2 Lost the Pearl as a Stone
Zhong Yue felt as if she was floating in an everlasting clear water lake. She opened her eyes and adjusted them to the lights. She was in a double size bed. Her head felt a little empty. She looked around.
The room was simple but elegant. Zhong Yue felt appreciation for the original lord. She had good taste. The walls were white but in contrast to it, cherry blossoms were drawn with light brown and pink shades on the wooden door and cupboards. The ceiling fan had a golden sheen with red wood color on its rims. All in all, it was in her taste.
She spotted a table bell on her side and just wanted to ring it when the door of her room opened. But before she could speak or clearly look at the silhouette which looked that of a maid, she fell unconscious. Only a slight hoarse voice which seemed to be from crying sounded in her ears.
"Host, do you want to receive the plot? I forcibly fainted you so you will be able to accept plot information better." Hong Yue's sugary voice sounded.
Although she felt a little angry, she still accepted.
She felt light-headed as a lots of information entered her head.
This world's plot just revolved around the companies which focused on the MC, Bai Hua, and ML, Liu Ling. While Liu Ling had just decided to upstart a game company and show his achievements to his family to gain favor, Bai Hua luckily was hired by the Black Butterfly, a game company which has a quite a significance in the background story of the plot, by the support of her maternal aunt who was a helper hand and helped in reporting Bai Hua's name to her superiors to gain her a job as one of their members had an accident especially when they were at a crucial time due to increasing workload. It was this job that resulted soon in becoming a golden finger of the MC. Bai Hua became an errand boy and was quick in sorting and dealing things. As the time passed, she slowly started attracting appreciation and admiration of other staff members because of her quick work and beautiful looks. And then on a fateful day, she corrected a mistake in a gaming code and didn't tell anyone just like the great Buddha. Do good deeds and then forget them. The original master of the report got praise of his superiors because of the corrected code. He realised that they all misunderstood as he didn't do anything to the paper. He remembered that he gave the paper to Bai Hua for storing in the files. As he didn't expect she had such skills, he looked in her direction and saw her surprised action from being discovered. He was also a person who admired her and quickly told on the spot about Bai Hua. Bai Hua who got attention of her superiors was soon integrated in the research group reluctantly. She became very busy. Although she became a group with an important team, she was still at an inferior level from the others.
And suddenly, on an unseemingly important day, a fire broke out in the computer lab. At first all helped in trying to stop the fire until a gunshot sounded and one of their researchers was dead. Then it was a murderous hell as the researchers left the lab in a hurry to run for their lives. Very coincidentally (as always), the leader of the team, Li Xue, was with Bai Hua. Li Xue, very unsatisfactorily, was a cannon fodder. She gave Bai Hua two pen drives - gold and black - containing all the important data and told her to specially protect the gold one and then ran towards another direction to lead the enemy away. Bai Hua ran but was soon found as they killed Li Xue and confirmed that the pen drives were not on her. Bai Hua became their target as the suspect for pen drives. She got shot in her leg but still ran. Due to her slow speed, the goons soon caught up to her. In order to save herself, she deliberately lost the black pen drive which she deemed unimportant in reference to Li Xue's words. One of the goons quickly checked the pen drive on his tablet as the others chased Bai Hua and found that it wasn't the one they wanted. He destroyed the black one. By now, Bai Hua was driven in an ally and sat as she stared at the goons. She led them around in her words to bide for time and suddenly saw a beautiful girl peeking from the edge of corner of the wall. And called out to her. Startled, the beautiful girl dropped her phone from which she was going to call. The goons spotted the girl and quickly shot through at heart and she died. This unfortunate mob character who could have peacefully been a background character was turned into a cannon fodder and her name was Qiao MeiLin. She is the character whose body was now occupied by Zhong Yue.
Afterwards, the plot followed a cliched story. When Bai Hua was at her most desperate moment, Liu Ling arrived and saved her as he superiorly destroyed the goons. He checked for Qiao MeiLin's breath and found her dead. Then moved on to Bai Hua, saved her and took her back from there. In order to express her gratitude, she helped Liu Ling set up the company. The Black Butterfly was unable to find a survivor at their lab and the surroundings and deemed this case closed. Over the course of three months, with the help of cheesy misleading dialogues and events, Bai Hua and Liu Ling came close to each other and married under Liu Ling's parents' blessings. And then, they moved on to become one of the richest people in China while their company, Golden Start, also became one of the leading game companies of China. Bai Hua and Liu Ling spent their life happily ever after with their younger generations also becoming an expert in their times.
And the story ended. While what happened to Bai Hua in the company along with the killing of Qiao MeiLin became her back story, the plot started when she was at the brink of her life and met ML.
Then what about the world destruction that Zhong Yue needed to stop?
The destruction of the world started after 100 years when from the same codes in the gold pen drive, an AI was developed. The AI soon became corrupted due to the terrorists and brought chaos and destruction. It also developed several of its own types and spread not just in China but also all over the world changing the blueprint of the world. And, every great brain of the world was unable to find an antivirus for the corrupted AIs. They all didn't know that the black pen drive that Bai Hua forsaked for her life was in fact an anti code for codes in the gold pen drive. Li Xue had prepared both the pen drives so that in the future not a single mistake would happen that could lead to the end of the world. But she didn't know that the person whom she had trusted the pen drives with, before she died, had lead to the destruction of the world.
Zhong Yue slowly opened her eyes as she gradually adjusted to the light and thought of the strange fate of the world. Even if Bai Hua hadn't lost the black pen drive, she might have died and then the goons would have the both pen drives. Although it was highly a case that AI might have still been developed but then maybe there would be the anti code to protect the world. But it was all a hope. And that Bai Hua, she really lost the pearl as a stone.
"Young Miss! You woke up!" A dark brown haired girl with a maid outfit sat by her bedside and helped her keep the wet cloth on her forehead.
Zhong Yue frowned. She didn't like the wet feeling on her forehead.
"What happened?" A low voice came from her mouth but it was sweet to hear. Qiao MeiLin had a beautiful voice.
"Young Miss, you suddenly fainted in the garden and had a high fever."
"Worked hard." Zhong Yue slightly pushed the maid's hand away as she picked the wet cloth from her head and put it at the bedside table.
"Not at all!" The maid, Tong Ru, according to the original lord's memory, exclaimed.
Zhong Yue nodded and then sent her out. Right now, Qiao MeiLin's parents and big brother were out abroad so they couldn't come see her right away.
She slowly stood up from the bed as the white quilt slid from her body and walked towards the only mirror to see her reflection. Although she knew that Qiao MeiLin was a beauty from the back story, she didn't know that it was like this.
The girl in the mirror slowly raised her hand to touch her cheek. She had straight waist length black hair. Her lips were red like roses. She had cream skin and dark brown eyes.
All in all, Zhong Yue felt as she suddenly found a sister that she didn't know about. Except the hair and lips, this face was identical to her real one.
She sighed as she sat at her bed.
Qiao MeiLin had only two wishes in exchange for her body.
1. She wanted to know why Bai Hua got her killed.
2. She wanted to fulfill her parents wishes - start a business - and support her family.
Flutter! The sound came as the white book fluttered in front of Zhong Yue. She opened her palms in front of her as the book fell on her hands and pages flipped and stopped.
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Main Task: Retrieve Black Code and save the world from destruction.
Rewards: Black Code, +500 points, +10 life points
Penalty on Failure: -750 points, - 5 life points
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Ghost Task 1: Find the reason of original owner's death.
Reward: +100 points
Penalty on Failure: -200 points
Time Limit: 1 month
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Ghost Task 2: Start a business.
Reward: +200 points
Penalty on Failure: -175 points
Time Limit: 2 years
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Zhong Yue felt a little irritated as she started at the penalty of the main task. She already had 0 life points, if she failed then then she would be in negative. Right now she was dead, if it turns negative then even her soul won't be left? No way! She's unwilling to fail this one. Must complete.
Zhong Yue stared a little at the book as if want to see through it and then spoke, "Hong Yue, what are these ghost tasks? And I forgot to ask, but do tell me about these points."
The childish voice of Hong Yue came from the emptiness, "Host, these ghost tasks are the tasks given by the original owner of the body you occupy and you must fulfill them in the given time limit otherwise you will face trouble when using the body and it may suddenly become out of your control if original owner is upset and her wishes aren't fulfilled. As for the points, they are the currency of system store, where you can upgrade your body's features as well as can buy daily necessities and other unique and life-saving things."
Zhong Yue nodded. There was still a whole month before the original owner's death and her task's deadline. Too much information, her head hurt from all the understanding and processing it too. All this happened and she wasn't too comfortable in the white room before. There was this Hong Yue, a system which seemed like a human. Nowadays, there were too many novels on the system theme. She didn't expect it to happen to her. Now that it happened and she could only look ahead and complete the tasks. Too tired. She wanted to take a sleep.
She called for Tong Ru and told her that she felt a little tired and will go to sleep. She gave Tong Ru the task of waking her up after two hours.
As Tong Ru walked away, Zhong Yue locked the door from inside and went to sleep. She could only do this to relieve herself of her unseen fatigue.
