The whole family reunited.

Wei Xunzhou pondered for a long time before finally opening Xia Mengge’s diary, but the very first sentence left him frozen in place.

"I am a mission-taker, but I was abducted by a system..."

"Buzz!" Wei Xunzhou’s heart skipped a beat. He flipped through the diary frantically, his expression growing increasingly grave, his hands trembling uncontrollably.

As he finished the final page, Wei Xunzhou remained completely rigid, his mind in total chaos. He could never have imagined that the woman he had been married to for seven years was a mission-taker, and one abducted by a system at that!

In the past, he would have dismissed such nonsense entirely, assuming Xia Mengge had succumbed to delusions. But now, having witnessed everything related to her—and the woman herself—vanish into thin air, and having experienced the fact that no one but himself and their son remembered her existence, he believed every word she had written.

He suddenly recalled the time at the supply and marketing cooperative when Xia Mengge had been unusually happy, talking about "going home," and those strange words she had said about being an orphan before but not being one anymore.

He also remembered the countdowns—four days, three days, two days. At the time, he had thought it strange, but looking back now, the signs of her impending departure had been there all along.

It was just that his own heart had been focused on Li Yuntang! Beyond that, he realized that for these seven years—years he thought Xia Mengge had loved him deeply—she had actually never loved him at all.

Even the child she had risked her life to bear during a difficult labor was merely a tool to help her complete her mission. No wonder, no wonder she had been so frantic the first day they met, pestering him relentlessly to prevent him from seeking out Li Yuntang.

As it turned out, if he had gone to find Li Yuntang, he would have been stabbed to death by her alcoholic husband! That was why she had been abducted by the system, why she was so desperate, why she married him, and why she gave birth to his child.

As long as she changed his fate of dying a wretched death, she could return home.

That was why, once she learned Li Yuntang’s husband had died in a car accident, she had changed like a different person.

She became indifferent to everything regarding him and their son! Even when he sacrificed his career for Li Yuntang, or when their son, Wei Ming, slandered her for Li Yuntang’s sake, she remained unmoved.

"Ha..." The diary slipped from Wei Xunzhou’s hands onto the floor as he covered his face and let out a bitter, hollow laugh.

Gradually, his laughter turned into sobbing.

Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced his heart, and with a gasp, he coughed up a mouthful of blood!

"Dad! What’s wrong! Dad!" Before losing consciousness, the last thing Wei Xunzhou saw was Wei Ming rushing toward him in a panic.

***

Twenty-first Century

A flash of white light erupted, and Xia Mengge appeared suddenly in her home, clutching a large bag of items from the eighties.

Looking at her home, preserved exactly as it had been, tears welled up in her eyes. The bag in her hands dropped to the floor with a thud.

Hearing the noise, her parents rushed out of the living room. The moment they saw the daughter they had longed for for years, they burst into loud, wailing sobs.

They rushed forward without a second thought, clutching Xia Mengge in a tight, desperate embrace.

Soon, her brother, Xia Chenxuan, who had received the news of his sister’s return, canceled an important meeting and drove home in a rush.

It took the entire afternoon for them to dry their tears.

Only then did Xia Mengge learn that after she had vanished in front of everyone, her family had spent countless resources and energy searching for her, all to no avail.

Most tragic of all, consumed by the pain of losing their daughter, her parents’ health had deteriorated rapidly over the years. Her brother had been forced to abandon his dream of studying abroad to take over the family business early.

Looking at her parents’ graying hair, Xia Mengge wept again, unable to hold back her tears.

She told them of the hardships and grievances of the past seven years, and her parents wept anew upon hearing her story.

When they learned that all of this was the work of the system, the Xia family was filled with overwhelming hatred. Yet, they were helpless against it, for none of them knew how to extract the system from Xia Mengge’s body.