Chapter 683 --683

Chapter 683: Chapter-683

In the dark, suffocating void of her sleep, a horrifying new question bloomed: What happens if the actual Heena forgets who she is?

For three days, time completely ceased to exist.

Heena drifted in and out of a heavy, feverish coma back at the Vanguard estate, vaguely aware of her grandmother weeping quietly by her bedside, the bitter taste of useless herbal tonics being spooned past her lips, and the heavy, silent presence of Samuel sitting by the window, reading medical texts until his eyes bled.

On the evening of the third day, the suffocating fog in her mind parted just enough for her to open her eyes.

The room was bathed in the dim, golden light of sunset. And hovering right beside her pillow, flickering with a weak, glitching light, was the System.

It had been entirely absent for three full days. In the brutal, fast-paced world of system-bound transmigration, going offline for seventy-two hours was practically unheard of.

"You’re awake," the System’s robotic voice echoed in her mind, though the usual chipper, sarcastic tone was entirely gone. It sounded exhausted.

Heena couldn’t speak. Her tongue felt like lead, so she just blinked once in acknowledgment.

The System floated a few inches closer, its blue light pulsing erratically, like a machine that had just been put through a meat grinder. It hadn’t been resting, and it hadn’t been ignoring her. For three days, the AI had completely abandoned its local monitoring duties to upload its consciousness into the central server of the Transmigration Bureau.

It had been actively, violently fighting the bureaucratic higher-ups.

The System had watched Heena’s cognitive decline, watched the sheer, agonizing pain tearing through her skull, and it had finally broken its own protocol. It had gone to the central administrators to demand a premium, out-of-network painkiller—a divine-tier system item that could temporarily freeze the blood clot and spare its Host from the agonizing decay.

"They said no," the System whispered into the quiet room, its digital interface drooping with profound, uncharacteristic failure. "Those literal, bureaucratic bastards in the upper management. I submitted the forms. I argued the mission metrics. But they refused to authorize the painkiller."

The blue orb spun slowly, radiating a deep, vibrating hum of digital fury.

"They said it is too expensive to waste on a dying timeline," the System admitted bitterly, sounding more human than it ever had before. "I’m sorry, Host. I couldn’t get it for you."

For a long, agonizing minute, Heena did not say a single word. She just lay there against the heavy velvet pillows, her dark eyes completely hollow as she stared at the glowing blue orb hovering beside her bed.

The System’s digital interface flickered. It floated a few inches closer, scanning her unblinking eyes. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

"Host?" the System asked, its voice laced with genuine panic. "Host, what happened?"

When she still didn’t respond, the orb violently zipped right in front of her face, flashing a bright, frantic yellow.

"What?! Did you go crazy?!" the System shrieked, the sheer terror of losing its partner overriding its usual sarcastic programming. "Speak to me! Did the clot burst? Are you completely offline?!"

Heena blinked slowly. Her brow furrowed in genuine, unadulterated confusion. She looked at the frantic blue light buzzing in front of her nose, her voice completely flat and devoid of any recognition.

"Who are you?"

The glowing orb froze dead in mid-air.

"Host?" the System’s voice cracked into a pitchy, desperate squeak. "It’s me! Your lovely, pretty, cute, genius, handsome, all-in-one, the one-and-only in the entire universe, the most charming, gorgeous System! Your loyal partner!"

Heena stared at it, her failing brain trying to process the absolute tidal wave of narcissistic adjectives.

"System?" she repeated, the word tasting entirely foreign on her tongue.

"It can’t be," the System gasped, its digital volume dropping to a horrified whisper. It phased physical, holographic hands into existence, grabbing the lapels of Heena’s silk sleeping robes and frantically shaking her collar. "Host! Wait, wait, look at me! Look!"

With a poof of pixelated smoke, the glowing orb vanished. In its place, a tiny, fluffy golden lion materialized on the silk blankets. It puffed out its chest, desperately swishing its tail and batting at her hand with soft paws.

"See? It’s me!" the little lion pleaded, its big, cartoonish eyes welling up with digital tears. "It’s me, you know? Your lovely, lovely, lovely kitty! You remember the kitty, right?!"

Heena looked down at the tiny, glowing animal sitting on her lap. There was no warmth of recognition in her eyes, only the cold, detached calculation of a warlord encountering a strange anomaly.

"Are you..." Heena murmured, tilting her head slightly, "some kind of spiritual being from the outside?"

The little golden lion froze. The devastating reality finally hit it. The blood clot hadn’t just erased the original Vanguard Madam’s memories; it had completely wiped the transmigrator’s hard drive.

"It can’t be!" the lion wailed, dramatically throwing itself backward onto the mattress. It covered its furry little face with its paws, sobbing violently into the expensive silk blankets. "My money bag! Oh my God, my salary! My end-of-year bonus! My premium upgrades! All gone! Wiped out by a stupid biological blood clot!"

The System wept bitterly for a solid minute, mourning the tragic, premature death of its financial portfolio.

But then, the little lion suddenly stopped crying.

It peeked out through its paws, looking at the completely blank, amnesiac woman sitting in the bed. A dangerous, highly capitalist glint sparked in its pixelated eyes. Its core programming kicked back in.

The lion sat up, dusting off its fur and clearing its tiny throat.

"Wait. Host," the System said, shifting its tone from heartbroken weeping to smooth, professional extortion. "You really, truly forgot who I am?"

Heena nodded slowly. "Yeah. I have no memory of you."

"Right. Well," the System coughed, puffing out its chest and folding its paws together like a sleazy merchant. "Since you forgot, I should probably remind you that you actually took a massive financial loan from me. About two thousand years—I mean, two years ago."

Heena’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Two years ago?"

"Exactly!" the lion nodded eagerly, completely exploiting the brain damage. "It was a loan of exactly two thousand system points. You promised to pay it back with interest. But, well... seeing as you are currently terminally sick and suffering from severe memory loss, I am feeling incredibly generous today. I am going to give you a special medical discount."

The tiny lion held out a paw, staring at her with wide, innocent eyes.

"Please return 1,999.9 points immediately."

Heena looked at the tiny, fluffy lion with an expression of flawless, wide-eyed astonishment.

"And how can I give it to you?" she asked, her voice soft and utterly innocent. "I have a lot of gold taels in the estate’s treasury. If you want, I can have Samuel bring up a chest—"

"Ah, no, no, no," the System violently shook his little furry head, waving his paws to dismiss the completely useless physical currency. "Gold is entirely unnecessary! It is quite easy, actually."

With a flick of his tail, a glowing blue holographic screen materialized in the air between them.

"Here," the System instructed smoothly, patting the floating screen. "Just let this interface scan your biometrics. When the prompt pops up and asks, ’Do you agree?’, you just need to say yes. Oh, and make sure to put me down as your absolute trustee. That will make the whole transaction perfectly legal and possible."