Chapter 29: No Response from the System

Lin Mianmian was caught off guard by a sudden shove. She looked at Mu Chenbei in disbelief, "How dare you push me?"

"I pushed you, so what?" Mu Chenbei retorted, refusing to be outdone. "Everything I have now was given to me by Yu Ling. How can you be so shameless? What have you ever given me?"

"If you hadn't seduced me, why would I have betrayed Yu Ling and broken up with her?"

These shameless words completely ignited Lin Mianmian’s fury. She scrambled up from the floor, and once she found her footing, she lunged at Mu Chenbei with claws bared.

"You pathetic loser! If it weren't for me, you never would have even dated Yu Ling. She and Chi Ran were the real couple!"

With things having reached this point, Lin Mianmian abandoned all caution. In a fit of extreme rage, she blurted out the words without a second thought.

The moment she finished speaking, she realized something was wrong.

It was over. That wretched system was going to punish her again.

However, she waited for the familiar pain of an electric current coursing through her body, but it never came.

Lin Mianmian was confused. Had the system malfunctioned?

Before she could process it, she felt her throat being constricted, making it difficult to breathe.

"Mu Chenbei, let go of me."

Lin Mianmian gasped, her face turning purple. She kept hitting Mu Chenbei, trying to force him to release her.

Mu Chenbei did not let go. Instead, he stared at her viciously with bloodshot eyes, "What did you mean by what you just said? And who is Chi Ran?"

Yu Ling was clearly his girlfriend; how could she possibly be with someone else?

Could it be... that she had been involved with someone else all along?

At the thought of this possibility, Mu Chenbei’s gaze grew darker. He hallucinated that the woman in front of him was Yu Ling, and the way he looked at her was as if he were looking at a lifeless object.

"Mu Chenbei, let me go..."

Lin Mianmian’s voice grew weaker, and her strikes became increasingly feeble. She couldn't breathe; she was on the verge of suffocating to death.

Seeing her eyes roll back, Mu Chenbei finally withdrew his hand and threw her to the floor.

If she died, he would end up in prison.

It wasn't worth it.

Lin Mianmian hit the floor hard. Her neck burned with agony, and as she gulped down fresh air, she immediately began to cough violently.

"Cough... cough..."

Lin Mianmian retreated while trying to reach out to the system in her mind.

Her back hit the cold wall, leaving her with nowhere to run, and the panic in her heart intensified.

[System, system, are you there?]

[Mu Chenbei is going to kill me, please save me.]

But there was nothing. Lin Mianmian received no response at all.

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through her brain, accompanied by a "ding" sound, as if something had been forcibly ripped out of her mind.

Lin Mianmian realized instantly what it was.

The system. It was the system; it was leaving her.

"No!"

Lin Mianmian let out a sudden scream, her face twisted in extreme grief and panic as she crawled on the floor, searching for it.

Mu Chenbei watched her in astonishment, thinking, *Has she gone mad?*

Lin Mianmian could no longer hear or see anything; her ears were filled with a buzzing sound, and her vision faded into darkness.

"System, please come back. I can't live without the system."

"I beg you, please come out. I promise I’ll be obedient from now on. Won't you come back?"

Her incoherent rambling caught Mu Chenbei’s attention. A system? What was that?

He walked over, his face cold, and grabbed her wrist. "What is a system?"

"Ah!"

Lin Mianmian shrieked, struggling to break free from his grip.

She was blind and deaf to the world now, and the unknown terrified her.

To Mu Chenbei, her struggles were merely resistance. At that moment, the lingering affection he once held for her vanished into thin air, fading away in an instant.

Without the filter of romance, in Mu Chenbei’s eyes, she was now the culprit who had ruined his life.

Without the slightest hesitation, he struck her across the face.

The sound of the slap echoed through the empty room, sharp and clear.

Lin Mianmian’s head was knocked to the side, leaning against the wall.

The wall felt cold against her skin, while the other side of her face throbbed with a burning pain.

Lin Mianmian clutched her face, her vision slowly clearing, and the annoying buzzing in her ears faded away.

It was gone. Everything was gone.

Lin Mianmian began to cry in despair. The system was gone; no one could save her now.

She blamed everything on Yu Ling and Mu Chenbei.

"Mu Chenbei, this is all your fault!" She lunged at him, grabbing his hair and grappling with him.

But men and women are inherently different; there is a significant physiological gap between the two. Even if an adult woman gave it her all, it was nearly impossible to resist an adult man, let alone defeat him.

Mu Chenbei dragged her by her hair and slammed her against the wall.

"You bitch," Mu Chenbei roared, "tell me, who is this 'system'?"

Lin Mianmian gritted her teeth, refusing to say a word.

She kept telling herself: *I can't tell him. What if the system comes back one day? If it finds out that others know about its existence, it will definitely be angry.*

Her silence only fueled Mu Chenbei’s rage and violence. He began to punch and kick her, venting his frustrations.

"Who is Chi Ran?"

"Was Yu Ling already sleeping with him? What right does she have to point fingers at me?"

"Who is this system? Is it your secret lover?"

Listening to his insults and wild speculations, Lin Mianmian wanted to laugh.

*Hah, as expected, a low-life like him can never be the protagonist. Even if he were given a new identity, he wouldn't make the cut.*

He was just a man driven by his lower instincts; he had no idea how incompetent and insignificant he truly was.

Blood seeped from Lin Mianmian’s forehead, and her entire body ached. She endured the agony, fantasizing that the system would one day return to her.

It was so powerful; it would surely help her make a comeback.

After all, she was the true heroine!

...

Mu Chenbei’s violence was cut short when several men broke into his home.

Seeing the situation inside, the round-faced man in the lead immediately chose to call the police.

"Hello, is this 110? I have a fight in progress here. A man and a woman—the man is beating the woman. The address is Chunjing Garden, unit..."

Hearing the man calling the police, Mu Chenbei dropped Lin Mianmian. He charged forward in a rage, intending to grab the man’s phone.

The two young men behind the round-faced man acted quickly and restrained him.

Lin Mianmian lay on the floor like a dead fish, her eyes rolling back. Her face was covered in blood, and her forehead was a gruesome, mangled mess.