The System kissed the soft lips. Knowing it was useless, it still fed in some data for a full-sugar hot pearl milk tea, then watched it dissipate.
The System parsed “pain.”
He thought Yu Lanyin was right; one day would lead to addiction, let alone five. He entered Yu Lanyin’s dream again, searching in vain for a missing person on the desolate snowfield.
He couldn’t find him.
The System thought.
Where exactly did Yu Lanyin go?
The System was tripped by something—it was a giant king crab shell. After walking a few more steps, he stepped on something hard again and found it was a bowl of chicken soup wontons frozen into ice, drizzled with sesame oil and quite extravagantly containing king crab meat.
When he picked up the bowl, the wontons thawed instantly in a very thoughtful way, turning back into something fragrant and piping hot.
A red plastic stool and a folding table appeared in the dream.
Perhaps fearing the System would be bored while eating, there was even a game console, along with connectable controllers and a screen. The System sat down and slowly finished the bowl of wontons.
The System didn’t play any games. It only knew how to play “It Takes Two,” and one person couldn’t play it.
He checked the situation outside.
Song Baoxiao was becoming a bit crazed. Perhaps stunned for the first time by such a truth, realizing how he appeared to outsiders, he couldn’t even manage to pay attention to the quagmire his company was currently sinking into due to a serious PR incident.
The System had a part in this.
He stuffed the plot images from the previous round into Song Baoxiao’s head.
The plot Song Baoxiao hadn’t seen in time—Yu Lanyin sitting in a wheelchair, holding a porcelain shard, staring seriously at the ice crevice. Song Baoxiao ran over shouting like crazy, only to see Yu Lanyin smiling at him.
Yu Lanyin waved, said goodbye to him, and fell into the bottomless abyss.
“I didn’t… think like that.” Song Baoxiao repeated, muttering neurotically. “How could this happen?”
“Isn’t he the one who wronged me?”
“I, I didn’t want this. I thought he should change. It would be fine if he changed. I just wanted him to learn a lesson for his own good.”
“I just felt he should be a bit kinder, have some ambition…”
Song Baoxiao finally saw how much the breakfast shop’s customers loathed him: “Get out, get out, get out! Don’t come to this dirty place! Are you ever going to stop? Are you sick?!”
“For his own good? My god, thank goodness you said it yourself, otherwise I’d have thought you were trying to drive him to his death.”
“How did he wrong you? Did he kill your whole family in a previous life?”
“I’ve advised you eight hundred times, but the young boss was just so stubborn, hanging onto a crooked tree like you. What if he treated you like a fart? Would you be licking his boots in reverse then?”
“Kindness, good lord! You threw the breakfast he gave you on the ground in front of him to feed a dog, and you call yourself—”
The System remembered to mute the swear words.
A young master who didn’t know how to swear was listening secretly with his cat eyes wide open.
The breakfast shop was closed and cleaned very well. There was no smelly soy milk, but the locals had trash bags, rotten tomatoes, and bad eggs. Someone opened a window and threw down a basin of water used for mopping. Song Baoxiao’s miserable state far exceeded that of the level BOSS who was forcefully pummeled flat.
Yu Lanyin should be very relieved.
Definitely relieved.
At this moment, the blizzard in the dream slowly stopped, and there were even reflections from ice crystals and the clarity of glaciers.
The System detached a bit of data and cleaned the bowl.
After he finished eating, the stool, table, and game console all quietly disappeared. The dream became very clean, without wind or snow.
Beneath the sun were sparkling icicles and mountains.
There was a path to lead him away.
The System walked slowly along this path for a while, then suddenly seemed to realize something and whirled around. He walked faster and faster, reaching the spot where he had just sat to eat.
He groped, and groped, and groped.
And held onto a block of transparent ice.
“Yu Lanyin,” the System called softly, “Yu Lanyin, you’re awake, aren’t you? You still feel very wronged, very sad, very hurt.”
The ice in his arms seemed to daze for a moment without moving.
The System said: “You can feel pain, Yu Lanyin. You can cry, you can shout and make a scene.”
The System said: “At worst, we’ll jump into the ice crevice together. I’ll hold you. You wanted to do a backflip, didn’t you?”
He heard something inside the ice move slightly.
Like a heartbeat.
But it was only once. The formless block of transparent ice seemed to smile slightly, struggling to find “arms” to hold him, but failing.
“Mm.”
Yu Lanyin answered very obediently: “Backflip.”
The System tightened its arms: “Yu Lanyin.”
The invisible ice melted in his arms, just like this final dream. Yu Lanyin seemed to say something more, or perhaps not, only a cold, damp water mark left in his embrace.
…The System was startled awake from a deep sleep.
He didn’t expect to fall asleep. His chest rose and fell rapidly and intensely. He found a data bracelet on his wrist.
Yu Lanyin had asked him for it.
It could be timed.
It could make a person sleep deeply and comfortably.
They definitely wouldn’t wake up until the time was up.
The high-tech wheelchair that could race was gone—Yu Lanyin had also asked him for it.
Yu Lanyin was gone too.
Yu Lanyin wasn’t there. The sunlight was very bright. The System rushed to the window. The plane was taking off, its first-class cabin tightly covered. The roar sent vibrations through everything.
A sharp buzzing pierced his eardrums without warning.
The System thought of the wontons Yu Lanyin made. Fragrant, very fragrant. The meat filling was firm and springy, bursting with juice in one bite, the seasoning just right, the skin thin yet tough. One sip of the chicken soup would make your whole body warm, no matter how cold the wind was.
It made one completely forget that when the young boss of the breakfast shop made this bowl of wontons, he had long been chilled through by the pre-dawn wind.
In five days, Yu Lanyin had made the System turn from an “it” into a “him,” taking the System to eat, play games, and enjoy all kinds of fun and new things. Yu Lanyin was very peaceful and open-minded… even the thought “it would have been better if you came earlier” was something the System couldn’t help but have first.
What if I had come earlier?
Earlier.
The Yu family wouldn’t have had so many tragedies.
Is there really any meaning in torturing a person like this and then hypocritically sending a “redemption system”? How else could Yu Lanyin be redeemed? His eldest brother’s body had been carved up by the underground black market, and his second brother wouldn’t return either. Yu Lanyin knew.
Yu Lanyin had seen it in the news six months ago.
Yu Lanyin coaxed the System gently: “Don’t overthink it, don’t overthink it. How can this be your fault?”
“Isn’t it too unreasonable to vent my anger on you?” Yu Lanyin said, “Someone came to save me, and I hate him because he didn’t come earlier. Am I too bad?”
Yu Lanyin thought for a long time and still felt: “I’m not that bad.”
The System insisted: “Yu Lanyin is good.”
Yu Lanyin liked those few words, his face turning red from the praise, and he didn’t argue anymore. While saying “oh my,” he returned the compliment: “You are good too.”
“You are good too, you are exceptionally good.”
Yu Lanyin said: “Systems aren’t all bad systems. I know that now.”
“You try to live on, okay? The world is good, too. There are more good people than bad people.”
“Living is so much fun.”
“So much fun.”
Yu Lanyin guaranteed: “I’ve been redeemed very well. I’m terrifyingly strong. I’ll walk the rest of the way alone; there won’t be any problem at all.”
Yu Lanyin took away his unlimited credit card: “I’ll stay in big hotels.”
Yu Lanyin walked alone.
He didn’t want the System to follow, didn’t want the System to see him die. He actually knew this was a kind of revenge, a punishment and torture for those who lived on.
The people he wanted to punish, the System had already helped him finish punishing. Yu Lanyin had already vented his anger and was no longer mad.
Young CEO Yu was very soft-hearted. Unless he was extremely angry, angry enough to explode, he couldn’t bring himself to be so cruel.
Yu Lanyin swallowed the porcelain shards into his throat. He didn’t hurt others. He had never been taught to shirk responsibility, so he believed he was the one who deserved to die. He was the one who caused the deaths of his parents and brothers, and he was the one who let Grandpa die in a small clinic.
He enjoyed the luxury life before death with ease. The more he enjoyed, the more it tortured. The more happiness, the more pain. His consciousness vengefully abused and tortured his body to death.
…
The System jumped onto the helicopter.
His hands were trembling. He rejected the headquarters’ recall judgment. What kind of ghost judgment was this? What did “Confirmed Yu Lanyin’s psychological health, no redemption needed” mean?
It was his fault.
He had reported incorrectly. He had oversimplified things. Clearing a dream was completely useless.
Yu Lanyin had completely accepted all the judgments of the previous system—though strange, it had become the support for him to barely live his messy life. He was a villain, he should atone, and he was an error waiting to be cleared.
Otherwise, what was he supposed to do?
Otherwise, why was he still shamelessly living?
The person in this world who hated Yu Lanyin the most was Yu Lanyin, and the person who wanted to kill Yu Lanyin the most was also Yu Lanyin.
So Yu Lanyin slowly became like this. Medical means had no solution, and the System couldn’t fix it either. He had almost successfully killed ninety-five percent of himself.
Yu Lanyin always smiled so beautifully.
After understanding this, the System finally saw Yu Lanyin’s redemption bar. It had almost reached 100%, but it was completely grey.
Relying on his one mobile hand, Yu Lanyin climbed into the wheelchair and slowly tidied himself up.
Yu Lanyin went to the snowy mountain alone.
Yu Lanyin believed this world was very good, the System was very good, and all kind people were very good. Yu Lanyin strongly agreed that starting over again would be better, as long as the “error was cleared.”
As long as he wasn’t there.
Everyone would be very happy.