Chapter 253: Chapter 253: You Came After You Died

"Huh? Host, what did you just say?"

"How did I get here?"

"Urk... Host, I’m just saying, hypothetically... is it possible you were chosen *after* you croaked on the other side?"

"What?"

Qiao Xixi was utterly shocked. She had always assumed she’d suffered some memory loss after transmigrating, but she never imagined there was a problem with her memories of her original world.

"You’d better explain yourself, right now! I distinctly remember falling asleep during my wilderness survival livestream and then waking up here!"

The little sprite sighed. "Host, we have professional standards. We’re not in the business of transmigrating living people. You really were on a wilderness survival trip before you came here, and your memories do stop right before you went to sleep. That’s because after you fell asleep... you encountered a Hidden Horse Bear."

Qiao Xixi was speechless.

"Are you telling me I was attacked by a bear in the middle of the night and didn’t even realize it?"

"Have you forgotten, Host? Didn’t you take cold medicine before bed that night? Once it kicked in, you were sleeping like the dead..."

The forgotten memories came rushing back like a tidal wave, and Qiao Xixi froze in place.

An image flashed through her mind: a Hidden Horse Bear snapping her neck with its jaws...

Qiao Xixi shook her head violently. "Why? How could I forget? Tell me everything, right now! What exactly is going on?"

"Host, it’s actually my fault for being too careless. I thought if we were sneaky about it, Huang Ying and her system wouldn’t find us. But who knew they’d be in such a hurry? They couldn’t wait any longer for the villain cubs to be born, so they got impatient."

"Hold on. So, you’re saying I transmigrated a long time ago."

"Yes. Host, you transmigrated five years ago."

Although she had her suspicions, hearing the confirmation still left Qiao Xixi stunned for a long moment.

"I’ll ask, you’ll answer."

"Okay."

"When I first arrived, what was my mission?"

"To prevent the villains’ tragedies from happening."

"Meaning, at the time, I hadn’t given birth to the cubs. To prevent their tragedies from happening, I chose not to have them?"

"Correct."

Qiao Xixi laughed. ’Simple and crude. Sounds just like me.’

"But when Huang Ying and her system realized the cubs weren’t being born, they got desperate. She then did everything she could to find me and make me give birth to the cubs?"

"Yep."

"Then why do I have the original owner’s memories? And in those memories, it says it was the original owner who used a ’love fruit’ on Feiyan and the others, and that’s how she got pregnant with the cubs?"

"Uhh... about that. First of all, I’m definitely not weaker than their system! It just launched a virus attack when my guard was down, which caused a tiny little error when I was transmitting data to you. That messed with your memories. The truth is, the original owner was long gone. For the past five years, it’s always been you..."

Qiao Xixi was completely dumbfounded. "You’re saying... the one who neglected and even abused the cubs... that was me?"

This was a truth she could hardly accept!

"Host, please don’t blame yourself! Of course this isn’t your fault. All the mistreatment of the cubs in your memories was caused by Huang Ying and her system. They weren’t your own actions."

The little sprite spent a long time painstakingly explaining. The gist of it was that after the other system attacked it, it began sending faulty brainwaves to Qiao Xixi, interfering with her behavior.

Qiao Xixi understood, but she still felt awful. The thought that she had been manipulated into treating her own cubs that way for years made her furious!

"I thought of her as someone from back home, so I went easy on her and let her go. I never thought she’d stoop so low to get what she wanted."

Huang Ying could treat everything in this world as if it were fake, but she knew perfectly well that I was from her world, too. To still treat me like this... it was simply unforgivable!

"Where is Huang Ying right now? I’m going to go and finish her off!"

"Don’t be rash, Host! Her system must have realized something was wrong and taken her back to Wing Beast City."

The little sprite was right. Huang Ying was, at that very moment, on her way back to Wing Beast City.

"It’s recovered its lost data by now. It definitely knows what we did."

Huang Ying was unconcerned. "So what if it knows? It’s not like I’m afraid of her."

"She knows how to deal with you now, and you still haven’t been able to advance the plot."

"What do you mean? What does she know?"

"She must know by now that you only have a few more deaths before you’re completely finished. The other system stole my data when it attacked me and learned about your situation. If you really can’t handle this, I should just send you away and pick someone new. Otherwise, if you die for good, I’m done for too!"

Huang Ying fell silent for a moment. "I’m definitely not leaving. Since she already knows, I’ll just be more cautious from now on. I won’t act alone again."

"What do you plan to do?"

"First, I’ll return to Beast City. I can’t deal with them alone, but do you think the great Beast City can’t deal with them either?"

The system detected her unusual emotional state. "You’d better not do anything reckless."

"Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing."

...

Qiao Xixi came back to her senses when she felt something tugging at the hem of her dress. Looking down, she saw her little tiger cub playfully biting it.

She crouched down and picked up the cub.

"You naughty little rascal. You’re going to pull Mama’s dress right off."

The tiger cub whimpered, nuzzling her with its little head, wanting its mama to play.

"Just a little while longer, okay? Mama will play with you as soon as she’s finished her work."

Huang Ying was the daughter of the City Lord of Wing Beast City. With her relentless personality, she would likely incite Wing Beast City to move against them. Qiao Xixi had to be fully prepared.

After comforting the cub for a while, Qiao Xixi went back to refining Crystal Stones.

For the next several days, Qiao Xixi did nothing but focus on refining Crystal Stones.

"Jin Ling, I have a pretty good grasp of the Crystal Stone refining technique now. I want to add more stone pots to speed up the process."

"Alright. I’ll go with Feiyan and the others to make some more."

"Okay."

With her mother and fathers so busy, the little tiger cub was bored every day.

Her older brothers and sisters left early in the morning to help at the salt fields, leaving her as the only one at home with nothing to do.

The bored cub trailed closely behind Qiao Xixi, but Qiao Xixi had to watch the pots. Worried the mischievous cub might get into trouble, she carried her into the house, lay down, and nursed her, hoping she would fall asleep for a little while.

"Be a good girl, An’an. Mama’s busy, so you sleep for a bit. Once Mama’s done, I’ll come play with you."

Under Qiao Xixi’s gentle caress, the tiger cub slowly closed her eyes.

Seeing that she was asleep, Qiao Xixi quietly got up and left the wooden house.

What she didn’t know was that the moment she left the bed, the little tiger cub’s eyes popped open again.

’I’m a big cub now, I don’t need so much sleepy time.’

She hopped off the bed after Qiao Xixi and pushed the wooden door open with her little paws.

A butterfly fluttered over and landed on the cub’s little nose. The cub swatted at it with her paw, but the butterfly flew away just before she could touch it. Annoyed, the cub chased the butterfly into the woods.