Stuck in a Chinese novel

Wei Jun opened his eyes to the flashing of the system. There were a few notifications but mainly the ones he had ignored after he killed the cultivator from Shao Chen\'s team.

[You have defeated an opponent with Qi]

[Stats have been gained]

[Strength +4]

[Agility +6]

[Stamina +4]

[Defense+ 2]

[Qi +11]

[You have removed two crucial plots of the story]

[Your level has risen by seven]

As much as he was happy about the level-up, he would have been happier if he had received one more level to reach the next level limit because, with his recent increase, some of his stats again hit their limits.

Up next he read the notification of his Death Qi increment and the message of Death swallowing something which earned him one point of Death Qi as well.

[That was probably the power from the mage\'s mana circle runes]

[Mana circle is nothing without runes]

[Just an empty bottle waiting to be filled again]

[The mana in those inscriptions must have also entered your system]

[When Death Qi swallowed it, it earned you a lot of power]

Wei Jun couldn\'t understand half of the system\'s explanation but what he could understand was one single point.

\'What do you mean \'could have\'? Why are speaking hypothetically?\'

[…]

The system didn\'t reply and it didn\'t reply for quite a while before it said…

[I\'ll be honest with you, host]

[It\'s like I had a blackout]

[One moment I\'m telling you something and the next moment you\'re on the ground, all safe and sound]

[I have no idea what happened in those few minutes]

Wei Jun sighed, he waited for a few seconds and said, \'It happened before as well. When we were discussing the choice of the quest, you suddenly stopped talking mid-speech, then there was a static sound, and after that, someone else\'s voice after which, you resumed speaking as if nothing happened.\'

[That\'s strange]

[But not so much maybe]

\'What do you mean?\' Wei Jun asked.

[Maybe the administrator interfered]

[I mean, that\'s the only person who can interfere with the system]

\'And who is this administrator?\' Wei Jun asked. Wei Jun had seen enough by now to know that the system, or the entity in it, had a great hold over the system\'s functions. If someone could bypass that and enter the system without letting the overseer know, then this administrator must be someone big, even more powerful than the system.

[…]

No reply came. Wei Jun knew when the reply never came. When Wei Jun would ask something he wasn\'t allowed to know. The system would just say his authority wasn\'t enough or Wei Jun wasn\'t so advanced in the story to know about it.

[Your father]

However, this time the system did tell him. Only this time, he couldn\'t understand what the system meant.

His father. The man who was annoying as hell but also the most wonderful father of all time.

If the system was saying that, then it also meant that his father was the one who put him in there.

However, there was one inconsistency with all of that. It wasn\'t his father he heard when the system was overridden. It was his brother.

\'Can someone else do that?\' Wei Jun asked.

[No?]

The system was finding that strange because it thought Wei Jun would ask a lot of questions about that topic but it never expected that question from Wei Jun.

\'Are you sure?\' Wei Jun once again asked.

[No one]

[Other than him]

Wei Jun was now distraught. He knew what he had heard but he was also sure that the system wouldn\'t lie to him. So it was either that the system didn\'t know about this either, or there was something else going on.

He went with the latter option.

"You\'re up!" The door to the hospital room opened and Xia Lu walked in with a coffee cup in her hands.

She set the cup aside and ran to him, taking him in a hug to which Wei Jun couldn\'t react.

Wei Jun looked at the ceiling, only because he didn\'t know what to do.

So trusting the words of one person who had done nothing but guide him all this life, he put his hand around Xia Lu\'s back, closed his eyes, and felt her warmth just for the moment.

"I\'m so glad you\'re okay." Xia Lu said.

"Me too." Wei Jun said with a smile but Xia Lu couldn\'t see that smile since her head was buried in his chest.

However, someone else did. Well, many \'someone else\' did.

"Do we go in?" Xiao Heiling whispered. Zhan Yi shrugged his shoulders because he didn\'t know what to do as well.

"Of course, we don\'t." Quan Li whispered and took Quan Qui nodded in assent so they both grabbed their men by their ears and took them away.

Wei Jun who heard all of that clearly smiled. He was glad that they were gone because he had something to say to Xia Lu.

The moment of truth.

"I need to tell you something." Wei Jun said.

Xia Lu got up, sat straight next to him, and said, "I feel like I don\'t want this conversation."

"Yes, we do." Wei Jun said before his expression turned neutral, the one that couldn\'t be read and he said, "You have seen me for who I am. Now I want you to decide whether to stay or not because this can only work then. Otherwise, we\'re better off ending it."

Xia Lu remained quiet for a while before she asked, "If I say no, would you kill me to keep me silent?"

"No." Wei Jun said.

Xia Lu nodded, clearly believing him because Wei Jun had never lied to her before.

"Then I want to. I want to go forward with this." Xia Lu said with a smile before her expression turned distasteful and she added, "Though I\'m not too sure if I want to forgive you for that cunning little… ugh! I can\'t even swear."

Wei Jun didn\'t need a name to know who Xia Lu was talking about.

"I take it you two met?" Wei Jun asked.

"Mhm." Xia Lu said before she added, "She was with you last night. It was her turn."

"Turn?" Wei Jun asked.

"Yeah, we took turns looking after you." Xia Lu replied.

"How long was I out?" Wei Jun worriedly asked.

"Three weeks and two days." Xia Lu replied.

Wei Jun\'s eyes turned wide. That wasn\'t something good.

In that much time, he didn\'t know what would have happened to Shao Chen and where he would be right now and he couldn\'t ask Xia Lu because she didn\'t even know who he was.

Wei Jun hurriedly stood up and said, "Where are my clothes?"

"You shouldn\'t move. The doctors haven\'t cleared you yet." Xia Lu worriedly said while she also tried to stop him but Wei Jun didn\'t listen.

"It\'s important." Wei Jun said.

He didn\'t know how far Shao Chen\'s investigation would have happened but he was sure of one thing. If he was processed out of the crime and convicted of conspiracy and fraud, that only meant one thing, he would be sent to prison.

And since he was a cultivator and quite a strong one at that, Golden Gate wasn\'t somewhere the Cultivator\'s Special Forces would send him.

*************

"Yeah, he was processed out long ago and he would be in prison by now." Yan Rong said as soon as Wei Jun called him.

"Can you find out which one?" Wei Jun asked.

"Let me check," Yan Rong said before she said, "Uh, he was sent to the Devil\'s Bane penitentiary."

Upon her reply, Wei Jun hurriedly checked it online but there was no mention of such a prison so he asked, "Where is that prison? It\'s not online."

"Of course, it\'s not. For all anyone knows, this prison doesn\'t even exist. It\'s where the most wicked are sent." Yan Rong said.

"Then why was Shao Chen sent there?" Wei Jun asked. For as far as he knew, he was in for fraud and conspiracy. Not something he would be sent to such a prison for but he had forgotten one crucial point. A point, he himself was to be blamed for.

"Well, that\'s because he was convicted of a murder as well. He was convicted of killing a woman by the name of Fang Mei and then he discarded her body. The police found it and matched the connection.

Her neck was snapped so there was no murder weapon and since there were no fingerprints as well, all fingers were pointed at him, and given his past as a mercenary which was dug up during the conversation, it was pretty easy to convince the jury of his involvement." Yan Rong told him the whole tale and every word of that tale struck Wei Jun like a thunderbolt.

"How long was his sentence?" Wei Jun asked.

"For life." Yan Rong replied.

Wei Jun turned his attention to the system panel.

[Main Quest II]

[Shao Chen]

[Time left: 314 days]

\'Fu*k.\'