Chapter 76#

The Cross-dressing Wife#

After hearing the notification of successful world departure, Lin Xiaodong and the system both let out a long sigh of relief.

“Luckily, we made it…”

There was no other way. Lin Xiaodong had taken a risky path. Seeing that he was about to die soon after taking the poison, he could only choose to apply for early departure to prevent the mission from failing completely. But if he hadn’t gotten the Good Person Card from Gu Xingzhai at the last moment, this mission would have been a definite failure.

The system suddenly asked: “By the way, what did you want to tell him in the end? Why did you ask Gu Xingzhai to find you earlier in his next life?”

Lin Xiaodong snorted: “Anyway, I meet him in every world. I don’t want to keep guessing like in this world.”

Although occasionally teasing the ignorant man was fun, it was better to avoid unnecessary trouble as much as possible.

“By the way, what about the thing I spent so many points for you to investigate?” Lin Xiaodong asked again, deliberately sighing. “I’m completely broke now; I can’t even open the mall.”

“You’ve earned three thousand points from completing this mission, so you’re not broke,” the system ignored his feigned misery and pointed out in an emotionless voice. “As for the thing you wanted to investigate, there are indeed some clues.”

“What?” Lin Xiaodong instantly perked up.

“I found no content in the headquarters’ database using the name ‘Gu Xi,’ but there are a full three hundred thousand records related to ‘Gu Xingzhai’,” the system said. “Don’t get excited yet. The permissions to view these records are very high. After I downloaded them using all your points, I found that they are all garbled.”

“Garbled?” Lin Xiaodong didn’t even have time to feel bad about his points going to waste before he frowned deeply. “Why is that?”

System: “There are many possibilities, but combining it with previous related situations, there are two initial conjectures: First, it’s highly likely that Gu Xingzhai is not a native of the small world, and has a very deep background, not a level that ordinary employees can access; Second, he was once in the headquarters’ archives, and is very likely a very important figure, otherwise there wouldn’t be nearly three hundred thousand records. But for some unknown reason, the headquarters completely erased his related data, and the complexity of the issues involved is unimaginable.”

Lin Xiaodong wasn’t very curious about Gu Xingzhai’s past. He just wanted to know what kind of relationship the man had with him and why he met him in every world.

“Actually, this wasn’t without any gain,” the system suddenly said while he was pondering. “Since I took all your assets, it would be embarrassing to only find this much information. So I went through the headquarters’ recycling bin and actually found a command message that hadn’t been completely deleted yet. Wait a moment, I’ll pull it up for you.”

With a “beep,” a screen lit up before Lin Xiaodong’s eyes.

According to the system, they were currently in the gap between small worlds and would soon enter the next world to continue the mission. The scenery within the gap was an arc of light spanning the sky, like the scene of a cosmic black hole in legends.

Lin Xiaodong withdrew his gaze, staring at the characters on the screen, lost in thought.

There were only two short lines of text:

“Simulated intelligence unit number TW134 has been destroyed. Due to a major error resulting in the host’s death, the continued production of related simulated intelligence is completely prohibited from today, and research results are to be re-evaluated. —Initiator: Gu Xingzhai.”

“Simulated intelligence was a program developed by the headquarters that could simulate the thinking and behavior of intelligent beings, used to replace the host to complete tasks at critical moments,” the system explained. “You can simply understand it as a clone. It looks exactly like the original, but is actually composed of precise nanomachines. It’s a systematized host that can do many things humans cannot. The headquarters originally wanted to use this thing to work for them instead of hosts, but something went wrong, and its production was completely banned from a certain day. This should be the incident mentioned in the command.”

Floating in the void, Lin Xiaodong’s gaze was momentarily dazed.

Seeing that he didn’t speak, the system continued: “With this command, my previous conjectures can basically be confirmed. Although he may have lost relevant memories now, from what’s written, Gu Xingzhai was indeed once a member of the headquarters, and it’s even highly likely he was high-ranking.”

Lin Xiaodong was silent for a moment, then asked: “So, if he was indeed high-ranking, why did he end up like this?”

“I don’t know,” the system said calmly. “These top-level secrets are not something a small working system like me can access. Moreover, don’t forget, you are still under penalty. After completing the tasks in seven worlds, you will enter reincarnation and be reborn.”

That’s true.

Lin Xiaodong twitched the corner of his mouth, thinking to himself why he was worrying about these things. Whatever Gu Xingzhai used to do, he had forgotten it now anyway. And he had already completed tasks in three worlds; he had lived enough, so it didn’t matter if he was human or not in the next life.

“If I quit and the mission fails,” he said lazily, “what will happen? Will I be reborn as a pig in the next life?”

System: “No. The headquarters’ punishments are not many. Lightning strikes are already considered top-tier, but I heard there was once an even more severe punishment, which was to fix the time of a certain small world within an interval. The punished person could only live a repetitive life forever, unable to escape even through death, only returning to the starting point to repeat the fixed time. However, the official statement was that it was just a bug and was quickly fixed.”

“…………” Lin Xiaodong suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

“Who came up with such a vicious trick?” he couldn’t help but say. “It’s simply killing someone’s spirit.”

System: “Indeed.”

Both man and system were silent for a moment. Finally, the system broke the silence first: “Do you plan to exchange anything with the three thousand points you have?”

“The next world’s mission hasn’t started yet, so let’s see,” Lin Xiaodong said casually. “But if there’s a skill that lets me see the previous world, I’d like to try exchanging for it.”

Even Lin Xiaodong himself had to admit that his death in the previous world seemed, perhaps, a little bit tragic. It wasn’t that the previous two worlds weren’t tragic, but the visual impact was far less strong than the copious vomiting of blood at the end of this world.

Basically, every hour, Gu Xingzhai had to change a bedsheet for him. Just imagine what kind of vomiting that was.

Although the system had blocked his pain perception, just from the uncontrollable twitching of his limbs, Lin Xiaodong could imagine how painful it was. He tried to appear as relaxed as possible, at least not to put too much psychological pressure on Gu Xingzhai, and even tried to comfort him with some Buddhist and Taoist philosophies about reincarnation, but the effect…

Cough, anyway, he tried his best.

“Forget it, no more overthinking,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve stayed long enough, and knowing more won’t help. It’s better to ask the person himself. You see, in the first two worlds, he was unknown by the name Gu Xi, but in the third world, he became Gu Xingzhai, which means it’s very likely his own memories are gradually recovering.”

System: “Confirm entry into the next world?”

Lin Xiaodong took one last look at the screen, his gaze lingering on the three characters “Gu Xingzhai” for a moment.

“—Confirm.”