After Breaking Free From The System's Control - Chapter 8

His consciousness drifted through murky, lukewarm water, rising and sinking without end.

The water offered no comfort. Instead, it wrapped heavily around every thread of thought, preventing them from surfacing while never allowing them to sink completely.

Within that haze, only his senses remained clear.

Far too clear.

Clear enough to become exhausting.

The System’s shrill curses seemed to come through a thick pane of glass, buzzing in his ears, distorted and distant.

【A freak who is neither man nor woman! Jin Tang, do you hear me? You are a monster!】

The vicious words tried to stab into Jin Tang’s exhausted nerves.

Once, insults like these would have kept him awake through the entire night, tossing and turning in secret shame and anger.

Jin Tang kept his eyes closed.

Yet his soul seemed to have detached itself from his heavy, aching body, coldly observing the clamor inside his mind.

He almost wanted to laugh.

An absurd, icy amusement spread silently through his heart. The laughter echoed through the emptiness inside him, carrying no warmth and stirring only a vast, hollow reverberation.

A monster?

Who had turned him into this so-called monster?

The contemptuous, humiliating word tore open a long-sealed door deep within his memories without warning.

Time reversed, dragging Jin Tang back to the most bewildering and chaotic moment after he first arrived in this unfamiliar dynasty known as Great Zhao.

His soul had been like a fallen leaf in a violent storm, with nowhere to settle, terrified of everything around him.

It had not been long after the System pulled him out of his “human pancake” state.

The bewildered soul of a twenty-first-century young man had been stuffed into the body of a young emperor who had supposedly taken his own life after being unable to withstand the pressure upon him.

Before Jin Tang could experience any joy at being “reborn,” or even begin to consider how one was supposed to rule as emperor, a cold reality crashed down upon him.

【The target body, “Jin Tang,” suffered severe damage to the throat after hanging. The vocal cords and portions of the cervical vertebrae have been irreversibly destroyed. The body cannot sustain long-term habitation by the host’s soul.】

The System spoke in a mechanical electronic voice, as though merely reporting a malfunctioning piece of equipment.

There was no sympathy.

No apology.

Only a programmed notification announcing that the “original” body was unavailable to him.

The confused soul of the young man from the modern era froze.

Overwhelming panic seized him.

“Then what am I supposed to do? Didn’t you say you could bring me back to life?”

【Executing backup plan,】 the System replied. 【Scanning complete data from the original body. Matching the host’s soul with a temporary vessel… Data modeling in progress… Vessel construction complete.】

In the next instant, Jin Tang felt his consciousness placed inside a warm, soft container.

He tried moving his fingers.

The real sensation of flesh connected to flesh answered him.

The touch was real.

The warmth was real.

Even the slight pain when his fingertips pressed into his palm was real.

Jin Tang “opened” his eyes.

He saw slender fingers belonging to a young man.

He saw the soft imperial yellow sleeping robes covering his body.

Before he could feel any joy at receiving a new life, the unfamiliar sensation of his body’s physical structure made him instinctively aware that something was wrong.

Without thinking, he reached downward to check.

After a brief exploration and confirmation, Jin Tang’s mind went blank with a deafening buzz.

Two sets of biological characteristics that should have been clearly separate coexisted within the same body.

Inter—

Intersex?

Jin Tang went rigid, as though struck by lightning.

Having grown up in the information-saturated modern era, he was not entirely ignorant of such things.

But knowing about something and understanding it in theory was entirely different from personally possessing it.

Indescribable confusion, shame, and helplessness overwhelmed him in an instant.

It felt unbearably strange.

It lay completely beyond everything Jin Tang had ever understood about his own body.

It was like suddenly discovering an unfamiliar door inside a room he had always known, with no idea where it led.

The mere sight of it was enough to inspire panic.

Jin Tang immediately called out to the System in his mind, desperate to escape this “abnormality.”

“System! Can the female part of this body be removed?”

His words came out incoherently, carrying a plea he had not even noticed himself making.

According to Jin Tang’s understanding at the time, if he had the choice, he would naturally prefer the male state that was more familiar to him and felt more “normal.”

The System’s response came swiftly and coldly, leaving no room for negotiation.

【Request denied. The temporary vessel was constructed strictly according to the original body’s data and cannot be modified. The host must perfectly portray the role of “Jin Tang.” If you are going to perform, then the performance must be complete.】

The performance must be complete.

Such careless, dismissive words.

Yet they were like an icy lock fastening Jin Tang firmly inside a body that felt utterly alien and uncomfortable.

You are merely an actor.

Your feelings do not matter.

Your idea of “normal” is irrelevant.

You must become him completely, without the slightest flaw.

At the time, Jin Tang still wanted to argue.

He wanted to demand why portraying an emperor required even such deeply concealed physical traits to be “perfectly replicated.”

It was only much later that he learned there had never been any replication.

From beginning to end, there had only ever been one Jin Tang.

But the System gave him no further opportunity to communicate.

Its cold mission instructions had already been issued, and the life belonging to the young emperor Jin Tang swept him relentlessly forward.

Jin Tang was forced to accept the reality.

After the initial discomfort and helplessness, he gradually learned to ignore it.

He learned to bury the body’s uniqueness as deeply as possible.

He told himself it was only a temporary shell.

There was no need to think too deeply about it.

No need to touch upon it.

Later, Jin Tang had even considered that the original young emperor had managed to survive in such a body within a treacherous palace, despite the Late Emperor having few heirs, and had ultimately ascended the throne.

Regardless of what methods or temperament that emperor possessed, the achievement itself had been extraordinary.

Since when had gender become the measure of a person’s worth?

Yet now, this “reality” created entirely by the System had become a vicious weapon in its hands.

The System turned it back upon him and cruelly called him a “monster who was neither man nor woman.”

How utterly ironic.

His thoughts broke free from the weight of the past and returned to the cold bedchamber.

The chill left by those memories mingled with the cool touch of the brocade beneath him.

The cursing in his ears had never stopped.

But perhaps because he had just revisited those earliest memories, the System’s shouting now appeared almost comical in its desperation.

The insults continued.

An endless stream of obscene and degrading language attempted to break down Jin Tang’s mental defenses.

【…What do you think you are? You are nothing but the puppet I selected! Even your body was granted to you by me! How dare a deformed monster defy me?!】

Jin Tang slowly rolled onto his side, facing the inside of the bed.

He buried half his face in the soft quilt, which carried the faint smell of medicine.

He could not be bothered to answer.

He was unwilling to grant the System even a trace of anger.

Anger required energy.

It would consume the precious strength he had left.

The System’s very existence was an absurd nightmare.

It was made of cold data and predetermined programming, yet it insisted on imitating humanity’s vilest emotions, using humiliation, threats, and suffering to achieve its goals.

It was even more disgusting than openly despicable people.

At least they did not conceal what they were.

The System wrapped itself in the language of “rules” and “missions” while committing the most contemptible acts, then tried to drag him into the same degradation and force him to become a tyrant reviled for generations.

Hypocritical evil was far more chilling than evil that showed itself plainly.

Now, the System could only rely on the lowest form of personal insult in an attempt to reclaim its dignity.

Let it continue.

That was what Jin Tang thought.

It could curse all it wanted.

The words would not tear flesh from his body.

This body had already endured more than enough pain.

A little additional spiritual filth hardly mattered.

He had already experienced death.

He had repeatedly tasted agony at its absolute extreme.

What was there left to fear?

The threshold of what he could endure had been cruelly raised beyond anything an ordinary person could imagine.

Things that once would have made him tremble in terror now seemed insignificant.

It was only somewhat unfortunate.

The noise was keeping him from sleeping.

His consciousness remained unnaturally clear because of the unpleasant memory and the relentless noise.

Exhaustion weighed down every limb and bone, yet he could not fall into restful sleep.

Wakefulness was a form of torture, especially when his body and mind desperately required rest in order to recover.

Jin Tang longed for a moment of darkness.

Even if it lasted only briefly.

Anything that would allow the string inside him, stretched taut for so long, to loosen slightly.

Staring into the dim emptiness behind the bed curtains, Jin Tang wondered absently whether there might be some way to block out the endlessly noisy thing inside his head.

Even a short period of silence would be enough.

He would isolate this loud and malicious System from his world without the slightest hesitation.

His eyelids felt heavy as iron, while the clamor in his mind continued like a demonic chant forced directly into his ears.

His body’s desperate need for sleep clashed violently with the invasion of his mind, trapping him at the boundary between waking and unconsciousness.

He suffered there without relief.

Within this body, forced to carry far too much pain and too many secrets, the young soul curled inward.

Against the background of endless filth and abuse, he stubbornly protected the final fragment of peace within him that refused to surrender.

That peace was small.

Fragile.

Like a candle flame in the wind.

But it existed.

The System had returned empty-handed this time.

Their temporary stalemate meant that he had managed to win himself more time.

Xiao Li had already returned to the capital.

His position as Regent had been established.

The hidden threats Jin Tang had marked should already be undergoing investigation under Wang Zhong’s direction…

Turning his thoughts toward practical plans helped draw his attention away from the System’s noise.

There was still hope.

So long as his soul had not been completely destroyed, and so long as even the faintest independent will remained within him, he would not give up.

The System continued cursing in vain.

Its voice was shrill yet hollow, like the howling of a defeated dog.

It could no longer stir any true ripples across the lake of Jin Tang’s heart.

Had more crabapple blossoms fallen outside the window?

Would tomorrow’s sunlight be warmer?

And Xiao Li…

What was he doing at this moment?

The thought quietly surfaced, like a tiny firefly suddenly glowing within the darkness.

Faint—

But undeniably real.