After Becoming the Love-Brained Female Lead’s Best Friend - Chapter 1

One second, Ye Wanyin was still hurrying to the exam venue. The next second, she had entered the system space.

In that pure white world, there stood only Ye Wanyin’s transparent soul. She pushed up the glasses that no longer existed and felt that she was probably dreaming.

She was thinking about how to break out of the dream—she still had an exam to rush to—when a mechanical voice suddenly sounded beside her ear.

[Assessment—]

[Ye Wanyin: IQ 120, EQ 50, permanent first place in her grade, multiple-time first place in provincial exams. Grades qualified. Qualification to leave the instance: qualified. Meets the standard for saving a love-brained female lead. Preparing information delivery—]

“Sorry to interrupt, but can you let me finish my exam first?” After pinching her thigh several times and still failing to leave the dream, Ye Wanyin was already getting a little anxious.

[We regret to inform you that you have been chosen as the host and will enter Instance No. 1034. If you do not complete the mission, you will be unable to return to your original world to take the exam.]

[Friendly reminder: the flow of time in the system space is the same as the flow of time in reality. In other words, the longer you stay here, the closer it gets to your exam time.]

Ye Wanyin pinched her thigh hard again. The pain was still there—she did not break free from the “dream.”

Was this “dream” simply too realistic, or had she really been dragged into a fantasy world?

Before she could figure it out, a virtual novel suddenly appeared in her mind. At the same time, the mechanical voice rang out again.

“Information delivery complete. Host, please promptly choose to teleport into the novel instance—”

Ye Wanyin tried opening the novel in her mind. The first page was densely packed with words. She recognized every character separately, but when they were put together, they made her a little dizzy.

She had never been able to get into novels.

[Host, please teleport promptly—]

The system was still urging her.

Ye Wanyin calmly asked, “If I enter the novel instance, will the flow of time in my world change?”

[Yes. After the host enters the novel instance, time in the original world will stop. Once the host completes the mission and returns to the original world, you may continue taking your exam.]

While pinching her thigh, Ye Wanyin asked, “Last question. How long until my next exam starts?”

[One hour.]

Ye Wanyin said decisively, “Teleport me.”

＊

[Beep—]

[The contract has taken effect. Host has successfully bound to the Love-Brain Rescue System.]

[Mission: Make Fang Shu get into university.]

[You are Fang Shu’s best friend. You grew up together, and after entering high school, the two of you rented an apartment together outside school. Fang Shu is obsessed with romance and does not like studying. Because of this, you have advised her several times, but she has never listened. Therefore, you decide to…]

The mechanical voice slowly disappeared. Ye Wanyin opened her eyes and saw a girl with long black hair standing in front of her. The other girl’s eyes were half-open, and she looked lazy, as if she were speaking to her.

“I’m going out.”

Before Ye Wanyin could respond, the girl had already turned around and left without looking back.

Looking at the scene before her, Ye Wanyin first breathed a sigh of relief—she finally had glasses. Then she adjusted the frame and called out in her mind, “System?”

No one answered.

Ye Wanyin frowned slightly. She looked around the living room, and only after confirming that no one was there did she suppress her embarrassment and call softly, “System?”

There was still no answer.

Ye Wanyin started to feel uneasy. She still wasn’t sure whether this was a dream or not. The reason she had agreed to teleport first was because she was afraid that, if this wasn’t a dream, she would really end up missing her exam by stubbornly staying in that system space.

Now that the system was gone, she pinched her thigh hard again. After confirming that it hurt and that she could not wake up, she resigned herself to opening the virtual novel in her mind.

The first paragraph was a long chunk of description. Ye Wanyin forced herself to keep reading. But as time passed, her head began to hurt again.

What on earth was this thing written about?

In the evening, there was a sound from outside the door. Ye Wanyin raised her head toward the noise, and the person who had left that morning appeared at the entrance.

Ye Wanyin blinked. When the person at the door saw her, she did not come in immediately. Instead, she tilted her head slightly. A faint ripple flashed through her eyes, which were usually like a pool of stagnant water.

“You actually didn’t go to class?”

Ye Wanyin: “…?!”

Seeing the shock in Ye Wanyin’s eyes, Fang Shu let out a long “Oh,” clearly enjoying the spectacle. “No wonder the teacher called me.”

Ye Wanyin: “!”

Ye Wanyin hurriedly searched for her phone, wanting to check the date. However, after patting all over herself and looking around nearby, she still could not find any trace of a phone.

By this time, Fang Shu had already changed her shoes at the door and walked in. Seeing Ye Wanyin’s wandering gaze, she looked at her and asked, “What are you looking for?”

Ye Wanyin’s eyes flickered. She looked at the person in front of her with a bit of anticipation.

“I’m looking for my phone.”

Hearing this, the person in front of her froze. Then the look she gave Ye Wanyin became even stranger. Ye Wanyin felt her heart sink, and then she heard the girl lazily say, one arm folded across her chest as if she were leaning against something,

“When did you buy a phone?”

Ye Wanyin froze. “I don’t have a phone?”

The person in front of her leaned forward slightly. Her voice remained careless.

“Unless you went out and bought one today.”

—So that meant she didn’t have one.

Ye Wanyin had not expected that, in this place, she didn’t even have a phone…

Just as Ye Wanyin urgently prepared to ask Fang Shu about her current situation, Fang Shu suddenly received a call, and the distance between them widened because of it.

While answering the call, Fang Shu silently greeted Ye Wanyin with a gesture, then carried her bag back to her own room. Ye Wanyin had no choice but to rely on herself. First, she looked over the apartment as a whole. It had two bedrooms, one living room, one kitchen, and one bathroom. Looking at the room Fang Shu had just entered, Ye Wanyin opened the door to the other room.

This should be the secondary bedroom. There was no balcony, only one set of blinds. The furnishings in the room were very simple: a bed, a study desk a little over one meter long, and a wardrobe that was probably included with the rental. Only a few scattered pieces of clothing hung inside.

Ye Wanyin looked around the room and searched through it. She discovered that the room was pitifully empty. The bed was very clean. Under the pillow were a dozen hundred-yuan bills and a set of keys, and nothing else. Several study materials and a flat, deflated schoolbag were messily placed on the desk. There were only a few pens in the drawer.

For the first time, Ye Wanyin experienced what it meant for a place to be empty and hollow.

Just as Ye Wanyin’s eyes were unfocused and she was lost in confusion, a warning sound suddenly rang out in her mind—

[Beep—]

[Due to excessive system energy depletion, this rescue mission has automatically been changed to offline mode. A mission manual will be issued shortly. The host may check it as needed. During the mission, please do not act out of character. Since the host is an external intervention in this mission, this does not apply. Please do not slack off negatively. After the mission is completed, the host will receive corresponding points. At that time, the points store will open, and the host may exchange for items according to her needs.]

[The mission time limit is one year and three months. Those who fail to complete the mission will automatically be expelled from the instance, and all mission-related information will be erased. Those who slack off negatively will receive corresponding punishment.]

[Beep—]

[Battery insufficient. System has gone offline.]

Ye Wanyin didn’t even have time to ask a single question before her mind suddenly fell silent. Refusing to believe it, she asked in her mind, “System?”

[Beep—]

[System: An auxiliary tool that can provide the host with various forms of help.]

Ye Wanyin thought the system had come online, but then realized that this short paragraph had merely appeared in her mind, with no follow-up.

Looking at the floating text in her mind, Ye Wanyin thought of a term. The next second, the floating words scattered, then gathered together again—

[External intervention: A virtual character created by the system when a mission instance has an excessively high difficulty level or when the relationship chain with the mission target is too weak. Usually has a relatively close relationship with the protagonist.]

Ye Wanyin understood. She thought of the mission manual in her mind. This time, no floating text appeared. Instead, there was a virtual manual.

The first page was a table of contents. It introduced several sections contained in the manual. The first section was about the various departments of the book-transmigration system. The second section was contract information related to signing. The third section was basically a dictionary. When opened, it had no content, but whatever you wanted to look up would appear in the dictionary with the corresponding information.

It was also at this moment that Ye Wanyin learned the book-transmigration system actually had rules and regulations. When selecting a host, the system was not allowed to force the host into an instance. Before signing the contract, it had to explain the situation to the host. Only after the host agreed could the contract be signed. If the host did not agree, the host’s memory would be erased and they would be sent back to their original world.

After signing the contract, the host would be bound to the system. Unless the mission was completed or the time limit expired, they were not allowed to withdraw midway.

Ye Wanyin thought of those brief few minutes in the system space and felt that she had probably been forced into a one-sided deal.

She thought in her mind, “Hello, may I file a complaint?”

There was no response.

In offline mode, the system’s energy had been exhausted. In other words, Ye Wanyin had been “abandoned” in this instance.

At present, she either had to complete the mission and obtain a certain target value to awaken the system, then see if she could leave the instance early through a complaint, or she had to waste time and slack off until she got out after a year.

She just didn’t know what kind of punishment there would be for slacking off.

Ye Wanyin’s mind was blank. She lay flat on the bed, face up. The ceiling was very white, and the light from the chandelier above her fell onto her lenses, making it a little dazzling.

Ye Wanyin was not the type to sit around waiting for death. Since she had confirmed that this was not a dream, and she also did not want to truly waste her days here, then there was clearly only one thing she could do now.

One hour later, Ye Wanyin closed her notebook and opened the bedroom door. The sky outside had already darkened somewhat. The lights inside the apartment formed a sharp contrast with the night outside the window.

Ye Wanyin glanced at the tightly shut door opposite her, pushed up her glasses that had slid down a little, and felt that the apartment’s soundproofing was quite good. She had no idea whether the other girl had finished her call yet. She was still waiting to deliver knowledge points to her.

Seeing that Fang Shu still did not come out, Ye Wanyin decided to satisfy her own stomach first. She had not eaten at noon, and now she was a little hungry.

There was not much in the fridge. Most of it was frozen food. Ye Wanyin did not have the energy to be picky, so she casually cooked herself a bag of frozen dumplings, then leaned against the kitchen doorway and read a study guide.

She had randomly taken this study guide from the desk. Probably because the female lead was a second-year high school student, the textbooks and study guides in Ye Wanyin’s room were also all for the second year of high school. Although the knowledge points were very basic, the questions were different after all. Ye Wanyin happily worked through every problem attached at the back of the study guide in her mind.

By the time she finished eating the dumplings, Ye Wanyin felt that not only was her stomach full, her heart was full too.

Ah, doing problems really was soothing.

Reading that so-called novel was truly too torturous.