【A strong will to survive has been detected. System binding in progress—】
【System binding successful—beep beep! Warning! Warning! Host’s vital signs are critically low! Activating forced mission mode!】
【Please select an item for exchange.】
Inside the cramped rented apartment, a mechanical voice suddenly sounded beside Ye Muqing’s ear. She had been unwilling to die just like this.
What system?
System what?
Her entire body aching, Ye Muqing struggled to open her eyes.
An item for exchange? She practically owned nothing now. In the entire apartment, the only thing worth looking at was probably the 19.9-yuan bouquet of discounted flowers in her hand.
She tentatively raised her hand.
【System scan in progress—exchange conditions met. Exchange established.】
The bouquet vanished in an instant. Before she could react, a test tube filled with thick, pale-blue liquid appeared in her hand.
Ye Muqing instinctively tightened her grip around the test tube, her eyes wide with shock.
What was going on? Was this a hallucination?
【Congratulations, Host, on obtaining an interstellar item: Grade-A Repair Fluid. Grade-A Repair Fluid was developed in New Stellar Calendar Year 237. Apart from regrowing severed limbs, it can repair all injuries. It has no side effects and may be used safely.】
As the system described it, Ye Muqing heard her own heartbeat gradually speeding up, pounding like a drum.
It could repair all injuries…
Then could the cancerous organs inside her body be repaired too?
That thought began to grow wildly in Ye Muqing’s mind.
In the face of death, all hesitation was shameful.
Gritting her teeth, Ye Muqing opened the test tube with trembling hands and drank the thick liquid inside in one gulp.
It felt a little like jelly. Perhaps because she had lost her sense of taste, she could hardly taste anything.
A sudden palpitation made Ye Muqing’s hand jerk, and the test tube rolled away with a clatter beneath the sofa.
She curled up beside the leg of the sofa, her fingertips digging into the floor until they turned white. The pain gradually spreading through her entire body made her vision go black again and again.
That was not all. As the tinnitus grew increasingly severe, Ye Muqing felt as though she could hear the whispers of aliens.
Liar…
That was Ye Muqing’s final thought before losing consciousness.
At the instant Ye Muqing’s eyes closed completely, a pale-blue light flickered, then finally settled into stillness.
At the same time, far away in interstellar space—
A sharp alarm suddenly rang out inside a laboratory filled with cutting-edge instruments. As red lights flashed, everyone stopped what they were doing and instinctively turned toward the elevated platform in the center of the laboratory.
Inside a transparent culture dish, a bouquet of flowers lay quietly.
The young man standing closest opened and closed his mouth, then turned stupidly to look at the white-haired old man behind him.
The old man’s eyes had already reddened, and tears streamed down his face.
His hand, covered in age spots, slowly reached toward the bouquet, only to jerk back just before touching it.
With a trembling voice, the old man told a student to fetch the gloves intended for laboratory experiments. Only after he had fully armed himself did he solemnly pick up the flowers and transfer them to another testing instrument.
Everyone in the laboratory stared intently at the bouquet. The silent air seemed almost to congeal.
“Beep—the examination is complete. Data analysis is complete. Preliminary confirmation: this item is a plant called a flower from ancient Earth, tens of millions of years ago. No comparative data is available in the database. This result was produced through artificial-brain analysis; please verify it carefully.”
Ancient Earth. Flowers. Plants.
Three words that were unfamiliar to them, yet incomparably familiar.
Everyone in the laboratory breathed rapidly, their eyes bloodshot as they stared fixedly at the bouquet. Even when their vision had blurred with tears, none of them was willing to look away for a long, long time.
They were flowers in full bloom.
The old man standing at the very front removed his gloves. With his rough hand, he slowly slid it across the transparent protective cover, as though doing so would allow him to touch the flowers from tens of millions of years ago.
His hand trembled violently. His own life was, in truth, also nearing its end.
Yet today, he had seen real flowers. He had seen the plants that had once existed only in books, described through words.
The old man covered his face and wept uncontrollably. At that moment, he seemed like a child who had finally found his way home.
Earth, the rented apartment.
Warm sunlight streamed through the window and spilled across the floor. The person lying facedown on the carpet moved her fingers and slowly opened her eyes.
Ye Muqing pushed herself up with her arms and sat upright, staring blankly at her hands. The events of the previous day gradually resurfaced in her mind.
She was still alive!
“Ahhhhhhh!” Ye Muqing could not stop herself from screaming at the top of her lungs.
That system! It really hadn’t been a hallucination!
【It’s the Exchange System, Host.】
Ye Muqing, who was in the midst of going wild, did not hear what it was saying at all. Only after she had finally managed to calm down did she solemnly thank the system.
“Thank you, System!”
【You’re welcome. The Exchange System will serve the Host with the utmost dedication.】
What a serious-minded system. But she liked it.
Excited, Ye Muqing opened the window. She took a deep breath of Ningjiang City’s freezing midwinter air.
Being alive really was wonderful.
But the moment she saw the woman getting out of a Mercedes-Benz, her expression immediately turned cold. Her mind cleared in an instant, and the hand gripping the window frame tightened until the veins on the back of it stood out.
Liu Yang—the woman who claimed to be her biological mother.
It was Liu Yang who had suddenly come to her door some time ago, taken her hand, and wept as she said that she had finally found her.
Ye Muqing had been extremely excited then. Having grown up in an orphanage, she had thought that she was finally going to have family.
But in the next moment, Liu Yang had knelt before her and begged her to donate bone marrow to her half-brother, whom she had never even met.
Still immersed in the emotions of finding her family, Ye Muqing had agreed. Liu Yang had been overjoyed.
But after they went to the hospital and completed the medical examination, the doctor regretfully told Liu Yang that her daughter had already been diagnosed with terminal cancer and could not donate bone marrow. Otherwise, both of them would be in mortal danger.
Ye Muqing had thought that the mother who kept saying she wanted to make it up to her would treat her cancer.
Instead, the other woman’s expression had changed in an instant. She had coldly picked up her designer handbag and left without the slightest hesitation.
She had not even looked back at Ye Muqing once.
Ye Muqing had felt as though she had dreamed a brief, ridiculous dream. Once she woke, she still was not worthy of having a family.
Not only had she experienced the pain of being abandoned once again, she had also learned that she was suffering from cancer. Ye Muqing had plunged into despair. At the time, she had used the last of her money to buy herself a bouquet of flowers, intending to wait for death in the rented apartment.
Yet because she was unwilling to give up, she had unexpectedly received the Exchange System.
A new lease on life.
“Knock, knock, knock—”
A hurried knock at the door interrupted Ye Muqing’s thoughts. She unhurriedly closed the window, stood by the balcony, and surveyed the area for quite some time. Then she went to the bathroom and filled a basin with water before finally walking over to open the door.
The door opened. Before Ye Muqing could say anything, the person outside spoke impatiently:
“Why did it take you so long to open the door? Come with me. We’re going to have another examination. That hospital must have misdiagnosed you. I refuse to believe…”