Jiang Shuyue is the perfect background character at an elite academy, and the "early-departed white moonlight" in everyone's eyes.
Gentle, quiet, and pale, she is a fragile symbol in the memories of the male lead, Gu Yanzhi, there to highlight the heroine's resilience, and a perfect plot device.
No one knows this is Jiang Shuyue's third run through the story.
In her first run, she faithfully played the role of the sickly childhood friend and quietly died when the plot called for it.
In her second run, she tried to fight back. The result was an accelerated death and deeper despair.
This time, Jiang Shuyue got the "NPC Self-Rescue System."
The System's task is straightforward: raise every key character's affection to the maximum without breaking character, and earn an "Immortality Pass."
And so her third run began.
She gave Gu Yanzhi, a gloomy, cold future tycoon, a smile of unclouded dependence.
She showed Shen Qingci, a gentle, scheming top student and student council president, just the right amount of admiration and closeness.
She gave Lu Huaixu, a hot-tempered, rebellious heir to a wealthy family, a unique measure of acceptance and attention.
She even extended quiet kindness and help in advance to Ye Tinglan, the heroine who would soon enter the story and take everything away.
Her acting was superb, and she knew just when to give or withhold her feelings, perfectly embodying the purity, healing warmth, and destined transience of the "white moonlight."
The affection levels soared, and the System's task was nearly complete.
Jiang Shuyue had planned the perfect solution: before the story began, she would use the rewards she had saved up to "cure" her terminal illness, then gracefully bow out under the pretext of going abroad for treatment. She would leave every conflict behind and live a peaceful, comfortable life of her own.
She succeeded.
At the grand birthday banquet Gu Yanzhi held for her, amid everyone's blessings and affection, she gave the final command to the System in her mind:
[Exchange reward: Cure terminal illness.]
[Initiate plan: Three months from now, quietly "die" at a Swiss sanatorium.]
System: [Command confirmed. Distributing ultimate reward, "New Life"...]
System: [Warning! Exceptionally intense emotional fluctuations detected!]
System: [Core targets: Gu Yanzhi, Shen Qingci, Lu Huaixu, Ye Tinglan. Unknown changes detected in all affection levels!]
System: [The "New Life" program has been locked by an unknown force! Logout path blocked!]
The banquet hall lights suddenly dimmed.
Gu Yanzhi, who should have been giving a speech onstage, had somehow appeared behind her. His cold fingers brushed the nape of her neck, and his voice was so gentle it sent a chill down her spine. "Shuyue, the way you spaced out just now... were you thinking about how to leave me?"
Shen Qingci approached with a glass of champagne. His gaze behind his glasses held her fast, though his smile remained perfectly proper. "I heard your parents are looking at medical schools abroad for you. Why didn't you ask my opinion first?"
Lu Huaixu pulled her away from Gu Yanzhi. His boyish face was filled with irritation and unease. "Jiang Shuyue, you promised you wouldn't go anywhere!"
And Ye Tinglan, the heroine who wasn't supposed to make her "first appearance" for another week, stood nearby with the token that Jiang Shuyue was supposed to "stumble across" and give her, the one that would change her fate. She looked at Jiang Shuyue, surrounded by the others, her expression impossible to read.
Jiang Shuyue froze in place as the warm light turned cold.
At last, she realized in horror:
What she had maxed out might not have been affection levels that could be reset at the press of a button.
What she had played might not have been merely the "white moonlight" the story required.
And the perfect exit she had carefully planned seemed to have awakened something even more terrifying than the story itself.
--They didn't want to remember a symbol that had passed away.
--They wanted to imprison a moon that refused to sink.
# There will probably be lots of other types of male leads, like nasty twins or high-attack, low-defense self-delusion freaks... I'll add more when I think of them 😋
# All male leads are virgins
# No matter how many times they relive the story, the male leads only love Shuyue
Theme: From prey to player, I set the rules
