On the other side, in the guest bedroom, Hua Xiangrong, who had just been so adamant about sleeping alone, was currently wide awake.
She snuggled into her warm blankets and urgently called out to the System in her mind.
“099! 099! Hurry up and broadcast the feed…”
“You want the broadcast of Hua Yan and Yun Xuechang’s situation, right? I know, I know…” 099’s voice sounded somewhat helpless.
“Not bad, 099! You’ve learned how to anticipate my questions! Keep up the good work!”
099 replied, “…Host, you went out of your way to find an excuse just to give those two a chance. How could I not know what you want to see?”
……
Soon, a screen appeared in Hua Xiangrong’s mind, showing the scene where Hua Yan stubbornly and tsundere-like said, “Go sleep wherever you want.”
“Aaaah! Mother, don’t drop the ball at the critical moment!”
The pink-haired girl rolled around on the bed while clutching her pillow, feeling frustrated by her mother’s stubbornness.
‘I clearly created such a perfect opportunity for you! The atmosphere is so good tonight. Why can’t you just fast-forward to the table action!’
“If there really were scenes like that, I couldn’t broadcast them. Host, you are still a minor!” 099 complained.
“But I was an adult in my previous life! Wait… 099, do you mean you can broadcast it for me once I reach adulthood in this life?” Hua Xiangrong’s eyes lit up as she pressed for more information.
“I won’t broadcast that! Such things violate privacy and public order and morals. The System Bureau absolutely forbids it!”
“Why are there so many rules for you Systems!”
While the person and the System bickered, Hua Yan suddenly spoke up on the screen, stopping Yun Xuechang just as she was about to leave.
“Whoa! A plot twist!”
Hua Xiangrong instantly perked up, clenching her small fists and cheering in her mind, ‘My Villain mom is finally making a move! Waaaah, 099! I’m so moved!’
099 said, “…Host, can I go offline for a while?”
“No! If you’re not here, who’s going to listen to my reviews while I’m shipping this CP!”
099: “…”
On the screen, the two of them finally lay down to sleep in the same bed.
Just as Hua Xiangrong was feeling disappointed that the night might end uneventfully, Yun Xuechang suddenly spoke softly, starting a conversation with Hua Yan about her.
Seeing this, the excitement on Hua Xiangrong’s face gradually faded.
She quietly curled up under the covers, listening to the two of them talk about her word by word, rendered speechless for a moment.
She turned her head to look out the window. The night sky was clear, the crescent moon was hanging high, and the stars were scattered about.
It was so clear and bright that it looked exactly like the nights in her previous life—of course, according to 099, the novel world was modeled after Earth, so the similarity was natural.
It was just that the night sky here was free of city lights and smog, making it look exceptionally clean.
“099,” Hua Xiangrong called out softly in her mind.
“I’m here, Host,” the small System quickly responded.
“I… after I finish the mission, can I continue to stay in this world?” Her voice carried a hint of sadness that was hard to detect. ‘This world won’t just disappear, will it?’
“Hmm? Host, you want to stay in this novel world?” 099 was a bit surprised but quickly gave an answer.
“Of course you can! Actually, in the System Bureau’s records, many hosts choose to stay in a certain novel world to live out the rest of their lives after completing their missions. Not many choose to keep traveling through worlds to do missions with a System.”
“Even though this is your first mission world, choosing to stay is no problem. And it certainly won’t disappear. As I said before, this is a real world.”
“Furthermore, this won’t affect the rewards for completing your mission. Points can also be exchanged for corresponding items in the System Store in advance. Our System Bureau is very humane.” 099 explained seriously, though it was unclear exactly how a System could be “humane.”
“Yeah, thank you, 099.” Hua Xiangrong curled her lips into a sweet smile.
“Actually, looking back at my past life, aside from reading Yuri novels, the days I’ve spent in this world have probably been the happiest for me.”
“Host…”
“099, you know what I was like in my last life, right?” Hua Xiangrong seemed to have opened a long-closed box of memories.
She withdrew her gaze from the moon and looked up at the bedboards above her, her voice soft.
“In my last life, I never saw my biological parents. I grew up in an orphanage. Later, a couple took a liking to my looks and cleverness, so they adopted me.”
‘I don’t know if I should be grateful to them. They gave me the best education, sent me to study acting, and racked their brains to cultivate my talents, but they never truly cared about me.’
Hua Xiangrong’s gaze became a bit vacant, as if it had fallen on the very distant past. “They never once patted my head or praised me. They only constantly demanded that my grades and performances be more perfect.”
“They never asked how I was doing at school. When I was little, I once intentionally got into a fight with a bully to get their attention—but they only scolded me for ‘tarnishing my resume.’ They never asked me why.”
“They never once made a meal for me with their own hands, not even a simple bowl of noodles. We ate takeout every day, and they were the same—because they were only a couple brought together by interests. They didn’t truly love each other at all.”
“I grew up in that ‘home’ just like that. I couldn’t develop any positive feelings toward normal male-female relationships because they made me completely lose any expectations for ‘romance’.”
“Until one time, I happened to come across a light novel belonging to a classmate from acting class. It told a story about two girls in love.”
Speaking to this point, Hua Xiangrong’s eyes suddenly lit up, and the corners of her mouth curled up unconsciously.
“That was when I realized that such beautiful feelings could also exist between a girl and another girl. In the 2D world—in anime, games, manga, and novels—the way two girls depended on each other and protected each other was so pure and so desirable. It was like a ray of light in my gray life.”
“From then on, I hid it from that couple and spent every spare moment frantically reading all kinds of Yuri works. That was the only solace in my suppressed life.”
“Later, I graduated with excellent grades and entered the entertainment industry as they wished, quickly becoming a top young star. But so what? My contracts, my life—everything was in their hands. They would never stop until they squeezed the last drop of value out of me.”
“I had no way to resist. Unless I stopped acting for the rest of my life, they had 1,000 or 10,000 ways to make it impossible for me to survive in the industry. Think about it: ‘Top Young Star is Actually an Ingrate; Adoptive Parents Toiled to Raise Her Only to be Betrayed.’ The tabloid accounts in my previous life would have definitely loved a headline like that, right?”
“But if I didn’t act, what else could I do? Having been raised under their control, I knew nothing except acting. And I didn’t actually have the heart to resist, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself after resisting, other than continuing to read those Yuri stories.”
“And so, I lived my life in a daze, secretly reading the Yuri works I loved while making money for them, until that day when I accidentally got into a car accident.”
Speaking of this, there was no fear or regret in Hua Xiangrong’s eyes. Instead, they sparkled as if she were talking about a great stroke of luck.
“Just when I thought I was going to die suddenly, while I was still thinking about the updates I hadn’t finished reading on my bookshelf, I met you—099!”
A brilliant smile blossomed on the pink-haired girl’s face.
“You were the one who gave me the chance to live another life. You were the one who let me become the current Hua Xiangrong!”
“When I first arrived, I only thought about enjoying myself. I treated this novel world like a game from my past life. Seeing two beautiful characters, I just wanted to matchmake them and form a CP. I didn’t take this so-called ‘home’ seriously at all.”
“But things are different here. Hua Yan and Yun Xuechang are different too. They aren’t my mothers in the true sense, yet they are willing to give me a home. They clearly aren’t real Dao Companions, yet they are willing to protect this gentle lie together for me—this child who appeared out of nowhere.”
“They gave me everything I didn’t have in my past life.”
“I think maybe this is where I truly belong.”
“Thank you, 099. Thank you for giving me the chance to meet such a good Mother and Mama…” She laughed softly, her eyes shining.
“Host…” Hearing Hua Xiangrong’s story, 099—though it had known about her past for a long time—felt a slight, bittersweet ripple in its cold data stream at this moment.
“I will stay in this world—after we save it!”
“I feel like Mother and Mama’s feelings are getting better and better… Since the CP I’m shipping is real, then of course I have to become ‘real’ too!”
“I am no longer the person whose life was controlled by adoptive parents. I am the one who was reborn as Hua Xiangrong in this cultivation world, becoming the daughter of Hua Yan and Yun Xuechang!”
“This is the family I want! This is the life I want!”
“I will definitely work hard to save the world! For my current and future home!”
“Fight on, Hua Xiangrong!”
The pink-haired girl cheered herself on, her smile bright and dazzling.
Unlike before when she was in Yunjing—back then, Hua Yan and Yun Xuechang had shown her what a “home” looked like.
This time, she saw the light of the future and was willing to keep walking forward for the sake of that light.