Chapter 148: Waiting for a Miracle

The system was sobbing intermittently, holding onto Mo Niannian and crying endlessly.

From soft, quiet whimpers at first, it escalated into loud, wailing sobs.

Mo Niannian was actually worried that it might cry itself to death.

"Sob... sob, sob... It's... it's all... all because I'm... I'm too useless... sob, sob, sob..."

Mo Niannian's head began to throb from the noise.

"Alright, that's enough of that."

In an instant, the system cried even louder.

Dark lines etched across Mo Niannian's forehead.

"I'm not even dead yet."

"B-but... the host's body is gone in this minor world... sob, sob!"

Besides, the host hadn't had a single ounce of divine power left at the time and had endured that explosion head-on. How painful must that have been?

The system didn't even dare to imagine it; just the thought of it made its tears uncontrollable once more.

Strictly speaking, Mo Niannian was indeed considered dead now.

Yet her situation was unique. She had entered the minor world with merely her divine soul to complete tasks; even though her physical vessel was destroyed, her divine soul remained intact.

There might be some minor repercussions, but this had been the absolute best course of action.

What else could Mo Niannian do?

Mo Niannian felt quite desperate herself. When she first entered the minor world, Jiang Hu had killed her once, causing her mission difficulty to drop to the lowest tier.

At that time, she had made a minor deal with the child representing the Heavenly Dao, resulting in the complete stripping of her ability to utilize any divine power after the difficulty level was lowered.

The situation involving Jiang Hu had blown up far too intensely, and time had been critically tight.

Had they been granted just a bit more time, she might have devised an even more flawless solution.

Unfortunately, those people acted with terrifying speed, utterly bent on eliminating Jiang Hu.

It wasn't that Mo Niannian hadn't considered staging her own death, but time was severely limited, materials were insufficient, and every single necessary condition was lacking.

She let out a profound sigh.

Fine, let this serve as repayment for Jiang Hu saving her life; previously, he had also teetered on the brink of death multiple times because of her.

Mo Niannian had no idea what would become of Jiang Hu now that she was gone.

Who Jiang Hu was, where he originated from, and what his purpose was in following her—she remained entirely in the dark.

She couldn't even guarantee whether he would manifest in the next realm.

What restrictions governed his entry into the minor worlds? Would this death cause him to vanish completely?

Subconsciously, Mo Niannian shrank away from pondering that outcome.

Oh well, at the very least, perishing in a minor world did not equate to true death.

The system was still clinging to Mo Niannian, weeping bitter tears, and its relentless noise was giving her a headache.

"Enough is enough. Did you take care of everything I asked you to do?"

Everything had been too rushed; her act of substituting herself for Jiang Hu was far from airtight, and those people had simply been too stunned at first to think things through properly.

Inevitably, someone would grow suspicious later and launch a thorough investigation.

Fortunately, she had the system—an absolute cheat code—to tamper with and alter online records.

Her identity in this world just happened to include a background in medical electives.

Mo Niannian had the system make a few subtle adjustments.

Otherwise, how could anyone casually research and fabricate such anomalies? That would be utterly absurd.

As for the person in charge, she had already spoken with him, and his side would assist in covering the loose ends.

"Right, have you managed to track down the group that was shouting the loudest? We have to teach them a lesson!"

Granted, Jiang Hu had done wrong.

Were those people entirely in the right, though?

By what right did they act as they did?

The mere thought of their attitude toward Jiang Hu made Mo Niannian's stomach ache with suppressed fury.

In the original main storyline, after all of Jiang Hu's deeds were exposed, he was meant to perish at the hands of these very people, but at this moment, Jiang Hu hadn't even had the chance to commit any true evil.

He was guilty, yes, but not to the extent of deserving death.

By what right did these people presume to judge him?

To put it bluntly, it was simply because Jiang Hu's research had far outpaced the current era.

It was so advanced that it inspired sheer terror, which was why they sought to strangle him in the cradle and eradicate every trace of the unknown.

The system sniffled. "Rest assured, Host, I've taken care of everything. Not a single one of them will escape!"

Mo Niannian uttered a soft acknowledgement, then cast another glance at Jiang Hu.

Her gaze darkened, a heavy, dull ache settling deep within her chest.

Choosing such a tragic and devastating method of departure was, in part, her way of letting Jiang Hu know that his path was fundamentally wrong.

The Jiang Hu of this world had grown warped at his very roots.

It wasn't that he consciously desired to murder; the entire concept simply did not exist within his mind.

To him, his actions were no different from a person casually crushing an ant beneath their foot.

He possessed zero sense of guilt.

"Tong, did the mission fail?"

The system checked the mission interface. "No, but the male lead's malice value is still sitting at thirty."

With the host gone, would the male lead's malice value continue to drop?

The system held not a shred of confidence.

Mo Niannian fell silent for a prolonged stretch of time.

"Let's just wait a little longer."

Having expended such immense effort, Mo Niannian would find it deeply frustrating if it all ended in failure now.

She glanced at Jiang Hu once more. He stood stubbornly in place, his eyes fixed on the distance.

It was identical to the countless times she had gone out, leaving Jiang Hu to wait for her by the threshold.

In the past, the moment she entered his field of vision, Jiang Hu's eyes would instantly light up, a brilliance that even his gold-rimmed glasses couldn't conceal.

Sometimes he would walk over and take her hand, leading her inside.

Sometimes he would deliberately put on a cold expression and remark about her finally remembering to come back after playing around for so long.

Now, he would never wait for her return again.

Mo Niannian could not comprehend how anyone could possess such a profound, unyielding obsession as Jiang Hu.

She had witnessed countless mortal passions throughout her existence.

In the past, she had personally ventured into the three thousand minor worlds in search of loopholes in the laws.

She had encountered people of all stripes and witnessed every conceivable variety of earth-shattering romance.

There were lovers willing to live and die for one another, eventually finding a way together after enduring every imaginable tribulation.

There were also couples whose steady affection flowed like a gentle stream, growing old together hand in hand.

And there were even partners who remained devoted to each other across decades of separation.

Back then, Mo Niannian had been deeply moved by these people and their devotions.

She had even criticized other immortals, wondering what the point was of severing the seven human emotions and six desires to live in a state of absolute apathy.

Wasn't a life filled with such passion infinitely better?

Very quickly, however, Mo Niannian ceased to think that way. No matter how deeply in love couples were during their mortal lives, lingering in each other's arms until death, the moment they crossed over into death and forgot their past incarnations, everything changed utterly.

She had witnessed couples holding hands one second, swearing sacred vows of eternal, unbreakable union, only to walk away in opposite directions the very next, never to see each other again.

Meng Po's soup was a miraculous brew; it never once failed to produce this result.

Unconvinced and rebellious at the time, she had specifically trailed several pairs of lovers whose deep devotion had deeply moved her.

She had waited for them to pick up their threads in a new life.

Not a single pair succeeded.

They grew up to marry others, taking husbands and wives, and never crossed paths again—even if they happened to pass one another on the street, they were reduced to mere strangers.

At the time, the Dao Master had mocked her for being excessively naive.

Having seen it all too often, Mo Niannian eventually grew accustomed to it.

She had never imagined that there would be someone like Jiang Hu, who would follow her across multiple minor worlds, falling in love with her every single time regardless of how her identity changed.

Her temper was foul, and she possessed a laundry list of flaws; even someone as endlessly patient as the Dao Master had occasionally been driven to exasperation by her.

Jiang Hu, on the other hand, was truly...

Mo Niannian found herself entirely devoid of suitable adjectives.

She stared at Jiang Hu for a long, quiet while.

Jiang Hu was waiting for her, and she was keeping him company.

After a very long time, Jiang Hu snapped into motion, rising abruptly to begin frantically clawing through the ruins.

His hands—hands meant for holding a surgical scalpel—were slashed to ribbons, dripping with fresh blood as he tore at the debris.

Yet he seemed completely devoid of sensation, stubbornly sifting through the wreckage.

He hauled away slab after slab of concrete and metal, blood staining the earth red as his hands became a mass of raw wounds.

Nothing.

Still nothing.

There was still nothing!

How could there be nothing? Why wasn't she here?

It couldn't be.

Like a madman, Jiang Hu tore through the rubble. His clothes were slightly disheveled, and dark smears of blood from unknown origins bloomed across his pristine white shirt.

He remained entirely indifferent, searching with manic intensity.

A pang of distress rippled through Mo Niannian. She parted her lips and called out his name.

Before the sound even faded, Mo Niannian remembered that Jiang Hu could no longer hear her.

She pressed her lips into a thin line, gazing steadily at him.

Seeing Jiang Hu like this only deepened her regret; perhaps her methods had indeed been a fraction too merciless.

Clearly, she could have opted for a gentler approach.

Sensing Mo Niannian's drooping spirits, the system hurried to offer words of comfort.

"The host did a brilliant job; given the tight timeframe, there simply wasn't a better solution to be found."

Furthermore, the system harbored a faint suspicion that Mo Niannian had deliberately chosen this path partly to exact vengeance on Jiang Hu's behalf.

She had died right there in the laboratory, in full view of everyone.

After all, not everyone was utterly devoid of a conscience. Once the initial storm blew over and they looked back on these events, terror and profound shock would take hold.

How could they have driven things to such an extreme?

How could they have literally forced a person to their death?

Though Mo Niannian wasn't particularly skilled in hypnosis, having spent so much time in Jiang Hu's company, she had picked up a trick or two of his trade.

She had planted subtle psychological suggestions within those people.

As time marched forward, this incident would cling to them like a recurring nightmare, gnawing away at their peace of mind and breeding persistent guilt.

In retrospect, the host's strategy wasn't half bad.

At least some of them had already begun to reflect upon their actions.

The system muttered under its breath.

The host kept claiming she didn't like Jiang Hu and didn't care about him, yet in reality, she treated him better and better, indulging him more with every passing day.

And now she was going to such extraordinary lengths on his account.

If it were anyone else, the host would have pulled up a chair to watch the front-row spectacle, most likely bringing along her own sunflower seeds and peanuts.

The host was nothing if not a hypocrite whose words didn't match her heart!

A premonition struck the system: its own host was perilously close to being whisked away by Jiang Hu.

It felt a mixture of faint validation and overwhelming jealousy.

Once the host was carried off by him, she would never consider it and the system to be the absolute best partners in the universe anymore.

No, wait—the host had never treated it nicely to begin with!

With that sobering thought, the system retreated further into its gloomy shell of self-absorption.

Jiang Hu's frantic digging abruptly ceased. A faint, fragile gleam ignited within his eyes as he cupped a small object in his palms, treating it as though he had just discovered the greatest treasure in the universe.