The Passing River and the Unarrived Wind - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My tears fell in an instant.

I didn’t know how to describe what I was feeling.

I could only keep crying.

The one who crossed time and space to find me was a Temporal Police officer from the Special Bureau.

She seemed to have never seen a situation like this before, and could only recite her mission in a stiff, formal tone:

“Hello, comrade. My employee number is No. 075. I am the executor of Mission A001. The objective of Mission A001 is to bring Comrade Li Qingyuan home.”

“You can call me No. 075.”

My throat tightened.

After seventeen years, someone had finally called my name again.

Not witch, not slave.

The first word meant fear. The second was the suffering I had once endured.

I quickly pulled myself together and asked my first question, a little nervously:

“Comrade, my parents… are they all right?”

I had crossed over very suddenly.

It happened during my first year of middle school, after night self-study ended. I had just stepped out of the school gates.

Then I was bound by something that claimed to be a Strategy System.

It told me to redeem the male lead of this world. Only after I succeeded in redeeming him could I go home.

But the Strategy System had never arranged an identity for me.

The moment I arrived, I became an illegal resident.

In this world, illegal residents had no human rights. I became the lowest of the low, a slave.

To survive.

To return to Earth.

To see my mother again.

I did many wrong things, and my hands were stained with a lot of blood.

The first person I killed was the girl who had once saved me.

…

Faced with my question, No. 075 did not answer directly.

“You’ll know once you go back.”

She soothed me. “Li Qingyuan, don’t worry. We’ll be going home in three days.”

Nothing will go wrong. We’ve already rescued one hundred and thirty-one comrades like you who got lost.

“Please rest assured.”

Her words seemed to have some kind of magic.

My heart gradually calmed down.

Home. I could go home.

I really could go home.

During the first year after I crossed over, I cried every night.

Because life here was just too bitter.

I was the lowest slave.

Anyone could order me around.

I was like an object, not a person.

Even the slave owner’s dog was more noble than I was.

Once, a slave accidentally knocked over the dog’s bowl.

The slave owner cut off the person’s limbs on the spot, then actually boiled him alive in a pot.

I was terrified, terrified beyond reason.

Every night I dreamed.

All I dreamed about was going home.

I’d push open the door, and my cat would be waiting for me. My mother would be in the kitchen making delicious braised pork.

My father would have already cut up fruit and put it in the refrigerator, waiting for me to come back and eat it.

But when I opened my eyes, I was still in this strange world.

Later on, I followed the System’s instructions.

I saved Xiao Qian, the male lead of this world.

In repayment for my kindness, he took me in and made me his concubine.

I went from one backyard to another.

And I kept trying to please him.

I wanted to complete the mission as soon as possible, so I could go home sooner.

I blocked a sword for Xiao Qian.

I tested poison for him.

I killed his political enemies for him.

Because of one sentence from him-“I heard the peach blossoms in Jiangnan are extraordinarily beautiful.”

I rode alone, day and night, for three straight days without rest.

All just to pick a peach blossom for him to see.

I was slashed more than ten times by mountain bandits, my whole body covered in blood.

But I still protected that branch of peach blossoms extremely well, without a single bit of damage.

The soft pink petals trembled in the wind, looking so tender and lovely.

At that time, Xiao Qian was holding a newly acquired beauty in his arms, his voice lazy and vile:

“I’ve suddenly decided I don’t like peach blossoms anymore. Would Qingqing go pick Jiangnan lotus flowers for me instead?”

I looked at the quest progress bar, which hadn’t moved at all.

And suddenly, I felt a little desperate.

I couldn’t complete the System’s mission.

So the System electrocuted me.

It locked my mind in the Little Black Room.

And in that kind of numbness, I spent seventeen years in a haze.

Until No. 075 appeared.

She said she had been sent by my parents to bring me home.