Chapter 12: Can We Do It Now?

By the window, Qing He held the diary in her hands, contemplating what she should write next. At her side, Qiu Li stood quietly with her head lowered, observing everything without a word.

After finishing what she had written earlier, Qing He added several more lines.

[It is nighttime now. I have just confessed everything to my sister. From now on, I will be my sister’s most obedient pet.

Just now, I was attacked by an unknown presence and lost one eye. I suspect it may be because I have not rested well recently, attracting some indescribable gaze. Perhaps there is another reason?]

[Also, the constant feeling of being watched outside the window—I think it might be the one who attacked me.]

At that point, Qing He stopped writing.

There was nothing more to add. She lifted her head and offered a mischievous smile. “Sister, I’ve finished writing.”

The underlying rules of the diary were extraordinarily powerful. Explaining them directly was complicated, but a more vivid analogy would be… cloud storage.

The sentences written inside were like encrypted compressed files. Only a password could unlock them.

For a compressed file to work, it had to be highly relevant to the recorded content. Once opened, it would transmit the stored memories within.

Completely real…

Unless the compressed file itself was false and recorded fabricated events. But false compressed content, due to the intense dissonance produced by high lucidity, was extremely easy to expose.

And the password to these compressed files was Qing He herself.

Qiu Li took the diary and carefully read it from top to bottom, nodding in satisfaction.

“However… there’s something I’d like to add.”

Something she wanted to add? Qing He felt an ominous premonition. Nervously, she tugged at the corner of Qiu Li’s clothes.

Qiu Li laid the diary flat on the windowsill and began writing, stroke by deliberate stroke.

[From now on, I am my sister’s pet. When speaking to my sister, I should occasionally meow like a kitten, so that I resemble a well-behaved pet more.]

???

Qing He froze, her face flushing red almost instantly.

What kind of addition was that?

It was far too embarrassing! How could that possibly be allowed…

In the original storyline, the original host had indeed become a cat-like pet. Could it be that Qiu Li had some particular fondness for kittens?

Forget it… it was not a serious modification anyway… Qing He’s small face burned pink. This was practically humiliation.

Qiu Li looked at her with an amused expression, as though relishing the delight of teasing a pet.

To avoid any unforeseen problems, Qing He checked the diary once more.

After confirming there were no further omissions, she flipped to the title page.

“Sister, look here.”

Qing He fixed her gaze on the title page.

A blood-red information panel hovered coldly above it.

[Fallen Value: one]

[Dissonance: zero]

[Lucidity: ninety-nine] (Your consciousness is extremely clear)

Status: [Memory Curse], [Maimed Curse one] (left eye), [Full of Energy]

Qiu Li’s eyes followed her gaze to the title page.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. I thought I saw a bug there just now.” Qing He smiled playfully.

She only wanted to test whether Qiu Li could see that information. It appeared that those details were visible only to her.

That was good. Otherwise, there might have been additional complications.

With these values displayed, Qing He could understand her condition far more clearly. As for everyone else in this world, most could only make rough judgments based on intuition.

It could be considered a small blessing amid misfortune.

“Remember, you need to meow a few times when you speak,” Qiu Li said, gently pinching Qing He’s cheek.

“I… I know…”

The two interacted intimately, appearing every bit like a pair of close sisters.

“Time to sleep…”

…

The village lay in silence. Nothing unusual occurred that night.

The next day.

Thump… thump… thump…

Her heart pounded violently in her chest, as though it were about to shatter her ribs and leap free.

Qing He suddenly bolted upright in bed, her mouth open wide, yet unable to draw even the faintest trace of air.

Cold sweat instantly soaked through her thin clothes.

She… she was not dead?

Where… was this?!

An unfamiliar ceiling, earthen walls, the air thick with stale dust and a faint trace of… blood.

Chaotic fragments of memory crashed into her mind like an unexpected tsunami—the game Abyss of Despair, the searing agony of food poisoning, the pale hospital lights…

Immediately afterward came another stream of far more mundane memories: a petite girl struggling to survive in a dilapidated village—silent and timid—“protected” by an older sister with silver hair and red eyes named Qiu Li…

She had transmigrated.

She… had entered that game!

The realization sent bone-deep coldness through her body. Yet inexplicably, the scene before her felt somewhat familiar.

“The diary… the diary!”

Throwing herself off the bed, Qing He rummaged frantically through the disordered bedding with both hands and feet.

Only after a long moment did she suddenly realize the diary was tucked inside her undergarments.

With trembling hands, she pulled it out.

She drew in a deep breath and fixed her gaze upon it.

Boom!!!

Something strange and indescribable burrowed into her temples along her line of sight.

She seemed to glimpse the blurry shadow outside the window again, feel the explosive agony and eerie warmth within her eye socket…

She even seemed to touch the soft mass of flesh resting in her palm.

Cold tears welled in her eyes, itching as they trembled.

She could even feel Qiu Li’s scorching kiss and the fingers trailing down her spine, sending shivers coursing through her body…

All the images, sounds, sensations, smells, and emotions—in less than one second—were violently “stuffed” into her consciousness.

She… experienced everything once more.

Her sense of time became utterly distorted. Qing He felt as though she had remained trapped in those scenes for hours, yet in the blink of an eye, the diary had already reached its final page, and the morning sunlight outside had shifted only an inch.

It took a full ten minutes for her racing heartbeat to barely subside and for her boiling thoughts to gradually cool.

“So…” she heard her own voice, hoarse beyond recognition.

“Last night… those things really happened… and now it’s the second day, meow?”

Lowering her head, she looked at the diary in her hands once more.

The statement about “there being no food at home” was casually glossed over. She knew Qiu Li must have altered that part.

Carefully, Qing He reread every line, paying particular attention to the final sentence about “meow.”

Wait. That’s right… why had she just meowed?

Her brows furrowed as she tried to recall the events of last night.

After a moment of concentration, an image surfaced in her mind.

Last night… she had been blushing, biting the end of her pen, carefully writing a line stroke by stroke with shy eagerness to please.

[From now on, I am my sister’s pet. When speaking to my sister, I should occasionally meow like a kitten, so that I resemble a well-behaved pet more.]

She could even remember the faint scratching sound of the pen tip against the paper and the delighted look Qiu Li cast from beside her.

“I… wrote it myself?” Qing He murmured, her fingertips turning icy.

No.

Something was wrong.

She abruptly shut her eyes, forcefully dispelling the vivid memory and dragging her focus back to reality.

A strange sense of dissonance welled up within her.

That sentence was false!

Qing He flipped directly to the title page.

Written clearly above was: [Dissonance: twenty]

As expected, this must have been written by Qiu Li yesterday. According to Qing He’s original plan, it would have been added when the two of them wrote in the diary together before sleeping.

So from today onward… whenever she spoke, she would have to add “meow”?

Knock, knock. At that moment, a gentle sound came from the door as Qiu Li pushed it open and stepped inside.

Qing He hurriedly turned her head.

“…Meow?” The sound slipped out uncontrollably, entirely without conscious intent.

Hearing that “meow,” Qiu Li looked at her with playful amusement.

“Little He… about what we agreed on yesterday, shall we do it now?”

What they agreed on? Qing He stared blankly for a moment before realization dawned.

No… don’t…!