The huge wallpaper was like an insurmountable mountain, and the apps distributed in all directions on the image were like the anchor points on the mountain.
And there was himself.
A chubby, short, doll-like self.
After coming out of the space he was in, he finally confirmed everything with his eyes. But Su Mingqian didn’t feel much emotion anymore, after all the inner turmoil he’d been through before.
He was looking at everything he was familiar with from a completely new perspective.
With just a change of perspective, these commonplace things became strange and shocking again.
Then Su Mingqian noticed the design of the huge wallpaper in front of him.
It was a picture of him.
In the picture, he was dressed in British style clothes. Over a white shirt with a petal collar was a plaid nylon dark green waistcoat, on which was a pen-shaped brooch with a thin gold chain.
He was sitting on the sofa, reading a book with Xingxing in his arms.
His hand was on the page.
Xingxing’s hand was also on the page.
The whole picture was yellowish and oily, like a painting steeped in time.
Su Mingqian looked at the wallpaper for a while and then looked down at himself.
At the moment, he was wearing a long double-breasted trench coat, a burgundy silk scarf in a small triangle around the neckline, and a small handkerchief of the same colour folded and tucked into his coat pocket.
Ximu really loves dressing me up.
Su Mingqian thought.
He felt that his mind had been opened up a lot for dressing up Xingxing.
***
Su Mingqian was looking at the phone wallpaper.
Li Shuoxing was looking at Su Mingqian looking at the phone wallpaper.
At first, he was a little angry and disappointed, but when he thought about it, this development was actually very rational. It was angering but also convincing.
Li Shuoxing observed two seconds of silence for his past expectations. Then he left the past behind and focused on the present, observing Su Mingqian carefully on the screen.
Su Mingqian, who’d fallen out of the app onto the screen, looked a bit like a desktop pet. He was slightly smaller than an individual app. Now, he was standing on top of the browser and walking back and forth.
A moment later.
He came to the right side of the app, looked at the neighbouring app, then at the gap between the two apps, and then took two steps back.
What does the cub want to do?
This thought crossed Li Shuoxing’s mind.
Could it be…
He had a guess and hurriedly stopped him. “Hold on, cub. Don’t move yet. I’ll see if I can help you over—”
He was too late.
Su Mingqian started running up and jumped hard.
He jumped over the gap between the two apps.
But.
“Splat.”
He also fell face down on top of the new app.
Li Shuoxing: “!”
Startled, he immediately reached out his finger and tentatively touched the little person on the screen.
Fortunately, he could touch him.
Li Shuoxing carefully lifted the cub up a little from the app and began to ask, “Cub? Are you okay? Where did you fall? Does it hurt?”
Li Shuoxing was careful not to leave Su Mingqian completely dangling.
Su Mingqian turned his head left and right in confusion, obviously unable to hear or see Li Shuoxing.
But he quickly reacted.
His head turned to the right-hand position and his eyes were fixed on the outside of the screen. “Ximu?”
Su Mingqian could almost guess what Ximu would ask him.
He patted his clothes and reassured him, “I’m fine. Don’t worry. I don’t feel anything when I bump into things here.”
Li Shuoxing let out a sigh of relief.
But communicating by guessing wasn’t an option either.
I don’t know why I can’t talk with the cub when he’s come out of the game.
How about going back to the game first?
Or…
Li Shuoxing’s eyes moved across the screen.
His head was spinning with different ideas.
There were so many programs on the phone’s desktop. Apart from going back to the game, it seemed he could also do simple communication by moving an app to write. But when selecting and moving an app, all the apps on the desktop would tremble, and he didn’t know if the cub inside would be scared to see this. He’d better forget it and switch to another way.
Li Shuoxing’s eyes fell back on the app where Su Mingqian was.
That app was the memo.
He could edit text in the memo.
Maybe he could communicate with the cub in this way?
Li Shuoxing decided to try.
He tapped on the memo. It opened normally, but the cub wasn’t in it. He made a new memo and typed randomly on it, but he didn’t see any reaction from the cub.
He closed the memo.
This one didn’t work either.
Did he really have to go back into the game first?
But how would the cub get back? Drag the cub to the app, and the app would reopen the door and let the cub in?
…Eh?
Li Shuoxing felt as if he’d touched something.
He muttered, “Let’s try again before going back to the game.”
With that, he grabbed the back of the little person’s clothes again and carried him from above the app icon to inside the app icon, so that the two overlapped.
The next second.
A prompt popped up on the screen.
“Do authorise Su Mingqian to use the memo? Yes/No”
Li Shuoxing tapped yes.
Immediately, a spinning circle appeared on the memo icon to indicate that it was being updated. Then an open door appeared in the centre of the icon, while a small pink heart icon appeared in the top right corner of the memo.
The pink heart was just the size of a dot, but it was the same as the pink heart in the Love Bar app icon.
It looked as if the Love Bar app had made its own exclusive mark here.
Li Shuoxing put down Su Mingqian.
Su Mingqian gripped the door frame to stand firm. He took a curious look inside the door and tried to walk in.
The little person on the screen disappeared.
Li Shuoxing opened the memo app again.
Su Mingqian reappeared.
The action of passing through the door just now had brought Su Mingqian from the phone screen into the phone memo!
Li Shuoxing’s spirits were lifted in abrupt delight.
Not only because he was finally able to chat with the cub, but also because the scene in front of him indicated a situation.
After the cub comes out of the game, he doesn’t just move around on the desktop like a desktop pet.
He can do a lot more than a desktop pet.
With authorisation, he can enter the app again from the desktop!
So—
Li Shuoxing had a question.
Can the cub use the app after entering it?
He eagerly made a new memo and used the input method to communicate with Su Mingqian, “I can finally type! How is it? Can you see it, cub?”
The input method rose from the bottom of the screen, instantly occupying half of the screen.
Su Mingqian, who was standing at the bottom of the screen, was unprepared and went straight into the air, sitting down at once on the input method, with his two short legs dangling down and covering a little bit of the display bar.
The little person on the screen lowered his head and curiously touched the edge of the input method, as if testing the stability of the frame. When he finished confirming, he slowly stood up on the edge and took a couple tentative steps. After finding there was no problem, he immediately relaxed, turned his back to the screen, and tilted his head up to watch the memo.
The bits of hair at the back of the head, just like that, swung on the screen seductively.
As Li Shuoxing watched, his heart flew to the little cutie on the screen.
Then, a text bubble popped out.
Su Mingqian: “I can see it.”
Li Shuoxing continued typing and asked carefully, “Cub, how do you feel after coming out of the app? Can you move freely around the screen? Do you need me to fill the screen with apps as steps for you?”
In fact, even with that, Li Shuoxing felt bad.
Because the little person was quite small and had short legs, he would fall down even when jumping from the left app to the right app in the same row. Wouldn’t it be more difficult to jump from the lower app to the upper app?
Moreover, the spacing between adjacent upper and lower apps wasn’t very big. They were all lined up. He didn’t know if the cub in the middle would get his head blocked…
Li Shuoxing’s heart was breaking as he thought about it.
Su Mingqian pondered for a moment. “I have a lot of freedom of movement. Objects with clear edge lines seem to stay put. It’s just difficult to get back up after coming down. I don’t know if it can think of a way around this…”
Even if bumping didn’t hurt, Su Mingqian wasn’t so confident in his athleticism.
Li Shuoxing asked another question, “Cub, how’d you get out?”
Su Mingqian answered in detail, “When I woke up in the morning, I noticed an extra road outside the courtyard, which was the opposite way to the mall. A couple steps along this road, there was a subway entrance, and after I entered it there was a door. I pushed open the door and came to your phone desktop.”
Li Shuoxing had a third question, which was the most important. “Cub, can you use this memo now?”
Su Mingqian also wanted to confirm this. He said, “I’ll try.”
With that, Su Mingqian lowered his head and looked down.
After a moment, he tentatively stretched a leg downward as if going down a step.
The edge line at the top didn’t stop him. He crossed the top edge of the input method without a hitch and stood firmly in the input box.
With the first success, the second and third would be easy.
Su Mingqian went down a few more steps and made his way to the bottom line of the input method, above the space bar.
He stood still here, mulled over the nine grids for a moment, then stood on his tiptoes, raised his arm and probed towards the topmost grid.
It was a little far away.
He couldn’t reach it.
Su Mingqian jumped up hard, stretching his arm again.
This time, he finally touched it.
The input method also responded.
Su Mingqian could really use the various functions in the app.
That way, there was more room to play with. He could at least give him browser permissions, so that Su Mingqian would be more than free to surf the web and search for any information he wanted!
Li Shuoxing was happy for Su Mingqian. However, after a moment, his happy mood gradually changed. The main reason was that the little person’s movements were larger now. Once he went to press the topmost input button, he had to jump up hard.
And when he jumped up, his hair and clothes would flutter, and his whole body would beep, making him want to… take the opportunity to do something.
Li Shuoxing really did it.
He silently reached out his hand and switched the input method keys.
The nine grids changed into 26 keys.
Su Mingqian, who was slapping the keyboard with his palm, paused and seemed dumbfounded.
He silently stayed in place for a moment. Not asking why, he changed his method of pressing the keys.
He tentatively began to use his hands and feet, bam bam bam, playing whack-a-mole, more smoothly than before.
But, favourability quietly -1.
Moreover, the 26-key keyboard was too big. After running back and forth for a short while, he was so tired he was gasping for air.
So, favourability quietly -1 again.
Li Shuoxing: “…”
Li Shuoxing raised his hand to hold his forehead.
He was both amused and pitying.
He understood the biggest difference between when the cub came out and when he was in the game.
Becoming more and more cute and fun…
Addicted to sucking the cub.
Can’t quit.
But before that.
Li Shuoxing typed a line in the memo. As he typed and pressed the keyboard, he didn’t forget to press the cub’s soft little body several times for his private interests.
“Cub, let’s go back to the app to see if there’s an introduction to the current situation or something that can allow you to move more conveniently.”