With a sudden shock, she opened her eyes and sat upright from her bed. Her memories a blur, she could remember the train, and then… waking up here. She looked around the dark, candle-lit room to notice that other than a set of tattered curtains surrounding her bed and the room in a general state of disrepair. She thought a moment as she collected her memories and the memories of the person she took over, Bi Yuese. She laughed, it looked like the name Moonlight Dagger was stuck to her forever, but this form of Bi (匕) was not in the list of a thousand names. It was like this was made just for her.

Quickly she outlined the past of this body through her head, it was the classic past of an Isekai novel. Neglected waste daughter, bullied by her step-mother, pushed into a lake to be killed. Even without inquiring the system, she could understand where the plot would go. This was a black-bellied young master story, the type of story she hated the most. Thoughts went through her head as she recalled the functionality of the finished product, it would take you into the body of the person most suitable to achieving her goal... and then she thought of her last thoughts before she died. 

But there was no time to wonder how the two were connected, the minute she had spent reorganising her memories was a minute of time that they would have to isolate her and use the kill code to terminate her existence. She had no time to spare. Pushing herself out of bed, she found her white, tattered nightclothes were heavy and restrained her movements. Adding to the dizziness of the transfer, she stumbled onto a young girl who had just walked through the door.

‘Young Miss! You’re up!’ she said in a language that was not English, a language that was not Chinese, but a language she could understand as if she had spoken it her whole life. Was that a feature of the System? She didn't know. The girl was young and pretty with bright round eyes shining enthusiasm and loyalty for her Mistress.

‘Mei’er’ a name came to Yuese’s head as she used the young maid’s body to steady herself. Reaching for a brass mirror, she turned to her maid and said, ‘We must go now.’

Mei’er looked confused as her young miss walked out of the barren door she patted after her, ‘but you are still unwell, its only been a day since I pulled you from the lake!’ Mei’er tried to drag the sleeve of her young miss to stop her but Yuese’s momentum was unstoppable as she started to speak in a language that Mei’er could not understand.

‘System, activate administrative mode’ she spoke in English…

‘Please enter in administrative user name’ the mechanical voice of the system replied.

‘MD-00123Z’ she entered in her employee code. She knew it had yet to be wiped from the system.

‘Sufficient access for administrative mode. Please enter your password.’

***

‘Director Hua, you’re here!’ the supervisor yelled in relief as the Director walked into the control room.

‘What Code 9 emergency was important enough for me to risk capture and come here?’ Director Hua said sternly

‘There has been an unauthorised use of the System. It is the 551Z series’ the supervisor said.

‘So it did disappear when she used it’ Director Hua looked perplexed, ‘The Mage Lord got given defective materials, and we tried our hardest to clean things up. But it seems like we just made things worse. The war against Isekai Inc. How goes the synopsis?’

‘Synopsis is still a while off; however we have established visuals with the other world, putting it on screen!’ the chief technician yelled.

As an image of an ancient path with two women walking down it came on screen, Director Hua pulled out his phone to call his boss.

***

‘Administrative privileges granted’ the systems mechanical voice stated.

‘Block all inputs from the master computer and scan for outputs’ Yuese stated as the confused Mei’er pattered behind her young misses long strides.

Mei’er thought that since she woke up, her young miss had been acting very strange. Not only speaking to herself in a weird language, but walking seemingly so healthily down the path to the front gates; this was very suspicious! Doubt started to enter the young maid's eyes. It was a good thing that the dilapidated courtyard they lived in was so isolated and they did not run into any other servants until they reached the gates otherwise young miss would get another beating from the Master. In this world, it was unvirtuous for an unmarried girl to leave her family home without a male escort.

The short time that the system was scanning gave Yuese a chance to examine her looks in the bronze mirror. White skin, phoenix eyes, beauty that would launch a thousand ships once she had improved her nutrition. Yes this was a protagonist’s body. She would need to use the system to examine the world and identify how she would become stronger, but for now she needed to flee to avoid being caught in the net of the male lead, and cut all monitoring of her actions by the master computer. And turn off the Kill Switch.

The two guards that were protecting the open gateway to the Ying manor were facing the street, and did not expect the whack to their pressure points from behind that knocked them out. Mei’er looked on shocked as her young miss pulled the sword sheaths off the unconscious guards, throwing one to her as the system chimed in, ‘twelve outputs found.’

‘Sever all access to the master computer.’

‘Please enter in master password.’

Yuese grinned and looked towards a seemingly random point in the sky...

***

‘She’s blocked our inputs! We need the master pass-code to override her permissions!’ the chief technical officer panicked.

‘There are few people in the world who know the system better than her’ Director Hua sighed. ‘I will try the boss again to get the master code,’ he stated as he tapped a message in the encrypted messaging app on his phone, immediately getting a reply from the boss.

‘Enter in the following password’ Director Hua yelled, as he looked at the screen, the young girl seemingly staring at where the system was monitoring, gently raising her hand towards it and giving the monitor the middle finger.

***

‘Password Accepted. All access to master computer has been severed. Kill switch is being uninstalled from the System’s programming’ the system chimed. Yuese smiled as she gave the finger to where they were watching. Still in front of the Bi family manor, Yuese grabbed Mei’er and disappeared into an alley dragging her maid behind her.

Nyanko

I think its a good time to explain our protagonists name in her Isekai. Bi Yuese is spelt like 匕 月色. While 月色 isn't the most traditional way of saying Moonlight, its more like Moon Colour, it felt like it was a more feminine name than the more traditional Yueguang. Bi (匕) was the best single character definition of dagger I could find. Even if its meaning is not a real dagger. Her original name was going to be Moonlight Blade, but a certain snake told me there was already a game called that. So it was changed. Thoughts on if I should go back and rename her are welcome~ its still early in the story after all; I am not that attached to her current name