After Becoming a Cannon Fodder, I Fell into a Love-Hate Relationship with the Heroine (GL) - Chapter 3

Darkness surrounded her. When Huo Xi opened her eyes again, she realized she was in an unfamiliar place.

It looked like a hotel bathroom, spacious and luxurious.

Outside the door, there was a lot of noise. It sounded like a crowd had gathered.

Huo Xi looked around and noticed through the window that Lu Yue’s car was parked outside.

A strange clicking sound drew closer. It sounded like the shutter of a camera.

Suddenly, the bathroom door was pushed open. A large camera was shoved right in front of Huo Xi’s face. The flash was so bright it nearly blinded her, but the photographer didn’t even seem to notice her presence.

Jiang Sifan peeked his head inside and said, “The crime scene is outside. Why are you taking photos in here?” Then he called the young photographer away.

The door was left slightly open. Huo Xi slowly walked toward it.

The sight outside made her eyes widen in shock. Everywhere she looked was stained with dark red. Even the once white ceiling had turned red.

White tape had been placed around the corners of the room. It was impossible to imagine what had actually happened there.

Disturbing images suddenly filled her mind. Her stomach turned, and she rushed to the sink and threw up.

“I can’t do this anymore. I quit,” Huo Xi muttered while rinsing her mouth, complaining quietly.

She had thought she could handle it after seeing photos, but being there in person was completely different.

The system was completely silent. Huo Xi tried to call it, but it seemed to be malfunctioning again.

She felt dizzy and held onto the sink for support. Suddenly, she felt a cold sensation on her shoulder, as if someone’s hand had touched her. She looked up into the mirror and saw no one behind her.

Her heart froze. She immediately realized what it was and held her breath, afraid to move.

The hand did not let go. Instead, the grip tightened. The fingernails dug into her shoulder, sending a sharp, piercing pain through her body.

A cold breath brushed past her ear.

“You traitor. Since you’re dead, you should behave like a proper ghost and stop helping that exorcist.”

Huo Xi trembled and lowered her head. “Sister, I didn’t do anything to hurt you,” she said, her voice shaking.

The bathroom door burst open. Lu Yue stormed in, clearly furious. Just as she stepped inside, Jiang Sifan stopped her.

“Detective Lu, please stay outside.”

“I need to take care of something,” Lu Yue said coldly, her eyes filled with an icy determination.

She locked the bathroom door behind her, then waved a dagger and drove away the ghost that was clinging to Huo Xi.

Murder scenes often attracted angry spirits filled with resentment and sorrow.

The dagger in Lu Yue’s hand gleamed brightly, reflecting Huo Xi’s pale face. Huo Xi feared the weapon. If it touched her, she might disappear forever.

“Are you going to kill me?” Huo Xi asked, instinctively taking a step back.

Lu Yue put the knife away and tucked it into her bag. “If you change into something dangerous, I will deal with you myself.”

Surprisingly, that response made Huo Xi feel a little relieved.

They unlocked the door and returned to the main room.

Jiang Sifan, who had been taking photos, jumped in surprise. A moment ago, Lu Yue had gone into the bathroom alone. Now, two people had come out.

He looked confused for a moment, but quickly turned his attention back to the case.

The case was both difficult and strange.

The victim, Hua Qiao, was an amateur singer. During the month she stayed at the hotel, strange and frightening singing could be heard from her room late at night.

The singing would last for about thirty minutes each time and kept other guests awake.

Since many guests were frequently moving in and out, most of them tolerated the disturbance. However, yesterday someone finally reported it to the front desk.

After knocking several times and receiving no answer, the hotel staff used a key to enter the room. What they saw shocked everyone. The room looked like a massacre had occurred. If it weren’t in the middle of the city, people might have thought a wild animal was responsible.

What made it even more terrifying was that forensic reports showed Hua Qiao had already been dead for over two weeks.

After hearing this, Huo Xi whispered, “The singing continued until yesterday. It must have been her spirit. All that resentment kept her from moving on.”

“Quiet,” Lu Yue interrupted her before she could finish. “You’re a spirit too. Try to be more professional.”

They had gathered all the available clues. Nothing of real value was left at the scene.

The crowd began to thin out. Jiang Sifan walked over to Lu Yue with his camera.

“Detective Lu, I’ll need your help again. I’ll send you the photos later. The sooner we solve this case, the sooner I can publish the report.”

He gave her an awkward smile, then pulled out a small paper-wrapped item from his pocket and handed it to her.

“A little token of appreciation. Please accept it.”

“Don’t try to bribe me,” Lu Yue replied and tried to give it back.

After a brief struggle, the item ended up in her pocket anyway.

Inside the paper was a beautiful old hair clip. It looked like it had some history.

Lu Yue looked at Huo Xi’s hair, then clipped it in gently.

“It’s yours now.”

Huo Xi didn’t know whether she should accept it or not. So she said nothing and stood quietly in place.

A voice suddenly chimed in.

Affection with the female lead increased by 20

She was already struggling to collect enough horror points, and now there was an affection system too?

Almost like it heard her thoughts, the system replied at once.

If affection reaches 100, you will be rewarded with 50 horror points

She sighed. What a deal. Only half the effort counted toward her main goal.

Still, it was at least another way to earn points.

Everyone else had left. Only Lu Yue and Huo Xi remained, wandering the hotel.

Huo Xi had no idea what she was supposed to do. She quietly followed Lu Yue. Even after watching for a long time, she couldn’t figure anything out.

Lu Yue seemed to know her way around. She went downstairs to the front desk and retrieved surveillance footage and guest registration records from a month ago.

“When she checked in, she paid for a full month and told us not to let housekeeping enter her room,” the front desk clerk recalled.

Hua Qiao said she was rehearsing nearby and would return once she was done. But after she entered her room, she never came out again.

The front desk employee shivered and clearly did not want to think about it anymore.

Lu Yue took out her notebook and wrote everything down. Then she and Huo Xi returned to the car.

Even though Lu Yue had handled many strange cases, this was the first time she had no clear leads.

She placed both hands on the steering wheel, looking visibly irritated.

“What do you think?” she asked, turning to Huo Xi.

Huo Xi had only just managed to calm down after seeing that horrifying scene. Her mind was still a blank.

“She died months ago. So either someone killed her, or something supernatural happened.”

“Forget it,” Lu Yue sighed and started the car. “Asking you is useless.”

Back at the detective agency, Lu Yue locked herself in her room, leaving Huo Xi alone outside.

At some point, the movement restriction had been activated again. She could not leave the building.

Most of the rooms were locked. The few she could open, she had already explored.

She sat on the steps, trying to pass the time, and decided to take the chance to understand the system better.

The menu page was simple, and she had almost no horror points left. It felt like surviving in this world was nearly impossible. Now, being linked to the female lead made it even harder for her to act freely.

A new message appeared.

The host may choose to disconnect from the main character. However, staying disconnected for too long will affect the storyline

The system gave a cold prompt but didn’t explain how to disconnect.

“Use your willpower, Host~”

She could do that?

Thinking back to earlier, Huo Xi did indeed quietly complain that the bracelet was restricting her. In the blink of an eye, she had teleported to the crime scene.

“So that’s how it works.” A sense of discovery lit up in Huo Xi’s mind. She dimmed the bracelet’s light, making it darker and darker.

Her body began to feel more comfortable, and in the moment between opening and closing her eyes, she found herself standing on the rooftop.

At first, she was frightened. Huo Xi held tightly onto the railing, her legs trembling.

As she stared into the night, she didn’t notice the heat rising on her wrist. A faint blue glow began to shine. Huo Xi felt an invisible force grabbing her, pulling her down. Her feet lost contact with the ground, and a wave of weightlessness hit her.

The world spun around her, turning upside down. She became dizzy.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw Lu Yue.

Lu Yue was toying with a small knife in her hand, resting her chin on her palm as she looked down at Huo Xi lying on the floor.

“What exactly are you?” she asked coldly.

Her voice was icy and made Huo Xi panic. There was no way she could admit that she had died, gotten bound to a ridiculous system, and had even transmigrated into a novel.

That would sound way too absurd. Lu Yue would never believe it.

“Actually… you’re the female lead of the story. You don’t have to worry about me,” Huo Xi stammered, unsure of what she was even saying.

Lu Yue frowned. “Your existence violates the rules of this world.”

Here, once a spirit was bound to a human, they were not allowed to have a will of their own.

All those moments when Huo Xi turned invisible or teleported had never been under her control.

In other words, spirits were supposed to obey their human counterparts completely. If a human gave an order, the spirit had no choice but to follow.

But Huo Xi was different. She could control the connection time freely, even disconnect at will.

Even spirits who had trained for hundreds or thousands of years couldn’t do this, yet somehow this newly dead soul could.

Before Huo Xi could say anything in her defense, Lu Yue suddenly rushed forward and stabbed her in the arm with the knife.

A wave of pain surged through her. Huo Xi screamed and held her wound. She hesitated, unable to summon the courage to pull the knife out.

There was no bl00d, only pain. It was sharp and excruciating.

Lu Yue’s knife was crafted in a way that no spirit could resist. Just a light touch could make a spirit disappear from the human world.

“Just as I thought,” Lu Yue said as she quickly pulled the knife out. “You’re a semi-formed spirit.”

This meant that the physical body hadn’t completely died, and the soul had left the body. The spirit wandered the living world. If lucky, it could return. If not, it would be lost forever.

Lu Yue had only heard of semi-formed spirits before, never seen one. She never expected the spirit she had carefully chosen would turn out to be this kind.

Once bonded, the two became one. They had to live or die together. Lu Yue’s actions had unintentionally trapped Huo Xi, making it impossible for her to return to her original body.

Surprisingly, Huo Xi wasn’t too shocked. After all, this was a fictional world. If she completed her mission, she would naturally return.

The one truly in despair was Lu Yue. Her long-held belief in righteousness was about to be destroyed.

“I’m sorry. If I had known, I would’ve let you go back. You must be really scared,” Lu Yue said, panicking as she grabbed the medical kit from the drawer.

Although there was no bl00d, the deep wound on Huo Xi’s arm didn’t heal on its own. It looked disturbingly real.

Lu Yue rummaged through the kit, making a mess, and finally found a bandage. “Let me wrap this for you. Then we’ll figure out how to help you get back.”

Huo Xi calmly held one end of the bandage and helped Lu Yue wrap it. “It’s really not that serious. For now, let’s focus on the case.”

“No way!” Lu Yue suddenly slammed the table. The loud bang startled Huo Xi.

“Have you lost hope in life? You can’t give up like this! Only the living can still experience the beauty of the world. Where is your body? I’ll take you there right now,” she said, clearly emotional.

She must have thought Huo Xi was trying to give up on herself and had become like this on purpose.

Huo Xi had no way to explain herself. She remembered the system’s warning. If she accidentally changed the story’s direction because of her stubbornness, everything could fall apart.

It was safer to go along with the female lead’s wishes.

Lu Yue grabbed her coat. She set the case aside and rushed out the door with Huo Xi.

Once they stepped outside, they realized they had no idea where to go.

“Do you remember anything that happened before this?” Lu Yue asked.

What was the point of remembering? Huo Xi’s real body was probably left in the world outside this book.

She shook her head and decided to pretend she had amnesia.

Just as they were about to turn back, a car pulled up at the entrance.

Lu Yue recognized it. It was Jiang Sifan’s car, and she was very surprised.

They had just seen him earlier. Why had he returned so soon?

Jiang Sifan stepped out, looking tense and angry, holding a few photographs in his hand. He walked straight up to Lu Yue and threw them to the ground.

“Take a good look. What exactly is in these photos?”

Lu Yue stood face to face with Jiang Sifan. Huo Xi glanced toward the stairs and noticed there were others still inside the car.

“These photos are of her,” Lu Yue said after looking at them. Then she looked up at Huo Xi.

They were the same photos taken in the bathroom earlier. The young photographer was also present now. He stepped out of the car and firmly insisted there had been no one else in the room at the time.

Jiang Sifan narrowed his eyes and smirked. With a wave of his hand, he motioned for the two people in the car to get out.

“Would you like to explain what is going on here?”